I gasped, tears brimming over my eyes as my hand went to my mouth. Charlie’s voice was shaking as he said, “No.”
The guard went to reach for Charlie again, but a loud, resonating sound echoed through the chapel. One of the organ’s pipes fell to the floor. I shuddered as I watched Oberi’s hooves collide into the organ, smashing the keys to pieces. She used the bulk of her body to tear the organ apart, bending over pipes and ripping apart keys with her horn.
When it was done, Oberi stood over the shambles and gazed at Charlie. He looked like his world had ended.
I’m sorry,Oberi said.They were going to hurt you.
Something detached inside of me, then. I stopped being sad… stopped feeling like I was worth nothing, stopped drowning in this endless sorrow.
I stopped feelinganything.
But at least it was over with. There was nothing left for the guards to destroy.
Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t made us clean up the mess.
I’d only seen Charlie cry three times in my life. Once, when he found out his father was still alive. The second, when we’d been down in the Underground, and after I’d woken up from my coma. And now, when they forced him to pick up the smashed pieces of the organ and toss it in the trash. Once that was done, the guards took us back to the music room and made us clean up the fragments of the piano, and the rest of the broken instruments. Warbright watched with a trembling lip, failing to intercede.
I hated him, too. Just another adult who’d failed to protect us. Even if he’d been outnumbered, he should’ve donesomething.
After we’d picked up every fragment and shoved every music sheet into garbage bags, the guards dragged it all out to the prison yard and put it into a massive pile. They made us gather around it, then opened the doors to shepherd others out.
We weren’t the only ones who were made to watch. The guards dragged a bunch of kids out here and made them stand witness, too. Hundreds of students stood in a circle around the pile of broken instruments.
A guard sneered at me, poking the barrel of their gun into my shoulder. “Light it on fire.”
I didn’t resist like Charlie had. What was the point? There was no fixing what had been broken. Might as well give the instruments an honored funeral on a pyre of dignity, as a farewell to the joy they’d provided us.
The instruments ignited into flames. So great was my rage, and so hot was my Fire, that the instruments were consumed in seconds.
Some cruel inmates cheered, even laughed. Most just stared at the flames like this was to be expected.
Everything we loved was destroyed around here.
When the fire burned out on its own, the guards left us alone. They went back into the prison, abandoning us there.
I turned my head to glance at the balcony that overlooked the prison yard. Standing beside Esther was the Warden. He’d been watching.
The Warden locked eyes with me, then put his hands behind his back as he turned to leave. Nothing else had to be done.
Charlie sniffed, then wiped his face. Everybody was crying. Nobody said anything. Whatcouldyou say, after going through something like that?
I moved first. I needed to get out of here and away from the smell of the ashes in the prison yard. I rolled my chair forward, and the rest of my friends followed me.
I didn’t know where else to go but the library. It was the quietest place in the prison, and we needed somewhere to grieve. We got a table in the back corner and sat around it, staring at the carpet for at least a half hour before somebody spoke.
“We have to do something,” Kallie said quietly. “The Warden can’t get away with this.”
“He already did.” Charlie’s voice was almost a sob. He was more broken than anybody.
“No,” Ez whispered. “He didn’t.”
Ez reached into his hoodie pocket and withdrew the camera. I didn’t realize he still had it.
I stared at it. “You were filming?”
“The entire thing.”
“Did the guards see it?”
