The Hero of a Thousand Deaths

  Part One:

  The Wolves Who Cried Boy

  CHAPTER TWO

  The top floor of the Carlisle School was technically the first floor of the CGP’s headquarters, which made accessing it strictly prohibited to the average student. Entering this government penthouse required using a special fob to activate the prismatic elevator located on the student housing floor. This theoretically ground-level sector of the CGP’s underground fortress was where the staff offices began and the facade of a normal school ended.

  Three Carlisle School clubrooms resided in a tiny corridor that grew laterally out from the elevator porch, although two of these rooms had been closed for remodeling for over a year now. Separating the student body from the staff offices was a security annex that resembled something like a Vegas casino safe. Constructed with transparent bulletproof glass and titanium mechanics, this technological gatekeeper represented the CGP's gaping divide between presentation and reality.

  From the student side, only a singular staff office was visible––and scantily so. A mirage in the distance, this office belonged to none other than the CGP director, Eve. The halls leading to Eve’s office were a sheik silver-blue, reminiscent of what someone might expect the hallway leading toward Captain Kirk’s bedroom to look like.

  Ryō trekked the spaceship-like walkway with his eyes. He followed the augmented navy panels up to Eve’s office door, which seemed to be manufactured from the same distinct material. A high-tech retina scanner occupied the space where a peephole would have been. Besides that, the door possessed no visible protuberances that would indicate someone could manually enter the room.

  The boy found it odd that the director's door lacked a handle. Then again, his general presence on this floor was odd. Unlike most students, Ryō had been granted passage to the staff side on a handful of occasions. Given he was the only student allotted that right, the boy came to the natural conclusion that the CGP rendered him a complete and utter non-threat.

  That wasn't the full truth, however. The boy's prerogative was equally down to his self-fulfilled role as the Omega Class mule. For the past decade, Ryō had volunteered to handle all the chores and cumbersome tasks assigned by the higher-ups to the Omega Class. Originally thinking this initiative would win over his classmates and even turn a couple of them into friends, the decision ultimately wound up being the fault line for the boy's social apartheid. From that moment forward, Ryō became the kiss-ass class narc in the eyes of his fellow students.

  It wasn't all bad, though. Regardless of the aforementioned downside, there were a few amenities that the boy was able to enjoy courtesy of his controversial access to the top floor. First and foremost was the amenity of sunlight.

  An octagonal skylight located at the very center of the ceiling speckled the vanilla walls of the penthouse floor below with refracted diamonds of sunshine. Only a single ray of sunlight survived its downward journey to blanket Ryō’s cheeks, but its delicate touch was enough to elicit a rush of Vitamin D-fueled euphoria. Although the exposure wasn't direct, this demo of life under the sun was a sojourn for the boy.

  Every day, Ryō allotted one minute to do nothing but sunbathe. These sixty-second vacations were his meditation––his escape. A rare moment where his robust and raucous thoughts would quell their rioting, offering him a momentary reprieve of silence. Warm, empty, and total silence.

  Staring up at the skylight today, the boy realized that the portal always seemed to emit the same amount of sunlight. Regardless of the time of day or season, the heat and intensity of the light remained consistent. Ryō surmised this could only be down to one of two things. Hypothesis A was that the Carlisle School was located somewhere in the Middle East or another desert, while Hypothesis B was that the skylight was nothing more than a high-tech sunlamp.

  Ryō supposed he didn’t really care why the sunlight was there––he only cared that it was. And so, the boy inhaled his first full breath of oxygen in days, closing his eyes and basking in the curious light.

  So nice...

  SLAM! The sound of Eve’s office door slamming shut pistol-whipped the unsuspecting silence.

  Ryō jumped out of his skin, frazzled by the sudden boom. He almost yelled an audible, "Fuck!", but the sight of the culprit behind the jarring noise petrified him where he stood––

  Jeff?!

  A tall and athletic Nigerian man in his early 30s, Jeff personified the exact strain of coolness that had always evaded Ryō. Packed into a fitted red leather tracksuit with matching Nike Jordans, Jeff was as fashionable as he was elusive. On the rare occasion that the man was spotted, you could bet your life savings he'd be accompanied by a dark pair of biker sunglasses and padded headphones. All in all, Jeff looked like the spawn of Michael Jackson and Blade.

  He's so fucking cool...

  Jeff was Ryō’s hero. Hell, he was the hero of every kid enrolled at the Carlisle School. The highest-ranking Domestic of all time, Jeff held the status of being the only CGP graduate to ever be promoted from Mercenary to Loyalist. The man's powers were heralded to be boundless; Ryō had heard rumors that Jeff's abilities essentially had no cap given they changed and altered depending on the music he was listening to.

  Given the man's unique style and mysterious nature, Ryō liked to refer to Jeff as––

  The CGP Unicorn... I can’t believe it’s really him…

  With the CGP Unicorn locked in his sights, Ryō squinted to update the resolution. He could tell Jeff was worked up and panting, somewhere between seething and scared. I wonder what happened?

  The boy's swooning had emulsified his self-consciousness. He strained his neck, gawking at the man in the safe distance. On cue, Jeff sensed Ryō's presence and aimed a tinted scowl right at the boy.

  Oh shit. Ryō's heart nearly burst through his sternum. The boy couldn’t see Jeff’s eyes from behind the sunglasses, but he could certainly feel his gaze. It was as though the guy was only inches away.

  Shit, he's looking right at me. Under the pressure of Mr. CGP’s gaze, the boy flustered into a panic. Shit-shit-shit…

  Ryō curtailed to the left and high-tailed it to the yearbook room...

  Shit-shit-shit... Jeff looked at me... Shit…

  The boy spastically––and preemptively––removed the key fob from his pocket, dropping it. Shit!

  He snatched the thing from the floor, only to immediately drop it again. Fuck!

  Ryō scrambled to pick the fob up and hold onto it before continuing forward…

  Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit…

  Fastened to the yearbook room door in the encroaching distance was a mechanical panel with an imprinted divet; a docking space for Ryō’s fob. In an attempt to cooly tap his key onto the sensor––in case Jeff was watching––the boy fumbled it yet again.

  God dammit!

  Ryō hurried to retrieve the now sweat-coated fob from the ground.

  Hurry up–hurry up–hurry up…

  Upon recouping the transmitter from the floor for the third time, the boy's frustration was piquing. He slammed the little thing onto the dock––motherfucker!

  BEEP-SCHK. The panel beeped and flashed green, unlocking the door.

  BADUMP-BADUMP-BADUMP. Ryō hyperventilated against the yearbook room door, a heart attack imminent. Beads of sweat were beginning to line the boy's brow and forehead.

  Ryō tried catching his breath and gaining some semblance of composure, but it was futile––the boy was hopelessly exhilarated. Considering the blush and jittery half-smile, it would have been easy to confuse Ryō for a 16-year-old girl who'd just encountered Harry Styles at the mall. To be fair to the boy, this was only the third time he'd seen Jeff in his whole life––and the first time he'd seen his hero in nearly five years.

  God dammit. A mercurial shift of emotion coursed through Ryō, clenching his fists.

  “You idiot, you should have waved...” He scolded himself in sotto.

  Well whatever, the boy shifted gears, Jeff looked like he was in a bad mood anyway.

  Ryō decompressed with a trademark sigh, exhaling the chaotic chatter inside of him. Experiencing a newfound latency between one ionized thought and the subsequent thought in wait, an opportunity opened for the boy. He began scanning around the room, mindfully taking account of every object in his visual field...

  Four empty desks…

  My desk in the far back…

  Fifteen file totes…

  A broken clock where the hands never shift from 11:30 p.m...

  Blank walls…

  Emptiness…

  Two bottles of hand sanitizer…

  Ryō's internal squabbling attenuated into a whisper. Then, white noise. The boy seemed to be in the clear of himself, but just to be sure, he inhaled a series of ten box breaths. This was a breathing technique Lara had taught Ryō when the boy first started getting panic attacks after failed trials as a kid.

  Four seconds in… Four seconds hold… Four seconds out…

  Babump-Babump-Babump. Each successive breath brought with it the relaxation of his heart rate.

  Four seconds in… Four seconds hold… Four seconds out…

  Babump...Babump...Babump. His heartbeat normalized, a sense of equilibrium reinstating itself within the boy.

  Confident that the worst of the storm was over, Ryō took a single step toward his desk––

  BADUMP-BADUMP-BADUMP. Remorse and anxiety instantly returned to seize control of his body, triggering the boy's heart to beat madly.

  God dammit Ryō, you could have finally asked for an interview! The mental beatdown was back on.

  Ryō assaulted himself over and over with his own regrets...

  You stupid-fucking-idiot. Why can't you act like a man just once?! Just fucking once!

  Suddenly, the boy's entire existence was captured by a cyclone. A ferocious anger swirled through Ryō, prompting him to engage in his perennial coping mechanism of pinching and twisting the skin of his forearm. Before he could draw blood, however, the boy realized something––it wasn't himself that he felt like hurting this time.

  “Idiot!” Ryō screamed, mindlessly grabbing a nearby copy of the previous year's yearbook and hurtling it into the wall.

  THUD. A heavy silence followed the loud boom of the book's impact.

  A triangular indent now punctured the drywall where the hard-bound artillery shell had landed. The boy stared at the damage in disbelief, lifting a hand to the area over his heart and squeezing a tight handful of his shirt. Something inside Ryō had gone rogue, but he couldn’t put a finger on what it was.

  Why am I so fucking mad?

  The boy attempted to dampen the seething energy inside of him by ruminating on its origin. It couldn’t be just himself he was mad at––he was used to that anger, and this felt very different. The more Ryō introspected, the more it seemed he was mad at everything. This was an anger that soared in from all angles.

  Ryō figured he had reached a boiling point, a culmination of sorts. For years, different vultures in his life had dive-bombed him, stealing pieces of the sinew binding together his psychological body day by day and bit by bit. The attrition had now caught up to him, and the boy felt like he was floating in the worst possible way.

  Adrift in space, suffocating in a headless astro suit while the stars shone on like nothing was happening, Ryō choked on empty air. With his mothership deserting him, departing for the black horizon, all the boy could do was watch his miserable fate unfold. No one loved him. No one saw him. No one even seemed to care that he was being left behind.

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  Right at the splicing moment where the weight of the world appeared set to collapse from the pressure of the boy's one-ton thoughts, an angelic memory rendered him weightless––Emery’s letter.

  Ryō crawled his hand into his pocket. The second his fingertips crinkled the resident paper, the boy recalled what Emery had said to him earlier: open it at home (though it had sounded a lot more like, “Oh-hen eht aht hom-n”).

  A smile crawled across Ryō’s face. He reminisced about spending graduation with Emery, recounting every detail of the girl's face and voice. The memory of Emery's godly collarbone grazing against his wrist as he reached into her robe sparked a sultry heat to pool in Ryō’s veins; a mere mental image of the girl was enough to threaten whatever innocence waned in the wake of the boy's burgeoning pubescence.

  Stop, stop it. Ryō had to shake Emery out of his head. Stop thinking weird thoughts––you have to finish the newsletter before everyone comes back in four days.

  And so, the boy proceeded to the task at hand, pressing the power button of his desktop Mac and waiting for its consciousness to download.

  Prrrrrrr. Violet light illuminated Ryō's zombie-like face as the computer purred to life...

  Once the homepage loaded, the boy reanimated and clacked his egregiously long password into the tab with superfluous ease: TheGirlwiththeDragonsBloodXoXo1!2!.

  It may surprise someone to know that a group of select Carlisle students were given computer access. This was partially indemnified by the fact that internet access in the facility was criminally limited. Ryō could only use a handful of apps (ie. Photoshop and the array of Microsoft Office 365), and the single URL that didn’t show up with a blinking red Website Blocked sign was the CGP's Carlisle School homepage. That said, the official website mostly consisted of embedded links that required a password...which changed every two weeks.

  A soft half-smile dwelled on the boy’s face where an angry scowl had resided only moments prior. The boy was quite proud of his privileged status; it was one of the few things he could take pride in besides the recent attention of Emery. Unlike Emery, however, Ryō's prerogative also afforded him an elusive sense of power.

  Clk. The automated lights clicked off, snapping the room into darkness.

  Shadows captured every inch of the room except for Ryō's face, which was almost too elucidated. His teeth and facial features twinkled in high-definition under the odd photonic light of the desktop Mac. A dungeon-dweller by trade, this was the boy’s ideal setting. It was cathartic––the hazy darkness––as it gave him the feeling of being camouflaged from the world. Here, Ryō could concentrate. Here, Ryō was not so vulnerable. Here, Ryō was safe.

  DING! The high-pitched door chime sirened, fissuring the still air with an auditory earthquake.

  “Ah!” Ryō screamed as he whiffed the computer mouse across the room in surprise.

  SMASH! The contraption exploded against the dented portion of the wall, meeting the same untimely fate as the yearbook before it.

  Like a deer in computer lights, Ryō’s wide eyes honed in on the steel entry door.

  Who could it be? No one ever comes up here…

  After a couple of shallow, panting breaths, the boy's logic kicked in. It’s probably just Lara, he sighed and shrugged.

  Clk-Bzz. Motion-sensitive lights were triggered by Ryō's standing up, dunking the room back into a bath of fluorescent luminescence.

  "One second," he called out to his awaiting visitor.

  Considering the boy wholly expected to see Lara, he opened the door with his gaze aimed downward. Ryō's heart nearly exploded when he found himself face-to-chest with the figure looming in the doorway.

  “I-I, uh… You are…” Ryō stuttered, wires crossed.

  Standing before the boy was not a rotund white woman, but a tall black man.

  "Jeff." The surprise visitor finished Ryō's sentence for him.

  "No, I know you who––uh, who you...you're Jeff. I–I'm your biggest fan."

  Jeff ignored the flustered boy and surveyed the room for signs of other life.

  "Not in a weird way, I just think you're cool––or––no, yeah––I mean..." Ryō grew more self-conscious with every passing second of silence, "I look up to you a lot and...I'm just surprised you're here and...uh..."

  Once the man confirmed they were alone, he lightly pushed the boy inside the room and closed the door behind them. Before Ryō could further verbalize his confusion, Jeff lifted an index finger to the boy's lips and shushed him.

  “I heard you’ve been wanting an interview. Let’s meet tomorrow at 4 pm before the other students leave." The CGP Unicorn simultaneously punctuated his sentence and stuck a Post-It note to the middle of Ryō's chest.

  “Read the note, talk tomorrow.” Jeff, cool as nitrogen, uttered in the boy’s ear before moonwalking out the fucking door, never taking his gaze off Ryō.

  Despite vocalizing an adieu, the man stopped to linger in the doorway. After a short pause, Jeff leaned forward, lowering his sunglasses to reveal two copper-colored eyes for the first time. The CGP Unicorn seemed to be trying to show Ryō what he couldn't tell the boy––Jeff had a secret. One that he normally kept hidden behind tinted lenses. And whatever this secret was, it was gravely serious.

  SCHK-CLK. Jeff disappeared behind the door, the sound of the latch closing and locking cementing the end of his surprise visit.

  Echoes from the mechanical locking loitered in the empty room like the final drizzle of a dying storm. Once the noise subsided, a heavy silence descended on the boy like nuclear fallout.

  What? Left alone to stew in the radioactive ambiguity of what had just occurred, Ryō was pulled into a stupor. What the fuck just happened?

  Ryō retraced his memory, incredulous. Was that a hallucination?

  Seeking to make sense of what had just occurred, the boy replayed the earlier events in his mind as though they were scenes from a movie...

  The surprise of Jeff standing at the door...

  The feeling of the man's fingertip against his lips...

  The moonwalk...

  Jeff's copper eyes...

  The... the?

  Ryō felt like he was forgetting something. The what? The? The...

  After a delay, the missing piece of the puzzle fell into place––the Post-It note!

  Without looking, Ryō raised a hand to his chest, probing the surrounding fabric for whatever Jeff had glued to him earlier.

  Crinkle. Sure enough, a Post-It note was stuck to the boy's shirt––he wasn’t hallucinating.

  What does it say?

  Ryō plucked the paper and reversed it, holding the written message to his eye level.

  Put HEADPHONE I snuck in your pocket in your RIGHT ear before our interview tomorrow.

  DON’T TELL ANYONE ANYTHING.

  And EAT this note so you don’t get our asses caught. Feel me?

  Ryō slid a hand into his left pocket to find a sleek Airpod headphone. In disbelief, the boy palpated the little accessory between his fingers.

  Okay, seriously... He cocked his head and glanced back at the door as though Jeff was still waiting behind it. What the hell is going on?

  Having been abruptly accosted in the last few hours by both Emery and the CGP Unicorn––the two people he'd spent the previous decade yearning to talk to the most––Ryō felt like he was trespassing in another dimension. Or rather, trespassing in someone else's life. None of this attention felt like it should be his to receive, and thus, the cognitive dissonance began.

  How the hell am I supposed to concentrate on the newsletter now?

  The boy felt like he was floating again, only this time, he couldn’t tell if that was towards or away from the mothership. Ryō retracted his fingers from around the Airpod, unconsciously doing the same with the other hand. He watched with vacant eyes as the Post-It note drifted out of his grasp and onto the floor between his feet. It landed perfectly, giving the boy a second chance to digest Jeff's latter directive.

  And EAT this note so you don’t get our asses caught. Feel me?

  Do I seriously have to eat it? Ryō questioned the note as if needing its permission.

  Unfortunately, the question was rhetorical. As far as the boy was concerned, Jeff's word was law. So Ryō obliged, chauffering the sticky note into his mouth. Though it went against every fiber of his being, he slowly began to chew, masticating the stiff paper with haunting disdain.

  Squish-Squish-Squish. Ryō ground the Post-It note between his teeth with commendable effort, but no matter how much the boy seemed to tenderize the soppy mass, it simply wouldn't dissolve. Or at least dissolve into something edible.

  With his effort proving to be nugatory, the boy's anxiety began to pique.

  Squish-Squish-Argh. In a premature attempt to swallow the soppy mass, Ryō forced the paper to the back of his throat, clogging it.

  Hack-Splat. The boy hacked out of reflex, spitting the amorphous glob of paper into his hands.

  Ryō grimaced at the hygienic atrocity before him. “Oh God...”

  Thrust into action, the boy headed for the trash can...

  "No-no-no-no..."

  Standing over the waste bin, Ryō ripped the soppy plop of secrets into a dozen pieces, holding back an onslaught of involuntary gags as he did...

  "Oh God-Oh God-Oh God..."

  Once the evidence was properly mutilated and disposed of, Ryō sprinted over to the hand sanitizer and squirted an aggressive amount into the cup of his palm.

  Squirt. The boy scrubbed the translucent substance between his hands maniacally.

  Before he could finish sanitizing, a terrifying epiphany froze the kid where he stood––Ryō's hands weren't the only pieces of his anatomy to have touched the contaminated note.

  “Oh God.”

  The boy tensed the muscles in his neck, forcing all of his saliva to the front of his mouth and releasing it into the waste bin.

  Splat-Splat-Splat...

  After purging himself of contaminated spit, Ryō hoisted his head out of the trash can and surveyed the room until his eyes fell on the nearby bottle of hand sanitizer. He contemplated for a moment. But alas, there was nothing to be contemplated––he had to do it.

  Ryō sprung forward and snatched the bottle of hand sanitizer, raising its beak to his pursed lips. The boy closed his eyes and unhinged his jaw, wincing in preparation...

  Squirt. Tears formed in Ryō's eyes upon contact.

  The boy blenched and shuddered yet battled through the pain nonetheless, swishing the searing substance around in his mouth like his life depended on it. Everything about the texture, flavor, and overwhelming burning sensation made Ryō want to throw up. And so, he did––projectile vomiting into the trash can.

  HACK!

  After an unproductive hour of trying to focus on crafting a newsletter, Ryō gave up his effort. The unquenchable storm inside of the boy was proving too strong to navigate. Despite the hurricane's force, its wind felt different now. What once felt only bad was beginning to feel strangely good––as demonstrated by the uncontrollable smile on the boy's face.

  For the first time in a long time, Ryō was feeling emotions. And that in and of itself excited the boy. Between Emery’s letter and Jeff’s note, he was feeling... seen.

  Ryō exited the yearbook room to find the top floor coated in a warm, golden veneer of sunlight. The glow felt soft on his skin. Everything seemed to have an added luminosity, even his mental landscape. Much to the boy’s surprise, an abrupt––albeit quiet––laugh tumbled out from somewhere inside him.

  It’s not necessarily like Ryō felt cleansed––and most certainly not by the hand sanitizer he swallowed––or any better about being overlooked for promotion. There was simply something in the air now. Something exciting. A certain, specific something that Ryō hadn't experienced since his dreams of being a superhero died; a palpable sense of possibility and an impalpable sense of reason why.

  A giddiness tickled at the boy's heartstrings. He was overjoyed by the prospect of returning to his room and reading Emery’s letter. I wonder what she wrote?

  Buzzing with anticipation, Ryō hurried to the elevator. The steel doors dollied open the split-second the boy's finger touched the down button––

  BING! A pleasantly surprised Lara now stood before him. Judging by her face, the boy was just the person she wanted to see.

  “Oh hey, perfect timing! I was just coming to get you!"

  Ryō groaned as the woman began doing a little jig.

  "Lara, no." He tried stopping her, "You don't have to do the dance."

  "Duh-duh-duh!" Lara ignored him, singing as she danced her way into the boy's personal space, "Dadoobie-doobie––you know what time it is! Don't'cha wanna say it? Don't'cha wanna scream it?"

  Like a disgruntled geriatric dog, Ryō attempted to become invisible by staring into space. Lara wasn't going to let him dissociate that easily, however. The woman cupped her hands over her mouth to create a flesh-megaphone.

  God dammit. The boy shut his eyes and pre-winced, knowing what was to come.

  "It's Chore-Time with Little RiRi, bitches!" Lara belted at the top of her lungs.

  Ryō’s nightly chore routine, colloquially known as “Chore-Time with Little RiRi” to Lara, involved a series of cumbersome tasks which all took place on the dormitory floor. These tasks comprised the menial classics: sweeping, mopping, polishing, and dusting. Like every other night before, the boy started in the recreation center and worked his way outwards.

  For the past decade, Ryō’s loyal steed had been the same hotel maid’s cleaning cart gifted to him on his debut. A tremendously irritating squeak emanated from the loose-jointed rear wheel on its right side. Similarly to most other CGP-related things, Ryō had grown blindly habituated to the squeak's presence. The list of concerning and irritating things he'd passively acclimated to included the woman trailing him from an uncomfortably close distance.

  “If I had a girl, I think I’d name her Sophie!” Lara shouted to Ryō despite being a mere three feet behind the boy.

  Lara was a bubbly character; always in her own world, the woman seemed to be in constant pursuit of her perennially running train of thought. Put simply, Lara was as loquacious as a divorced suburban mom whose kids had long moved out.

  “What would you name your kids, Ryō?”

  Ryō shrugged a lame response to a lame question. The boy didn’t mind the woman ranting all night long, but he was in no speaking mood.

  PLOP. Ryō slapped the wet mop onto the far left corner of the vast rec hall, directly in front of the Grand Piano adjunct.

  "Oh, come on!" Lara stitched both hands to her hips, “Don't be such a mopey mopper––you have to have thought about this at least once before.”

  A mopey mopper, huh? Ryō grumbled as he began mopping a circle in front of the Grand Piano adjunct.

  What am I supposed to do? He groaned, whiteknuckling the wooden broom. Laugh and whistle?

  Lara waited eagerly for something to follow the boy's groan, but nothing did. A motherly worry squished her eyebrows and tangled the corner of her lip. The woman lowered her gaze––something more was on her mind, but she didn’t know how to bring it up.

  Ryō stopped mopping to let out a long sigh. He paused with both hands on the mop's dowel, using it to keep balance.

  “I don’t think about stuff like that because…” The boy piped up, “I don’t think anyone will ever want to have a kid with me.”

  Ryō varnished the end of his sentence with a self-pitying sigh, then systematically moved on to the next zone of dirty flooring in need of his attention...

  Lara, however, did not move on. To Ryō’s surprise, the woman threw two arms around the boy and embraced him from behind.

  "Everything is going to be okay, RiRi," Lara whispered and squeezed him tighter.

  Just as a rush of oxytocin and hug-related hormones surged through Ryō’s bloodstream and began to break apart the deposits of his stockpiled anxiety––

  WACK. Lara disengaged and slapped the boy across the back of the head.

  “Ow!” Ryō rubberbanded a hand to the sore spot, spiraling around to give the woman a look of: what the fuck was that all about, dude?

  Lara stood firm with a stringent expression and an outstretched finger, “Stop with the pity party. If you want a girl to like you, you have to stop acting so depressing. Women like men who are confident in themselves and take charge of their destiny.”

  Ryō shrugged off the woman's indictment and began mopping again, angling himself away so he could mope in peace.

  Take charge of their destiny, huh? Sounds like I should start charging her for making me help with the cleaning instead of doing it every night for free…

  Lara interrupted the boy's moody rant by once again swooping in from behind and pulling him into a warm embrace.

  “I'm serious," she cooed in his ear, "Everything is going to be okay, Ryō. I promise."

  Ryō, sizzling with embarrassment, quickly disengaged from the woman. The boy spun away from her while guarding his head, taking a few cautious steps backward. Then, once there was space between them, he crossed his forearms into an X and aimed the corporal stop sign at Lara.

  “I’m fine." Ryō pleaded behind his forearm shield, "Please don’t hit me again.”

  Lara chuckled and shook away his concern, "I won't, I promise. But I didn't hit you, I just gave you a little love smack––and sometimes we all need a little love smacked into us."

  A love smack? What about that was loving? And since when was getting hit considered a need?

  "I don't think domestic abuse is anywhere on Maslow's hierarchy of human needs."

  "Maybe not, but Maslow never met you." Lara boinked Ryō on the nose, "And you're the type of kid who needs a slap to the back of the head as badly as he needs a hug."

  "And why is that?"

  "Well," Lara shrugged, "I'm worried that if I hug you every time you're all mopey and depressed, you'll think it's okay to pity yourself. So that's why I hit you."

  What amazing parental instincts.

  "It's probably a good thing you don't have kids then," Ryō scoffed.

  The boy's comment sent a hurricane of laughter tumbling out of Lara. In the blink of an eye, a playful energy had returned to their dynamic. Ryō followed suit with a laugh of his own, inviting his keeper to squeeze a loving pinch of his cheek.

  Though Ryō’s personal space was an unknown commodity to Lara, he'd never seen her care for another Carlisle student in the way she cared for him. Quite the inverse, actually. After several years of observation, the boy had come to notice that Lara exhibited a general disdain when around most of his other classmates––especially Emery.

  Ryō recalled seeing evidence of her contrasting disposition during Emery’s trial session that morning. The boy had caught a glimpse of Lara as he was leaving. Given the woman's uniquely short and plump stature, her identity was obvious even behind the tinted glass. She stood in the researcher's den above Emery's trial room with her arms crossed, a scowling frown replacing the normally jovial expression on her face.

  By now, Ryō had clocked the aforementioned stance as Lara's baseline response to anything Scarlet Squirt-related. It was clear the woman harbored some sort of disgust or hatred toward the girl. Whatever the negative emotion was, it was too strong enough for Lara to repress and too glaring for the boy to ignore any longer.

  “You don’t really like Emery, do you?” Ryō asked, surprising both of them with the abruptness of his question.

  "Well, that came out of nowhere," Lara replied, taken aback.

  Usually, Lara would elicit a small laugh or crack a joke. But she didn't. The woman's muddled expression and lack of a quick response essentially answered Ryō’s question for her.

  “I hope you never come to find this out for yourself, but you can never forgive someone who took away the person you loved.”

  Took away someone you loved? Lara had mentioned something like that before, but Ryō never knew exactly what she meant by it.

  Did Emery kill someone she loved? Who did Lara love? Why did Emery kill them?

  Although the boy's mind ran riot, he remained silent. After all, there wasn't a seamless or appropriate way to ask such personal questions aloud. Luckily for Ryō, Lara felt the radiation teeming from his burning temples and threw a bucket of ice water on the conversation.

  “I’m surprised this never really came up before... I guess I always kind of just assumed you knew, ya know?”

  Ryō shook his head without blinking, eager to receive a signed copy of Lara's book of secrets.

  "Oh..." Lara nodded, "That makes sense, I guess..."

  The woman sighed, preparing herself to tear fragile scar tissue that she preferred not to fuck with. Lara's gaze became shaded and slanted, signaling the return of the imprisoned emotions she routinely kept at bay.

  What is it? What did you think I already knew? Is it that bad?

  Ryō was growing antsy in anticipation, vibrating where he stood. Lara, on the other hand, was stoic and quiet. No matter how voracious the boy's appetite for information was, the grand reveal was just not coming.

  Is she going to say anything, or?

  Silence suspended the two in a heavy moment. Each quiet second peeled away the boy's excitement a little more. Soon, Ryō found himself regretting the decision to ask Lara something so personal.

  Maybe it's better if I don't know...

  "It's okay," Ryō scratched the back of his head, "You don't have––"

  Before the boy could stop her, Lara dropped an invisible nuclear bomb between them––

  “She killed the only person I ever loved. And I’m not saying I don’t love you, Ryō, but it was different. This was the children-having type of love, ya know? The only person who ever might have wanted to have a kid with me…”

  Ryō cast his eyes to the black hole on the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” the boy muttered.

  “I’m sorry too,” Lara smiled and nudged him on the shoulder.

  Despite the woman's best efforts to put on a smile, the emotional weight in the room still hung heavy on Ryō's shoulders.

  “Alright, enough sad stuff––it's happy chore time––time to finish the rest of your chores, happily!"

  In a flash, Lara snatched the boy's mop and playfully skipped away.

  "Catch me if you can!" She shouted, bounding down the hall like an oversized gremlin.

  Ryō was not as keen on skating past the melancholia and skipping into delusion, but what could he do? There was so much more the boy wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to rub against the grain here…

  "Stop moping and start mopping!" Lara called from down the hall.

  "You have my mop..."

  Lara treaded on the boy's heels for the next hour, orchestrating the conversation with trivial small talk. Once Ryō finished cleaning the rec center, Lara dipped off to her security annex. This was usual, as the next zone Ryō was stationed to clean was the hallway perpendicular to Emery’s dorm––which was purposefully visible from the attendant's station.

  I wonder what Emery is up to?

  Like Ryō, Emery was the only other student to have solo housing. Which in this case, afforded him an opportunity. The boy checked over his shoulder to ensure Lara wasn’t keeping tabs on him––she wasn’t.

  Good…

  Ryō approached Emery’s door, gulping once it was within view.

  BADUMP-Clop-BADUMP-Clop-BADUMP. Heart palpitations walloped between every traipsing footstep the boy took.

  Although Ryō had never once stopped by Emery's room at night to talk or interact in any way, the boy usually managed to sneak at least one good look. After all, one of the many Emery-related safety precautions included the girl's door being constructed of frosted glass. At eye level was a square panel of transparent glass. If the boy dared to look, this pellucid portal would show him the meat of Emery’s bedroom.

  Originally a repurposed infirmary room, the girl's entire living space was a bubble of hazard-proof furnishings dedicated to preventing a possible blood-related disaster. Filled with the white pads of a 1960s psych ward, it was far from a homey abode.

  I wonder what Emery's doing right now…

  Ryō felt bad about the girl’s limited privacy, but his sympathy never stopped him from taking advantage of it. One thing that blew the boy's mind was that the CGP staff even required Emery to wear a majority of her protective gear to bed, including a set of nighttime dental buffers. In addition to that discomfort, the girl was also forced to don an eye guard made of bulletproof glass––which was secured to the back of her skull and under her chin.

  If I can't sleep, I can't even imagine how Emery can sleep with all that shit they make her wear to bed...

  Once Ryō had entered the final foot of Emery-shouldn’t-be-able-to-see-me-from-here distance, he paused. The boy wanted nothing more than to be a fly on Emery's wall, but sneaking up on her made him feel more like a child molester than a fly.

  Should I just take a peek? A small one?

  It took a moment to build up the courage, but Ryō decided the risk was worth the reward. Still grasping the maid cart with both hands, the boy extended and contorted his neck to sneak a glimpse of his beloved––

  Sure enough, Emery was in there. Staring at the wall and––now staring at him.

  Shit. Ryō retracted out of view, tripping over the broom behind him in the process.

  THUD. His tailbone landed hard, but the blunt force trauma kicked in a vital memory––

  The letter!

  Ryō struggled to his feet, quickly meerkatting to ensure Lara was still distracted––which she was––before hustle-limping down the hall toward his dorm room…

  Clk-Creak. The boy unsheathed the lock and slid into his dark fortress, shutting the whining door behind him as quietly as he could.

  I wonder what Emery wrote... It can’t be a love letter, can it?

  A fidgety smile cut across Ryō's face. His hands immediately clammed up at the idea of the letter containing a confession of love. Before the boy could indulge in his giddiness, however, the memory of Lara's big reveal replayed in his mind.

  Did Emery really kill someone? Like...on purpose?

  Ryō chewed on the idea for a moment, but the taste it left in his mouth was too jarring to continue.

  No, the boy shook out the sour thoughts, it must have been an accident.

  Ryō shut his eyes and let out a long, composing breath...

  Yeah, it must have been an accident.

  Conscience cleared, the boy opened his eyes and removed the crinkled letter to admire it. The moment of truth...

  Ryō hovered towards the nightlight, high on the suspense of the moment. Once beside the oasis of light, he proceeded to gently place the letter under its blue umbrella. The very first thing written on the note, in rather terrible handwriting Ryō might add, was:

  I see you looking at me.

  Almost instantly, the boy’s heart rate kicked up a gear. She does?

  Breath stuck in his chest, Ryō read on…

  I don’t know why but I feel I could trust you. So please Rio, help me escape.

  Did she really just spell my name like the Brazilian city? The boy couldn’t hide his disappointment from himself. From Emery's handwriting to the spelling of his name to the lack of an 'I love you', Ryō questioned if it was even worth reading the rest…

  Of course it was––

  I could see in your eyes that you don’t belong here either. We belong out there.

  We. Blue light reflected the white of Ryō’s fresh smile. She said, 'We'.

  Meet me tomorrow night after they leave for the field trip. Don’t say ANYTHING to ANYONE.

  Upon finishing the letter, Ryō inhaled his first breath in over a minute. This breath was the most cathartic of his life.

  Thank God she didn’t also ask me to eat the note…

  Ryō let himself fall flat on his back, gazing up at the letter in his hands with pride. A few particular excerpts from Emery's letter serenaded the boy's rapidly foliating daydreams.

  'I trust you', 'We belong…', and 'Meet me tomorrow night…' Like lyrics from a song, her words mesmerized the boy and pulled him into a trance.

  A million thoughts raced around the track in Ryō's mind, each competing for first prize and ultimately none of them winning as they all crashed into each other and killed everyone in the audience––

  Wait a second...

  A moment of clarity engendered a sudden realization within the boy. In his excitement, Ryō had completely overlooked a rather critical detail written in the fine print of Emery's closing portion of the letter––

  Did she say escape?!