Spy School: The Rise of Gama

Chapter 10: The Mark of the Snake

The next day all of the students are back to attending the regularly scheduled classes. Nico’s empty seat leaves a hollow feeling in all the students, like when a tooth is pulled and you can’t stop running your tongue over the empty space. Each class continues as usual, the teachers doing their best to keep the students focused on the lesson.

“Hey, Lyndley? Did you finish the questions we had for history? I didn’t get number five.” Adela asks during lunch as she takes a seat across the table from Lyndley. Lyndley pulls her homework out of a folder and slides it to Adela who takes it and begins copying immediately. “Thanks. By the way, where was the Delta team yesterday? You all left during foreign languages in the morning and never came back. Everything okay?”

Lyndley nods as she pushes her salad around the bowl with her fork, “We just had some team building things to take care of. Carol’s orders.”

Adela stops copying the homework to look up at Lyndley for a moment, frowning worriedly. She knows Lyndley isn’t telling the whole truth but decides not to push. Lyndley talks only when she feels like it, pressuring her never gets anywhere.

“Where’s Nico? It’s unlike him to skip this many classes in a row.” Lyndley questions, finally taking a bite of salad.

“He was transferred to a school in Maine. Hopefully he’ll be back in a few months but we never really know. You remember Ricky, right? He was supposed to transfer back a month ago but we haven’t seen or heard from him since he left.”

“Do you really want him back?” Lyndley raises an eyebrow questioningly, a faint smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

“Hell no, that asshole constantly flirted with everyone. Honestly I wouldn’t be too surprised if he was kicked from the program.” Adela goes back to copying her homework.

Lyndley just nods in response, nervously chewing on the inside of her lip. Nico transferring is going to have a major impact on the students’ performance during simulations. Will the remaining students be able to handle it? Especially if Mrs. Sanders keeps raising the difficulty level.

“Mind if we sit with you?” The question causes both Adela and Lyndley to look up at the speaker.

Ty is standing there with Ahara and Liz behind her. Ahara has dark circles under her eyes and her shoulders are slumped in a tired appearance. Liz is nearly the exact opposite with a slight bounce in her step and a smile on her face.

“Yeah, sure.” Adela moves over so that there’s room at the table for the other three to take a seat.

“You alright?” Lyndley questions Ahara.

“Didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all.” Ahara brushes off the question.

The table of girls sits in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, the only sounds being the scratching of pencils on paper and the chewing of food. Once finished copying, Adela slides Lyndley’s paper back over to her and puts her own homework away.

“What’re you drawing, Liz?” Ty breaks the silence, looking over at Liz who is outlining something in a small sketchbook.

“This keeps showing up in my dreams. It’s been bugging me, so I decided to put it down on paper. Sometimes that helps.” Liz explains as she turns the drawing to show Ty then anyone else at the table who is interested in seeing.

The drawing is of a charcoal black serpent curled up in the shape of a ‘G’. It’s fangs are showing, a bright gleaming white color, a stark contrast against the black. The serpent’s beady eyes were colored in using red pen, giving the entire sketch an even darker appearance.