Page 27 of An Academy for Liars

She retched acid, gagging so violently her throat hurt. Bile spattered the bottom of the trash can.

“Where did you go?” Dante asked, crouching at her feet.

Lennon straightened. Her memories filtered back to her, out of order. She remembered the elevator doors parting open. Emerson dragging her half-conscious from the cabin. She remembered seizing in the corridor with her classmates gathered in a ring around her—a lot of people shouting for nurses and room to breathe and someone who could do CPR, even though she was quite aware of her heart punching furiously at her sternum. Then she remembered the boy and his moth in Logos House. The sprawling campus, the grass crusted with frost.

“I don’t know where I was. It was like Drayton but not.”

“How was it different?”

“It was cold. There was frost on the ground.”

Dante, for his part, looked deeply troubled. “Did you see anyone there?”

Lennon nodded. “There was a boy. A little boy.”

Dante stiffened, his jaw locking tight.

Lennon squirmed under his gaze. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or—”

There was a knock at the door.

“Not now,” said Dante.

The secretary’s voice came through the closed door. “The vice-chancellor’s on the phone.”

“Tell her to hold.”

“She says it’s urgent.”

“Have Emerson handle it. Tell her to stall.”

Dante’s attention shifted back to Lennon. “What did the boy look like?”

“He was Black…maybe nine or ten. Skinny.”

“And where did you see him?”

“In Logos House.”

“Did this boy speak to you?”

Lennon shook her head. “He never said a word.”

Dante caught her by the chin, tilted her head slightly downward, so they were staring at each other eye to eye. “This school, this place is not what you think it is. It’s not a haven or a refuge. And what is about to happen next is going to be ugly. So I’ll need you to keep a cool head.”

“I’m scared. I want to go home,” she said, without really knowing where home was anymore. She couldn’t bear to return to Wyatt, even if he would take her back, and she hadn’t spoken to her blood relations in many months. For the first time Lennon understood the solemn concept of her own aloneness.

“Home won’t shelter you from this,” said Dante. “Now listen to me. There’s going to be a trial—”

“Awhat?”

“They’ll call it a disciplinary hearing, but make no mistake: what you say—or neglect to say—will dictate your future.”

“What do I need to do? What should I say?”

“Tell them everything short of the truth. Tell them about the elevator. But leave out the bit about the boy…and the cold too. Keep those details to yourself and you’ll be all right.” As he said this Lennon felt a peculiar sensation, similar to lightheadedness. The memories of her encounter in the elevator scrambled then faded. She shut her eyes, tried to remember, to bring the boy’s face into focus, but she couldn’t. It was all so terribly fuzzy, like a dream half-forgotten.

“I—I don’t understand what’s happening.”

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