Vanilla

Fifty Six

[Leroy]

"My god," Marseille came through with something in her arms, heels clicking down the hallway before appearing at the door with the girl by her side. Anxious. "Oh my god! What have you—" She was up in flames and nearly lost for words; rare for an instructor like herself.

She came over, pushing past the other two standing around and unfolding the emergency foil blanket used in cases of hypothermia. "Whoever is responsible for this, individual or collective, you're all explaining this to Chef Allan when he arrives and do not expect a single word of help from me."

Marseille pried the layers of clothing off her student and tossed them my way, laying the reflective sheet over him and wrapping the excess around his body. She held out a hand for the muffler and had the bottom half of his face and his entire neck bundled up before ordering me to tie the coats and blazers around his torso and then the rest of his body.

"How did he get like this?" She directed to no one in particular, feeling his face in her hands. "The boy's freezing! Cox, are you done? Hurry up, we need to get him near a heater upstairs since there's none down here and if anything, it's oxygen he needs." Marseille gathered the remaining pieces of clothing we'd swapped the blanket for and helped Vanilla onto my back. He was limp.

"What are you three standing around for?" She snapped at the idle motherfuckers. "Help him!"

One of them got round to supporting him on my back, just in case his arm slipped, or he decided to fall backwards while we were going up the stairs. Someone else held doors open. His weight wasn't unmanageable in any way; still, I'd be lying if I said going against gravity with an additional fifty kilos or so wasn't tough. He was heavier now, compared to the previous time I had him on my back, mostly due to the additional layers of clothing.

I was spending most of my energy focusing on the next stable step upwards. Even I had any left to spare, I wasn't exactly in the right state of mind to be thinking straight—lost in adrenaline and the god-awful sinking in my chest.

"I have the heating pads." Someone arrived at the top of the stairs, just beyond the electronic gates leading down to the storage cellar. I couldn't afford to look up, with him on my back and knowing that off-setting any form of balance was probably going to send him slipping down. "What happened to the boy?"

"He's been in the freezer," Marseille went ahead, scanning her ID and holding the gates open for us to pass through. "For at least thirty minutes."

"What! Dressed in that?"

I had one of them lay out a parka coat on the floor by a pillar for support before setting him down on it and whoever it was coming through proceeded to arm the coats and blankets with heating pads without directly applying the heat to his skin. It was only after taking a step back that I recognized her as the school nurse. She shooed me aside, checking his pulse and then his pupils.

"Where's the bloody medics? Are they coming or not?"

"They said five minutes some time ago..."

I looked up. The one who'd made the call was several feet down the hallway, pacing at the end of it right before the entrance of Roth hall. His head was lowered; somewhat preventing a clear view of his face which may or may not have given away his culpability. If remorse was an emotion he'd ever feel.

The girl spoke to Marseille while the nurse attended to Vanilla and though I was aware of exactly whom I should be keeping my eyes on, flames could be fanned and the danger was in forgetting to be a candle. Tolerating a bunch of idiots was one thing. Having to deal with them fooling around with life-threatening situations was another.