Page 127 of Viper

I don’t think I’m weird-looking. Though Headmistress Isla always said I had a nice boy’s face that deceived people into thinking I was a good boy, when really I was foul and dark inside. Maybe that’s why Reaper looks at me so strangely. He can see my soul since he’s named Reaper and must have an in with the devil.

I don’t know if I like Reaper. He’s not talkative. He’s always off to the side watching people, and Hunter will talk for him sometimes, but Reaper doesn’t object when he does, so I guess he doesn’t mind. They seem to have a bond that most people don’t, but then again that’s not surprising, considering.

But I don’t trust him. Hunter either. I don’t trust anyone with black eyes like Headmistress Isla.

“We’re getting a new brother in a few days,” my brother with dark brown hair and large eyes says from next to me. He has yet to be named, although we’ve both been here about a year. Father says I’ll get my name soon. Once he sees my skills.

Funny that I have to wait for a name when I already have one. When I told Father I had a name, he slapped me and said I was never to speak it again.

So I haven’t.

Not out loud, anyway. I whisper it to myself sometimes at night, thinking about my mum, wondering if my real name shows my skills like my new name will.

My soldier name, once Father picks it.

He doesn’t know my skills are dark and gross. Though that never stopped Headmistress from using them. Makes me wonder if he’ll be disappointed, or worse, want to use them too.

“Wonder where he came from,” Brother says, looking at my belt? Zipper? I glance down to make sure it’s closed. “Maybe Cook will like him too.”

I don’t like this Brother that much either. And he’s always around. Looking. He told me he was thirteen-years-old one day when we were in line for lunch. Not sure why. I didn’t care then, and I still don’t. His eyes are off, and I don’t like how he just looks at me.

It reminds me of Sister Isla. He reminds me of Cook as well, and I don’t like Cook too much either, even though he slips me extra bread and sometimes those candies he gets from the village.

“Did you go in there?” Brother asks me. “That room?”

“I heard Father say the new boy was put in there,” Seeker says from my other side. “Preparing him for learning.”

The Room. My lips tug into a frown, remembering.

“I wonder if he’s going to be as pretty as you,” Hunter says, poking something sharp into my belly. I grip the end and rip it from his hand, annoyed that he’s once again poking fun at me. Hunter isn’t very nice sometimes, and it brings out the mean streak I inherited from my father.

I look down at the metal in my hand. It’s the shiny letter opener Teacher keeps on his desk. I flip it over and over in my palm, eyeing Hunter. This one looks different from the last one he stole off Teacher’s desk. It’s long and thin, with a snake coiled around the top, its tail wrapped around the handle.

Hunter holds his hand out for me to give it back, but I shove it in my back pocket and shoot him my middle finger.

“I hope our new brother isn’t as ugly as you or Reaper,” I say, my accent coming through with each rushed word. “All scarred up with devil eyes.”

Hunter laughs, and it’s so loud it echoes off the walls of the yard. “You’re mean,” he says, but he seems to like that I am, which makes me smile.

“Come on,” my brother says, motioning for me to follow him. “I want to show you the book I found in Cook’s room.”

I shoot Hunter a mean look and my middle finger once again, before following Brother into the building. He said this morning that he’d found a secret book in Cook’s room and he wanted to show me, but before I could ask why he was in Cook’s quarters, the morning bell rang and the hallway crowded with our brothers and then we had to go to class.

When we’re inside, we creep down the hall lined with our rooms and move past the east wing, where the library and Father’s office are, and into the long dark hall where our oldest brothers sleep. We rarely see them, but hear them training while we’re in class. There are only a few of them, three or four, and there are rumors they’ll be leaving for the wilderness soon to complete their training.

We all go there. When we’re older, I’ve been told. Makes me wonder what it is. I picture the green hills, and distant mountains like around Saint Theresa. But maybe it’s more like the thin woods hiding the village from the school.

Or maybe it’s the other way around.

Maybe we are hidden.

“Come on,” my brother says. “We have to hurry before Cook finishes lunch.”

Teacher, Cook, and the rest of the staff sleep in the last hall of the block. There’s the man that cleans the school we call Janitor and the large, ugly man that tends to the weapons us younger brothers have yet to touch. Only the oldest ones cantrain with weapons, and Fallon said that Reaper and Hunter and the rest of the older boys will begin weapons training next week.

I can’t wait until I do. I like the idea of holding a weapon. Having it close by in case.

“Here,” Brother says, stopping in front of a rusted metal door. It looks like the doors along our hall, but instead of a slot that’s barely big enough for a tray there’s an actual window covered by a dirty, cracked blind. Brother grips the doorknob and twists, and I expect it to be locked, but it turns in his hand, and he shoots me a lopsided grin as he says, “Wait here.”