“It was fast,” he said, kicking his downed opponent again. “I didn’t think I had a chance.”
Cade nodded dumbly as Eric fished his uniform from the muddy ground and began to put it on.
It had been clever to use the uniform to tangle the monster’s claws. As a result, the top half had been shredded, so Eric tied the arms in a knot around his waist, remaining bare chested.
For a moment they stood there awkwardly.
“You’re from school too,” Eric finally said.
“Yeah,” Cade said, holding out his hand.
“Eric,” Eric replied, smiling at the formality. “You’re Cade, right?”
Cade nodded, and Eric’s big hand enveloped Cade’s as they shook.
It was strange only to introduce himself now. They’d been in the same classes and sat near each other for so long.
“You know what this place is?” Cade asked, hopeful.
Eric shook his head.
“Maybe we’re dead,” he mumbled.
“Like … there was a fire or something?” Cade asked. “We died in our sleep?”
“Yeah.” Eric shrugged, bending down and unraveling the belt from around the monster’s neck. “Maybe this is hell, and this is one of the devils. It looks like a demon to me.”
Cade stared at it, his gaze skipping from its translucent needle teeth to the inky black eyes.
“Its head looks like one of those deep-sea fish, you know? Like a viperfish, I think they’re called?”
Eric shook his head, as if he’d never heard of them. “A viper.” He shrugged. “As good a name as any.”
He looked down the chasm where Cade had come from and gave him an inquisitive look.
“Any vipers where you woke up?”
“I fought one off,” Cade said. “I hope that was all of them.”
Eric looked impressed, even a little disbelieving, but Cade felt no pride at what he had done. It had been a desperate, frantic affair. He didn’t like remembering how close he had come to death.
“Glad you can hold your own,” Eric said, patting Cade’s shoulder. “I underestimated you.”
Cade winced as he was knocked forward, knowing Eric was just being nice. The kid was as strong as a bear, and built like one too, in stark contrast to Cade’s lean frame.
Yet Cade couldn’t decide if he was lucky in finding Eric. He’d heard the rumors about Eric’s past—and this kid would have no trouble overpowering Cade if he wanted to.
Still, he gave off more of a jock vibe than anything else, now that Cade had heard him speak for the first time. He had the build for football too.
Then, just like that, the barrier behind them winked out of existence.
Eric stared, then swiped his hand through where it had been before.
“Yeah,” Cade said. “They do that.”
For a moment he considered telling Eric about the hand axe, still embedded in the wall somewhere behind them—it could be useful after all. But even as he opened his mouth, he closed it again. Maybe giving a rumored killer a new weapon wasn’t such a good idea.
Instead, he examined the canyon beyond. This time, the passage looked different, although he wasn’t exactly sure if that was a good thing.
“I’m guessing there isn’t a way out behind us?” Eric said, motioning the way Cade had come with his chin.
“I don’t know,” Cade said. “But there’s a viper there.”
“Then we head this way,” Eric said, wrapping the belt around his fist. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER
4
5 months earlier
Cade stared at the lined paper in front of him while the teacher’s voice droned on. It was strange to be in class, in this place, but he supposed the school had to educate them beyond its constant exercises and marching drills.
They even had a uniform—the blue shirt and pants worn by most of the students. A far cry from the uniform he had worn at his old school: a striped tie, shirt, and blazer.
Still, Cade found it hard to concentrate. Life at this new school so far had been one that oscillated between moments of anxiety and mind-numbing, soul-crushing boredom.
This lesson was a prime example. With the teacher at the head of the small classroom, he felt safe enough. But he wasn’t learning anything new. His expensive private school had been light-years ahead of what they were teaching here. The teacher was currently outlining the very basics of the American Civil War.
Cade wasn’t going to let himself fall behind, though. They had each been provided with a shiny new textbook. The class hadn’t even cracked it open that month—Cade was pretty sure many of his fellow classmates could barely read anyway.
He’d heard that the vast majority of juvenile delinquents were functionally illiterate, and knew that many of the kids here would classify as such, having been sent there by court order, like he had, or because they weren’t a “good fit” in mainstream schools. It had seemed impossible when he’d first discovered that, but now he saw it in action, in front of his very eyes. The reality was startling.
The teacher rarely used the whiteboard, though Cade could see the faded remains of what looked like a half-dozen examples of the male anatomy someone had drawn there in permanent marker.
With nothing better to do, Cade was slowly reading the textbook from cover to cover, working through the exercises and questions inside. There was nobody to mark his work, but it distracted him from his boredom.
He made sure to sit at the back of the classroom so nobody would see what he was doing, and he always scrunched up his work and trashed it when the lesson ended. So far, he’d gone unnoticed. He was doing the same with his textbooks in other subjects, but in history, he was on the final pages.
History was his favorite subject, mostly because his father was a college history professor. In fact, it was Cade’s high grades in history that had led to his being offered a scholarship to attend the private school.
Even with the grant, his parents struggled to make payments, but they always beamed with pride whenever Cade came home from the dorm each weekend. Of course, that had been before the incident.
Cade was finishing an essay on the Great Depression’s impact on international politics when a throat was cleared in front of him. He looked up, and suddenly boredom was replaced with gut-wrenching panic.
Mr. Daniels was standing there, his hand outstretched. The teacher was a bearded giant of a man, with spectacles that seemed to have been stolen from a Harry Potter convention.
“This isn’t personal time, Carter,” Daniels said, tapping his foot. “You’re supposed to be paying attention. Stop doodling and hand it over.”
Cade hurriedly scrunched up his paper and handed it to him.
“Sorry, sir,” he said, earning some laughter from the others. Nobody called the teachers “sir” here.
“Shall we have a look at Carter’s artwork?” Daniels said, striding to the front of the class.
Cade felt sweat prickle his forehead.
“No,” he whispered.
But Daniels was already flattening out the paper on his desk. He stared at it for a moment, and the guys in the front row craned their necks to see what it was.
“This is…,” Daniels began, his brows furrowed.