October Academy

Chapter 57

The room behind the door is blindingly lit. The lights are stark white, the sterile kind that would usually be used in a hospital.

In fact, it looks just like that: a hospital.

The room is filled with medical appliances, almost like a scientific lab.

The four of us split up, examining the contents of the room. I find myself in the far right corner, picking up scalpels and needles. They seem so out of place in our school.

Behind me, Acacia and Topaz play with a microscope.

I turn to the other side of the room to look for Darcy. His expression has gone still.

"Jade," he says, beckoning me over.

I walk over to the corner of the room he is exploring and realise there's a window, exposing another attached room. It seems to be an observation room.

Chills run down my spine when I realise what the observation is for.

A singular body lays on a metal bench, a thin, cotton blanket covers a sleeping girl.

Cherry.

She's been missing from class for days – she's been down here?

"What are they doing to her?" I ask in horror.

"I don't know – some kind of surgery," Darcy says.

Topaz and Acacia make their way over to us.

"We need to leave," Topaz says sternly. "This is no place for us."

The rest of us nod as the realisation of what's in front of us becomes more terrifying.

At a pace no slower than a sprint, we run from the abandoned wing.

We stop for a breath once we make it to the courtyard. Tonight, there is no moon. Everything is dark.

"What was that?" Acacia gawks.

"Cherry's trapped there, we need to help her," I say.

"Jade, we have no idea what's going on there," Darcy says to me, "it could be a makeshift hospital. Maybe she was sick."

"If it was a hospital, why is it a secret?"

"Whatever it was, none of you will speak about it," Topaz says.

I find myself nodding along with the rest of them.

"You might put yourselves at risk. What we saw in there stays between the four of us. Got it?"

We nod again.

"Good, now go to bed," he says, guiding Acacia. "Now."

.

.

.

The next day is nationals. I barely slept all night, tossing and turning at the crazy possibilities a secret hospital might mean.

I know for a fact it wasn't a hospital. I know there was something sinister going on down there.

And now I'm starting to think it had something to do with Tim.

So obviously with all that looming over me, Nationals is not the biggest concern in my mind.

But it should be. I've been training for this moment for weeks, for years. And now, it's finally arrived. I'm finally ready to be crowned in gold.

I pull my stockings over my legs, eyes gazing over the cuts and scabs from when Xander and Gadi dragged me to the fountain.

I stand tall, with my skates tightly securing my ankles, and take myself in. I'm ready. I'm strong. And I'm going to win.