Secrets Are For Keeping

Chapter Thirty-Four

I ran back to Kain and quickly shook his shoulder as I saw the sun had risen higher above the horizon. We didn't have much time before everyone would be waking up and someone would notice we were gone. If even one person saw we weren't there for even a second it would heighten the chances that one of us would get taken away, or both of us. It was already likely anyway, but if we could just hold it off for one more day...

...only one more day before it was over. It was almost all over. I could possibly make it through inspections without being caught. That would be a miracle.

"Kain," I whispered, shaking his shoulder as my knees froze from the dew of the morning grass.

His eyes slowly opened, dark pupils surrounded by the light of his irises darting around. "Wha...t?" he murmured as he planted an elbow into the wet grass, and pushed himself up off the ground. I backed away, afraid of getting too close to him and making things awkward.

"We need to go," I said, standing up from the grass and trying to wipe off the wet spots that had appeared.

I could tell the moment when he noticed that it was morning and we could've already been caught. His eyes went wide and he jerked himself into a standing position, much faster than I'd gotten up when I'd found out. I walked over to the door and shoved the key in the tiny key hole, I'd already put my shoes back on my feet, the one that had been in the door and the other one which I'd left outside the door for when we had to come back in.

For a second, I worried that the blonde haired boy had been lying and that the key wouldn't work. It would almost explain why it could've been possible that his stealing money plan was a fraud. Maybe he just enjoyed playing with people's minds until they literally wanted to whip out a knife and stab him in the heart.

But then I heard a click and the door handle swung down at my touch. I let out a breath that I'd been holding, shoulders relaxing.

"How'd you...?" Kain asked, his voice croaky from sleep.

"I'll tell you later," I replied, although I wasn't planning on telling him later at all. I had a feeling I knew what he would say if he heard about the deal I made. He'd tell me it was an unnecessary risk, which it was, and that I should just not complete my end of the deal.

But I wasn't sure on what I'd actually end up doing yet.

We fast walked in through the door and into the hallway, and I tried to walk more in front of Kain in case anyone strolled past and pointed out that Kain wasn't actually wearing shoes. I hadn't seen any of the students go shoeless through the halls yet. It wouldn't be completely unbelievable, but it would still look odd and we both couldn't afford to act or look any out of the ordinary at this point. We'd done enough that if the inspectors knew about all of it, they would have a heart attack and have to call in reinforcements to take us.

We made it back to the room where we'd been before leaving which was only Zander's room. But apparently it wasn't against the rules to sleep in classroom beside your own because as we walked in, I saw Pepper lying down in a sleeping bag next to Zander's.

If anyone already noticed our absence, it would be them.

I walked over to their sleeping bags with Zander close behind. His shoes were next to the head of Zander's sleeping bag and he bent down to pick them up. There was no reason for us to stay in the room, and I figured that it would probably be a worse idea if anything since they might react badly to suddenly seeing us in their room. I wasn't sure what Zander or Pepper were like in the morning, but I knew that my own sister, Olivia, was sometimes forgetful. So if they were anything like her, they might accidentally point out the fact that we'd never come back and expose us to the inspector lying, still asleep, in the front of the room.