Extracted

Cecelia

Jeremy's not at breakfast. He's absent for lunch as well. I try not to worry. Last time they set his arm, they kept him all night. When he doesn't show up for dinner, a dark panic gathers in my gut. Call it big sister instinct. Something is terribly wrong, well, more wrong than this whole crazy situation.

I can't sleep. After lights out, I pace in our small room. Cecelia glares at me and keeps turning over in her bed. "What is going on with you? Can you at least sit down so one of us can sleep?"

"Yeah. Sorry." I lower to the side of my thin bed. I'm a high maintenance roommate. I know that. I scrape my feet back and forth on the floor.

Cecelia looks over her shoulder, squinting one eye. "Seriously? Just go to sleep."

I can't. "Cecelia?"

She groans, a very un-Cecelia thing to do. "What?"

"What's the longest you've been kept in the infirmary?"

"Eight days."

"That long? What happened?"

"Sparring. Broke a few ribs." Like everything she does, Cecelia remains cool, like breaking ribs is no big thing.

But it is a big deal. Teenage girls shouldn't be laid up with broken ribs and have to hide their emotions about it.

"I'm sorry."

Cecelia pushes up onto her elbow, her brows drawn down, puckering her perfectly shaped nose. "Why are you sorry? You didn't do it. Besides, it gave me strength."

"How does getting your ribs broken do that?"

Her lips quirk in a self-depreciating smile. "That was the day I decided to believe. No weakness, only strength. Rely on no one. I wasn't going to be weak."

That's how she manages to cope with this place so calmly. I move over to sit on the side of her bed. "But, Cecelia, you aren't alone. None of us are."

"That's where you're wrong. We are all alone. Orphans. We can only rely on ourselves." With that, she turns back to her other side to face the wall, dismissing me to continue surviving all on her own.

~~~

Jeremy doesn't show up for breakfast again. I had taken note the other night, watching Mitchell and Lawrence hack their way through the school's camera feeds. Now that I'm freaky smart, I figure I can learn to do it too. So during calculus, I use my tablet to do a little looking of my own between mathematical equations.

Jeremy isn't in the infirmary or anywhere I find on the camera feeds. That leaves either his quarters, which I doubt, or the lab, which twists my insides into hard knots. I wish I could get any kind of outside access beyond the fences, but so far we've only been able to hook into monitors connected within the school's direct systems.

At lunch, after Cecelia leaves the table, I lean toward Lawrence and whisper. "Gideon's gone. I can't find him anywhere." I go for my most pleading look.

"I'll see what I can find out."

I smile my gratitude. He and Mitchell are so much better at maneuvering through the systems. They have a much greater chance at finding my brother.

The next couple of classes drag. I can't sit still. My feet are in constant motion, swishing across the floor.

"Anything?" I pounce on Lawrence the moment he sits down with his tray at dinner. Gideon's seat is still painfully empty.

Lawrence keeps his head lowered. He won't look at me. It's bad. Whatever he's found out. I know it's bad.

"Lawrence?" My tone is small and skittery like maybugs beneath rocks.