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The drive back to Arison Academy was almost silent the next day. Only the sounds of rumbling from the Lincoln Continental were audible as Mordred and Opuntia rode once again at the crack of dawn. Opuntia knew her father was angry, even if he wasn’t saying anything to her. She could hear her parents arguing in hushed voices as she tried to fall asleep the night before, of course about the party she went to.
“She had absolutely no reason to be going there,” Mordred said, pacing back and forth around their room.
“Listen,” Adelaide started to say soothingly, trying to calm down her husband. “I think this is good for her. She’s still growing up and I think she should have a little freedom while she still can.”
‘While she still can,’ reminded Opuntia again of her unsure future, which made the warm feeling she had carried home begin to flicker and die out. She buried her face under her pillow, trying to drown out the voices and get to sleep, but it was no use.
“What freedom does she need?” Mordred shot back exasperatedly. “She’s already gotten everything she wanted by going to the academy, what kind of parent would I be if I gave her everything she desired, just like that?”
Everything she wanted? Opuntia had forgotten that she had, at one point, longed for Arison like nothing else. But surely, her father realized that she was far past that desire of her twelve-year-old self. Surely, even if he didn’t know her at all, he would be a madman to assume going there still brought her joy.
“With everything going on there, I thought I raised her better not to go to a party with those other boys she loves so much,” Mordred continued, now turned towards the pitch-black window, ignoring everything else.
“Surely you must know all of them aren’t bad,” Adelaide said, trying to reach out and take hold of his hand. “What about George Dodgerson’s son?”
“With the disasters happening within the academy’s walls, I can’t trust anyone.” Was his only response. And he was right. No matter what security measures and investigations the school put into place, they were not getting the closure they wanted on the case. But miraculously, they did not continue trying to take their frustration out on the students. With no visible acts of rebellion occurring in the past weeks, the school decided to lift its ban on extra circulars, but still kept the same new regulations around meal times and class periods. Even with her father’s cruel remarks, Opuntia’s spirit had not been completely smothered since the student historical society was back on. But there were a few key differences. They were lucky enough that Mr. Maguire was also not taking Redwood’s new rules that seriously since he mostly slipped away to his office to mark his class’ latest papers, but he would check in more frequently than they were used to. This required some tedious planning on behalf of Opuntia and her friends, who quickly were able to create some code names for key people and events. Of course, it had to be history-themed, which only created confusion since only some people in the club actually knew history.
“Can I be Napoleon? Pleaseeee” Sampson asked Opuntia as she began writing their code names on the board, connecting them with chalk-drawn lines.
“What? That doesn’t make any sense.” Cas scoffed at him.
“Why not? We have so much in common. We’re both short, both French, both cool--”
“Guys, we need to focus,” Opuntia scolded them, turning her back away from the blackboard to glare at them. Out of the entire club, only Eng was paying attention to her. While Cas and Sampson were squabbling, Teddy was busy scribbling a picture of Sampson dressed like Napoleon, and Wilfred had his eyes glued to his chemistry textbook.
“Ok, sorry miss Marie Antoinette.” Sampson replied, raising his hands in the air.
Opuntia continued writing down names, all based on the French Revolution. The ender was Jacobin, whose philosophy inspired many in the rebellion. While Michael was Marat, the outspoken revolutionary writer who was murdered in his bathtub by a supporter of the French monarchy. David, the famous painter, was Dorian Dalloway, who immortalized Marat’s death and glorified him to be something of a brave hero. The monarchy was, obviously, the staff, with King Louis XIV being Redwood. And finally, Pope Pius VII was Roger, an easy choice.
The second thing that was different about this meeting was that it was not just throwing ideas around and debating them pointlessly. They now had months worth of information to organize and connect, so Opuntia was able to generate five main questions the Caesar Six was there to solve.
- Who caused the Death of Marat? (Michael’s expulsion)
- Who does the monarchy blame for the revolution? (Do the staff have any idea who the ender could be?)
- What are Pius’ motives? (What are Roger’s motives?)
- Where is the National Assembly? (The Coven of Caliban)
- Where is Jacobin? (The ender)
If all of these questions could be answered, it was almost certain that every mystery surrounding the web the ender had created could be untangled, and the ender himself unmasked. But it was easier said than done. The boys all sat in silence for a moment, pondering these questions while also trying to remember who everyone was supposed to be. Then, Wilfred raised his hand.
“Fins, this isn’t class, you know,” Teddy chuckled.
“Just to make things more ordered,” Wilfred shrugged. “But anyways, I thought it was pretty obvious who caused the death of Marat. The monarchy and himself. You could say the ender— or sorry, Jacobin, asked him to do it, but then we must ask why he would want his greatest supporter to be expelled?”
“Maybe he didn’t know Marat would die for it,” Teddy suggested. “He might have thought Marat was a tad bit smarter and could get away with it,”
“But then, why was Marat so happy to die?” Sampson pointed out, despite how absurd it sounded to be speaking this coded sentence. Opuntia could tell Cas was not appreciating these historical inaccuracies they were casually throwing about. “Ok, he wasn’t leaping for joy or anything but he didn’t look mad. He had accepted his fate at that point.”
“But you can also think of it like Jacobin wanted Marat out because he was drawing too much attention to him, and the monarchy was getting closer to finding out who they were,” Wilfred said, now switching up the narrative completely. But Teddy immediately rejected this notion.
“Ok, but the newspapers, remember?” He said, now drawing a picture from memory of Michael holding the newspaper. “Why would the ender write to him, asking for a newspaper article to be published if he wanted everything on a low profile? He could’ve gotten away with it completely,” They all looked at Opuntia for her thoughts on the situation, which she didn’t like. Just because she was probably the most passionate about the mystery, didn’t mean she wanted to make the end-all decisions. She pulled up a chair and wiped the chalk shavings on her sweater.
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “It could be possible that Jacobin wrote Marat another note, which could’ve been what the pope was getting. But then that just brings in the pope’s motives. I mean, I was sure he was the fink for Marat since they are roommates and the king mentioned Marat’s clothes being wet. That could’ve been something only the pope could’ve seen and reported.”
“And they never said who reported them? You never heard them confess their sources?” Sampson asked her, as she wracked her brains, trying to remember.
“I don’t think the school would expel someone if they didn’t have solid alibi’s, would they?” Engelbart thought aloud, forgetting about their code names. He quickly corrected himself. “Sorry, I mean the king wouldn’t uhh…kill someone without evidence,”
“I think you just answered your question there, Engy,” Sampson said sadly, shaking his head. “Of course, a king would kill just for their benefit, who’s to say they would in this place too? If you ask me, I think, making my way to question two, the monarchy thinks Marat is Jacobin,”
Everyone considered this idea. They really had no idea what the actual people in charge were doing about the situation behind the scenes, besides hiring a private investigator. They weren’t sure if these new security measures were an act of punishment after believing they’d caught the ender, or if they were doing everything in their power to prevent the ender from attacking again.
“Maybe they’re not wrong,” Teddy said slowly, before quickly explaining. “Ok, ok, we said Marat wouldn’t be smart enough to pull off a stunt like that but maybe he wasn’t working alone the whole time. It could’ve been a mix of him, David and the Pope until they had that falling out.”
Michael, the actual ender? Opuntia was so sure he had been piggybacking off of the chaos the entire time, that she didn’t stop to consider the possibility that it really could’ve been him behind it.
“His father is a mechanic,” Wilfred added. “He could have gotten the petrol from there.”
“Absolutely not,” Cas scrunched his nose up in disgust, refusing the idea. “Look at the difference between the second act and third act. One was precise and the other was messy, and he immediately got caught. Marat had no clue what he was doing. He was just scared of losing his power since the real Jacobin hadn’t acted in ages, so he felt the need to step up.” Cas seemed to be echoing Opuntia’s thoughts at the scene of the bathroom. There was a clear distinction between the controlled and perfect mess in the closet and the flooded bathroom.
“The first act didn’t seem that precise, though” Teddy reminded him. Cas seemed stumped at his remark.
“Even if he didn’t do everything, the cov--national assembly still thinks he’s a hero,” Eng said, looking over at Mr. Maguire’s office door nervously. He then explained to them the things he would overhear in debate meetings while he was keeping time. Several coven members were hidden away in there. It seemed to be the hub for conspiracy with their support not even being kept hidden. The topic of debate at the first meeting after Michael’s expulsion was whether or not he deserved it, and unsurprisingly, there was hardly any opposition.
“I bet they’ve still got that mail boy, too,” Sampson said with gritted teeth. “They can pass all the notes they want without a teacher snatching it.”
Opuntia was almost surprised to hear the coven was still as active as ever, though she was slightly naive in thinking that the “death” of their leader would also kill off all of their devotion. She was now sure Dorian had taken his place, and like David, was painting his friend to be the mastermind behind it all, waiting for them to avenge him. She groaned at the thought of another poorly cooked-up plan that would drive Redwood to turn this place into the eighth circle of hell.
“Is it stupid to hope that nothing else will happen?” Teddy asked in a small voice and sheepish smile. “Maybe Marat isn’t Jacobin, but if that’s the case, then it’s been months since Jacobin did anything,” It wasn’t stupid. Opuntia prayed nearly every night that it would just fade off into the distance, and fizzle out like a candle in the rain. She wished that Michael could have been the ender, and his departure finally meant peace. But she knew in her heart of hearts that it was too good to be true. This shadow man, this seeming mover of mountains, would not just vanish into dust or get bored of his trick. He was out there, somewhere, just biding his time.156Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqiD59G9r0j
Outside of those classroom walls, however, Opuntia had to put all of those thoughts out of her mind. The period of early acceptance for most universities had already begun, but she knew most in her year, including herself, were hesitant in applying, knowing their grades weren’t good enough. Only Wilfred was sealing his envelopes to ivy league schools shut, with his 93-grade average, perfectly crafted college essays and an astonishing list of accomplishments. All of her other friends, however, well… were all waiting for midterms and other assignments as a chance to hopefully give them a boost. One of these assignments was an important chemistry lab to be performed the day after the club meeting. The morning of, Opuntia walked down to breakfast to find Wilfred once again with his nose buried in his notes, rereading the procedure over and over. She was lucky that they would be working in groups because she knew that chemistry was not her strong suit and needed all the help from Wilfred she could get, along with Engelbart, her other lab partner.
“So, the pink colour represents that the reaction is done?” Eng asked Wilfred slowly, looking over his shoulder at his neatly written notes.
“Not exactly,” Wilfred explained as Opuntia listened in. “Since it is a neutralization reaction, in order for the solution to be completely neutralized, you need equal amounts of both acid and base.” Sampson yawned next to him as he talked.
“You are titrating, meaning you are starting with a flask of acid and slowly adding a base using a burette. The indicator is added before the reaction to determine when the reaction has reached its equivalence point, or the point where every molecule of acid has reacted with every molecule of the base.”
“And the indicator is the pink stuff, right?” Opuntia cut in, looking at the picture of pale pink solution in their textbook.
“Right,” Wilfred replied. “But if you add too much base, Dr. Wozniak will know. It won’t be the right kind of pink. So we have to be extremely precise.
“What do you mean, right kind of pink?” Opuntia said nervously, wondering how obvious it would be if they failed.
“Like this. This is too much.” Wilfred reached for the magenta ribbon holding her hair up and tugged it.
“Just listen to me and you both will be fine,” Wilfred assured them after seeing the apprehensive look on his lab partners’ faces.
“You guys are just lucky you don’t have my partner,” Sampson told them, his mouth full of toast. “I just know George Kennedy is probably gonna turn the thing green somehow. He’s a moron and a Caliban, though I guess that’s one and the same, huh?”
“Keep your voice down,” Opuntia muttered, knowing they were still being watched.
As the three went to their second-period chemistry class, Dr. Wozniak was waiting in the doorway, his scarred arms crossed as he watched everyone silently pull on their lab coats and lab goggles. He then tramped to the front of the room.
“Today’s titration lab will have all groups complete the procedure three times perfectly.” He ordered in his thick Polish accent.
“You will not leave the room until I see all three flasks with the right indicator colour, and then all instruments will be cleaned and put away properly. There will be NO textbook usage, only notebooks for calculations and observations. Full lab reports are due beginning of class on Friday. You may begin.”
As soon as he finished his speech, the class sprang into action, all wanting to have enough time to complete three titration experiments. Opuntia and Eng turned to Wilfred, waiting for his instruction.
“Alright,” he said while writing all of their names on the observation sheet. “I will begin the calculations table. We need to get 25mL of the hydrochloric acid for our acid, and weigh out 5 grams of the sodium hydroxide for our base.”
Opuntia set out to work with Eng right behind her. She wasn’t entirely hopeless on this. She knew that acid and base neutralized to have an end product of water and some other compound. In this case, it would be water, and the remaining chloride from the acid and sodium from the base would make salt. But still, she’d much rather follow Wilfred’s every word in hopes of getting the best grade possible. As she reached for the tin containing the powder of sodium hydroxide, she was met with Dorian Dalloway’s sneering face from the next lab bench over.
“You’ll be in here all day, Arison,” he remarked, measuring his powder on a brass scale until it showed 5 grams.
“And you’ll be in here all night, Dalloway,” she shot back, now having another reason for wanting to get this experiment done as quickly as she could. She also measured out 5 grams of the white powder that smelled strongly of cleaning supplies. She then diluted the powder in a beaker of distilled water, making the smell even more pungent. She strode back over to her lab bench to find Eng holding a flask containing the acid.
“Perfect,” said Wilfred, clapping his hands together. “Now add the base to the burette and place the flask under the burette,”
They both did as they were told, Opuntia standing on her tiptoes to pour her sodium hydroxide solution into the burette, a tall, thin glass tube with a stopcock on the bottom, allowing for a controlled amount of solution to trickle out and into the flask below it.
Wilfred recorded more observations on their sheet, then looked up to study their setup.
“I think we’re alright to start,” he concluded, glancing at the time. “Opuntia, add three drops of the phenolphthalein into the acid flask, and once mixed, Eng will turn the lever to start titrating in the base.” Opuntia went ahead and added three drops of the indicator. The acid remained colourless, however, only to turn pink once the acid and base had reacted fully. Looking over to her right, she noticed Dorian’s group was still writing down observations and was falling behind.
“You want me to titrate?” Engelbart asked nervously. “But I--I’m not steady. I’ll mess it up, one of you guys should do it,”
“I will be observing the volume on the burette,” he said, pointing to the graduations on the side of the tube indicating the millilitres of solution. “And Opuntia will be mixing the flask so the base gets mixed in evenly. There’s nothing to worry about. We’ll take it slow.” Wilfred said calmly as Eng rolled his sleeves up in preparation.
“But not too slow,” Opuntia added, still watching Dalloway’s group.
Engelbart counted down from three before hesitantly opening the stopcock, watching as a thin stream of base poured out and directly into the neck of the flask. As he did this, Dr. Wozniak began pacing around the room, watching each group and their progress with narrowed eyes. Opuntia mixed the flask but saw no visible change yet. After only a second, Eng quickly turned the lever shut.
“Good,” Wilfred said, tapping his chin in thought. “Because the solutions are similar in strength, I assume we’ll need approximately the same amount of base to completely titrate it, that is, only if they are the same concentration, which I assume they are not,” he blabbed on.
“But how are we supposed to find the concentration of the acid by only knowing the concentration of the base?” Opuntia asked, still swirling the flask absentmindedly as Eng began titrating again.
“You can use the amount in millilitres of base it takes for the acid-base to fully neutralize, then using its known concentration, convert that to moles, and then that will be the moles of both the hydrogen AND hydroxide moles in the solution, because of the 1:1 ratio,” Wilfred explained, reciting almost word for word what Wozniak had told them during their lecture.
“Uhhh, guys,” Eng started to say in a small voice, but Wilfred continued on,
“This will be when a reaction has happened, of course, but we can then determine the concentration of base by using the equation for concentration, moles divided by volume in litres. We can also determine the--”
Opuntia felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see Eng looking nervously at the flask she was still holding.
“Is this supposed to be happening?” He asked. Wilfred was wrong, a reaction was already happening, but not one that was described in the textbook. The flask now full of the acid-base mixture was growing hotter by the second and was beginning to fizz menacingly, emitting a thick white gas. She immediately set it down and turned to Wilfred, whose eyes suddenly grew wide with terror. He could only say two words, so taken aback that he had resorted to his native tongue.
“Voy paska,”
What happened next was almost a blur, so fast that Opuntia could barely process what was happening. She felt herself topple to the ground as Wilfred tackled her from the side, pushing the three of them out of the way and into the bench behind her. A sharp pain shot through her head as she hit the ground, closing her eyes on impact. As they opened, what greeted her was something that made time stop. Ablaze. From their flask shot up a jet of raging fire, lighting the dim room with an eerie amber glow. Screams cried out from all around her and she heard clatters as the other boys crouched to the ground. But all she could see was the fire above her, pulsing and stretching its flames like tentacles, trying to spread to the rest of the room. But just as soon as it started, it died. It shrivelled up and swallowed itself, leaving only that white smoke behind, its pungent smell burning Opuntia’s eyes and nose even through her safety goggles.
The moment felt like it lasted days. She just lay there, paralyzed from fear and pain as every muscle in her body ached, a crushing weight on top of her legs. The moment burned with silence after the fire died out, but was broken by the sound of metal clanging against the table as Dr. Wozniak slammed a tin on top of the burnt flask, his hands trembling.
“Tell me exactly what you put in this flask.” He growled, leaning across their bench to stare down at Opuntia, Wilfred, and Engelbart, all lying awkwardly on top of each other. Wilfred was incoherently mumbling in Finnish, looking absolutely dumbfounded, while she could feel Eng rubbing his head next to her.
“We just took what was from the stock of acid and base,” Opuntia answered shrilly, her voice shaking. She couldn’t understand how this could have happened. Had they really messed up the instructions that badly?
“Everyone stop what their doing!” Dr. Wozniak cried out to the room, and all of the other boys froze, most still remaining on the floor. Opuntia could see Dorian feet away from her, looking more scared than anyone. His thick glasses were askew and his own flask was still in his hands as he crouched under the bench.
“Put that down, now!” Wozniak called to Dalloway, and he did as he was told immediately. Wozniak then crossed over to where Opuntia and Engelbart had gotten their materials, studying them without a word. Opuntia continued to pant heavily, the gas from their messed-up reaction stinging her throat. The doctor wafted the white powder in his nose, taking in the strong smell. Then, recognition seemed to dawn on his face.
“Students, stand up,” he said, somehow managing to keep his voice calm. Everyone began to clatter to their feet. Wilfred climbed off of Opuntia and Eng’s legs, still talking to himself inaudibly. Eng stood up and offered Opuntia his hand but she did not take it, for she had just noticed something that made this situation somehow even worse. She was so focused on the fire, obviously, that she hadn’t noticed something that wasn’t there the day before. On the underside of the wooden benchtop was a message, scrawled in black ink, in thin writing she had come to know so well.
“What’s wrong?” Eng questioned her anxiously, thinking she was too badly hurt to stand. But she only responded by crawling over to put her face almost right up against the table, trying to make out the tiny letters. From the other side of the lab, Dorian watched her, slowly realizing that he also had a message written under his bench.
“Those who make mistakes
May be the only ones
156Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPNStUMW3iv
with pink flesh still intact
will your eyes dare to read these words?
Or will they burn with unsalted tears
because don’t you know?
Yellow and green
make red.”
It was him. There was no denying it. The ender had emerged again from the darkness, and this time he was out for blood. She whipped her head around to stare at Dorian, David, the supporter of Jacobin, but his face was stricken with disbelief, also reading the words for the first time.
“Now everyone leave everything exactly where it is and exit the room. Touch nothing, say nothing, leave.” Dr. Wozniak demanded. Students crowded around the door, desperate to leave and some still coughing from the gas now spreading throughout the room. Opuntia left in silence, still in complete shock and trying desperately to remember the words she had just read. This couldn’t be possible. How could the ender have caused this? What exactly had they done? And most importantly, what did they want? Because this was definitely not the action of a school rebellion, it was a calculated maniac, who had not a care in the world what happened to anyone else. She began wondering what would’ve happened if they hadn’t noticed in time, or if Wilfred hadn’t pushed her out of the way. She felt a jolt remembering that she was holding the flask and would’ve likely had her hand charred to a crisp. No lab safety could have prepared her for that.
With class ending much earlier than expected, the three of them travelled to the library for the remainder of the period, Opuntia only breaking the silence when she asked Wilfred for a pencil and paper, who handed it to her distractedly, his blue eyes staring off into the distance, clearly thinking hard.
She immediately began to write down what she had read under the table, not getting it perfect but capturing the jist and handed it to Engelbart, who took in a sharp intake of breath when reading.
“So this is…not from something we did then,” He concluded.
“Of course not,” said Wilfred, snapping out of his daze. “There was no way anything we added could’ve created a fire like that. That’s why the materials had to have been contaminated, but I’m just not sure…with what.” He then reached for the textbook and began flipping through it, looking for any kind of chemical reaction.
“I just don’t know what this means now,” Opuntia said, staring down at the copied message. “What this means for the ender, and what he wants.”
Eng wanted to say something, but like always, he held his tongue, thinking that if he spoke these words, it would make it true. But as he watched Opuntia he couldn’t help but remember the things he witnessed on Halloween night, and it only made him more afraid, not for himself, but for her, and he wasn’t alone in thinking this.
Word spread like wildfire around Arison about what happened, especially with Wozniak’s classroom being closed off for the rest of the day, needing to be fumigated properly and chemicals tested to confirm what materials had seemingly replaced or contaminated the proper ones. Not even the staff could stop it, as they had to hold an emergency meeting at lunchtime to discuss the events that had just occurred. Opuntia was reunited with the rest of her friends as she arrived at the cafeteria, Teddy running up to her to hug her. A lot of boys in the lunchroom raised their eyebrows at this, but neither of them cared.
“Thank God you’re okay!” he exclaimed. He was still able to plaster a smile on his face, but Opuntia could tell there was something off about it like it would falter at any moment.
“Yeah, well, more like thank God Wilfred was there,” she replied modestly. She sat down at the table with the rest of her friends, at least being thankful that she didn’t have to explain what happened this time since it was pretty much common knowledge amongst the students. Wilfred paired up with Cas as they each poured over their textbooks, as well as taken out library books on chemistry. Eng was watching them silently, looking as if he wanted to help but was unsure as to how. They sat in silence for a few moments before they spotted Sampson enter the lunchroom after them, his backpack hanging loosely off his arm.
“Why couldn’t my beaker have exploded?” he said jokingly, shaking his head in disappointment. “Hey, I wouldn’t have minded if my lab partner got a little messed up, but thanks to you guys, safe to say I got out of a lab report scott free.”
Opuntia appreciated him trying to keep the mood light, she really did, but for the rest of them, the shock and fear had not entirely worn off yet, so laughter and jokes seemed nearly impossible. But Opuntia figured even Sampson knew this, as something about his delivery seemed ingenuine, just like Teddy’s smile. Her friends wouldn’t lie to her though, right? Sure, they didn’t tell her every little detail about themselves, and she definitely didn’t, but she knew them well enough to know that all of them, besides Eng, were spouting prophets of their minds. Not feeling afraid to say their opinions, show approval, or disdain. She figured it practically unthinkable for Sampson to go five minutes without sharing his thoughts. But there he was; there they all were. On top of everything that just went down only hours ago, she didn’t need more questions thrown into the mix. She tried to brush it off and just pretend that they were simply afraid of being overheard by any reentering staff, and that’s why they all remained silent, pondering. But that wasn’t why, because as soon as Opuntia was out of earshot later that day, the rest of the boys sprung into action.
“Psst, Engy, come here.” Sampson was gesturing for Engelbart to come to the corner of the locker room where he and Teddy were huddled. He finished pulling his gym shirt over his head and complied, though slightly suspicious.
“Just forget about it Sampson, you asking him is just going to make him think about it.” Teddy pleaded, trying to pull Sampson away.
“No Dodgers, we need more insight, and he was a witness,” Sampson argued, breaking free of Teddy’s arm. “Look, Eng, I have a working theory that can’t…exactly be shared with everyone, y’know? So, remember that lame Caliban meeting we kind of crashed? And remember how they showed proof that they worked with the ender? And then on top of that, remember what they said about Arison?”
“Don’t say that, come on, we can’t make assumptions about--”
“No, I remember.” Eng cut in, addressing Sampson. “You think they’re targeting her too, right?”
“Told ya,” Sampson pointed at Teddy with a pompous expression. “You can’t ignore the facts. Just because we yelled at them for saying those things doesn’t mean they still weren’t going to act out. They’re targeting her, plain and simple.”
“Is that not what I’ve been saying this whole time?” Cas and Wilfred appeared behind them, obviously eavesdropping.
“She’s too invested in this thing if anything. That’s probably only made it worse. It’s given the ender even more reason to go after her, whatever they may want.” Cas said.
“That’s just the way she is,” Teddy sighed, hating the thought of talking so much about his friend behind her back, even if it was out of concern. He didn’t understand why the rest of them had such a problem with simply expressing this to her, though he had a hunch. “She always has to know things. And besides, this school is pretty much her home, would you also not want to stop whoever is destroying it?”
Cas rolled his eyes at this comment. “Not if it would potentially kill me, no. And not for any place like this, no matter how much of my family went here.”
“We need to think about this logically.” Wilfred piped up, tying his blonde hair into a small ponytail. “The materials were set out for the whole classroom. It could have been any of us that caused the fire. We were just the first ones to do it. How could the ender have known that?”
“Dorian did also seem surprised.” Eng pointed out, remembering the aftermath of the scene. “If he was still working with the ender, shouldn’t he have known this was going to happen?”
“Well, if Michael was the link, maybe the rest of the coven was cut off from the ender’s correspondence.” Cas shrugged. At these words, Sampson groaned loudly out of frustration. The few other boys left in the locker room looked over at them in curiosity.
“Can we stop with these ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’? It’s already taking long enough for your supposed egghead brain to figure out what even happened in that lab, we need some actual action if we’re going to stop the ender.” Wilfred looked taken aback at Sampson’s comment, leaving him with a politely perplexed look on his face.
“Excuse you,” Cas shot back, defending his roommate. “Maybe if you were a tad bit smarter or actually tried, you could be helping us.”
Sampson’s brows furrowed and his mouth flew open in retaliation but Teddy stepped in.
“Ok, you know what else is getting us nowhere? Fighting for no reason!” He said quickly. “I’m sure that we can only even think of stopping the ender’s attacks if we are all getting along and working together. AND that includes Opuntia.”
The rest of the boys grumbled at Teddy’s very accurate comments. Teddy sighed again, thinking the spat was over, but Sampson of course had to get the last word.
“Whatever, you guys can do whatever you want, but I have a theory and I’m going to test it. I’m splitting,” He said hotly, before turning to walk out the door and into the gym, its walls echoing the sounds of bouncing balls and squeaking shoes.
“Yeah, that’s right. Go and get yourself killed, that’ll totally win her heart.” Cas sneered under his breath, but no one besides Engelbart heard him. 156Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPri20i5BQF
None of them talked to each other for the rest of the day, so Opuntia only had the whisperings through the halls to listen to. ‘He’s back,’ ‘the ender’s here to stay,’ ‘He’s hairy, no one has a clue what he wants now,’ ‘even the Calibans didn’t plan this,’ were all snatches of conversations she picked up as she walked alone, up the dormitory tower and to her only safe haven, to let everything she was feeling out. But she was even too distraught for proper form, for her usual metaphors, for her pretty words to soothe herself. Words were screaming, kicking, beating the sides of her skull and begging to be let free. They shot out like a jet of flames instead of the usual stream of emotions.
Are you a coward? Or just too pompous
to dare show your face?
Are you a genius? Or too stupid
to realize the harm you have done?
Are you a leader? Or a lone wolf
to cast out your biggest fan?
Do you hate me? Or do you not care
to nearly kill me with the flames?
I don’t know. I can’t know. I shouldn’t know. I don’t want to know. I have to know.
Who? What? When? How? Where?
I don’t know. Maybe I can live with that.
But the why,
the WHY
WHY?
WHY WHY WHY WHY?
WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY
WHY WHY WHY WHY?
Is what destroys me. 156Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcuwMLx1GL7
156Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGVT543yRVf
Are you enjoying what you’re doing to me? Or are you still unaware?
156Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLt6eXmx3rv
