Secrets Are For Keeping

Chapter Forty

I woke up the next morning next to Pepper, Zander, and Kain, who were all surprisingly still asleep.

Even being the last one to fall asleep last night, I ended up waking up earlier than them all.

Rather than doing what I usually did where I'd get up and go straight to breakfast, I decided I'd wait for them. I was still really sleepy and tired and so it was nice to just lie in my own sleeping bag and be able to stare at the ceiling while I waited for them.

I felt good. I hadn't failed completely at everything and now everything was going to turn out okay. I was the happiest I had been in a long while, and part of it was because of the fact that I'd completed my end of the bargain with Aysel. I felt like if I hadn't, I would be feeling the guilt right now instead, and regretting not having taken the money for him. Usually people were supposed to feel more guilt after stealing money, but I felt less, especially after seeing Aysel's expression, the hope hidden in his features, from the night before.

From next to me, Kain sat up groggily and yawned, looking tired enough to fall straight back to sleep. I rolled over in my sleeping bag and smiled at him, my happiness still running through me like a virus.

"Morning," I whispered, trying not to wake up either Pepper or Zander. Kain looked over to me and gave me a soft smile.

"Good morning," he replied, and then fell back down onto his sleeping bag, matching the position I was in. Neither of us spoke for a while, just laid down in our sleeping bags and thought while we tried to slowly wake ourselves up.

Soon, Pepper was awake and sitting up, and then Zander. I finally sat up in my own sleeping bag and looked around the room at the rest of the students. A couple were already out of the room, but the majority of them were still sleeping. It hit me then that it was our last day of inspection.

And the thought only made me happier.

When it was almost ten o' clock in the morning, I decided to get up. I stretched and then stood up shakily on my sleeping bag, almost tripping on it. At the same time, Zander, Pepper, and Kain all slowly got up with me.

"Anyone else extremely hungry?" Pepper commented as she kicked her pillow that had fallen out of her sleeping bag back inside it. I could see bags under her eyes from going to sleep late, even if we had gotten up generally late also.

"Definitely," Zander replied, putting on his shoes for the day. I took my own sneakers out, remembering the wad of money that had been in them the day before. Then I loosened them and tied them on.

We all walked out of the room together, for the first time out of the nearly seven days we'd been in the inspection.

I was going to make it. I could already tell there were less inspectors than usual walking down the hallways. They were giving up, letting go of the tight hold that they'd had on all of the students. They were just about ready to leave so we could finally be left alone to go back to our own families.

And maybe even when the inspection ended and Pepper and Kain had to return to their own school we'd still get to meet. Why couldn't we? The four of us could make plans together and meet afterschool or during weekends. Just because the inspection was over didn't mean we couldn't still be friends.

And I could already see it. I imagined us meeting in so many different places, laughing together, doing anything we wanted to together. Because after this we'd be free to do what we wanted to.

I was so lost in my own dreams that I didn't see the inspector until she was standing in front of me.

Everything seemed to slow to a stop. Pepper seemed to notice first, when I stopped walking a foot behind the rest of them. And then Zander...and Kain. They all just stopped moving and turned around to look at why I'd frozen in place.

The blonde haired inspector smiled at me with glistening white teeth, filled with fake happiness that contrasted to my now diminishing real happiness. I didn't understand. Why was she in front of me? I was tempted to just move around her, but she had specifically stopped right in front of me.

"Hi Nova. You are needed by Mr. Neilson right now. Please follow me," she said kindly, keeping up her false act.

I looked over to my three friends, my mind not working properly enough to understand. But when I did see their faces, I noted three identical barely concealed expressions of terror. Pepper looked the most shocked, with Zander looking extremely worried right next to her. And Kain...he just looked like he was about to throw up.

But...

...I'd changed my name. I'd done everything just to avoid this and it was impossible that this was happening right now.

"Nova? Come on, I'll show you the way," the inspector continued, holding out her hand for me to take. But I wasn't planning on taking it. I wouldn't walk right into the inspectors' hands without a fight. Because that's what they were telling me. That no matter how hard I'd tried to save myself from this fate, I hadn't been able to. I'd failed. There was no way to avoid the inevitable fact that I was going to be taken away and that this was it.

I began to turn around to run away, but before I could even move my body an inch, the lady's fingers were wrapped around my wrist, freezing me in place. I felt her nails dig into my vulnerable skin, and stopped trying to pull away since it only lead to her digging them in harder. I imagined the marks they'd leave afterwards.

"Follow me," she said, but at this point it wasn't following. She began walking away, and I refused to allow my legs to move along with her pull. So instead of me following behind her I was stumbling, stumbling past Pepper, Kain, and Zander who couldn't do anything about it. Barely even keeping myself upright as I was forced down the hallway, pulled farther and farther away from the life I thought I would finally be able to have. A life where I could be happy.

I was forced down hallways, my body betraying me as it moved away from everything I'd grown to know and love. The few friends that I had made during my brief time and even my sleeping bag.

Then I was pulled through a door, and then another one, this one that I recognized. I fell down in a chair in the middle of a white walled office.

My body was now facing towards a desk, which had a large swiveling chair behind it occupied by Mr. Neilson. I stared at him across the desk, my gaze slowly becoming angrier and angrier as the moments passed and he didn't say anything to me.

Finally, I broke the silence with my own anger and frustration. "What do you want?" I asked through gritted teeth with a deadly glare in his direction.

Mr. Neilson looked amused by the way I was acting and what I had asked. He waved his hand as if passing off my question as unnecessary. "Nothing...nothing...I don't want anything from you. I'm just here to inform you."

I continued my glare, shoving my hands underneath my thighs so I wouldn't accidentally punch him in the face.

"You're going to pass on into the next level of the inspection," he said, making it seem like something that should be congratulated. Like, "congratulations on having your life ruined". It annoyed me how he was making light of something that had just ruined the tower of happiness that I'd built for myself out of everything that had happened leading to it. And now it was over. Every last one of my dreams that I'd had for my future had been destroyed, and replaced only by broken rubble.

He sighed, and seeing I didn't have anything to say in response to his announcement, he called out to the figure of the blonde haired inspector who was still standing in the doorway, "You can take her away now, thank you."