I, however, am freaking out. We’ve been here for three hours, and I’ve been trembling every minute of it. What I did was dumb. Apart from the fact that I’m going to be stuck in a jail cell with who knows what, a trip to the Tombs will put me into the system. I just invited the police to peer into my hiding places, uncover my secrets, examine my DNA. Flags will go up. Questions will be asked about my parents, about why my mom doesn’t have a Social Security number or a driver’s license or a birth certificate. They will come for us, just like my father warned they would, and it will be my fault. Right now I’m missing my phone. I just wish I could call them and tell them to run.
The doors to the gym open, and footsteps approach. A man in a tight, short-sleeved oxford shirt and khaki slacks approaches, along with a small handful of soldiers. He’s got a crewcut and a jaw like a mason block and a hint of a tattoo poking out of his sleeve. When he gets to my desk, he stops, sips from a mug of coffee, and eyes me up and down.
“Soldier, can you take Ms. Walker’s handcuffs off?”
A young private unfastens the cuffs. It feels good to be out of them. My wrists have been rubbed raw, but being free also means I’m on my way to jail.
“Come with me, Ms. Walker,” he says.
“Who are you?”
“I’m David Doyle, the new principal.” He wanders toward the exit.
I look back to the soldier, expecting to find his gun in my face, but he’s not paying any attention to me. He goes back to where he was stationed and turns his eyes to the other students.
“Ms. Walker?” Doyle is gesturing impatiently. “Please keep up.”
Two things could be happening here. Maybe he’s escorting me to the police van for transport to the Tombs. Or (and this feels more likely) he’s already figured out what I am and he’s trying to lure me out of the room to avoid causing a scene. Neither of these is a good scenario, but I don’t know what other choice I have but to follow him. I might have Alpha blood, but I do not have their strength and speed. Fighting my way out of here is not an option.
Doyle leads me out of the gym and down an empty hallway to a door that has a sign on it that reads nurse’s office. He reaches into his pants pocket and takes out a ring of keys, then unlocks the door and gestures for me to enter. I’m expecting to be forced into a chair and questioned, but there’s no one in the room—in fact, it doesn’t look like too many people have ever been in this room. Ancient first-aid equipment is pushed against the far wall. A blood-pressure machine leans near a stack of crumbling boxes vomiting yellow medical files onto the floor. A dusty eye chart has fallen under a desk, and a poster of the human skeleton hangs precariously by one strip of tape. Everything was shoved aside to make room for a wall of surveillance monitors. There are thirty of them in all, and each screen reveals a different part of the school. I can see classrooms, hallways, down every shelf in the library, the teacher’s break room, and even under the bleachers in the gym. Mr. Ervin is teaching his class. A soldier is stationed at a door, armed and ready. Two cops are putting Deshane into a police van outside the back of the building.
Mr. Doyle gestures to an empty chair, but I ignore him. I need to be on my feet so I can run. This is what my father taught me.
“What happened to Mrs. Channing?” I ask.
“She has been reassigned,” he says.
“Am I going to the Tombs?”
He takes a long sip of his coffee and eyes me up and down, like he’s not sure what the answer is yet.
“Just relax, Ms. Walker.”
“I’m relaxed.”
“You’re shaking.”
Mr. Doyle sits down in a rolling chair, then uses his feet to move toward me, creeping along like a spider greeting its entangled lunch. He smells of aftershave, cigarettes, toothpaste, and some chemical he uses to make his hair look wet. His chinos are those wrinkle-free kind. Everything is locked down and tight. There’s no way he’s really a principal. He’s probably a cop. Only cops care this much about how they look. Plus, I’ve never met a teacher with a tattoo—at least not one where you could see it.
“Please, Ms. Walker, sit down,” he says.
It doesn’t sound like a request, so I sit, reluctantly, in the chair closest to the door.
“Did you know that forty-two percent of the student body at this school have been charged with a misdemeanor?”
Cop.
“How come you’re not one of them?” he continues as he rolls over to a little desk in the corner and snatches a manila folder from the top. He rolls back and flaps it in front of my face. “Because according to your file, it looks like you were headed in that direction. Three years ago you were caught on the roof of your middle school smoking pot.”
“I wasn’t actually smoking it.”
“You were also in detention fourteen times for being disrespectful. You were one tardy away from an in-school suspension. You were almost expelled for passing around a flask of gin.” He pauses, as he thinks I need to let it all sink in, like it wasn’t me who actually did those things.
“I’m not sure what the question is,” I say.
He grins and sips his coffee. “And then one day you changed. You turned into a model student. Your grades got better. You started showing up on time. You haven’t cut a class in three years. There isn’t a complaint or mark in your file. Other than a few extra sick days for migraines, you’re a model student. Why is that?”