Secrets Are For Keeping

Chapter Twenty-Six

The next day I found myself free from doing anything.

Somehow, even after everything had happened, even after Pepper notified me of my failure to save myself from landing on the warning list, I'd managed to successfully make it into the upper half of scores for the simulation.

I had a vague idea that the inspectors might've just taken pity on me and decided it was a better idea to leave me alone after what had happened.

I definitely wasn't complaining though.

Instead, I wasted the day wandering the halls or talking with Zander or Pepper. The entire time, Kain was nowhere to be found. I'd seen him only in the morning when I'd woken up, just as I had every other day besides the one day I slept in, and then he'd gone off somewhere else. I hadn't bothered looking for him either, since if he didn't want to be near us that was fine with me.

Everybody was pretty shocked by the time lunch came, seeing as every other day by that time they'd announced something or some activity that we would be forced to participate in. I grabbed a cheeseburger and fries and was actually able to eat it, unlike how I hadn't eaten anything the night before for dinner or for breakfast that morning. I hadn't been able to force myself to eat when I knew there was a girl somewhere out there, along with many other students who'd originally been in the school with us and now no longer were. The guilt had been weighing me down. The feeling that none of them actually deserved to have been taken and if anyone should've been taken, it should've been me.

I deserved it more than any of them and I had no right to be happily sitting around with my friends while they suffered for mistakes that I'd made. The real reason they were inspecting us was because of crime after all.

I ignored the guilt during lunch though, and ate the cheeseburger. All of the lunch food had drastically improved and I knew that the reason why was because it wasn't actually lunch food at all. It hadn't been made by lunch ladies, it had been ordered, or cooked, or whatever by the inspectors. School cafeterias couldn't physically make food that tasted this delicious and the change was too eccentric to ignore.

I picked up another fry and shoved it in my mouth as Zander and Pepper talked wildly about card games and argued over which card game was actually the best.

"Okay, you're an idiot if you actually think War is better than B.S. I doubt you've even played B.S.," Pepper said in a joking manner.

"Actually, War is twenty thousand times better than B.S. War is so intense, it's literally called war for a reason," Zander replied, before eating another one of his own fries.

"Fine, I'll challenge you. We're going to play both B.S. and War, and then we'll see which one's actually better." Pepper took a sip out of her soda, which was another upside to the change in the cafeteria: they now offered soda.

"Nova, do you wanna join us?" Pepper asked, as she stood up to throw out the remains of her lunch.

I considered it. I really didn't have anything else to do, so I decided I'd go along. There was nothing to lose by doing so. I nodded in reply, then stood up to put my own lunch in the trash.

We returned to our seats and the two continued their playful bickering.

"Do you even know how to play B.S.?"

"Obviously. Who doesn't?" I could tell by Zander's expression that he was totally bluffing.

"Oh, we'll see. I guess we already know who's going to win."

"Yea, we really do." They both stared each other down.

And then came the one thing everyone had been expecting for the entire first half of the day.

An announcement came up over the speaker.

"Inspections for the day will be longer than usual. We remind you all to not be late for your inspections and to be completely honest with us at all times."

I could almost hear the groans of everyone in the room this time.

It was starting to get old. The random activities and random mentions of honesty. But I knew the inspection was almost over. That single thought kept me going, kept me playing along with all of their stupid exercises and actions, even after everything I'd seen and gone through because of it. We were actually lucky the only thing we were going to be forced to do was to have a longer inspection. It made me nervous, but not too nervous, since it couldn't be worse than any of the activities we'd been put through so far. It couldn't be worse than the simulations.

And it definitely couldn't be worse than the feeling of getting shot in the chest.

By the time it was 5:15, my body had betrayed me. As the afternoon hours had passed, my mind couldn't help but get stuck on what the announcement had said. That the inspections would be longer. That they wouldn't just be the regular, hello, this is your name, have there been any changes, thing. A pit of anxiety began forming in my stomach, stretching larger until it encompassed my entire being. Longer inspections meant more time for them to ask questions. And if they were acting stricter than normal I could only guess that that meant anything could set them off. Anything could lead them to become suspicious of me and it would be harder for me to just get through the inspection without making a single mistake or thinking anything that might show up on my Animus and betray the words that were coming out of my mouth.

So when I was actually standing outside the door where the inspections would occur, my hands were shaking. The anxiety was a leaping presence inside of me, peaking randomly and painfully before releasing and leaving me feeling even more nervous than before. I couldn't mess up. I had to be absolutely perfect because if I wasn't...

I didn't really know.

Then the person in front of me walked out of the room and it was my turn.

I walked into the open room waiting for my demise.