Business Arrangement

Part 18

CHAPTER 18:

There was a way to be a headmaster and play Switzerland.

Or in other words, the woman who drugged me on my own plane after I'd escaped Ender's cousin and his girlfriend, was Headmaster Cecile Lynn.

She made a decision. One not even my parents could have requested when I woke up in the dormitory I hated and knew exactly what had happened in those exact moments. I sat up in the plain wooden bed with one grey sheet and the dorm number in disgustingly bold black letters.

The blanket on the folded edge of the slim bed were both thin and itchy, a complete opposite of what I preferred in all of my sleeping habits. The uniforms here were brutally to the point. Mine were charcoal grey with a strip of yellow down one shoulder and that was it. That was all it had to identify me as a Bee. Along with the Bee logo etched into the stitching at the cuffs of it.

I frown at it, "What a bitch."

The headmaster I mean.

No explanation as to why she brought me here and if I had to guess, my door was bound like a vault. I merely had the facilities to shower and relieve myself, but that was it. Pulling my golden strands to the side, I fish-plait and take my time doing it. The aura of this place was that of a prison.

My door suddenly opens without a knock. I tense and look over, before staring into blue eyes. Snake eyes, in fact. The sharpness in them contradicted her usual expression of calm and poised patience when her fangs hiss out. But as of right now, in this very moment, her fangs weren't out, she was only wary.

I blink, "Gwendolyn?"

She and her brother were my closest friends here, Gwendolyn Hiss and Gander Hiss, the troublesome snake twins.

She smirks at me before her raven strands move when the very Snake of the high family-her brother, older by two minutes and twelve seconds, steps inside. A red cut lines over his nose, one recently broken. His raven strands were longer at the top, slicked back like that of a true reptile. His azure blue eyes penetrate mine.

I blanch at them, "How did you two gather I was here?" I grin in question, sprinting over. I hug Gwendolyn first. Gander closes the door whilst checking for one of the guards. Gwen holds me close, squeezing me in her embrace.

"You're alright?" He whispers to me, standing next to her. His prominent snake tattoo just on the side of his neck captures my attention, how harsh it looked, but it made him look fiercer than when I first met him. Ten-years old. The first boy to teach me how to fight, my moves were his. He'd obviously had it done at least a year ago, based on the tissue and tattoo texture, along with the colour. Gwendolyn pulls back slowly, she looked roughed up too.

I study her features, "The Initiation-the games. You both were in it. What happened?" I whisper, figuring that's what this was about. Why had I missed those games, not even I knew the full scope of it.

Gwendolyn sighs in defeat, "The Bees' tasks contained three levels as ours did, we had levels that revealed simulations against family endangerment. Theirs was the Stinger girls. You each were clearly holograms in a mountain of honey-like dew. Everyone was shielded outside of the Head Bees' tournaments, but we could still see it all. I was terrified that they had put you three in under a low breathing hypnosis of some sort and allowed you to comply with little movement. They managed to get to the pods we thought you three were in. Until they were ripped open, empty with only an image. As cruel as they love to do. They did it because of the...new families." She says slowly, moving aside when Gander steps in close, he embraces me, cradling the back of my head.

I stare at them both, "Dear lord, that is quite dark. I wonder why my sisters and I were missed. Have you seen them? And families-whatever do you mean?" I ask, confused, before knowing the exact nature of what was revealed. So, Ender and his company of close friends were in fact brought here.