Gwendolyn finally spots me on the terrace and excuses herself. From this distance, she resembles a young Grace Kelly. She’s wearing a low-cut black dress with butterfly sleeves. Her hair is swept up, and a diamond choker circles her throat. The wind catches her dress when she steps outdoors. For a second I think that she might float away, but Gwendolyn is a lot more solid than she looks.
“Come back inside before you freeze,” she says.
“Give me another minute,” I tell her. “I haven’t had any fresh air in months.”
She joins me at the edge of the terrace and rests her head on my shoulder while she snuggles against my side for warmth. “I love it up here,” she says.
“Do you remember being down there at the bottom?” I ask. Or have you already become one of them?
“Feeling nostalgic?” Gwendolyn teases.
“Not at all,” I say. “But I’m not sure I want to forget.”
“You won’t. We all leave our old lives behind, but we never forget. I’ve been at Mandel for three years now, and I haven’t forgotten a thing. I still remember growing up in an apartment that was half the size of my room at the academy. I remember that my mother was usually high by noon and my father only showed up when he felt like punching her. I wore the same clothes to school every day, and the other kids said that I stank up the class. I ate every bite of my free lunch because I knew dinner would probably be cat food. It was the only thing my mom could afford after she traded her food stamps for liquor. And you know what? Not one single person down there ever bothered to help me. So I decided to help myself.” When Gwendolyn faces me, she’s no longer a girl. She’s a furious beast. “I won’t forget, Flick. Because I want to remember to treat them the way they all treated me.”
“No one helped you?” She must think I’m surprised, but I’m not. Other than Jude, Joi, and my mother, only two people ever tried to help me. Neither tried very hard. And both failed in the end.
“You know what kind of creatures they are down there.” Gwendolyn sneers as though the whole species revolts her. “They’d be like us if they could, but they’re too stupid and weak. So they just sit on their couches, watching crappy reality shows and stuffing their fat faces. They know that, right down the street, some little girl could be eating cat food for dinner. Or maybe it’s a boy being beaten to pulp. But the worthless slobs couldn’t care less.”
“Not all of them are like that.”
“Yeah, I know your last girlfriend was a saint,” Gwendolyn snaps.
“I was talking about my brother,” I lie. “Besides, you’re not as hard and heartless as you pretend to be. I found out what you did for Aubrey. I heard you kept her from being expelled.”
Gwendolyn’s eyes narrow. She’s annoyed that I know. “How did you find out?”
“I just did.”
“Well, she’s beyond all help now. Mandel told me it would be a waste of time. And he was right. I stuck my neck out, and Aubrey never even tried.” Gwendolyn’s fury quickly cools. “But just so you know, I didn’t do it for her. I did it because I love you.”
I’m not going anywhere near those last three words. “You did it for me?”
“First that kid jumped. And then I beat you in the rankings. I was worried that one more thing might make you lose sight of what’s most important.”
“You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” I assure her.
“I’m not talking about your father. I’m talking about this.” She sweeps a hand through the sky. “I’ve been Dux for two years, and you’ll take the title next semester. That means when we graduate, we’ll get the best jobs. We’ll earn more money than anyone else. This world will be ours, Flick. Yours and mine. Just think of what we’ll be able to do with it.”
I don’t want it. I would never have traded Joi for this. But everyone has his price, and Mandel found mine. All I want is the proof that my father killed Jude. The headmaster probably thinks he got a hell of a deal.
“I can’t see that far into the future,” I tell Gwendolyn. Why even try? There’s nothing there.
“You better start looking,” she says. “Those people inside are all behind you. I’m behind you. There’s no way you’re going to fail.”
• • •
Lucas has been dogging me all day. He must have seen me leaving for the party last night, and he knew who would be on my arm. He just won’t accept that I’ve lost the battle. He doesn’t realize that I surrendered so I’d be able to keep fighting a war. From the moment I failed to win the Dux title, he’s been waging his own whispering campaign against Gwendolyn. How much do you really know about her? What does she want from you? To be honest, he’s become a real bore. I don’t care what the truth is as long as Gwendolyn continues to help me. He should know I’m in no position to pick my allies, and war is never pretty. FDR had to team up with Stalin to trounce the Nazis. George Washington turned to a decadent French king when he wanted to make America a democracy. Who the hell is Lucas to question my tactics? As far as I know, he may just be bitter because he got dumped.
Curfew is a few minutes away, and Lucas is waiting for me on the balcony outside our rooms. I’d head back up to the lounge, but he’s already waving me over.
“If this is about Gwendolyn, I’m not interested,” I tell him.
“It’s Aubrey,” he croaks.
“Aubrey?” I’m starting to feel a bit nauseous.
“She’s gone, Flick. They’ve stripped her bed and cleaned out her room.”
“She’s been expelled? But Gwendolyn . . .”
“Aubrey wasn’t expelled. She was here on the eighth floor last night. But she didn’t make it to breakfast this morning, so I came up to see if she was okay. Her room was already empty. Whatever happened went down after curfew.”
“Was Ivan involved?” If he hurt Aubrey, it’s all my fault. I was supposed to be watching him, and I let down my guard.
Lucas shakes his head. “Unless he broke curfew, he wouldn’t have had time to do anything. Besides, Ivan would have ambushed her, and I think Aubrey knew that she was in some kind of trouble. She left a note for you. She slipped it under my door a few minutes before lockdown.”
“Why didn’t she slip it under my door?”
“You weren’t here,” Lucas says pointedly. And you should have been. “She probably thought someone else might find it first.”
“Well, where’s the note?” I demand.
“Not out here on the balcony where someone could see us,” he says. “Come back to my room. But remember—be careful what you say.”
Lucas’s room is a mirror image of mine. Except for an artwork that’s pinned to the wall. It’s one of those old-fashioned travel posters that lured early jet-setters to exotic lands. In this case, the fabled city of Los Angeles. The image shows a Sunshine Airways plane gliding over a pristine blue ocean while two bathing beauties in floppy hats and movie star glasses wave from the beach. I suddenly know Lucas’s real name. I know why he’s here. And I have no idea why he’d have that poster on his wall.
I was still in military school when his picture hit the papers. His was one of those stories that makes the whole world choose sides. And I knew whose side I was on. Eleven years ago, at the age of six, the kid I know as Lucas boarded a flight out of Los Angeles. The airplane crashed into the ocean shortly after takeoff. He was one of ten people who survived. His parents and sister died. An investigation determined that the airline was at fault. The company’s new CEO had cut costs by firing 30 percent of the employees. There weren’t enough mechanics left to inspect the planes, and the boss had encouraged the ones who remained to falsify maintenance reports. The plane that Lucas and his family were on should never have been in the air. Two hundred and six people perished—and no one was ever punished.
Ten years passed, and an anonymous hacker took control of Sunshine Airline’s computer systems. Flights were grounded. Hundreds of thousands of people were stranded all over the globe. The airline’s stock price plunged. Th
e hacker responsible clearly intended to put the company out of business. I don’t think he expected the chaos to claim lives. One of the grounded flights was delivering organs for transplant. The patients waiting for them died when their new hearts didn’t arrive on time.
Most people were certain it was a terrorist plot. Then the police located the hacker in Ohio. It was a sixteen-year-old kid in a foster home. He’d done it all with a homemade computer and a dial-up Internet connection.
“You’re the hacker,” I mutter.
“I knew you’d figure it out. That’s why I never invite anyone in,” Lucas says. “That poster was here the day I moved up from the Incubation Suites. They put it there to remind me.” Just like Aubrey’s teddy bear, I now realize. And the yearbook page with Jude’s picture that I keep in my desk drawer.
“You didn’t need to hide your identity from me,” I tell him. “I always thought you were a hero.”
“For a while, I did too,” Lucas says. “And then Gwendolyn took me to an alumni party at some swanky Tribeca apartment. It was the same night she gave me the boot. But before she broke my little heart, she introduced me to the former CEO of Sunshine Airlines. Turns out, he’s a Mandel alum. He called me ‘son’ and told me he had no hard feelings.”
I imagine what it must have been like to stand face-to-face with the man who might as well have murdered your family. “What did you do?”
“I turned around and left the party,” Lucas said.
“You left?” I feel my respect for Lucas crumbling. “Why didn’t you take the bastard out to the terrace and push him over the side?”
“Because that’s what they wanted me to do. If I’d killed the guy, they’d have won. I’d have been just like the rest of them. But the thing that really scared me was that I was already halfway there.”
I’m trying to make sense of the statement when Lucas hands me the note Aubrey left. “It’s getting close to curfew. We can swap stories some other day.”
The paper has been folded three times. My name is scrawled on the outside. A few seconds ago, my mind was bursting with questions I couldn’t wait to ask Lucas. Now I can’t remember a single one of them.
“Did you read—” I start to ask.
“No.” Lucas taps an ear with one finger to caution me. “It’s for you.”
I unfold the paper. It’s hardly a letter. Just three short sentences.
My aunt showed up when I was in rehab.
They wouldn’t let me see her. They told her I was dead.
“What does this mean?” I ask.
Lucas takes the note and reads it. Then he rips the paper into pieces and disappears into the bathroom. By the time I hear the toilet flush, I know the whole horrible truth. No one ever goes home. That’s why they told Aubrey’s aunt she was dead. They didn’t want anyone to know they were bringing her here. They had to make sure that no one would ever come looking for Aubrey because they knew there was a very good chance she might not make it out. At the Mandel Academy, you either graduate or you die.
When Lucas returns to the room, I take his arm and drag him back out to the balcony.
“They kill the Ghosts!” I whisper.
Lucas just nods. He knew.
“You figured it out? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was just a hunch. I didn’t know for sure,” he says. “But it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? You can’t expel students from a school like this. They all know way too much. Mandel could never take the risk. So he picks kids like Aubrey who can vanish without a trace. Is anyone going to start searching if you disappear?”
I never thought of it that way. “No.”
“Me neither. Most people I’ve met here are orphans. The rest don’t have anyone on the outside who cares if they live or die. So I bet a lot of the students have put two and two together. They’ve figured out that the Ghosts don’t go home. But no one would ever breathe a word about it. Because you never know who’s listening—and if one of Mandel’s people hears you say the wrong thing, you might be next to go.”
He’s right. “Then you’re taking a pretty big risk telling me,” I say.
“I’ve got nothing left to lose. They’ll be coming for me soon.”
“That’s not true,” I try to assure him.
“It is, Flick. And the truth could get a whole lot uglier before you get out of here. But you have to keep looking, no matter how bad it gets. The Mandels expect everyone to turn away. That’s how they’ve been getting away with murder for so many years. Nobody ever wants to look.”
• • •
I’m in a sleep so deep that I might as well be at the bottom of the ocean. And yet I’m out of my bed the instant I hear movement on the balcony outside my room. The door silently slides open as I approach. Two people pass by so quickly that I barely get a glimpse of them. Just a flash of green stockings and a quick wave of a single red feather. I race after the pair.
“Jude!” I call out. “Where are you going? I’m back here!”
He stops and turns, but he doesn’t release Aubrey’s hand. “I didn’t come for you,” he says. “I’m here on official business tonight. Aubrey can’t get to Never Land on her own.”
“But you said you couldn’t get in here. You said all the windows are sealed!”
“I made that up,” Peter Pan tells me. “So you wouldn’t have to say it.”
“Say what?”
“That you didn’t want me around.”
“Why wouldn’t I want you around?! You’re the only reason I’m here.”
“Then why did you try to forget me?” asks Peter Pan.
“I didn’t, Jude! I just couldn’t afford any distractions. I promised you that it wouldn’t be forever. I told you I’d see you again as soon as this was through.”
“You make a lot of promises,” Jude says, glancing over at Aubrey.
She’s beaming at me. Her hair is as limp and mousy as the day I first met her. The beautiful clothes and makeup are gone. She’s wearing a ratty T-shirt and jeans. She’s the girl she was before she made her first mistake. Before her parents died and Mandel found her. I have never envied or pitied anyone more.
“Will you take care of her?” I ask. “Will you help Aubrey forget all of this?”
“She already has,” Peter Pan says. Then his businesslike tone softens. “Would you like to come with us? It’s not too late.”
“Not yet, Jude. I have to get what I came for.”
“Revenge?” he asks with bitter laugh. “Don’t worry. You’ll get it. Anything, anything. You can have anything in life if you’ll sacrifice everything else for it. First it was Joi—then Felix and Aubrey. Before this is over, you’ll get rid of me too.”
“How can you say that? I’m doing this for you!”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Yes!”
“This isn’t what I want,” he says. “Goodbye.” He’s never said that before. The word scares me more than anything else.
“Will you be back? Please say you’ll be back, Jude!”
“Of course I’ll be back,” he says with a nod at Lucas’s door. “I don’t have a choice.”
• • •
My face is wet when I wake. I can hear myself shouting, “Don’t leave me!” Everyone else must have heard it too. I hold the pillow against my mouth and breathe through my nose until I can trust myself not to sob. There are footsteps outside my room. They’ve come to investigate. They want to find out who’s cracked. They linger at my door for a minute or so, then move on to the next.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
* * *
THE CULL
There’s someone standing over my bed.
“Get up and get dressed,” the man orders. “You’ve missed your first class.”
“I’m ill,” I groan.
“Then I’ll need to escort you to the infirmary.”
The top nine floors of this place are a prison. But the bottom three are a dungeon. “Forget it. I’d rather die in cla
ss,” I announce as I rise from my bed.
I make it to the Art of Persuasion on time. Gwendolyn isn’t there, but Julian is. And he shouldn’t be.
“Missed you in business class,” he trills as I pass.
“That’s so sweet. But I didn’t miss you,” I respond.
“Have trouble sleeping?” he calls out. The rest of the class goes silent.
“Yeah, some miserable asshole kept me awake half the night,” I return, and give Julian a pat on the shoulder. “You don’t have to cry, darling. I’m sure your little pecker will grow eventually.”
The tension breaks. Everyone laughs. Except for Julian. But he doesn’t look angry. He looks smug. Like a man with a plan.
“Good morning, class!” Mr. Martin has entered the room, pushing a cart. Whatever’s on top of it is concealed beneath a black plastic tarp. “We’re going to have some fun today. I’ve asked one of last semester’s best students to return to act as my assistant. Julian?” My fellow Wolf rises and whips off the tarp to reveal a lie detector. I think I know where this is going.
“Until now, we’ve been focusing on ways to uncover useful information,” Mr. Martin says. “And as we’ve discussed, human beings aren’t always the most reliable sources. So how can we be sure that an informant’s words can be trusted? Much of the time, we must rely on our instincts. But if you’re fortunate enough to have access to a polygraph, I recommend that you use it.
“It’s always tricky to offer my students a proper demonstration. After all, no one at the Mandel Academy has any secrets. There’s no reason for any of you to prevaricate, so I’ll just have to ask a few of you to—”