Beautiful Things

Six

The man led us to a room a few minute's walk from the room we'd just been in. it was entirely white, like every other room, and the door was just like the others. But in the center was a metal table

It made me shiver.

The door slid shut behind us and I felt my heartbeat thrumming in my head. The boy gave me a worried look. His face was pale with fright. I remembered the boy with the ladybug bot, how he had screamed and how I had left him. 

"This is one of the many punishment rooms," he explained as he opened his arms wide and walked in a slow circle. He stopped, facing us once again, and smiled like a snake at us. "This is where I have a feeling we will be seeing each other very often."

The boy looked like he was going to snap response, but my body acted before my brain did.

"Surely you could forgive us this one time?" I was surprised by how calm my voice sounded. My hammering heart said otherwise about how I felt. 

"Oh?" the man raised an eyebrow and his dragonfly bot let out an angry buzz. "Why should I forgive you?"

"We just woke up." I explained. "I woke up only yesterday. We haven't had time to learn the rules and fully understand them."

The man frowned at me, and then a glint of recognition flashed in his steely eyes. I suddenly felt more vulnerable. 

"I remember you," he said, a smirk playing at his lips, "You were the one trying to help the boy."

"I didn't know what else to do." I said, lowering my head. 

He let out a snicker. 

"You want me to forgive you because you didn't know the rules yet. . ." he seemed to think about it for a while, "But I cannot."

I sucked in a sharp breath. 

"You see, if I let you two go with just a warning, the other students here will have something to say about it. Everybody here is expected to do the same simple three things."

"And what's that?" I asked, my voice trembling a little now.

"Obey," the man held up one finger and smiled at me, "Learn," he held up another finger and his smile turned viscous, "and break." He held up his third finger and his grey eyes were alight with some sort of hunger that was predatory. I wanted to run, but at the same time, my body refused to obey me.

"But I will give you some time to collect yourselves," he said, assessing us. "Calm your racing hearts, dry your sweaty palms and give each other one last kiss." He chuckled to himself as he walked over to a wall. He was teasing us.

The door slid back to reveal shelving. He pulled out a clipboard-looking thing, but as I looked closer, I saw that it had a screen and a battery attached to the back and something that looked like for Credit cards attached at the side. It had a few ports for other possible cords and bits and pieces.

 He also pulled out two USBs and placed the clipboard-iPad and the USBs on the table and turned back to the wall. He pulled out four necklace chains, walking over us to measure the lengths around our necks.

I shivered when his hands slid across my neck. His eyes met mine and his tongue flashed across his lips. There was something beyond that predatory gleam in his eyes that made me want to curl up and never move again.

He pulled out four little squares of metal and placed them on the table, as well as a kit that looked like something the diabetic boy in my class would use to measure his levels and whatnot. 

"Come here," he said, readying the equipment without looking at either of us. I walked forward after the boy, our bots buzzing close behind. The man put out a hand. What did he want? "Give me your hand," he snapped. The boy jumped, but thrust his arm forward. The man grabbed his wrist, making the boy flinch, and pressed the pen-looking thing (which I recalled the boy saying is called a lancet or something) to the boy's finger. It clicked, and a little bead of blood welled at the tip of his finger. Then the man wiped the blood onto the little thing that looked like a glucose measure-er.