I ran back to Kain and quickly shook his shoulder as I saw the sun had risen higher above the horizon. We didn't have much time before everyone would be waking up and someone would notice we were gone. If even one person saw we weren't there for even a second it would heighten the chances that one of us would get taken away, or both of us. It was already likely anyway, but if we could just hold it off for one more day...
...only one more day before it was over. It was almost all over. I could possibly make it through inspections without being caught. That would be a miracle.
"Kain," I whispered, shaking his shoulder as my knees froze from the dew of the morning grass.
His eyes slowly opened, dark pupils surrounded by the light of his irises darting around. "Wha...t?" he murmured as he planted an elbow into the wet grass, and pushed himself up off the ground. I backed away, afraid of getting too close to him and making things awkward.
"We need to go," I said, standing up from the grass and trying to wipe off the wet spots that had appeared.
I could tell the moment when he noticed that it was morning and we could've already been caught. His eyes went wide and he jerked himself into a standing position, much faster than I'd gotten up when I'd found out. I walked over to the door and shoved the key in the tiny key hole, I'd already put my shoes back on my feet, the one that had been in the door and the other one which I'd left outside the door for when we had to come back in.
For a second, I worried that the blonde haired boy had been lying and that the key wouldn't work. It would almost explain why it could've been possible that his stealing money plan was a fraud. Maybe he just enjoyed playing with people's minds until they literally wanted to whip out a knife and stab him in the heart.
But then I heard a click and the door handle swung down at my touch. I let out a breath that I'd been holding, shoulders relaxing.
"How'd you...?" Kain asked, his voice croaky from sleep.
"I'll tell you later," I replied, although I wasn't planning on telling him later at all. I had a feeling I knew what he would say if he heard about the deal I made. He'd tell me it was an unnecessary risk, which it was, and that I should just not complete my end of the deal.
But I wasn't sure on what I'd actually end up doing yet.
We fast walked in through the door and into the hallway, and I tried to walk more in front of Kain in case anyone strolled past and pointed out that Kain wasn't actually wearing shoes. I hadn't seen any of the students go shoeless through the halls yet. It wouldn't be completely unbelievable, but it would still look odd and we both couldn't afford to act or look any out of the ordinary at this point. We'd done enough that if the inspectors knew about all of it, they would have a heart attack and have to call in reinforcements to take us.
We made it back to the room where we'd been before leaving which was only Zander's room. But apparently it wasn't against the rules to sleep in classroom beside your own because as we walked in, I saw Pepper lying down in a sleeping bag next to Zander's.
If anyone already noticed our absence, it would be them.
I walked over to their sleeping bags with Zander close behind. His shoes were next to the head of Zander's sleeping bag and he bent down to pick them up. There was no reason for us to stay in the room, and I figured that it would probably be a worse idea if anything since they might react badly to suddenly seeing us in their room. I wasn't sure what Zander or Pepper were like in the morning, but I knew that my own sister, Olivia, was sometimes forgetful. So if they were anything like her, they might accidentally point out the fact that we'd never come back and expose us to the inspector lying, still asleep, in the front of the room.
There was a digital clock on the wall above the large electronic board used by teachers in the front of the class that read off the time as 7:15 AM. I didn't know if the cafeteria opened at a certain time, but I decided that it was a good idea to at least try it. It was possible it was already open, remembering back to how I woke up really early one of the first days and there'd already been people there.
I mouthed the word cafeteria to Kain and he nodded.
We made our way to the metal doors of the cafeteria and they were surprisingly open. I could hear the distinct sound of dishes clashing and food frying. The second I stepped into the cafeteria the aroma of French toast and eggs hit me, making my mouth water.
I walked up to the counter which already had food laid out on it, and picked up some pieces of French toast and a yogurt for breakfast. Kain did the same and we both sat down at a random empty table to eat. Not even a single other person was in the cafeteria besides us and the few lunch ladies preparing and setting up breakfast.
I'd already finished eating by the time the cafeteria was half full and Zander and Pepper walked in. Kain was just polishing off his scrambled eggs.
The two sat down next to each other, neither of them speaking for a moment while Zander seemed to take an exaggerated amount of time settling down.
"Hi...," I said awkwardly.
Pepper took a bite out of her French toast as Zander spoke. "Should I even ask what happened last night?"
I sighed and took a sip of my mostly empty glass of milk. "It's...kind of a long story...," I replied, glancing around at the few surrounding inspectors, hoping they didn't hear the suspicion in Zander's voice. He looked at me with raised eyebrows, and I could tell that my response only increased his curiosity. His eyes flickered over to Kain and I wondered what exactly he suspected had happened.
He dropped the issue after that, and I was extremely grateful. Talking further would only arose more suspicion from anyone eavesdropping on our conversation.
As more people entered the cafeteria, more inspectors came with them. There were often a lot of inspectors following us everywhere we went, but today it felt like there was an excess amount of them. Actually, I knew it. I was now able to generally recognize the few inspectors who did keep the closest watch on us and there was a small group that I knew of. Looking around the now full cafeteria, I saw many faces that I'd never seen before, inspectors that had never appeared to us before now.
It had to be because of the waning number of days that were left in the inspection. They were trying to bump up security and make sure there was nobody left that they'd missed. That meant it would be much harder to scrape by with all my lies and small secrets.
I got up from my seat and dumped the remnants of my plate into the now overfilling trash can.
I was walking back towards my seat which was close to the other side of the room when I was stopped. Not physically touched and prevented from moving by somebody, but by a barrier standing right in the way of where I had to go. A group of students standing in the circle as if they were trying to do some kind of ritual. I would've just walked past them if I hadn't heard how they were talking suspiciously much louder and above the rest of the cafeteria's noise. I slowed to a stop next to the cluster, and tried looking over some of the other students' heads to figure out what they were all circling around.
"You stole my money, didn't you? I know it was you, it was lying right here on my table and I get up and it's gone!" shouted a voice above the rest, that I vaguely was familiar with.
"I think I'd now if I did," came a slightly quieter voice, filled with almost as much anger as the first one.
"Well, I guess you don't! Because you did!" I tried to sneak into the circle and got a tiny bit closer to the center where whatever was going on was occurring.
When I finally could get a good view of what was going on I immediately noticed the boy from earlier with the dark hair who had been a complete narcissist in the game of Capture the Flag. Standing across from him in the circle with arms crossed and leaning back on one leg was a much shorter girl with wavy. dark hair almost an identical color to the boy's.
"Just because you lost your money, doesn't mean you have to blame it on me."
"I'm not blaming, I know," the dark haired boy responded, his face almost completely red in anger.
I turned my head around, avoiding bumping into anyone to see if any of the inspectors were looking at what was going on. None of them seemed to be looking. Shouldn't somebody step in before an actual fight broke out and somebody got hurt.
Unless that was what they wanted to happen. Maybe they were waiting to see who would hit first and which one of them would punch back. That way they could record down the injuries, the fight, and everything that had happened.
I was sickened just by the idea. They couldn't actually be sacrificing the safety of human beings just for the accuracy of the inspection, or could they?
"Whatever," the girl replied, rolling her eyes and then turning towards the boundary that had formed around the two, looking for an exit.
"I'mnot done with you!" the boy yelled suddenly and like a python moved forward andpushed her.