The Academy

Chapter Thirty

It was pitch black. It was so dark that I couldn't tell if my eyes were opened or closed.

There was something sealing my lips together and my wrists were sore, tightly bound together by a rope. I was sitting in a plastic chair, like the type in the classrooms, but that was the only clue as to where I was. My feet were tied to the chair legs. I could feel the coolness of the metal along my calves.

I tried to yell, but it sounded like just a frantic hum. There was no use. I was all alone. Or I thought so, until I heard a hum back.

I attempted to scream again, but no such thing left my body. It was held in by whatever was on my mouth. There was nothing I could do. I couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't see anything. I had to wonder if I was dead. No, there was no way death could feel like this.

A dim lightbulb flickered on right above me, allowing me to see a radius of around ten feet from me in all directions. Directly in front of me sat another girl bound to another plastic chair, a piece of duct tape sealing their lips, a few strands of curly, dark hair stuck in the tape. Her eyes were wide of fear at the sight of me. Marisol.

My eyes began to burn, the familiar sting of tears making an appearance. I breathed in deeply through my nose in an effort to calm myself down, but it didn't work very much. My chest shook violently as my eyes kept tearing up, but not a single drop fell. Unlike Marisol, who was bawling her eyes out.

The floor under me was concrete and stained with dark colors. I tried to flail my feet and hit the concrete to make noise, but I knew it wouldn't make a difference. The only other person here with me was in the exact same situation I was in. Marisol couldn't help me, just like I couldn't help her.

"Hello, girls."

We both looked over to where the voice came from, but all we saw was darkness. When all the lights came on, Marisol and I both tried to scream.

"I take it you know," Rosterford said, walking perfectly without his cane. He probably didn't need it. "Meaning you can't be here to tell anyone else."
Marisol was shaking so hard that her chair was making a vibrating sound. I just glared at Rosterford, my eyes stone-cold and wishing death upon him.

He walked up to me and ripped the duct tape off of my mouth with one powerful yank. I opened my mouth to scream, but he slapped me across the face, silencing me. Blood from my lips trickled into my mouth, tasting like copper.

"Kayleigh Stockholm," he said, bending down so he could look me eye-to-eye. The right side of his lips curled up into a smirk. "You're the new girl. How'd you get caught up in all of this?"
I chose not to justify his question with a reply. Instead, I just stared at him.

He soon got bored with me, so he ripped off Marisol's duct tape with the same force he used on mine. Marisol whined like a sad puppy and her whole body shook even more. She licked her bloody lips and spat on Rosterford's face, a fine mist of her blood and saliva spattered onto his cheeks. Not a second later, he slapped Marisol as hard as he possibly could. The entire left side of her face turned bright red.

"You girls are here," he began, walking away from the two of us to a pile of boxes and leaned against it, "because you can't keep your noses in your own business." He waited for one of us to say something, and when we didn't, he said, "You two are awfully quiet for currently being toe-to-toe with death. You're weak. Ivy and Vivienne each put up much more of a struggle than the two of you combined."
Rosterford moved both of our chairs so we were now side-by-side, facing him. Marisol's eyes were completely closed. This felt more like a nightmare than reality.