The Class Reject: A Martyr in Maelstrom (Book III)

58

The school might as well have been on fire -- because it was lit.

Literally.

About a thousand lights filled the air like the kind in outdoor football arenas. It was practically an oasis of daytime in a dark void. As Jeno parked the headmaster's car as spick and prim a he had hijacked it, he couldn't help but blink as his focus landed to the fence that separated the main campus, and the orchestra of illumination behind it.

"Miren, wake up." He nudged her carefully as she stirred in her sleep.

"Would it be weird if you carried me in?" she said in a mumble, her eyes still closed. "I'm too tired to move."

"You know the answer to that." He jumped out of the car, moving toward the passenger door. "Come on."

"Fine," she said as she reluctantly rose to her feet. "But I'm not taking the tunnel back."

"Fortunately for us I don't think we have to worry about getting back in. Look around." Miren opened an eye.

"Fuck." She was fully alert now, her gaze fixed on the sea of lights in the horizon. "What the hell is happening?"

"That's what I want to know," his ember eyes narrowed against the campus. "Let's go."

They moved to the front gates of the school, where a ton of journalists were chatting noisily in the air.

"Getting in through the front still isn't an option." Jeno rubbed his temple. "It's been days. How are they still here?"

"We have to cut through the woods," Miren offered, blocking out the dead rat she saw in the underground passage. "It's fine. It'll be quicker than the tunnel anyway."

"Are you sure?" His eyebrows furrowed. "The idea of going to the site of the attack infuriates me. I can't begin to imagine how it would make you feel."

"I'm fine." She wasn't fine. Her breathing had picked up and there was enough fear in her eyes to cut through the night. She took hold of his hand, pinching it. "Just don't let go, okay?"

He just blinked at her, thought about the repercussions of the two of them holding hands in the woods, before concern for her replaced any concern for the scene.

"Okay."

They had passed the gazebo when the events of that fateful night hit Miren like a bag of bricks.

"We're almost there," Jeno assured her, tightening his grip on her. "You can close your eyes--I'll lead."

"I can still see it," she said in a hush, frowning. "I can't believe they left me out here. I could have died."

"How did you make it out of the woods?" he then asked her, hoping to distract her however slightly. Miren bit her lip. She wasn't supposed to tell anyone about Ms. Cowdry.

"Like I said, it's a blur," she offered. "I think someone must have had enough of a heart to send a tip to the infirmary." When Jeno nodded, she breathed a small sigh of relief. "I just wish I could remember a face or a voice." Someone who wasn't Axel or Cliff at least.

"Do you remember anything that seemed off?" Jeno paused. "Sorry, that was insensitive of me to ask."

"No," she brushed off, closing her eyes, simultaneously summoning and blocking the encounter from her mind. "I don't know, it was all off. All I could tell was that they were all relatively chummy with each other, if that makes sense. Someone mentioned doing it because they were deferred or waitlisted somewhere. So I'm thinking that whoever 'hired' them had the power to fix that." She clicked her tongue in contempt. "I don't think that was useful."