Page 19 of Monster Made
I perk my ears up.
“—to die,” he concludes. “The only ex-soldier is a dead soldier, Quill. Don’t you forget that.”
_
Thursday morning is assembly, and today, I don’t really mind. It means we get to sit in the rows of cushioned fold-up chairs in the auditorium. I’m feeling pretty sore right now, and it’s nice to sit in something a little more comfortable than the metal classroom chairs.
The principal drones on for a long time about a fundraiser coming up, then the science teacher talks about the fair at the end of the month. The vice principal reminds us of the serial killer at loose and tells us not to be out alone at night. Buthe spends a lot longer going over school rules—only people with passes allowed in the hallways during class, no running or sliding down bannisters, no smoking weed in the bathroom. I look around distractedly for the person I assume that last rule is meant for, but Finn Austen is nowhere to be seen. Which vaguely reminds me of the syringe Cass stuck in his neck last night.
This time, it’s not a memory lapse but just not giving a shit that causes me to push the vision from my mind. And I forget about it altogether when, as usual, the vice principal asks if anyone in the student body has any announcements to make.
Occasionally, some of the overachievers do, but today, the person raising her hand is none other than… Piper motherfucking Day.
I stiffen in my chair, all my bruises forgotten, as I watch her stand up a few rows in front of me, then nervously walk to the platform where the vice principal waits, clutching a microphone. The latter is clearly as surprised as the rest of us as she hands over the mic to Piper, who squeezes it in one hand while the other… clutches a paper. Something tells me it’s the paper she took from Al Campbell’s office last night, and a very uncomfortable sense of foreboding rises in me as I take in her triumphant grin.
“Good morning,” she squeaks out in a nervous voice.
Shut up. Shut up, Piper. Get the fuck off the stage. Sit the fuck back down, Piper.
If telepathy were a thing, I’d definitely be able to get it through her thick skull that whatever she’s about to do is a terrible idea, from the way I’m thinking it with all the cells in my body. Instead, though, I watch helplessly as she brings the paper up to her eyes.
“I have an announcement,” she continues. “I want to announce that, uhm… Ray Campbell… Ray Campbell didnotget into college.” She clears her throat. “He applied to, uhm… DSUniversity… and his application gotdenied, probably because he’s very stupid, and he’s so bad at sports I guess he didn’t get a sports scholarship either. Thank you. That’s all I wanted to say. Thank you.”
She speaks so fast the words come out half-scrambled, and then she hurriedly lets go of the mic, letting it fall to the floor in a deafening sound, before scurrying back to her seat. There’s a very long silence which, for most of the students, is due to confusion.
But I’m not confused right now.
I’m freaking out.
Because those words she just said awakened a dormant memory.
DS University.
Devil Soldiers University.
I guess Piper wanted to get revenge on Ray Campbell for whatever reason. That’s why she went snooping around his dad’s papers. And when she found something appearing to indicate that his son didn’t get into college, she decided to use it to humiliate him.
But DS University isnota university. It’s the code name for the science experiments Al Campbell runs in the very heart of Devil Tower.
And of course Ray isn’t a part of any of them. His father has no qualms about fucking us soldiers over, but he would never turn his own son into a lab rat.
I groan, closing my eyes and sliding back in my seat.
I can’t fucking believe this girl. I can’t believe she just walked up to the front of the auditorium and cheerfully stuck a huge target on her own goddamn back.
Guess I’m going to have to clean up her mess. As usual.
Friday
Chapter 7
Quill
Clearly, I should have walked out of Campbell’s experiment a long time ago.
That’s the one good thing to come out of this situation. Most soldiers would get shot or, at the very least, severely disciplined for such an act of insubordination. Meanwhile, I get a fucking holiday.
Tragen called to confirm Dad’s words—that I was no longer on Campbell’s team—and added that I could stay in and rest instead of going to training on Thursday night.
