The Vault of Dreamers (8 page)

Double crap
. I gave my skirt a hitch. Then I dropped to my elbows and knees so I could peek under
the door. Ellen was sitting on the tile floor before the black-seated toilet with
her knees drawn up and her head buried in her arms. By her feet, a pink purse with
a kitty on it rested beside a paring knife.

“Ellen,” I said softly.

She wouldn’t look at me. She shifted to press the heels of her hands against her eyes,
and her mouth stretched in a grimace.

“This is so stupid!” she said.

I didn’t know this girl. She terrified me. But nobody deserved to be this unhappy.
I ducked my head and crept bare-kneed under the door to squeeze into the lonely space
beside her. I wished I knew what to say, or if I should touch her. I’d been unhappy
before, but not this miserable.

“That’s a nice purse,” I said.

“I
hate
this purse,” she said.

Okay
, I thought.
Wrong tack
. “Sorry. That was stupid,” I said.

She wiped her eyes with her arm, and turned to me with a bleary gaze. “Who do you
even think you are?” she demanded.

I went very small inside. Very still. If Ellen knew what I’d been doing for the last
hour, she might think I was in for the kill, catching people at their lowest. She
was still glaring at me, expecting an answer.

“I’m Rosie?” I offered.

She stared at me another long, hard minute. Then she closed her eyes and seemed to
deflate. Her eyebrows crumpled together in a pleading way. “I’m just so tired,” she
said.

“I know,” I said. “Me, too.” And I was, suddenly.

She put her face down on her knees, curled her arms around her head again, and held
herself there. The knife was still an inch from her shoe. I was afraid to move. I
didn’t know what else to do. We dropped into an isolated morass of time that had never
begun and would never end, where my sole job was to listen to her breathing and stare
at the beige tiles on the floor.

It took forever, but I heard the outer door open and then footsteps.

“Rosie?” Janice asked.

I exhaled a silent sigh of relief. “In here,” I said. “I think we’re okay.” I had
no evidence of that whatsoever. I looked at Ellen. She slowly pushed the hair back
behind her ears.

“Can you open the door?” asked another voice. Dr. Ash.

“Give us a sec,” I said.

I pulled off some toilet paper and handed it to Ellen. She wiped her nose.

“Ready?” I asked.

She nodded. I got up, brushed off the back of my skirt, and helped her up, too. I
handed her the kitty purse and left the knife on the floor. Then I straightened her
shirt along the shoulders, like that would help. I tried to meet her eyes, but she
wasn’t looking at me.

Finally, I pushed over the lock and pulled open the stall door. We had to edge around
it one at a time. Beside Janice, Dr. Ash and a couple of medics were crammed in the
space near the sinks. The team quickly, gently surrounded Ellen, and in a surprisingly
short time, they guided her out. One of the medics collected the knife in a little
bag and looked back at me as he held the door.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

I nodded.

“You certain?” he repeated.

“Yes. I’m fine,” I said.

Janice reached for my camera on the shelf. “Do you want this?” she asked.

I didn’t want to use it anymore, and I didn’t have a decent pocket. “Can you stick
it in your bag for me?” I asked.

“Sure.”

I needed some air. We headed out of the chapel, and I saw an ambulance pulling away.
A light drizzle had begun to fall, and the shrouded light turned the buildings and
the lawns all the same slate gray. At the base of the clock tower, the rose garden
was a bleak tangle of thorns. I stood under the chapel awning with Janice beside me.

“I think you saved her life,” she said.

I didn’t want to talk about it. Ellen had rattled me in some dark place below words.

“Look at the time! It’s almost five,” Janice said. “We’re supposed to be over by the
auditorium.”

I glanced up at the clock tower, where the school motto was etched around the face
of the clock:
Dream Hard. Work Harder. Shine.
We had seven minutes until the fifty cuts. Down the length of the quad, at the far
end, I could see lights shining near the auditorium, and I felt a conflicted rush
of emotion. I still wanted to stay at Forge, but I was also completely disillusioned
about the cuts.

“Come on already!” Janice said. She went running down the quad sidewalk, holding her
bag over her head for shelter from the rain.

I hunched my shoulders and followed after.

Students were dodging the rain as they ran, and a crowd had gathered beneath an overhang
of the student union. I ducked under, too, just as the rain began to fall in earnest.
I lost track of Janice. Through the downpour, the giant screen panels that covered
the façade of the auditorium were aglow with the live broadcast of
The Forge Show
. All one hundred of the first year students’ profiles were up, magnified to five
times life-size. They were bright enough that the rain only added a shimmer of streaks
before them, and they were organized by rank, with the top fifty students bordered
in bright green. Every twenty seconds, like a fancier, faster version of the big blip
rank board in the dining hall, all the profiles shifted to show their updated rank.

Cheers and gasps came from the students around me. More students were sheltered near
the doorways of the dance and music buildings, anywhere it was dry enough to see the
big screen, and their voices cut across the quad, too, like an echo.

Dreading what I would find, I scanned the profiles until I found mine in the sixth
row: a thin, wet, bow-legged girl standing under a rainy awning. I was in 54th place,
the highest I’d ever been, but it wasn’t high enough. Janice’s blip rank was up to
26. Burnham’s was 7. Ellen, the girl from the chapel bathroom, was now ranked at 70.
Her profile showed a still photo of her smiling, and I was puzzled until I realized
they must have cut her live feed when she entered the ambulance and drove off campus.

The screens flickered and refreshed again. Another burst of cheers and groans surrounded
me. I was down a notch to 55.

My fate was right there on the wall, impossible to ignore, and still, stupidly, I
couldn’t accept it. This idiotic hope of mine wouldn’t die. Despite everything I’d
learned about Forge today, I still wanted to stay.

In four minutes, the time would hit five o’clock, and the scores would be finalized.

A gust of wind blew a spattering of rain on my face, and I winced.

I couldn’t stand still watching helplessly.

I bolted out into the downpour and turned sharply, sprinting alongside the student
union. Completely soaked, I cut behind the dining hall. Behind the art building, the
two giant wooden spools were dark with water and more drops bounced off their edges.
I ran toward them, splashing loudly in the wet gravel. A garbage can pinged under
the cascade of drops. I peered around the parking lot, then through the rain toward
the pasture and the tower, seeing no one.

He wasn’t here.

7

THE FIFTY CUTS

I HUGGED MY
arms around my wetness, closed my eyes, and tilted my face to the pouring sky.

“Rosie?”

I spun around and squinted toward the back of the art building where Linus was striding
forward. Under a baseball cap, he wore a dark patch on one eye.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked.

My throat choked up and I could barely talk. “It looks like I’m going home,” I said.
I wiped my nose with the back of my wet hand and let out a laugh. “All the real artists
are fine about it. Except this one girl Ellen. She’s a mess. And me. What did I do
wrong?”

He came a step nearer, and as he did, I discovered a hug was what I wanted more than
anything. I leaned near him uncertainly. His white tee shirt was wet. Lightning flashed,
and I shivered, expecting thunder. When it finally came, the sky opened up harder
and the rain fell with a punishing noise into the gravel.

“Hey,” Linus said, bending near to my ear. “They can’t hear us.”

When I peered up to him, he took off his hat and put it on me so the brim sheltered
my face.

“I don’t want to go home,” I said.

“Then stay,” he said.

“I can’t. It’s too late. Listen.” I could hear the clock starting to bong. It was
so unfair to want it most just as I was losing it.

“You know what to do,” he said, and his gaze dropped to my lips.

Fear shot through me. I’d never kissed anyone before. I didn’t know how. It felt like
despair to even try, and I didn’t know why he wanted to help me. But he was giving
me a chance. I had to take it. I clenched my fists and leaned into him a little bit
more.

I didn’t know his mouth would be warm in the coolness of the rain. I didn’t know I
would shift myself a little nearer to feel the right pressure, or that when I did,
a tiny jolt inside me would erase the rest of the world. I didn’t think to unclench
my fists. He didn’t do more than touch his lips to mine for a slow moment, but when
he finally backed up a little and I could breathe again, I hardly remembered how.

With his one good eye, Linus was watching me closely. I felt hopelessly wet and self-conscious
in my clinging shirt.

“I think this had better be our secret,” he said just over the noise of the rain.

“What?” I asked.

He curled a hand to his mouth and leaned close to my ear. “I mean, that this matters,”
he said.

I searched his expression, and though he couldn’t have come up with a more perfect
thing to say, it riddled me with guilt. Our kiss had been completely contrived. A
zillion
Forge Show
viewers had just seen it, and even now the last toll from the clock tower bonged
through the rush of the rain. No matter how much I’d liked kissing him in the moment,
it was all fake, right?

Linus was frowning. “Was that your first kiss?” he asked.

“You could tell.”

His smile was genuinely warm. “Yes.”

“It wasn’t yours, I take it,” I said.

He laughed. “No. But it was my first in a very long time. It was my first with you.”

I withdrew half a step, letting the rain fall between us. “And probably last,” I said.
“It’s past five o’clock.”

“Let’s go see if you’re cut,” he said. “They’ll have the news in the kitchen.”

We turned together to dodge across the puddles, and another flash of lightning burst
around us as we hurried up the steps to the loading dock. Linus held open the kitchen
door for me and I stepped inside, hunched and dripping.

Half a dozen kitchen workers turned to face us and let out a rousing cheer. The frizzy-haired
cook pointed to a TV screen on the wall.

“You made it!” she said to me. “Blip rank fifty. You’re in! Congratulations!”

I let out a squeak of joy and instinctively grabbed Linus’s arm.

Linus grinned and took back his hat. “Nice,” he said.

At the front of the dining hall, laughing, jubilant students were streaming in from
the quad. Cake and punch had been set out for the celebration. A young man handed
me and Linus a couple of towels to sling around our shoulders, and Chef Ted gave me
a nod.

“Go on out and join the other winners,” he said. “You’ve earned it.”

I glanced back at Linus, who was still smiling. In his wet shirt and eye patch, he
looked like a pirate just in from a storm.

“Great job, Sinclair,” he said. “I’m happy for you.”

“Come with me,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I’m good.”

“I owe you,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “You do. Go on.”

I gave a wave to the rest of the kitchen staff and headed through the doorway to meet
up with the other students. Other winners from the auditorium were streaming in, laughing
as if they couldn’t contain their delight. Teachers and older students filed in, too,
until the place was packed and the windows steamed over.

Janice nearly attacked me. “You made it!” she said, and gripped me in a hug. “It was
so exciting! I nearly died! Who is that hot, hot guy from the kitchen? Is he here?
When did you meet him?” She rose on tiptoe, looking past my shoulder toward the kitchen.

I peeked back to where Linus was ruffling his hair madly in the towel.

“His name’s Linus,” I said, blushing. “I met him this morning. Quit staring.”

“Way go to, Rosie. I mean, really.” Janice dropped her voice. “Way to pull it out
of the bag.”

“It wasn’t exactly a premeditated plan,” I said.

“Whatever. It worked, right?” Janice said. “Burnham made it, too. And Paige. And Henrik.
Holy crap. They have chocolate cake. Check out that frosting.” She passed me a piece
and started in on her own. “I’m starving,” she said. “Who knew anxiety could make
me so hungry?”

“You weren’t seriously worried for yourself,” I said.

“Are you kidding? I’ve been a mess,” she said. “Plus of course I just started my period.
Whoops! Too much info. Man, this is good.”

Following her cue, I tried a forkful of cake, and the sweetness dissolved in my mouth.
It was insanely good, a taste of pure happiness, with a thin, gooey line of bittersweet
frosting between the spongy layers of cake.

“You should have seen the losers,” Janice said. “Number fifty-one was destroyed. It
was awful. Dean Berg’s saying goodbye to them.”

“Where’s Burnham?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Janice pulled out her phone. “It’s my mom,” she said, looping her
blond hair to one side. “Excuse me.” She snagged another piece of cake as she shifted
away to talk.

I scanned the crowd and absently rubbed my arms with the towel I’d kept. Henrik and
Paige stood talking in the far corner, but I couldn’t find Burnham. I wanted to celebrate
with him, especially since he’d helped me at lunchtime, but instead I felt a letdown.
I didn’t see any of the students I’d shot for my footage, either. In terms of passing
the cuts, it hadn’t made a difference for any of them, but I had to think it had helped
me. That hadn’t been my intention when I’d started out, not consciously, so it shouldn’t
have made me uneasy. But now it did. Ellen wasn’t going to be easy to forget.