Kingmakers, Year Two

18. Cat

18

CAT

T hey force the whole school to attend the execution.

I don’t want to go.

I try to hide in the bathrooms of the Undercroft, but Saul Turner finds me and says, “You better get up there. The Chancellor’s not exactly in a good mood.”

I’m already crying as I take my seat in the Grand Hall. My guts are churning, and I think I might vomit. I don’t want to watch Ozzy die.

Rocco, Dax, Jasper, and Miles are forced to sit in the front row, bound to their chairs. They look ragged and filthy, skinny from their week of starvation and wild-eyed from lack of water. Rocco is the least affected, though his face is now lean to the point of emaciation. Miles looks like a completely differ ent person—no hint of his former swagger. He’s beaten and broken.

Zoe is pale as a ghost. I don’t think she ate this week either. She stumbles and almost falls as we take our seats. Leo has to help support her. Anna already has her arm around Chay. Silent tears run down Chay’s face, as they have in a continual flow every time I’ve seen her. Her arms are raw where she’s dug her fingernails into the skin.

A rigid tension runs through Leo, Ares, and even Hedeon, as if they want to mount an attack—break Ozzy and Miles free, help them escape.

We all know how impossible that would be. Even if we could overwhelm the professors and the staff, the grounds crew who double as security, and the Chancellor himself, it would all be pointless. Every family who sends a student to this school signs a contract in blood. Ozzy’s sentence has been passed. A hundred mafia families would ensure that it was carried out—on him, and anyone who tried to help him.

The silence in the Grand Hall is an oppressive weight. No whispers, no fidgeting, no creak of chairs. Once the students are seated, you could hear an eyelash fall.

Even the cavernous hearth is silent, no fire burning in the grate .

The banners of the founding houses hang limp without a breeze to stir them. I look up at those banners, hating every single one. Hating the cruel and merciless power they represent. Hating this way of life where we’re driven to extremes, then punished when we overstep the bounds.

Luther Hugo sits in a high-backed chair, facing the students.

He wears a black double-breasted suit, his long, dark hair combed straight back from his forehead, his pointed brows like inverted Vs over those glittering beetle-black eyes. He stares at the accused and then at the rest of us, his eyes piercing each student in turn. There’s no enjoyment in his expression and no pity, either.

I wonder how many times he’s done this.

Mr. and Mrs. Dyer sit to the left of the Chancellor. Wade’s parents are as blond and beautiful as their son. I hate them, too, and feel no pity for their loss. They raised a garbage son. Even in death, he hasn’t stopped hurting people. It’s his fault we’re all sitting here today. His fault, and Rocco’s most of all. But only Ozzy will pay the ultimate price. He’ll die to satisfy the Dyer’s bloodlust.

To the right of the Chancellor sits a plain, dark-haired woman wearing a blue dress. Her face is pale and sober. I wonder if she might be the Chancellor’s wife—I never heard if he was married. She’s younger than him by twenty years at least. That ’s common amongst the mafiosi. My stepmother is twenty-two years younger than my father.

The professors stand sentinel around the perimeter of the Hall, along with a dozen other Kingmakers staff. I realize how stupid I was to think that these burly stone-faced men were here simply for menial tasks like building the obstacle course and tending the grounds. I see them for what they are, now—soldiers.

Even the professors in their dark suits remind me of their former professions as mercenaries, assassins, torturers, and criminals. I see no tears in Professor Lyon’s eyes, or even Professor Howell’s. I fell into the pleasant fiction that these were my teachers, this was my school. I forgot why I was so terrified to come here in the first place.

At least Miss Robin stayed away. I couldn’t bear to see her standing by, emotionless, like the rest of them.

The Chancellor stands in one, quick, sweeping motion. With all the impressive feats I’ve witnessed from Leo and Ares and Miles, it’s easy to forget the difference between a man of twenty and one fully grown. The power that only comes from long experience—the difference between a sapling and hardened oak.

The Chancellor is massive, rough-hewn, lines etched in his face as deep as hatchet strokes. His visage is that of an ancient god, his voice thunder as he says, “A student was killed on our grounds. Wade Dyer died at the hand of Ozzy Duncan. Our laws are simple—a life for a life. The debt was incurred. Now it must be paid.”

His voice echoes around the Hall long after he stops speaking.

The faces of my fellow students are sickened, stricken, but no one so much as dares to cry audibly. Not even me.

The Chancellor nods toward the double doors at the end of the hall. Professor Holland and Professor Knox shift from their military positions to pull them open.

Ozzy is led into the Hall by Professor Penmark, so weighed down with chains that he can barely walk. His hair is lank and unwashed, his face as hollow as Miles’. His hands are bound behind his back, and his chains make a horrible clanking sound with every step. His walk seems endless—perhaps he’s moving slowly because he knows these moments are his last.

He’s still wearing his school uniform, filthy and tattered as it has become. Somehow that seems the most awful thing of all to me—a symbol of his trust in the institution that now turns on him with such callousness.

I don’t want to look at him, but it seems cowardly to turn away. His mouth is set, his gaze steadily fixed on the floor just in front of him. He doesn’t look at any of us. I think he’s trying to die with dignity, if nothing else .

Professor Penmark forces Ozzy to kneel in front of us, directly before the cold, empty hearth. Professor Lyons hands the Chancellor a long, steel knife, with a carved handle and a razor’s edge.

My stomach lurches.

It’s barbaric. Insane. I can’t believe they’re going to exsanguinate him like a pig.

I expect them to let Ozzy say a few final words, but his mouth remains firmly closed. I don’t know if that’s his choice, or if mafiosi are required to go silent to the grave.

Dax and Jasper’s heads are bowed, staring down at their knees. Miles faces Ozzy, straining against his ties, weak and exhausted though he might be. I can’t see Rocco’s face, but I know, I fucking know he’s smiling.

The Chancellor grips the steel knife in his right fist, testing the blade with his thumb.

The woman in the blue dress stands. She walks forward, placing herself in the gap between the Chancellor and Ozzy’s kneeling figure. She sinks to the ground, taking Ozzy’s head in her hands and whispering something in his ear. Ozzy’s head jerks up. He turns to look at her face, startled and horrified.

Ozzy hadn’t seen the woman, fixated as he was on walking in a straight line. The look of anguish on his face tells me who she is. Not the Chancellor’s wife—this must be Ozzy’s mother .

“NO! NOOOOOOO!” Ozzy screams, as Professor Penmark seizes him by the shoulders and drags him back.

Now Mrs. Duncan is kneeling in his place, straight-backed and resolute.

Calmly, she smooths her dark hair back from her face and places her palms flat on her thighs.

“NOOOOOOO!” Ozzy bellows, his voice tearing.

Before I fully understand what’s happening, the Chancellor seizes a handful of Mrs. Duncan’s hair and tilts her head back. He places the steel blade against her pale throat and draws it across in one quick slash. A gash opens up like a grinning mouth. Blood pours down the front of her dress, dark as wine. Ozzy’s mother doesn’t make a sound. She dies silent, slumping to the ground.

Several students scream and others shout in outrage.

Chay faints, falling forward so fast that Anna barely has time to catch her before her head hits the chair in front of her.

My stomach contracts. I have to clap both hands over my mouth, whipping my head to the side to avoid the sight of that still figure on the ground.

I see Dean Yenin sitting behind me. His face is pale as death, his eyes wide open. He looks electrocuted .

Ozzy is still shouting. He hasn’t stopped, though his voice has broken to a barking rasp.

Professor Penmark lifts Mrs. Duncan’s limp hand, testing her wrist for a pulse. He gives his nod to the Chancellor to confirm what we can all see with gruesome clarity.

The Chancellor faces the Dyers. With cold formality he announces, “The debt is paid.”

The Dyers stand. Mrs. Dyer looks down at the fallen body of Mrs. Duncan, at the sheet of blood still spreading across the polished floor. Her upper lip twitches and she turns away, without even a glance to spare for the sobbing Ozzy.

The Chancellor raises his hand to dismiss us.

I barely hear the rumble of the students standing. I’m deafened by my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. I feel trapped, hemmed in by the mass of bodies slowly filing out. I shove my way through, dashing out of Grand Hall, across the short stretch of lawn, running for the bathrooms in the Keep. I stumble into the closest stall and collapse to my knees, vomiting in the toilet. I hear at least two other students doing the same.

I want to hide in here forever.

I can’t go back out. I can’t go to dinner this evening in the dining hall, or sleep in my bed tonight. I can’t return to class tomorrow, to study and practice as usual.

I don’t understand how humans can participate in this madness, then go on like normal, like nothing happened.

Yet, after several minutes of kneeling on the cold tiles, I find myself standing and walking to the sink to splash water on my face.

And then I leave the bathroom, still able to stand, still able to move. Floating in this strange, numb state.

I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to leave this place.

But where would I go? I hate home, too.

I wander down the hallway in a daze.

As I pass the door to the boy’s bathroom, I hear a sound that breaks through the fog.

Sobbing. Desperate, anguished sobbing.

A boy is crying, harder than I’ve ever heard before.

Crying so hard it seems like it will kill him.

I listen and I think, Thank god, someone understands. Someone felt how horrible that was, how intolerable .

His grief is my grief. In fact, his grief is even worse.

I can hear the depth of his pain, dwarfing my own. It’s a private, lonely sound, and yet I feel a compulsion to comfort him.

I push the door open and slip inside.

I weave my way through the labyrinth of sinks and stalls, cupboards and closets. The boy is way back in the furthest corner of the space, his echoing sobs making it difficult to find him.

My head throbs and I can hardly see straight.

Still, I’m driven on, pulled helplessly toward the boy.

Maybe I’m not here to comfort him. Maybe I want solace myself.

I find him at last, a lone, tall figure, hunched over the very last sink, his face in his arms, his shoulders shaking as he cries like his heart is breaking. I barely register the lean body, the white-blond hair. I walk up unheard behind him and place my hand on his shoulder.

He whirls around, grief turning to fury in an instant.

I’ve made a terrible mistake.

This is no boy—this is Dean Yenin.

And he looks ready to rip out my jugular with his teeth .

His face is wet with tears. He knows that I see it. He knows I heard him crying.

He seizes me by the throat and slams me up against the wall, my head jolting against the tiles.

His fist draws back. I catch one glimpse of bruised and swollen knuckles, before he propels it directly toward my face.

I shriek, squeezing my eyes tight shut.

I hear the shattering of tile as his fist hits the wall next to my ear.

I open my eyes and immediately regret it, because Dean’s face is right against mine, his eyes purple fire and his nose pressed against my cheek. He hisses, “If you tell anyone . . . anyone . . . I’ll fucking kill you.”

Dean lets go of my neck so abruptly that I fall to my knees on the cold floor. A piece of shattered tile cut my cheek—a droplet of blood falls from my face to the floor, blooming red against the white marble.

By the time I look up, Dean has disappeared.

I kneel there for a long time, shaking helplessly.