Inquest

Inquest Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Unaware

Staring at the school’s double doors from my car, I beg myself to turn the key and simply drive away. I don’t want to face this. I can’t stand the idea of running into Lance today. Seeing any shade of hatred in his eyes will break me. After last night, I feel as weak as a kitten. Don’t get me wrong, I’m mad as hell at him for turning on me, but his betrayal is still too fresh to let my anger overpower the crushing hurt. There is no way I can be anywhere near him today.

My hand refuses to turn the ignition. Ditching is tolerated as long as it isn’t excessive, but only before a student’s Inquest. After, one class missed and the Concealment Officers are scouring the streets for you. The idea of being caught by those thugs again makes me shiver hard enough that the keys I’m touching jangle anxiously. Talent training is taken way too seriously. Especially since most of the students will be slotted into mundane jobs like accounting or business management.

Only a select few actually become part of the lifeblood that keeps our society together, the Specialists, people whose talents are so profound that they can use them to police, find, or see in ways others cannot. But it doesn’t matter that so few are chosen, the process of examining the teenage population for the gems is more important than anything else. We wouldn’t survive without the Specialists. At least that’s what the Guardians believe.

Slowly, I pull my keys from the ignition and take a deep breath. This is going to be hell.

The walk from my car to the doors passes in strained silence. I’m early. I wanted to try and slip into my first class before anyone else could notice me. The problem, I realize as I stand in the empty hallway, is that I have no idea what class I’m supposed to be going to. My Inquest will have changed my schedule, dramatically. I only had my old schedule for barely two weeks. All of my electives will be replaced with talent training. Which leads to another problem. I only had four electives before, but now I have seven talents. My feet drag me toward the office as I wonder if they will even be able to fit everything in.

They can’t.

I stare at my new schedule and try to keep the bile in the bottom of my stomach where it belongs. My first three periods cover the only three general education classes I’m still required to take, English, History, and Trigonometry. Get the unimportant ones out of the way first, I suppose. My fourth hour makes me want to cry and throw the tacky grey chair I’m sitting on across the floor at the same time. Speed and Strength training. Lance will be in that class. All the football players will be there with him, training to become Guardians. With their Guardian blades strapped precariously around their left arms.

My fingers reach up and touch the scab that formed over where Lance’s blade nicked me last night. I can’t face that again. But what choice do I have? Blocking myself from even thinking about it, I scan the rest of my schedule. Spiritualism and Perception training in place of lunch and fifth hour, Concealment and Vision together in sixth hour since those two are so commonly paired, Naturalism seventh. That should have been the end, seven classes, but I spot one more lurking at the end of the list. My Class Preparatory Course, the first time this class has ever been offered at any school anywhere. Destroyer 101.

“You got to be kidding me. I can’t believe this.”

I was talking more to myself than Principal Andrews, but she answers me anyway. “What I can’t believe is that I’m even being forced to let you step foot back in my school. President Howe’s orders or not, it’s insane that they’re making me train the…train you.”