Kill School: Slice (24 page)

“Fireball launchers,” I say looking at Mateo. “Is that what
they are really called?”

“Sure,” Vladimir says. “Maybe we win.” Vladimir shakes
Mateo’s hand. “But, today we are going to practice skating.”

Vladimir turns to the rest of the class.

“All of you follow me.”

Vladimir takes us over to a small cabin by the lake and
instructs us to go inside to get skates in our size. When I come out with a
pair that may fit, Vladimir pulls me aside.

“You think you can skate with that rib?” he asks.

“No,” I say.

Vladimir looks disappointed.

“Well then, you sit down,” he says.

“I mean I’ve never skated before,” I say. “I want to try.”

“Oh, good job,” Vladimir says. “I was worried about your
constitution.”

“My constitution is fine,” I say.

Vladimir rolls out a rubber mat five feet wide and thirty
feet long across the lake. He instructs the beginners to walk down the rubber
mat to get used to our skates. Beginners include Mateo, Tane, Priyanka, and
myself.

After we practice balancing on the rubber mat, Vladimir
instructs us to step out on the ice, slowly with our arms outstretched like a
bird.

So far, I am able to keep my balance without twisting much.
It doesn’t feel natural at first, but then my movements become more fluid. 

Vladimir skates around us.

“Don’t stiffen your body,” he says. “Bend your knees
slightly.”

I try to follow Vladimir’s advice and end up face down on
the ice. If the ice weren’t so cold, my ribs would have hated me.

Vladimir helps me up.

“Clench your fist when you fall. You don’t want to lose a
finger.”

I take the rest of the class more cautiously and only fall
a few more times. By the time class is over, I am optimistic about my chances
of learning how to skate.

“You did good,” Vladimir says to me. “Burke was right about
you. You’ll have fun on our adventure.” He winks at me.

My mouth drops open. Vladimir and Burke were talking about
me?

Mateo catches my arm.

“Come on,” Mateo says. “Let’s go to lunch. I’m starving.”

Not
only am I hungry, I want to find out what Vanessa and Burke discussed during
stealth. I hope she told him enough for Burke to watch his back around
Regulator Krish.

When Mateo, Priyanka, and I enter the dining hall, Vanessa
waves us over to a far table by the windows. It’s become our regular table, but
she’s the only one of our cabin mates sitting there.

Mateo, Priyanka, and I walk past Demi and Shaw who are
sitting with the rest of the quads. We stop to chat with them briefly. Next, we
stop by Aisha and Priyanka sits with her and a bunch of unfamiliar kids.

Mateo and I move on after we reassure everyone I am all
right and answer questions about Erwin. Yes, he is still in the infirmary. No,
he is not dead. Yet.

Finally, Mateo and I arrive at Vanessa’s table and sit
down.

Before I can ask Vanessa how stealth went, she blurts out,
“He wasn’t there.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“He never showed up,” Vanessa says. “He was sick or
something. I don’t know. When I went looking for him, I was sent to another
stealth teacher. She didn’t get me at all. It was awful.”

 “It will be more awful for Burke if we don’t find him,” I
say.

Just then, the Hunter walks into the dining hall with
Burke. They are deep in conversation and barely notice anyone else as they walk
through the crowd of students getting lunch.

I have to get Burke’s attention.

“Mateo, throw something at him. I’ll miss if I do it.”

Mateo picks up his spoon, puts a chicken ball in it, aims,
and shoots Burke in the neck. Bullseye. Burke rubs his neck but doesn’t stop
talking to the Hunter. The Hunter however, looks directly at Mateo. She guides
Burke over to our table.

“Nice shot,” the Hunter says to Mateo. “Unfortunately you
should know better than to use your talents for something as disrespectful as a
food fight.”

“I wasn’t trying to start anything,” Mateo says.

Burke glances at us with barely a hint of recognition, as
if something important has distracted him. His face looks ashen. I wonder if
Nurse Smith and Regulator Krish were conducting medical experiments on him this
morning. 

After the Hunter leaves, Burke sits in the empty seat next
to me and runs his finger through his hair.

 “How are the birds?” I ask.

Burke takes one of my chicken balls and chews on it,
ignoring my question.

“I missed you in stealth,” Vanessa says.

Burke chews on the chicken. A coat of light red stubble
covers his chin and jaw. I watch everyone at our table, waiting for a moment to
talk to Burke.

The
kids nearest to us finish their lunch and get ready to leave. They are taking
their time, dropping silverware and throwing gross napkins at one another. I
wish they would hurry up. When they are gone, if I whisper low enough, I can tell
Burke about Krish’s lab.

“Did you practice?” Burke asks Vanessa without acknowledging
that he was gone.

“Of course I did,” Vanessa says. “I made a whole batch of
bland and I even tried the extra spicy too.”

“You’re cooking now?” I ask as I watch the other kids walk
away.

Vanessa turns to me. “It’s our code. Bland is not lethal.
Extra spicy is.”

“It’s Vanessa’s code,” Burke says.

Vanessa’s code. Water bottles left as secret messages.
Burke and Vanessa are close. I’m a little jealous.

I move closer to Burke and tell him everything I discovered
in the lab. I make sure I have his attention when I tell him Krish wants to
harvest his organs. I breathe a sigh of relief when I am done. I hope that now,
Burke will be safe.

Burke shakes his head with a look of concern. For me. Like
I am crazy.

“Aria, they’re not going to do that. Kidnap me? Cut open my
body and take out my spleen? Seriously? You’ve been listening to gossip.”

I sit back in my chair, defeated.

“Is any of it true?” I ask Burke.

Burke looks from me to Vanessa and then to Mateo.

“You are right about one thing, Aria.” He pauses and looks
out the window. “Krish wants my blood.” He turns to me with a blank stare. “I
don’t know how else to tell you. I am dying, Aria.”

I choke on my chicken sandwich and then spit out the rest
of it in a napkin. Vanessa and Mateo lean in closer, as puzzled by what Burke
just said as I am.

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

Burke tilts his head and furrows his brow.

“Why Aria, did I make you sick?” He smiles and slowly shakes
his head as if he doesn’t believe his own words. “You guessed I was different, didn’t
you?”

I suck in a quick breath and cover my mouth. Mateo and
Vanessa stare at me, as if they are prompting me to speak.

I swallow the lump in my throat.

“Tell me what you mean, Burke. No riddles. Out with it. I
want to know.”

“We all do,” Vanessa says.

Vanessa grabs Burke’s fingers. I put my hand on top of
hers; Mateo puts his on top of mine.

“We all care about you,” I say. “You can’t just tell us you
are dying and that Krish wants your blood out in the middle of the dining hall
while we’re eating our lunch. You’re supposed to take care of us, not make us
loose our appetites.”

“What she said,” Vanessa says. “Tell us what’s wrong with
you.”

Burke seems surprised that we all care about him. He pulls
his hand out from under ours.

“Alright Aria, calm down. You, too, Vanessa. Mateo.” He
leans in closer to us. “I shouldn’t say anything, but Aria, you are being
impossible.” He takes a deep breath. “My blood.”

“What about your blood?” I ask.

“Let me finish,” Burke says. “My DNA. I don’t have the
genetic mutation. I am dying like people did thousands of years ago, just like
our ancestors did.”

I can’t think of anything to say. I’ve never heard of
anyone without the genetic mutation that allows us to live forever. I never
expected Burke to be different in so many ways.

“I may live a hundred, maybe two hundred years. Krish wants
to monitor me. He doesn’t want to kill me.” He glances at the three of us. “Now
please never mention this again. I wouldn’t have told any of you if you hadn’t
been in my business. Forget about it, Aria. All of you. Forget about it.”

“Forget about you dying?” I can’t imagine loosing Burke. I
feel like I just found him.

Burke pats my hand as if I’m an old woman that needs
consolidation.

“You’ll probably die before me,” he says. “Someone may kill
you.”

We all finish lunch in more somber moods. Burke tries to
cheer us up, but it doesn’t work. What Burke has said about his DNA is both a
miracle and a tragedy. I don’t want to think about him dying. But, his DNA. If
it’s true. We don’t have to live forever. Maybe this token killing program can
end. Maybe we can all die in peace.

My next
class is Slice. Jack grabs me on the way out of the dining hall and we walk
over to class together. He’s chatting about all sorts of things, taking about
the games, about his siblings, how much he likes King Shah.

“King Shah?” I laugh.

“Finally, I got you out of your mood,” Jack says. “You’ve
been walking along like I’m a fly buzzing in your ear. An annoying pest.”

“You’re not a pest,” I say. I lean into him warmly. “I’m
just distracted by stuff.”

“We all are,” Jack says. “What a crazy place. Kill School.
Speaking of killing, slice meets in the gym today.”

I’ve missed a few slice classes and I’m ready to catch up.
I didn’t bring my switchblade, my pocketknife, or my pine needle, but I do have
my new bread knife. I’m ready to learn how to slice.

The gym takes up an entire building on campus. The polished
wooden floor is painted with dividing lines, numbers, and circles. Basketball
nets are on both sides of the court and a row of bleachers has been pushed up
against the wall.

Messier is happy to see me, so happy that he gives me a
giant hug. I give out a little yelp as he crushes my ribs and reminds me of my
injuries. I see long thin swords next to helmets and other gear on the floor.

Messier explains to us how we are going to do some warms
ups first before we get our weapons.

“Everyone, get your partners,” Messier says. “Aria, you’ll
be partnered with Jane today.”

I stand across from a girl with straight black hair that
looks somewhat familiar.

“Hi, I’m Aria,” I say. I step forward to shake her hand.

Jane ignores my outreached hand.

“You don’t remember me.” Jane folds her arms across her
chest. “We go to school together.”

I did it again. Jane. That’s how I know her. The girl in
the waiting room at the post office. The girl with the emerald token. If we had
switched places, she would be stuck with amethyst and I would get to kill an
old person.

“Sure,” I say. “Jane. We go to school together. Sure.” I
don’t sound so sure. “It’s been a long couple of days.” I say.

“I know,” Jane says. She glares at me. “I visited Erwin in
the infirmary. He’s really broken up.”

“That’s not my fault,” I say. “He attacked
me
.”

“That’s not what he told me,” Jane says. “He says you
attacked him and then got your boyfriend to finish the job.”

“My boyfriend? I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Jane puts her hands on her hips.

“Well, I do and his name is Erwin,” she says.

I now have to fence with someone whom obviously hates me because
she thinks I beat up her boyfriend.

Messier blows a whistle and tells us to gather around. He
takes us through some simple movements, like bending knees, jumping, switching
weight on our feet. We do this for another half an hour. The stretching actually
makes my ribs feel better. I’m beginning to be able to breathe naturally again.

Messier blows his whistle again.

“That’s enough. Let’s get suited up.”

Messier hands me a mask, a front zipped jacket and some
gloves. He hands Jane the same. After Jane and I are suited up, he hands us our
swords.

“Go easy on her,” Messier says to Jane. “She’s missed a few
classes.”

Before we begin to fence, Messier takes us through a few
lunges and then sends us to practice with our partners.

It turns out Jane is not very good at fencing. Even though
I’ve missed a few classes, I easily master the moves. After ten minutes of
lunging, I’ve hit Jane six times. Every time I touch her jacket, a light
flickers and she lets out a yelp, as if I’m hurting her. Each time, her yelp
gets louder and louder. Finally, she throws her sword on the floor and storms
over to Messier. I storm after her.

“She’s cheating,” Jane says.

Messier’s eyebrows raise in astonishment. He presses a hand
to his forehead.

“Well, that’s a first,” Messier says. “Cheating in the
lunge. I don’t even know if that’s possible.”

“It is,” Jane says, sounding even more pathetic. “She’s
lunging too far. She’s so much taller than me that I can’t reach her.”

“Oh, she’s cheating by height,” Messier says. “I’ve heard
of that. Well, it’s time to switch weapons.”

Messier calls attention to the rest of the class.

“We will spend the rest of class on the short bladed
attacks. Return your weapons.” He picks up an inflatable dummy. “Your partners
will be rubber. Don’t be afraid to cut them. They’ll deflate little by little.
They will also repair themselves.”

We return our uniforms and Messier hands out small daggers
and dummies. Jack lines up next to me and we take turns watching one another
shred our dummies. Jack has named him Cutie Pie after a favorite toy of his
sister’s.

“Cutie Pie is going to die,” Jack says as he stabs the
stuffed figure in the gut. “Uppercut.” He smiles and bows.

Messier comes over to give us some tips. He points to the
most vulnerable places. Below the ribs. The neck between the collarbones. The
back, near the kidneys. I slice and lunge and slice some more. I slice so much
that it becomes natural.

The rest of the day passes in a blur. After slice, we have
some free time and then dinner. I eat a salad and then skulk back to the cabin,
ready to collapse. When the day is over, I’m relieved. I crawl up into my bunk
and immediately fall asleep.

I wake up
hours later, unable to get back to sleep. The scientist’s words swirl in my
mind. Organ donation. Burke said she was gossiping, but he wasn’t there. My
eyes sting when I think of Burke dying.

I need to find out more about Barstow and the tokens. There
must be some way of stopping the killing without having to regenerate Burke’s
body. The book that Burke stole from the library must have some answers.
Hopefully, he still has it tucked away in his bunk.

I open my curtain and jump off my bed, practicing my stealth
moves to Burke’s bunk. Everyone appears to be sound asleep, breathing softly,
or snoring. No sniffles or whimpering tonight.

I walk down the narrow space between table and the girl’s
row of bunk beds to Burke’s bed in the back. The heavy curtain is closed. I
touch the velvety fabric while I try to work up the courage to open his
curtain. No one likes to be woken up in the middle of the night.

All at once, hands emerge from behind the curtains, and
pull me onto Burke’s bed. Burke presses his body against mine. I feel the blade
of a knife under my chin.

“Burke,” I whisper. I don’t move.

“Aria?” Burke pulls the knife away but he doesn’t remove
his body from mine. “What are you doing?”

“Practicing my sneaking,” I whisper. “Can you get off of
me? You’re crushing my ribs.”

Burke rolls off me, closes his curtains, and turns on a
small light.

“You hesitated at the curtain. That was your mistake,” he
says.

“I wasn’t trying to kill you,” I say.

The soft light follows Burke’s profile. I resist touching
the scab that has formed on his jaw. It would be too inappropriate. It’s bad
enough that I’m lying in his bed.

Burke pulls me to the back of his bunk and opens a panel
revealing a small space behind it.

“My secret room,” Burke whispers. “Go on in.”

“More like a closet,” I say. “Are you sure we can both
fit?”

“Just go,” he says.

I squeeze through the small panel, which is a foot and a
half wide and two feet tall. Burke follows me into the three by five foot
carpeted room that is no more than an extension of his bunk. He closes the
panel, turns on a lantern, and gestures at some pillows on the ground.

“Have a seat,” he says.

I sit on some pillows and he sits down next to me.

“You are full of secrets,” I say.

Burke touches my lips. I taste salt on his fingers.

“We still have to keep our voices low,” he says. He keeps
his eyes locked on mine. “You were right about Krish. I didn’t want the others
to know.”

“He wants to kill you?” I ask in a tone that comes out more
like a siren.

Burke puts his finger to his lip to shush me, and nods at
the same time.

“I had my suspicions,” he says. “He’s been trying to
virtually duplicate my organs. Every time he fails, he gets more frustrated.”

“I’m going to kill him,” I say, controlling my voice
better. “I’ll use my token against him.”