Page 22 of Requiem

“Uh…well, I’d say everything was in full swing by the time I’d left, but I guess you could say that.”

“You didn’t get in trouble, though, did you?”

“What do you mean, trouble?”

“About fifteen minutes after you left, a bunch of security guards came down and cleared us all out. The whole thing got shut down. People bolted back to the school through the woods, but Principal Ford was waiting inside the main entrance when they came through the doors. I came in through the back with Mel and some of the others, but a whole bunch of people got caught.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. Fuck. Sebastian’s raging. He thinks someone ratted us out to the night guards, but everyone was at the party. Apart from...” She trails off.

I’ve already seen where this is going, and I don’t like it one bit. “Apart from me,” I finish for her.

Noelani nods. “Yeah, well. I don’t think Seb realizes that you’d already left. Mel, and Julia, and me…I think we’re the only ones whodoknow.”

“I didn’t say anything to anyone. I came straight back here. Didn’t see a soul. The place was in total darkness when I came in, too. There was no sign of Principal Ford.

Noelani looks me dead in the eye, her sandy brows banking together. “Really? It wasn’t you?”

“I swear. I thought the whole thing was stupid. I didn’t wanna get involved. I left. That was the end of it. I’d never go running to the guards toreporta party, though. That’s just fucking dumb.”

She thinks about this for a moment; I can almost hear the gears in her head whirring. “Okay. Well…I believe you.” She sounds surprised that she does. “But if Seb finds out that you left before shit kicked off, he’s gonna figure it was you who went to Ford. Trust me. I wouldn’t mention it to anyone if I were you.”

The hallways are full of chatter and gossip as I make my way toRosewood. I keep my head down, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. Thankfully, no one stops me to askmyversion of events. I don’t know why anyone would, but I’m grateful all the same.

Mr. Garrett is ten minutes late toRosewood. There are still a handful of empty chairs when he bustles in through the door looking harried.

“Well, you morons sure know how to start the year on the right foot, don’t you?” he says, casting a weary look around the room. He dumps his bag down onto his desk, then faces us, hands on his hips. “I hope you all had fun, ’cause there won’t be any more shenanigans until graduation, I can tell you that much. Principal Ford’s gonna have you guys on lockdown until you pack your shit up and move out of here and that’s afact.”

“Sorry, what exactly are you talking about, Mr. Garrett?” a girl with hair almost as black as mine asks on the front row. She chews the end of her pen, grinning impishly.

“Don’t give me that crap, Marnie. You werealldown there at that party, and Principal Ford knows it. Just because she didn’t catch all of you doesn’t mean that you’re in the clear. There’ll be repercussions for what went down last night, and I promise you, you’re not going to like them. No more common room. No more movie nights. No more taco Tuesday.” He runs a hand over his head—he’s done this a couple of hundred times already this morning, judging from how wild his hair is—and sighs. “Christ, why d’you have to ruin Taco Tuesday, you little punks? The food here's bad enough and now we can’t even havetacos?”

I’d laugh out loud if I didn’t think someone would notice.

“You’re pretty much losing all of your privileges, and I have no sympathy for you. Now let’s get this bullshit dealt with and get you out of here, so I don’t have to look at any of your faces. Amber Yates?” He marks people off from his register, pausing and pulling faces as he goes, skipping over student’s names who aren’t in class. He doesn’t read Theo’s name out loud. Obviously, the missing students are in trouble and being dealt with somewhere, by someone with a little more authority than Mr. Garrett.

Fun.

My classes drag by. In each of them, the teacher berates us for being idiots. My chemistry professor, Dr. Farr, calls us all perverted little deviants, and suggests we might need intensive therapy to overcome our sex addictions. He then goes on a tirade about watching porn, and how easy access to pornography is the reason why we were all so fucked in the head.

I learn nothing new. I complete the work set for me, desperately bored, just waiting for eight o’clock to roll around so I can call Ruth at the allotted time. By dinnertime, I’m so antsy and on the edge of my seat that I consider skipping the meal altogether, but I missed breakfast and hardly picked over the salad I got for lunch, so…

The dining hall is pretty fucking awesome. Even I can admit that. It looks like the dining hall from Harry Potter—long wooden tables with benches on either side. Large chandeliers hang overhead, five of them in total, all cut crystal and candle sticks. I figure the candles are fake, the kind made of plastic with the little switches on the bottom to turn them off and on, but when the heavy, carved wooden doors open and close, admitting new students to dinner, an errant breeze sweeps through the hall, and the flames atop the candles gutter and strengthen. The little teardrop crystals set to swaying, scattering an explosion of rainbows over the walls. It’s quite beautiful.

I sit by myself. I avoid talking to anyone. Even Noelani gives me a wide berth as we all sit down at the tables in the dining hall, shoveling down my Chicken Piccata. I give myself heartburn, eating so fast, but I want to be up in my room already. I need to plan out exactly what I’m going to say to Ruth, and that’s going to take a minute.

‘Should probably make a list,’Rachel advises. ‘At least have some bullet points ready.’

She’s right. Ruth has a way of steamrolling you when she starts in on one of her rants. She’ll walk all over me and I won’t remember a single thing I wanted to say if I’m not prepared.

Grabbing my plate and cutlery, I make my way over to the busing station and place everything in an empty bin. I’m three seconds from the dining hall exit. Two seconds. One.

And then…

“Students of Toussaint, your attention please.”Principal Ford’s voice booms over a loudspeaker I didn’t even realize was there, halting conversation across the dining hall and sending everyone’s eyes upward, toward the ceiling, as if searching for some kind of omnipotent god.

“Ahh, shit. Here we go.” At the closest table, Sebastian West drops his fork down onto his plate with a loud clatter.

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