Chapter 9

Friday

I woke up, just gradually aware of the transition from sleeping to wakefulness. I’d been dreaming I was in my bed in the Cameron house, my home growing up, lying curled around Miranda’s head. I suddenly realized that I was in my own bed in the Academy dorm. But I was still curled around Miranda, and I realized I was awake. Being awake feels different than dreaming, somehow. It was an odd feeling, leaving a dream so near the reality of my existence, and the dream proved harder to shake off than if it had been more outrageously unrealistic.

I felt excitement tinged with sadness. Excitement: I was beginning the last full day of my life, standing on the edge of fulfilling the goal that had driven me these last four years. Sadness: I was leaving the Academy, the scene of the happiest times of my life, the home of all my dearest friends

I brought Miranda’s head to my face and kissed her lips. You’re one of the loved ones I’ll have to leave here. But you’ll be in the room of someone who treasures you as much as I do.

I showered and examined my hair as I blow-dried it. I’d had the salon trim it last week—it had reached an awkward length, a little shaggy to be a “wind-blown” pixie-cut but still not long enough to style the way I would have liked, and I just didn’t have time to let it grow any longer. I’d thought about having it all in tight curls, but after looking at pictures I decided it just wasn’t me. It was still too short to part properly, so I’d had them cut the front shorter, where the bangs were a little long, but I’d left the back alone. It still came nowhere near my shoulders, but I had recently started feeling it brush the back of my neck when I turned my head. It’s a lot less military now. I nodded to myself and decided against stopping in at the salon for a final emergency adjustment.

I dressed in the outfit I’d picked out. I’d debated with myself whether to dress up at all, as opposed to simply wearing my Academy uniform. Miranda had arrived for Andrew’s party in that incredibly hot golden outfit, but that was because she was arriving on the day of the party. My party was scheduled for tomorrow, so I didn’t need to be dressed for it yet. The deciding factor was that, like Miranda, I’d been sold to someone I’d never seen—Benjamin’s son, Calvin. I wanted to make the best possible first impression on my new owner.

Now dressed, I examined myself critically in the mirror—the outfit I’d chosen had looked okay, but now I was preparing to show it off in public.

I wore a white cotton top with short sleeves, ending just below my breasts, so that my midriff was bare. I’d chosen a see-through mesh that left my bare skin visible on my shoulders and upper chest. The mesh gradually solidified to solid white that just barely covered my nipples, but their shape was clearly outlined. I didn’t bother with a bra: my breasts were plenty firm without one. And I liked I liked the way it showed off my abs and back. I’d spent several sessions in the tanning bed after choosing the top, so that my skin contrasted more with the white fabric.

I settled on a medium-brown mini-skirt with a side-slit that gave a peek-a-boo view of my matching lace panties. The student store had provided me with a special-order: toeless brown half boots with high heels. I’d considered calf-length elevator boots, but decided these shoes provided the look I wanted.

I checked my eyes, and decided they needed just a little touch-up. I applied a black eyeliner. I realized that I was trying to make my eyes more dramatic—more like Runner’s. When I was done, I took in my whole self, trying to see myself as a stranger. An intelligent, sensual, desirable woman, I decided. Just what I wanted.

I picked up my new slave choker. The brown vinyl collar—matching my skirt—was stitched in flowing white script, “AMY—Property of Calvin S. Smith.” I stared at it for a full minute. Quivering slightly, I fastened it around my neck, symbolically letting go of the Academy. The Academy no longer owned me. My sale had gone through a few weeks ago; my Master was now a young man, very close to my own age, a recent university graduate, about whom I knew nothing except that he is Benjamin’s son. I closed my eyes and slowly blew out my breath to calm myself. I knew Benjamin. He wouldn’t buy me for a creep like Andrew.

My thoughts turned to a less visible feature of the choker. Embedded within the fabric was the electronic monitor that would signal when my heart stopped. Donning the choker was the first real step of my final journey. I reached up and touched it, stroking it for a time. Then it was time to finish up.

Packing my overnight bag took only a few minutes. I included a second, identical outfit, just in case. Also a looser, more colorful one in case Calvin turned out to prefer that. Little else was left in the room. I’d already given away my favorite party outfits to some other girls my size. Most of my other clothes had gone back to the student store, my books to the library. I’d left my huge piles of class notebooks with Melissa for Runner to use. Melissa had insisted I should not disrupt my mental focus. She would make sure the room was completely emptied and clean when she got back from my hanging.

I left some clothes I’d decided I didn’t need, folded neatly on the bed.

At last, I pulled out a dresser drawer, and took an envelope I needed to fulfill a promise made long ago. I’d saved it for last because, even more than the choker, it signified that I was going to my final show. I placed the envelope carefully in a side pocket of my bag and zipped the pocket closed.

I stood in the middle of the room, not to decide whether anything more needed to be done but simply to take a last look around. I hadn’t lived in this room very long, but it represented all of the dorm rooms I’d lived in during my time here, rooms shared with Susan, with Grant, with Shawna, with Melissa and Jana, with Runner.

I felt an eagerness to start on my last adventure that conquered my reluctance to leave this place of comfort behind. I nodded to myself, picked up my bag, cradled Miranda in the crook of one arm, opened the door, and closed it behind me.

Melissa opened the door and grinned at me as soon as I knocked. “I heard footsteps coming, and I figured it was you.”

Runner, his face alight, stood behind Melissa. I was relieved—Runner was in much better spirits than before. “Amy! I was just thinking about riding in a car. We’ll go in one, right? I’ve only been in a car that one time, and then I just didn’t know what was going on.”

I laughed. “Hold on just a minute, Runner. I need to do something first.” I set my bag down and carefully offered Miranda to Melissa, face first. “Melissa, I kind of gave Miranda to you once before, when my life here got so rudely interrupted. But obviously, you should have her.” I hesitated, then chuckled. “I was about to say something really stupid about taking good care of her. But anyway, your sister belongs to you now.”

Melissa bit her lip, smiling as she fought off tears. She reached for Miranda and pulled her sister’s head against her chest, her eyes closed, rubbing her cheek against the top of Miranda’s head. “Thank you so much, Amy. I’m so glad we got to be such close friends that you didn’t have to think twice about this.” She wiped the side of her hand against her eye and turned, taking Miranda to the space she’d cleared on the shelf over the bed.

There were three more overnight bags lined up next to the bed. Melissa had told me she’d help Runner pack.

I turned to Runner, smiling. “So how was your night?”

“Oh, it was nice. They knew I was really sad, so they hugged me between them in bed all night. I felt better when I woke up.”

Melissa rejoined the group after having a few words with Miranda. I looked at her curiously. “You do know it’s not today, right?” Jana and Runner were dressed casually, in white Academy tops and colored shorts, with standard sneakers on their feet, but Melissa was in the executioner’s outfit she had picked out—tight black t-shirt with a plunging neckline that showed plenty of cleavage, full-length black leather pants, and black high-heeled boots. A black choker would have been an ideal addition, but Melissa was only a Second Year student; her metal collar would have to do.

Melissa laughed and nodded. “Of course I know. But I remember you said Miranda’s roommate Beth was in character the whole time at Miranda’s hanging. I’m going to wear these too.” She pulled dark eyeshades, with black frames, out of her pocket and put them on. “How do I look?”

I smiled. “Totally professional. It’s a good thing you’re going to kill me tomorrow, because otherwise you’d be looking for somebody else to kill.” Actually, I suspected Melissa’s role would be limited to setting the noose in place, then giving the signal at the end of the hanging that I was dead. It all depended on what sort of script Calvin wanted to follow, but I suspected he would want to pull the lever himself.

I turned back to Runner. “You under...”

Runner interrupted me. “Yes, I know why you didn’t want me to be your executioner. This is my first off-campus hanging show, and you don’t want me to get...” he was searched his ever-expanding vocabulary for the right word. “ ... distracted. You want me to be watching everything that happens.”

I nodded slowly. “Right.” I should be used to this by now. It’s not like I can’t read minds myself. I understand how it’s done, and I’ve been learning how for four years. But I still can’t do it like Runner does.

I was daily less confident that I ever could hide something from Runner, if the occasion ever arose when I wanted to,. One of the many reasons I was glad my hanging was coming tomorrow—it seemed unlikely I’d ever be in that situation.

The speaker in the room crackled, Angie, one of the dorm parents for the Second Years, spoke. “Can I have everybody’s attention...” I wondered why so many of our announcements began that way, as if people would otherwise fail to notice an amplified, disembodied voice suddenly springing up in their environment. Angie went on, “All ten o’clock and eleven o’clock classes are cancelled, for today only. All students please assemble now in the Party Pavilion.”

I blinked. “I don’t know if we have time for whatever that’s about...” I stopped when I saw Melissa’s face.

“Uhhh ... Amy?” Melissa was grinning. “That doesn’t really apply to us. They can’t exactly ... start without us.”

I stared at her for several seconds, and at last said, “Ah. Okay.”

Jana looked at the clock. “We have time for breakfast. I’m starved!”

Runner nodded. “Me too.”

It seemed very odd in the cafeteria. The serving lines were open, the food was hot or cold as appropriate, but no other students were there. Normally there would be a few students having late breakfasts. I felt as though the world had been suddenly depopulated in the last few minutes, except for me and my friends.

As we ate, Runner suddenly asked, “Amy, are there princes and princesses in real life? I just read another story with a princess in it, but I never hear about them for real.”

I blinked, smiling. With my hanging so close, Runner is probably thinking about the standard hanging scripts that I had described to him, including the Princess scene I’d mentioned when I described Miranda’s hanging. The current question hadn’t come up then: Back then, Runner hadn’t noticed that there aren’t any princesses in the day-to-day world. “There were princes for real, and kings and queens, a long time ago, but we do things differently now. Now we have elections, where everybody writes down who the leaders should be, and whoever the most people want becomes the leader. And we have different words for what we call them. Like the leader of the city is called the mayor...”

Runner frowned. “I knew about elections from TV. If they didn’t choose kings that way, then how did they get to be king?”

As we continued eating, I tried to explain the system of power, back as far as tribal days. I watched Runner while I spoke, noticing that Runner’s table manners no longer distinguished him from anybody else in ... well, I’ve been calling it “my world,” but it’s very much Runner’s world now too. Nothing about Runner at this moment suggested he’d lived his entire life, until just months ago, in a culture where people just grabbed food and ate it with their hands.

By the time I was finished with an explanation that seemed to satisfy Runner, we had all finished eating. My very last meal in the Academy cafeteria. How many does that make, I wondered. Not quite four years ... about fourteen hundred days ... four thousand meals here?? Can it possibly be that many? I shook my head to clear it. No thought about leaving the Academy had staggered me quite as much as that one.

We returned to Melissa’s and Jana’s room to pick up our bags. Melissa tried—without success—to stifle a smile and said, “What do you say we leave by way of the Party Pavilion?”

I picked up my bag, laughing. “Just a passing thought, was it?”

Melissa nodded. “No special reason.”

Holding my bag, I turned in a slow circle, looking around the room I had spent more nights in than the one Runner and I had shared. I’ve got to stop my mind taking this sentimental farewell tour, I told myself. It’s slowing everything down, and I want to get to my hanging. But somehow it was hard to make myself leave the room. At last I took a deep breath, and grinned. “Okay, Party Pavilion it is.”

I wasn’t surprised to hear the commotion before even entering the corridor that led to the Party Pavilion entrance. It gave me a deja vu feeling; my goodbye party had been here just last weekend.

Melissa, Jana and Runner entered first, and the room instantly grew hushed. I grinned and shook my head. Here I go again.

I walked in and stopped, expecting a sudden outburst from the gathered students. Instead, the silence continued for several seconds, interrupted by a single voice—I couldn’t tell whose—calling out clearly, “One, two, three.” An instant after “three,” every student in the room shouted in synchrony, “Good Luck, Amy!!!” The organized chant was followed by laughter from various places around the room, and, at last, the applause.

There were two rope lines forming a corridor from the student area door, which I’d just come in through, to the public door on the other side of the room. Students were lined up in ranks outside the rope lines. Obviously there was no intent of repeating the endless hugging session of my party, or making me stop to give a speech. They were only there to watch me and deliver a group expression of their feelings for me as I passed through.

Melissa and the others had stopped during my entrance, but now Melissa turned and beckoned me on. I followed, both embarrassed and very touched to be the focus of the scene. I’d only seen this once before, for Larry’s exit, and then it was only because all of the students were pretending to be watching a movie star leaving. I wasn’t convinced my Academy career was really that distinguished, certainly not in the way Grant’s was. Most likely it was because I’d only so recently returned, and been given a second chance to achieve the goal of my existence, after I’d thought it was out of reach forever. All of the students understood how much that meant to me.

I understood that I wasn’t expected to greet all 150-odd students, but I did make an effort to smile and wave at the ones I felt closest to, especially the ones I had spent the night with. I brushed tears away with my other hand.

I heard Puppy bark, and spotted her near the rope, and my smile broadened. Tate was holding her leash, kneeling next to her and applauding. Then he started to giggle as Puppy licked his face.

Holden and Hamish, holding hands, were up next to the rope about halfway along. I had resolved not to stop, but I just couldn’t pass by the red-headed brothers without one more hug. As I squeezed each one, I whispered in the ear of one, and then the other, “You guys are going to do shows they’ll always remember.” I broke off the second hug, wiped another tear away and picked up my bag again. I heard both boys shout over the applause around them, “Thank you, Amy.” It was as synchronized as the group shout-out had been moments earlier, but I hadn’t seen any signs of them coordinating it.

Ms. Bennett, the assistant Dean, unlocked the exit door and opened it. She smiled at me. “When I first interview some students, I feel for certain I’ll see this day come for them. You’re one of those, Amy, and I’m so proud of you.”

I hugged her tightly, my tears flowing non-stop now. “Thank you. You just don’t know how proud I am to represent the Academy.”

Ms. Bennett let me go and held me at arms’ length for a moment. “I can tell, Amy. The very best of luck to you.”

I thanked her and followed Runner out the door as Melissa and Jana held it for us. I brushed tears away, trying to collect myself as I took in a great lungful of fresh outdoor air. At the curb, Bill was standing by the open doors of the Academy limo—definitely one of ours; I saw Karl in the driver’s seat. Getting students from building to car was something the bodyguards took a great deal more care with these days.

All four of us tossed our bags in the open trunk—Runner stood there wide-eyed for several seconds, just looking at the world around us. The Academy stood on a small hill, so there was a lot to see. He shook himself and tossed his bags in just as we had. I entered the first open door and led Runner by the hand to follow me in; Melissa and Jana took the seat behind.

I pulled a tissue from my bag and dabbed at my face, then reached for my kit to do a quick restoration on my eyes. As I finished, the limo pulled away from the curb. I turned in my seat to watch the Academy grow smaller in my field of vision. Melissa and Jana remained silent while I watched, and even Runner was quiet. For now.