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Ginger High, October 11, 1982
Matthias aimed an imaginary rifle at the wall of the dorm room. “. . . and the hitman goes, ‘Be patient! I’m about to save you a thousand bucks!’”
Amanta laughed hard, almost slipping off the couch. “That one was good, too! Keep going! They make school funnier!”
Matthias frowned and sat back in his brown recliner. “I don’t remember any others.”
They sat silent for a while.
Amanta frowned. “My parents separated yesterday. They’ll get a divorce soon.”
“What happened?”
“I asked my father the same thing, but he didn’t say anything.” He paused, sighed, and muttered, “Forget I brought it up.”
Matthias shook his head. “Even though we’re twenty, the principal won’t let Noah and I leave for Animist until your twentieth birthday.”
“You’ll get to go through another month of school!”
“I’m so excited,” Matthias deadpanned.
“When we get there, what are we going to do?”
Matthias shrugged. “It’s a world where people like us can feel free and not to hide anymore! What is there not to do?” He glanced at the wall clock. “Come on, or we’ll be late.”
They got up, grabbed their book bags, and left the dorm.
***
Noah Faith looked up from his textbook and saw Matthias sitting down at the desk next to him. “Hey, Achilles!” he greeted.
“Am I invisible?” Amanta snapped as he sat down on Noah’s other side.
Noah turned to face him. “You too, Cortes. How are you two doing today?”
“Wishing you’d stop calling us by our last names,” Amanta muttered.
Matthias screamed and shot to his feet. “Augh, Bill, not again!” he shouted, turning.
A boy standing a few rows back turned and blinked at him. “What?”
Matthias bent down, picked a heavy textbook off the floor, and slammed it down on the empty desk next to him. “You dropped this on my feet as you went past!”
“But I’m already all the way over here.”
“So? I know how fast you can move!”
Bill grimaced at him. “What’re you going to do about it?”
Before Noah or Amanta could interfere, the textbook lifted off the desk and flew at Bill’s head.
Bill blurred, disappeared, and reappeared at the far end of the classroom. He watched the textbook stop in midair, then looked past it at Matthias’ surprised face. “I thought you said you know how fast I can—”
The textbook shot the rest of the way across the classroom and slammed into Bill’s chest. He slumped against the wall, gasping for breath; the textbook pulled away from him, lay down on a nearby desk, and became still again.
“That was for my foot,” Matthias said coldly.
The teacher came in and closed the door behind him. “Sit down, everyone,” he ordered.
Matthias obeyed; Bill took a moment longer to catch his breath, then stormed out of the classroom without a word, slamming the door shut behind him.
“Let’s begin,” the teacher said, ignoring him.
***
The teacher turned from the notes-filled blackboard to face the class. “In conclusion—”
The door slammed open; a girl student stumbled through and shouted to the teacher, “Hurry! They need you!”
He ran past her and out the door. The students all started asking her questions at once; Amanta got up, ignored her, and ran after the teacher.
He found him in another classroom, surrounded by panicked students. They were gathered around Bill, who lay on the floor, covered in blood. His face was pale, his expression shocked. There were bite marks on his neck.
The teacher checked his pulse. “He’s dead.”
***
The three boys sat around in the dorm room and toasted Amanta. “Happy birthday!” Noah shouted, waving a wine bottle.
Amanta laughed as he downed the wine.
There was a loud knock on the door. They hid their glasses in drawers and under the couch. Amanta opened the door and faced the principal.
“You all are twenty now,” he said. “Pack up and give the front office your keys when you leave. Be gone by sunset tomorrow.” He paused, then added, “Unless you want to stay here and help find the murderer. Three people have died. You could—”
“Why do we have to leave right away?” Matthias demanded, ignoring the offer.
“Other people need your room. Are you going to help the investigation or not?”
“No, we’ll go,” Noah said quietly.
The principal nodded, turned, and left, fiddling with the wooden bracelets around his wrists as he went.
Noah grabbed his coat and stepped out the doorway. “I’m going to go get my brother,” he told Amanta and Matthias, and then ran off down the hallway.
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