Or maybe the school liked that it was all rumor and hushed conversations. Maybe that kept people more scared than a dead body ever would. A dead body might make people mad, make them rebel.

Back in Pittsburgh I’d always been around gangs. Real gangs, not these cocky wannabes. There was always fighting, always violence. But it wasn’t until a kid got shot in the grocery store parking lot on a Saturday afternoon that the community really rallied. People had been dying for years, but it was always in alleys and back lots, in the middle of the night. When people actually saw it with their own eyes, that’s what made them want to stop it.

Maxfield Academy wanted us to be afraid. They didn’t want us to ever know why we were here.

I’m going to find out.

I was almost to the classroom door when I heard my name.

“Benson!”

I turned just in time to see Jane inches away. She threw her arms around me.

“Oh my gosh,” she said. “Are you okay?”

Confused, I hugged her back. I didn’t want to tell her that the only thing causing me pain right now was her squeezing my bruises.

“I’m fine.”

She pulled back and looked into my face. She was smiling, but her eyes were red like she’d been crying. “I heard what happened. What were you doing out of your room?”

“Just looking around,” I said.

It took a minute for me to realize we were standing in the middle of the hall holding each other, and I quickly let go of her.

“Don’t do that again,” she said, shaking her head and laughing nervously. Her voice hushed. “What if Isaiah caught you?”

We turned toward the classroom door.

“There’s nothing in the rules about being out at night,” I said.

“Unless he thinks you’re trying to escape.”

I nodded. She grabbed my arm and gave it a squeeze. “Just be careful, okay?”

“Okay.”

Laura was teaching again, smiling as brightly as she had before, but she never made eye contact with me. We halfheartedly discussed the aesthetics textbook that we were supposed to have read, although no one—not even the Society kids—really got into it. I hadn’t even thought about the book since I’d gotten it.

As the bell rang for lunch, Laura read a note from her computer.

“We have an announcement from the school,” she said happily. “There is going to be a dance in ten days. As contracts will be renewed next week and points awarded, please note that dance attire is available for purchase. You will also be able to purchase music that you wish to have played during the dance. Whoever gets the janitorial contract this month will be responsible for setup and decoration.”

Lily slumped in her seat. “That’s more work for the V’s.”

“The contracts are being changed?” I asked.

“They’re being renewed,” Jane corrected, turning back to look at me. “Nobody negotiates anymore. We have a truce.”

I nodded, listening to the rest of the room chatter about the dance. After my conversation with Becky, this all felt so wrong. I understood what she had meant—that it was safer to follow the rules—but could I really go to a dance knowing what I did about the school? That the same people who were letting us buy tuxes and music were also murdering kids in the basement?

“You okay?” Jane asked. Shaken from my thinking, I realized that most of the other students were on their feet and heading out the door. She was still sitting in front of me.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”

“The first week is always the hardest,” she said. “Everyone has trouble.” Jane put her elbows on my desk and rested her chin in her hands, grinning mischievously. “You’re a little more vocal about it than some, but everyone thinks like you at first.”

I looked at the people filing out of the room, chatting excitedly about the dance. “How long does it take to get brainwashed?”

“Listen,” she whispered. “You’re in the V’s, and we agree with you. A lot of terrible stuff happens here.” There was something in her eyes, some hurt that I couldn’t identify. “But have you ever stopped to think about where you’d go if you left? You don’t have any family. No one here does.”

“I’d have my freedom.”

“Freedom to do what? Get a minimum-wage job and live in a run-down apartment—if you’re lucky?”

I snatched my textbook from my desk. “So you’re here because you like it.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean?”

Jane pulled back from my desk and took a breath. She tiredly ran her fingers through her hair. Finally, she stood and extended her hand to me. “Let’s go get some lunch.”

Chapter Nine

That afternoon we didn’t have classes. Instead, Iceman announced that we had last-minute time to complete our contracts before they were renewed. The V’s met in the maintenance room, and Curtis and Carrie handed out our assignments.

In addition to the vacuums and mops, the maintenance room had a wide selection of hand tools—hammers and wrenches and saws—and I immediately thought of how I could use them for escape. I searched the peg board for wire cutters, to get through the fence, but didn’t see anything too promising. There was a pair of pliers that might work, but it’d be suicide to get all the way over the wall only to have them fail.

Extension cords, on the other hand, were as good as rope, and there were at least three of them. I couldn’t help smiling as I turned back to Curtis for my assignment.

It turned out to be trash duty.

It was interesting, being able to walk the halls of the school in silence, to inspect all the nooks and crannies. I started on the top floor, rolling a large garbage can down the halls of the guys’ dorm—another V girl was doing the same on her side—dumping the small trash bins. I peeked around some of the other rooms, but no one had much to look at. A few guys had some books, one had a guitar, and three rooms had TVs and video games. Mason had told me that those took almost six months’ worth of points.

I don’t know what I was expecting in Oakland’s room—a gun collection? A list of people to beat up?—but other than an unmade bed and some smelly socks, nothing was out of the ordinary.

I moved floor by floor, room by room, but the building was so big and there were so few of us that most of the trash cans were unused.

On my way down to the basement I stopped by Becky’s office and emptied her bin, but Isaiah was talking to her and I didn’t want to hang around.

I searched the basement for the detention room. The infirmary was down there, as well as dozens of small storage areas and a boiler room. I checked every door on the floor—the chip in my watch opened all of them since we had the maintenance contract—but none of them looked like what I expected for the detention room. It was just like the basement of any old building: cramped, dark, and plain.

And then I found it, after I’d almost given up. It looked like the other storage rooms—cement walls, poorly lit. But I noticed the door was heavy when I swung it open, and as I looked closer I could tell it was metal, painted to look like the other wooden doors. And the floor had a hollowness to it, like I wasn’t walking on foundation cement anymore. I was standing in an elevator.