Slated

Chapter 32

Sorry I haven't updated this book in forever. I somewhat totally forgot about it. Thank you for waiting. Chapter 32 has arrived!!
Song: Sugar for the Pill- Slowdive
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"I wonder what he did? It must have been bad." Amy seems fascinated and not remotely upset. "Wasn't he your art teacher?"

"He is my art teacher," I say.

"Well, I don't think he is any more. They've never marched someone off in front of everyone like that before, have they?"

"I don't want to talk about it!" I say, but Amy persists.

"Come on, you must have heard something. Tell us."

"That's enough, Amy," Jazz says.

Amy looks startled. "What's it to you?" she says.

I take off. I'd been roped in to going for a walk with them when we got home, never mind that I want to be alone in my room. But Mum said they couldn't go on their own, and here I am.

But no one said we couldn't walk some distance apart, did they? I race ahead, needing the speed, needing to run. It is the same footpath I went on that first walk with Amy and Jazz, three weeks ago today. Is that really all? It seems much longer ago than that. That day it was all a wonder: the woods, the trees, the fresh green smells. Then, I didn't know about Lorders, didn't know Ben. Didn't know about missing persons. The list of things of which I was ignorant was so long. Is it, still?

I can't stop seeing Gianelli's head hit the roof of the van, him slumping to the ground. That Lorder kicking him like a sack of potatoes into the van. All because he drew a picture of Phoebe. Now he is missing, like she is; like Tori, too. Where is he, now? Where are all of them?

I run up to the lookout, run back half-way, then start walking back to the top. Despite the dark thoughts my Levo is safely masked by excessive exercise up and down a hill.

I can't understand why they took Gianelli. All he did was draw Phoebe. It's not like it is a secret that the Lorders took her; they yanked her out of a class, didn't they?

And there couldn't have been any more public way to take Gianelli; there's no hiding what happened to him.

Inside, a whisper: maybe, that is the point.

Gianelli's minute of silence for Phoebe, his draw something you care about, then drawing her, himself. These things all said that her being taken was wrong. He had to be punished for disagreeing with the government's actions. Doing what they did in front of all the students shouted loud and clear, without using words: we are in control. We can do as we will. If they did it as a secret, what would be the point?

"Hello, Slater."

I jump, so absorbed in my thoughts that I paid no attention to my surroundings. My feet had me at the lookout point again, but this time, I wasn't alone.

A man leans on a tree overlooking the path. Standing in shadows but visible enough if I'd been using my eyes outwards instead of in. I flush, realising he could have been watching my ascent for ages, that I'd just walked past him with no notice. That he was now between me, and Jazz and Amy.

"Aren't you going to say hello?" He smiles and it isn't a nice smile. Greasy hair, an unhealthy complexion, both too pale and blotchy red on his cheeks and nose. He doesn't look the sort to be walking footpaths. His face is somehow familiar, but who is he...? Ah, yes: the bricklayer. I stared at him building a garden wall in the village, then had nightmares of brick towers.

"Isn't this a lucky coincidence?" he says. "I've been wanting to talk to you. Come and sit down." The way he says coincidence makes me think it is nothing of the sort. Has he been watching, following?