“What you got there, son – a bag of rocks?” The man across the aisle peered at the satchel through reading glasses smeared with grease.
“Mind your own business,” Trey snapped.
No one talked to us after that, for which I was profoundly grateful. My stomach twisted in knots. We’d found a couple of paperback novels at the thrift store, but I was too stressed out to read mine. Every time the bus lurched around a corner I expected to see Vincent with a roadblock or an armored car, ready to take us both back to that hellhole. I stared out the window, thinking hard, while Trey read a fun-looking romantic heist book by Katya Moore calledThe Siren Job. Occasionally, he’d stop me to ask about something in the text – he was missing twenty years of cultural references and technological advances.
At some point, the gentle sway of the engine and the scent of stale potato chips shoved in the creases of the seats must’ve lulled me to sleep, because the next thing I knew I was back in the god’s cavern.
And the god waspissed.
The room groaned under the force of its fury. Slivers of rock fell from the ceiling, shattering against the polished floor. The veins of strange, alien mineral seemed even more oppressive as they loomed inward, as though at any moment they would topple like dominoes to squash me.
But I didn’t think the god was interested in me, judging by the circle of hooded figures that crouched in reverence around the scaffold, their hands attempting to shield their skulls from falling debris even as they refused to move from their vigil. Voices chanted the god’s strange tongue in high, hesitant voices, wavering with fear each time a new sliver of rock crashed to the floor.
The figure nearest the trapdoor lifted its head, rolling its body away as a particularly large lump of rock toppled down right where it had been lying. Its hood fell away and I recognized Ms. West, although she looked considerably less well-put-together than usual.
“You have to understand,” Ms. West said, her voice swooning in that dramatic tone. “She was hurting you by being here. We sent her away until it was time for you to take her. This way we’ll be able to figure out how they could affect you—”
But the god didn’t have to understand anything. From within his prison, he howled and wailed and gnashed his teeth made of galaxies. Like a child throwing his toys out of the crib, he wanted something he couldn’t have.
He wantedme.
“We gave you the other girl,” Headmistress West said. “Remember what happened after you took her? It will be worse with Hazel. We need more time to understand—”
She yelped and leaped back as a long sliver of rock fell from the ceiling and penetrated the floor directly where she had been standing, sending up a spray of shards.
“This is ridiculous,” she snapped to Dr. Atwood, who’d torn off his hood to run to her aid. “Vincent was the one who wanted to try this disastrous plan.He’sthe one who lost Hazel, and yet we’re the ones answering to the god’s wrath.”
“Isn’t that the way it’s always been?” Atwood sighed.
“Well, maybe it’s time we had some changes around here.” Ms. West yanked her hood over her hair and hurried to the edge of the room, sheltering under one of the alcoves.
“What are you suggesting?” Atwood ran after her, arms over his head, shielding his face as more rock fell from the cavern. The other figures picked themselves up and raced after them.
“I’m merely saying that if Mr. Bloomberg’s power has been stripped, I see no reason why we should continue to take orders from him. if you want something done, you need to do it yourself.”
A wide grin spread across Atwood’s gaunt features. He bent his head toward Ms. West, and they whispered something together. I lurched forward, trying to hear more of their conversation, but the god buckled the ground beneath me. I pitched forward, my body jolting as the god shook me with invisible hands…
“Hazel… wake up.” Trey’s voice called me. I flung myself out of my seat with a jolt, hitting my head on the luggage rack as I stumbled down the aisle.
“Fuck! Ow.” I rubbed my head. We must’ve stopped to pick up more passengers, because twenty pairs of wary and curious eyes watched me from previously unoccupied seats.
“What happened?” Trey helped me back into my seat. “You were calling out something, and thrashing about. People were staring.”
“I was there, in the god’s cavern.” A cold shiver rocketed down my spine. “The god knows that I was taken away, and he’s not happy at all. He’s about to bring the roof down on the faculty. And there’s more. It seems as if Ms. West doesn’t want to work with your father.”
Across the aisle, a woman watched me with a wary expression. She lifted her child out of the seat beside her and bounced him in her lap. The man in the seat in front of us got up and moved to an empty bench at the front of the bus.
Trey bent over so his forehead touched mine. He brushed a strand of hair from my cheek, and the tenderness of his touch made my chest tighten. Trey had never been taught how to show love, how to be caring, and so this was foreign territory for him. He was nothing if not a fast learner.
“Tell me exactly what you saw,” he whispered. “Do it quietly. We don’t know who might be listening.”
In tangled whispers, I explained about the cavern and the falling rock and the anger of the teachers. “Ms. West said that they gave him ‘the other girl.’ She had to be talking about Loretta. But the way she said it, it was as though Loretta and I were similar in some way – like Loretta had hurt the god, too.”
Trey shook his head. “Loretta’s the same as every other sacrifice. She went to the gymnasium with the teachers, and she came back one of us. Are you okay to walk? The next stop is ours.”
“I had a dream. I didn’t break my hip,” I snapped, but I gripped Trey’s shoulder as he led the way off the bus. “And there is something different about Loretta. She went back to school instead of becoming one of the maintenance staff. And she’s changed. Even though you supposedly don’t have a soul, there’s a warmth to you that shines through. You still care. You stillfeel. But there’s nothing behind Loretta’s eyes.”
“I thought that was just who she was. She was kind of dead inside when she arrived at school. If anything, being a revenant has made her more lively. And she’s only a student because Courtney wanted to use her to torment you. And what Courtney wants, she gets, especially from Ms. West.”
