Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 129676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Yeah. Today was definitely my birthday.
I wondered how boys with families celebrated. I imagined with cake, parents, and friends. Maybe balloons.
I wondered if I’d enjoy parents and presents. I’d never had either.
It seemed cool, having a birthday party. In the same way riding a dragon seemed cool. In a faraway, pathetically fictional way.
I put my pencil down on my writing table, next to my tenth-grade algebra homework. My pet cat, Ares, strutted along my worksheets, leaving mud-stained paw marks in his wake.
He thrust his head into my chin, purring like an engine and giving me a lopsided, tooth-baring smirk. I grinned toothlessly.
We weren’t allowed pets at the dormitory. Ares was my secret.
A few months ago, he’d emerged from the edge of the woods, missing his tail and one ear. It was no trouble at all, sharing some of my snacks with him. Every morning, I opened the window for him to go out and roam outside.
I liked the idea that at least one of us was free. And he always came back in the evenings.
“It’s my birthday, Ares.” I scratched his head with my index finger softly.
He pulled away, walked over to the edge of the table, and spun around slowly a couple times before curling into position. It looked like he was doing a little dance for me.
I laughed. “A present in the form of a dance. I like that.”
I glanced outside my window. It was pitch-black.
I traced the shape of the balustrade with my eyes, the silhouette of the thick woods beyond the Swiss boarding academy I lived in.
The forest stretched for miles on each side of the property. I knew Geneva was nearby. I studied the maps and burned them into memory in case I ever needed to escape.
What I didn’t know was how I got here. Or why.
I’d been told a distant relative dropped me off when I was just shy of two. Other than that, I didn’t know much about myself. I only knew I was an orphan and that I was American.
I was told I had no immediate family. I remembered some faces and events in a land faraway before I came to Switzerland, but I sometimes wondered if I made them all up.
A shadow passed along my window, the shape of a man.
My stomach bottomed out.
It was Andrin.
It was always Andrin.
The houseparents and tutors who supervised the dorms knew he came for me every night, and still, they let it happen.
They said it was good for me.
That Andrin was looking out for my future.
Maybe it was true, but if a bright future meant living in complete darkness, I didn’t want to live at all.
“You need to leave,” I whispered to Ares, pushing the window open and placing him on the sill. “He can’t see you here.”
Ares gave me the stink eye and slipped out of my room just as the door opened.
Andrin never knocked.
I buried my face in my homework, ignoring his frame as it loomed over me, casting a shadow along my body. He stood directly behind my shoulder, looking over my algebra answers.
“Boy,” he grumbled.
That was what he called me.
Boy. Never by my name.
My spine went rigid. I said nothing.
Andrin was easy to anger and quick to get violent.
He was Swiss, but his English was impeccable. He made it a point that I speak each language without a lingering foreign accent.
My English was American, my French, Parisian, my Italian was Tuscan, and my German was Hochdeutsch.
His long, pale finger reached over my shoulder, tapping at an equation. “You miscalculated this one. Do it again.”
I grabbed my pencil, flipping it and erasing my answer with a trembling hand. I felt his breath on the nape of my neck. I wanted him out of this room. Out of my life.
“You have thirty seconds,” he clipped.
Sweat dripped from my forehead to the page, burning my eyes. I forced myself to focus. Tuned out the world around me. It worked. I solved it.
Andrin made a dissatisfied sound behind me. He wanted to punish me. He came here every night under the guise of helping me become the number one child mathematician in the world.
He said it would help my chances of getting adopted. But he was never happy when I did well.
“Get up.” Andrin gripped the back of my neck, yanking me up.
I staggered to my feet silently.
“Turn around,” he instructed.
I did.
Andrin was slim, short, pale, and terrifying. He wore his age on his skin. His skull was peppered with liver spots, his wrinkles engraved on his flesh like roads and rivers on a busy map. He had a nasty hook of a nose, no lashes, and a grimace that seemed stitched across his face.
“Have you practiced your survival skills this week?” he inquired.
My heart screeched to a stop.
Please. Not this again.
“Yes,” I lied.
“Good. Then you won’t mind showing me.”