We Shall Be Monsters Page 9

  “I don’t know about your country,” Billie said in history’s worst accent, “but in my country each student is encouraged to participate.”

  Ms. Bolton took a deep breath. The other students leaned forward, including Anika. All eyes swiveled toward their teacher.

  Billie continued, “Our teachers do not ignore children that bore them.”

  Ms. Bolton’s gaze fell to her desk, and she moved her ceramic pencil case an inch. She straightened and inspected her classroom. “Does anyone else have anything interesting to say?”

  A dozen hands shot into the air.

  Ms. Bolton frowned. “Claire.”

  “You’re both wrong,” Claire said. She actually passed up the cheerleader outfit today, opting for jeans and a knit blazer over a T-shirt with the words Stand back, I’m going to try Science. “The play isn’t a love story at all. It’s a morality tale about a sex-crazed juvenile who, in an attempt to get laid, drives a teen girl to suicide. Romeo is the villain.”

  Anika gaped along with everyone else in the room.

  Ms. Bolton nodded. “Did you find that on the internet?”

  Claire folded her hands on her desk. “Well, yes. The part about how many of Shakespeare’s audience was starving because of a famine among the poor. One of Romeo’s first lines was asking Benvolio where they were going to dine like they had all the choice in the world. The groundlings would have hated him instantly.

  “That started me thinking. Romeo didn’t kill himself because his true love was dead, he did it ‘cause he was totally boned. He’d killed Tybalt, was banished, and had ruined Juliet’s proposed marriage to Paris by taking her virtue. When he found out Juliet was dead, he knew the truth wouldn’t stay hidden. They would come for him.

  “They would string him up and make him pay for his actions. He killed himself because he was already going to die. In fact, Romeo’s actions are directly responsible for every tragedy in the play. He’s a lot like Anika.”

  The class laughed, including Billie and Misty. Even Ms. Bolton chuckled.

  “What?” Anika wasn’t a villain.

  “Yes,” Claire said. “He goes to a place where he shouldn’t be and causes trouble. He flips girls in an instant because Rosaline wouldn’t sleep with him. He insists on revenge instead of letting authority deal their judgment. He ignores the rules and his punishment, thinking only for himself and what he’s got in his pants.”

  Billie held a hand over her mouth. The other students giggled. Unfair!

  Anika wanted to shout! Scream. Anything. But she couldn’t think of anything to say.

  She paused.

  Something was up. Claire was acting more intelligent than normal. Hawking insisted she had the highest scores in Olympiad practice since she took over. He insisted they were lucky to have her. How was Claire suddenly so smart? She was conniving and ruthless, but Anika had beaten her soundly when they squared off in the Olympiad tryouts.

  Ms. Bolton held up her hand. “Claire, I hope you’re willing to support that theory with the text.”

  “I plan on it,” Claire said.

  As Claire fished out her copy of the play, Ms. Bolton returned to her desk, pulling out a notebook from her drawer to make notes.

  “If we’ll all get equal voice,” Claire said. “No favorites.”

  Ms. Bolton faced her students, her cheeks turning crimson.

  Billie stood up on her chair. “Preach, sista.”

  Bolton pinched the bridge of her nose. “Get down, please.”

  “How dare you!” Misty sprung out of her seat, smacking Billie on the backside with her copy of the play. “You… you foreign cow!”

  Billie tackled her with a flourish of blonde hair. They wrestled on the floor, remarkably with no hair pulling—an obvious tell for anyone who knew what to look for. Misty flipped Billie over and pinned her to the ground. “We were talking!”

  “Get off me, sea monkey,” Billie said.

  “Stop!” Ms. Bolton stuffed the notebook into her desk and rushed over. “Stop fighting.”

  Anika almost cracked a smile as Claire glowered at the whiteboard, her fleeting opportunity to finally contribute spoiled.

  After another minute and a few more colorful but confusing expletives, Ms. Bolton finally separated the girls, and led them out the door toward the principal’s office.

  The rest of the class sat dumbfounded, grins on their faces.

  The room was full of witnesses, their beady eyes wandering back and forth to one another. Ms. Bolton was an enigma, and even though the girls hadn’t intended it, this was an opportunity to figure out what was going on in that woman’s head.

  Anika jumped up and rushed to Ms. Bolton’s desk and rifled through the drawers.

  “Hey, Romeo,” Claire said. “What are you doing?”

  Anika really hoped that wouldn’t stick. She’d had enough nicknames in her life. Still better than Dagmar, her given name. What her parents were thinking with that one, she couldn’t fathom.

  “Trying to find out what Ms. Bolton’s up to,” Anika said. “She can’t be that obtuse.”

  Claire paraded over and went through the things on Ms. Bolton’s desk. “Good point. Misty’s not that interesting.”

  Anika found the notebook stuffed into a stack of papers. She flipped it open and scanned the pages.

  “Anika?” Claire pressed her temples like she had a headache. “Can we talk sometime?”

  “No.”

  Bolton had written down her observations and speculation about each student’s interesting behaviors. Under Linh, she’d noted:

  Possible autism and parental tampering. Chemical???

  Or something else entirely?

  Anika’s entry was under the name Dagmar, and all the infuriating woman had written were the words:

  Know-it-all

  Claire’s entry had one line, which Ms. Bolton must have written a few minutes ago.

  New development. She’s got a brain after all. Flowers for Algernon??

  Anika flipped to Misty’s entry, which was about twenty pages long, full of detailed observations and amazingly inaccurate guesses about her secrets and implications toward the laboratory scientists.

  This was bad. The other students stared at her. She couldn’t take the notebook, could she? Ms. Bolton would find who had taken it in minutes, and Anika would get dragged to the principal’s office, which was the last place she wanted to be. What was she even going to do with the information in the book? Tattle to the principal or her father?

  Maybe Ms. Bolton was an ally. Odds were against that, but reporting her to Anika’s father might make it worse. At least Anika knew her secret. That had to be enough for now. She stuffed the notebook back into its place, adjusted the stack of papers back into position, and closed the drawer.

  Claire raised an eyebrow. “So?”

  “Bolton is trying to figure out why Misty’s such a freak.” Anika accented the word freak a little too much. The class laughed, of course, except for Claire, who narrowed her eyebrows. “Just like everybody else.”

  Anika returned to her seat.

  Claire glanced at the clock. “I’m out of here.”

  As Claire collected her things, the class followed suit and spilled out the door. Anika frowned at Ms. Bolton’s desk. She needed another peek at that notebook, but it wasn’t worth the risk of Ms. Bolton walking in on her. She’d have to sneak in after hours.

  Anika collected her things and Billie’s and Misty’s things, too. She hesitated at the door until the bell rang, which was dumb, but leaving class early still seemed wrong. As she ambled out, Anika noticed Ms. Bolton heading back to the classroom, so she headed the other way, pushing against the crowd. She’d have to take the long way around, avoiding the hallway with the boiler room. She wasn’t about to get waylaid again.

  The other two cheerleaders strolled right in her way. Pixicut and the redhead still wore their uniforms even though their leader skipped today. Status was the solitary benefit to being a
cheerleader with no team to cheer for and no competitions to attend. Anika squeezed between them.

  “Can you believe that guy?” Pixicut said. She shook her head, intentionally splashing Anika with water. She must have come inside from the rain.

  The redhead shuddered. “Yeah, I couldn’t understand a word he was saying.”

  Anika froze. That had to be the Swampazazi boy trying to find Billie, Sasha, or her. But Billie was the only one who could understand him, and she was in the principal’s office, probably getting into even more trouble. He’d likely tried to call, but Billie’s phone was somewhere in the pile in Anika’s arms.

  Anika handed all the stuff she was carrying to the perplexed cheerleaders, took a deep breath, and headed outside into the rain. Through the downpour, Anika scanned the parking lot, but she couldn’t see Darwin or his truck anywhere. The grounds were empty. No one would stand out in that rain for long.

  Lightning struck the laboratory steeple in the distance. Thunder boomed.

  Someone grabbed her from behind, sliding a firm hand over her mouth and an arm in a thick cast around her waist, lifting her into the air. Anika’s scream was muffled, as the man hauled her to the parking lot toward a black van.

  “Miss me, Anika?”

  It was Billie’s mom’s boyfriend, the meathead.

  Wallace.

  Billie hadn’t killed him with her car after all. Despite struggling with all her might, Anika couldn’t get free. Wallace was too strong. Anika tried to bite his fingers, but he cupped her chin and held her jaw firm. She screamed, but thunder boomed again, drowning all hope.

  “I know you know where Billie is,” he whispered, rounding the corner of his van, “and you’re going to take me to her.”

  Linh hadn’t given Anika a new phone to track. Anika had no way to let them know how she was missing. She would disappear again. This time it wasn’t something lurking in the town, some wayward experiment hunting her, or an evil minion of her father. This particular disaster, she’d brought to town all by herself.

  Sasha pressed her hand against the mortuary power box and siphoned energy into her body. The metal coil in her chest pulsed, warming the liquid and sending electricity through her veins. Sasha leaped up to the window on the second story, gripping the edge, and pulled herself inside.

  She’d spent half the night wandering around the swamp looking for Anika even though she was probably fine, hanging out at the lab with her boyfriend. If Anika was going to preen and dance for the lunatics trying to kill her, then Sasha was through being her lapdog.

  The messy room Sasha found herself in was splashed in purple, with books stacked on nearly every flat surface—including the bed—and a huge periodic table on the wall.

  Hawking’s bedroom. Great.

  Clothes lay scattered around, dirty plates stacked on the corner of his desk. The only clean place was around his computer setup with three monitors, two keyboards, a gamepad, and two mice.

  She didn’t want to pry into his life; she wanted to find her family, or what was left of them. But since she was already here, Sasha sat at his desk and rifled through papers. His deepest thoughts would be stashed within his precious electronic devices he carried with him, but maybe he’d left clues to what made the silly boy tick.

  Among physics homework and college admission forms, Sasha found a photograph of a large family of Nigerian refugees. The little kids in the photo were smiling, but everyone else was somber. Each person had a name written above them, but Hawking wasn’t among them.

  She reset the papers as best she could. Hawking hadn’t talked about his family left behind in Nigeria that she’d ever heard. She stood. This intrusion wasn’t fair. She wasn’t even sure how she felt about him. Hawking had always been Jackie’s boy. Not anymore.

  She hit her forehead repeatedly with the palm of her hand. Why was she even thinking about that? She had a war to fight and her life to recover. If her parents’ bodies were here, she could at least bury them so they wouldn’t end up Dravovitch’s monsters.

  Like her.

  Listening at the door, Sasha resumed her quest. Honestly, she hoped she was wrong about Hawking’s parents. She didn’t want them to be evil grave-robbing goons. She didn’t want to crash Hawking’s world down around him.

  She peeked into the hall and slipped out. She found a staircase and descended to a set of doors. One would lead into the house, the other into the mortuary. She entered the mortuary, leaving the lights out, and explored the hall until she found a locked door.

  She squeezed the doorknob in her fist, ready to turn it until something broke.

  The lock flipped. Sasha backed up as the door flung open.

  “Gah!” Hawking jumped back. “What are you doing in my house?”

  Sasha pushed him farther inside and closed and locked the door. “Breaking in here.”

  “I got that.” He kept himself between her and the inside of the mortuary. He wore a bright blue vest over a white collared shirt, blue jeans, and his horn-rimmed glasses still had water droplets. “But why?”

  She pushed a finger into his shoulder. “How did you find me? You should be at school.”

  “We need your help,” Hawking said.

  Sasha threw her arms in the air and stalked around him into the mortuary. “We?”

  “Fine. Anika needs your help.” Hawking caught up to her. “She’s got another crazy plan and you need to make sure she doesn’t get herself killed. Isn’t that your job?”

  “I can’t help her when she’s being an idiot.”

  Hawking skipped around her and held out his hand. “That’s when she needs you the most.”

  “I begged her to run.” Sasha crossed her arms. “I’m not sure anyone can save her now.”

  He took off his glasses and cleaned them on a handkerchief he pulled from his back pocket. Sasha pushed him out of the way and darted through the “staff only” door farther into the mortuary. She noted the examination table, and a trickle of energy ran down her spine. The images of that moment of rebirth in the secret lab were as fresh as ever. She turned and pushed through to the freezer. If any bodies were being saved, they would be in there.

  She pulled the door open and trudged inside. She couldn’t quite feel the cold, but steam rose from her skin.

  Hawking followed her inside. “What are you looking for?”

  “My family.”

  His mouth dropped open.

  “Yes, I still don’t believe you.” Sasha pulled open the first drawer. Empty.

  “I asked my parents, okay?” Hawking roved around the room, scratching at his arms.

  Sasha opened the second drawer. Empty as well. “And?”

  “They said they didn’t see your family. They said you moved to New York.”

  “And you believe them?” Sasha pulled open the last drawer on the first column and stared at the black body bag. She glared at Hawking as she unzipped it. He held his breath.

  The woman inside had been ripped apart by an alligator. Hawking turned away, gagging. Sasha recognized the woman’s face, frozen in terror—her mother’s friend from book club. She must have been the one the gator killed when it escaped. She died at the hand of her own creation.

  Sasha had no sympathy for her. A little guilt. The gator got loose because Sasha had knocked out power to the laboratory. The consequence was worth every second of Anika’s freedom, but that didn’t mean the gator had to live any longer than necessary.

  She zipped the bag closed. “See, Hawking, your parents are lying about this one. Why wouldn’t they be lying about my family?”

  “They aren’t lying. The attacks aren’t public knowledge, yet. Maybe there’s an ongoing investigation.”

  “Maybe you’re wrong.”

  Hawking slammed the drawer closed and dragged Sasha out of the freezer. She let him.

  He switched off the light and closed the freezer door.

  “I can prove it to you,” he said.

  “How?”

  “
I’ll figure out a way.” Hawking scowled. “I’m a smart kid.”

  Sasha smiled. “Fine.”

  “Fine? That’s it?”

  “Yes. You have three days.”

  He pointed to the exit. “Can we go now?”

  She shrugged, knowing she could always break in again. “How did you know I was here?”

  “You leave a trail.”

  “What?” She grabbed his collar and pushed him against the wall. “How?”

  She wasn’t sure what was worse, the stalking or the deception. Both made her skin crawl. How could he keep something like that from her? The little of her life remaining was bolted down with people she thought were her friends. Were they using her just as much as Dravovitch?

  “I can see the path you take on the energy grid. Linh hacked her way into the website and gave me a backdoor login.”

  She let him go and turned away so he couldn’t see the anguish in her face. “So, you’re spying on me?”

  “No.” His reached for her arm. “We can find you if we need to.”

  She threw her hands in the air, frustration boiling to the surface. “Oh, that’s fantastic. Am I just a pawn to you? A weapon you aim when you need me?”

  “No, no.” He walked around her, deliberately stepping into her path. He put his hands together, touching his fingers against his lips and spoke so matter-of-factly she had a hard time believing him. “It’s a way to track you if something bad happens, like we do with Anika’s cell phone. Maybe it will save your life someday.”

  Sasha was the one who insisted they track Anika’s phone, but when it was her turn, it didn’t hurt any less. Did anyone truly care about the dead girl? They treated her more like a robot than a person. Her chin quivered. “What life can I possibly even have? Huh? My parents are dead. I have nothing. No money. No paperwork to even prove who I’m supposed to be.” Her hands trembled. “I barely exist.”

  He frowned. “You’re like a refugee.”

  That shut her up. He knew she was in his room earlier. He must have known she’d seen the picture of his extended family. His heart ached for them. He understood more than anyone. Dying should have freed her from petty feelings like guilt, but it came flooding in. She closed her eyes, hoping he hadn’t seen it in her expression.