“Acari,” one of the Initiates ordered. “March.”
It was the weirdest thing, but march we did. Without training, without direction, we fell into step as though marching were something hardwired into our reptilian brains.
“Halt,” the same Initiate shouted when we reached the end of the hall.
A couple of the girls pitched into each other and were rewarded with a snap of Masha’s whip on the backs of their thighs.
The Initiates had stopped us in front of the bathroom and now stood, whispering among themselves. My gaze twitched to them and then quickly back again. The last thing I wanted was accidental eye contact. In their catsuits, they seemed like a cadre of diabolical supermodels.
I tried to measure my breathing and slow my pounding heart.
Why were we standing there in front of the bathroom? What, were they going to let us use the potty before our night of hazing?
The group of Initiates split up to surround us. “Get in,” a statuesque redhead ordered.
A girl at the front of the line looked dumbfounded, and Masha cracked her whip onto the white tiled floor. “Yes, Acari. In there. Now.”
Oh, God. They were taking us into the bathroom. Dread unfurled in my belly as my imagination ran with all the possible hazing that could happen in a bathroom. My brain was swamped with images of things cleaned with toothbrushes and heads submerged in toilets.
Of all my wildest imaginings, though, nothing came close to the reality.
“It’s a Hot Party, girls.” The redhead shooed us into the showers, an open space with six nozzles sprouting from antiseptic white tiles. “First one to fall loses.”
Fisting my hands at my sides, I shuffled in behind the others. My palms were sweaty. Like everyone else, I’d donned my outdoor gear, including a pair of what I guessed were ski gloves.
Just don’t slip. I found a spot at the edge and widened my feet to brace myself. I imagined myself anchored to the tiles. It’d be easy enough not to fall, right?
Wrong.
The Initiates turned on the showers. Full blast, and all the way to hot.
Masha leaned to whisper in my ear. “Happy Hot Party, Acari.”
Despite the rising temperature, we all pulled our hoods up over our fleece hats. It was that or get scalded. My brain felt like it was boiling.
Some got it worse than others. I was grateful not to have a spot directly beneath the jets. Regardless of position, everyone shifted from foot to foot, withstanding in stoic silence. The parkas protected our skin, and our boots were sturdy, but there was a small stretch of lower thigh and knee that felt roasted pink.
I could tell by the shifty looks on the other girls’ faces that everyone was waiting to see who would fall first. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who feared what the penalty might be.
I’d thought the scalding water was the punishment, but I soon discovered I was mistaken. It was the steam.
After a few minutes, the steam became uncomfortable. After five, it was suffocating. By ten, it was unbearable. It choked me. A white haze of vapor hung all around, pressing down on my chest. Burning my lungs. Making me woozy. I longed for a gulp of cold, fresh air.
I sensed rustling. Girls shifted. They were parting to let Lilac pass. She had me in her sights.
I could see it in her eyes. She wanted a single room as badly as I did.
The girl with the heart-shaped face stood just in front of me. A swatch of her auburn hair was soaked a burnt sienna color and plastered to her cheek. She looked disoriented.
Heart Face didn’t step aside quickly enough, and Lilac shouldered past her. The girl started to tumble forward, and I instinctively caught her by the elbow to steady her. Our eyes met for a flicker of a second. She looked stunned and almost uneasy at my touch. I flinched my hand back.
Saving her had been instinctual. But, really, if I’d been thinking strategically, I could’ve let her fall. A tiny, shameful part of me wondered if maybe I should have.
“Sleepy?” Lilac’s perky voice chimed in my ear, jerking me back to myself.
It took me a moment to register her point. My skin felt parboiled, and my brain muzzy and slow. I hadn’t snagged the few hours’ sleep that the other girls had managed. Nor had I slept on the flight out here. Which meant I’d gone for God knew how many hours without rest.
But Lilac was in the same boat.
“No, not Sleepy.” I mustered a broad grin, pretending the air I breathed didn’t feel like wet fire. I pulled my shoulders back, imagining brisk mountain breezes and a big chug of ice water. I’d have one the moment I got out. It would spread cool tendrils through my belly. The glass would be cold in my hand. I’d drink so much and so fast, it’d dribble down my chin. “I’m Happy, which must make you Dopey.”
“You have no idea what you’ve started.” Lilac spun away from me, hard. Her pack smacked me across the jaw.
I stumbled—a sideways hop-hop on my right foot. The tile was slick under the rubber tread of my boots. I slipped.
My arms clawed the air like slow-motion pinwheels. I heard the dead-weight oof of my body slamming to the floor, the sick slap of my head against the tile. The weight of the kit bag walloped the air from my lungs.
A whistle blew.
I’d lost.
I lay there trying to catch my breath. I heard eager stomps rushing out. Suddenly the air seemed more open. I was vaguely aware that the stinging spray of the shower had stopped.
Rough hands gripped under my arms, pulling me to standing. What was my punishment? I braced myself. Whatever it was couldn’t be worse than the steam.
But then I heard Masha speak. “Need some fresh air, Acari?”
I forced myself to look at her. I knew I should nod, but wasn’t sure if I managed more than a twitch of my head.
“Oh, poor little Acari,” someone crooned. Initiates surrounded me. “Let’s get these hot clothes off you.” Hands pulled off my kit bag, unzipped my parka, removed my hat, my gloves.
The hands grew rougher, tugging the wool sweater over my head. It caught on my chin, tore over my ears. “It’s time for your cooldown.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Outside?” I asked, suppressing a shiver. The Initiates had led me to the ground-floor foyer, where I stood, stripped led me to the ground-floor foyer, where I stood, stripped to my underwear. I’d hurt my ribs in the fall, and my trembling intensified the pain.
Along the hallway, a few doors were cracked open, and I spied wary eyes witnessing my torture from the safety of the dorm rooms. Even though we’d all been issued the same ugly, regulation beige bra and granny panties, the shame of it burned my cheeks.
It was the only thing that burned, though. My teeth had begun to chatter and I was already nostalgic for all that heat. The front door was open, and I contemplated the black and gray swirl of starlit snow outside. Why had I found the Hot Party uncomfortable? The concept was unthinkable now.
“What’s the punishment?” I huddled into myself, chafing my arms in vain. “Parading around half naked, or is it the pneumonia I’m contracting?”
“Neither.” Someone shoved me, and I lurched forward, catching myself before I fell. “It’s the running.”
“And you just earned yourself an extra lap, smart-ass.” I thought I recognized the redhead’s voice.
The ache in my ribs turned to nausea. Running. That explained the white Nikes they’d let me put on, dug out from the bottom of my pack.
“Four laps around the quad,” Masha said. “Take every corner.”
I nodded, wriggling my toes in the running shoes. The soles were soaked and squeaky from the showers, but despite it, I was pathetically grateful. I wouldn’t put it past these girls to make me run barefoot in the snow.
“Every corner—no matter how dark,” another Initiate ordered. I felt another push.
Masha leaned close, purring in my ear. “We’re watching.”
A survival instinct clicked to life in the recesses of my brain. I bounded forward, springing out the door, determined not to feel the final shove I knew would come.
The night air seared my lungs. I told myself it couldn’t be that cold—the snowfall had actually brought the temperature up to what I estimated was mid-forties. If I just kept moving and got this over with, the weather wouldn’t kill me.
Those girls, they could kill me. This wouldn’t.
But I wasn’t athletic. I’d never run a mile in my life, and I raced too quickly down the path. I wasn’t even halfway to my first corner and already my throat ached with each breath. A cramp seized the side of my belly, a claw with icy talons.
I forced myself to slow my pace, but the cold made my gait awkward, and my legs thudded along like frozen stumps. I was chilled to the core, my flesh puckered into tight goose bumps.
As I pumped my legs, my arms, I became aware of strange things—the cold slab of flesh that was my butt, the way the skin of my legs felt so cold, it burned.
I approached the first curve and made sure to stick to the far outer edge, even though a giant, gnarled hedge reached over the path like it might curl down and swallow me. The Initiates had scared me with thoughts of bogeymen hiding in the dark.
Not bogeymen. Vampires, I corrected myself. It was vampires who hid in the night, waiting to grab me. I was still getting used to the thought.
But the Initiates had made a mistake by inadvertently warning me. I’d been straining to see amid the eerie silhouettes of branches, expecting a monster, and so wasn’t surprised when I saw him.
At first I thought it was a statue. Standing still as death, with a lifeless gray complexion to match. Ambient moonlight shimmered on his face, making it gleam.
He might have been carved from stone but for the glow of his eyes. They weren’t red, like in the movies. Just a shimmering, steely glint. A predator waiting, watching in the night.
It wasn’t the headmaster, either. This one had black hair and black clothing that merged with the shadows. In his pallid skin, I saw that he wasn’t truly alive. But his eyes told me neither was he truly dead.
Those undead eyes tracked me. They seemed to glimmer into a grin as I neared. I told myself it was my imagination.
