It was getting late out and I paced the room restlessly. Beckett and his crew had shown up, done their homework, and left again. None of them had talked to me. Beckett hadn't brought up their revenge plan again.

                There was an abuse problem at this school. If I turned a blind eye to it, didn't that make me part of the problem?

                How could I just stand by and let these teachers hit kids? How could I stay quiet when they verbally destroyed kids?

                But I couldn't get in anymore trouble.

                I ran my hands through my already messy hair. If I got caught doing this, that would be the end for me.

                I slid down to the floor, hugging my knees to my chest and rocking back and forth. I felt like I needed to keep moving. My body was humming with barely contained energy.

                Still, it seemed like Beckett was the one taking the fall for things when they went wrong or got found out. Leon was aware Beckett's friends were involved, but he wasn't positive when exactly they were involved. There was a chance I could do it, just once or twice, and not get caught.

                But there was also the chance that I could get caught.

                I tugged on my hair in frustration. I couldn't just sit by and do nothing. But I also couldn't risk getting in trouble anymore.

                I could always rat them out. Tell the teachers or even Leon what they were planning. I could ask to be assigned to a different room or even a different dorm building. Get in some good points with them and get away from the trouble.

                I got to my feet and moved over to my closet, yanking it open. I changed out of my uniform and into dark jeans and a dark hoodie.

                Staring at myself in the mirror, some desperate part of me begged me to just change into my pajamas and go to bed. Stay out of trouble and get through the schoolyear.

I couldn't just sit by and do nothing, though. Maybe just once or twice would be enough to get this out of my system and then I could drop out of their schemes.

                I crawled into my bed, pulling the covers up to my neck and staring at the wall. What the hell was I doing?

                Ted would kill me if he knew. Hell, if word got back to him about what I was doing, he'd probably never speak to me again. He was only doing it now because he had to.

                Life wasn't fair. I'd get punished if I got caught, but these teachers wouldn't face consequences for their actions.

                The door to the room opened and I listened as just one set of footsteps came in before the door shut again. Fagan's closet door opened and I heard the rustling of clothes as he changed.

                His bed creaked lightly as he pulled himself onto it and laid down after flicking the lights off. The darkness settled heavy over the two of us, neither of us speaking.

                A few minutes later, our door opened again. I'd learned that one of the rules was that you couldn't leave your room after a certain time, with a few exceptions like going to the bathroom, and Blues came in to check and make sure everyone was in their own room.

                The door shut again and Fagan's bed creaked again as he hopped off of it. I rolled over, my eyes adjusting to the dark as I made out his form, dressed in dark clothes. His teal shoes were the only thing that stuck out.

                He noticed me and smirked. "Coming? I don't have all night."

                I shut my mind down and got out of bed. Fagan crept to the door and peeked out of it, gesturing at me to follow him.

                The two of us darted out into the hall and around the corner to the stairwell. Our room was only two doors away from the stairwell, so we were lucky.

                Fagan moved with the silent grace of a predator, slipping down the steps without the faintest noise. I wasn't quite as silent, but my footsteps were faint, and I kept crouched low.

                We made it to the side door and went outside. Fagan wedged a small rock in the corner of the door, keeping it propped open just the barest hint.

                "The I.D. cards don't work on the side doors after curfew," he explained. "You'd have to go in the front door, and it's monitored all night by Blues."

                He led me off to a cluster of trees and bushes, sliding down against a tree to wait. I didn't want to stop moving, but I had a feeling we couldn't go on until Beckett and Tessa joined us.

                Waiting gave me time to think about how much of a mistake this was. I could sneak back into the building. It wasn't too late.

                "Newbie actually came?"

                Tessa's voice was surprised as she joined us, dressed in dark clothes and followed by Beckett. He looked at me with an unreadable expression.

                "Don't get in our way," he growled, shouldering past his friends and starting off down towards the academic building.

                "You invited me along!" I hissed after him.

                "It's his way of saying don't get caught," Tessa said. "You'll learn."

                She gave me a shove forward and we all followed Beckett. He led us through a path he'd clearly taken many times before. We twisted easily through trees and bushes, hiding behind buildings and cars when we had to.

                We reached the academic building and I found myself taking it in with a critical eye. The doors were clearly locked and the lights were off inside.

                "Any cameras?" I asked.

                Beckett shook his head. "No. Abuse isn't so easy to get away with if cameras are in your face. No cameras."

                "I take it you have a plan to get us inside a locked building?" I said.

                "Keys or no keys?" Fagan asked, looking far too excited.

                "No keys. Get to work," Beckett said, leaning against the wall and letting his eyes sweep the area in case anyone showed up.

                Fagan stretched a little and flexed his fingers. He eyed the windows above us and his eyes landed on a specific one.

                I followed his eyes, realizing that the window was from our last class of the day. But it was up on the second floor of the building. How the hell did Fagan plan to reach it?

                He crouched low and sprang up, grabbing the edge of a first floor window. He climbed his way up, precariously perched on the edge of it. He found steady footing and worked his way up.

                I watched in fascination as he easily scaled his way up the side of the building, his hands and feet easily finding grips and holds. He reached the window and tugged it open, pulling himself so that his body was swinging from it. He curled himself up and easily swung into the room, disappearing from sight.

                "Such a showoff," Beckett said in annoyance, checking his watch.

                It was about two more minutes before Fagan appeared at the doors. He pushed them open, letting us inside.

                "Hurry it up next time, Spider," Beckett said, going into the building. "Quit showing off."

                "Aw, you do worry about me," Fagan said, grinning.

                Beckett grumbled something under his breath that sounded more like an insult than concern. We walked the dark hallways, Beckett knowing exactly where to go.

                We reached Mr. Sudlow's room and Beckett let us in, shutting the doors. Tessa gathered textbooks and shoved them against the door before flicking the lights on, the books stopping the lights from spilling out into the hallway from the door crack.

                Beckett dropped his backpack off his shoulders and pulled out several papers, passing them to his friends. He held a stack out to me and I took it, looking through them.

                They were more yearbook pictures of kids in maroon vests. But under their names were the colleges they'd attended and their professions.

                "He said we had no futures," Beckett said, watching me. "He's wrong."

                "Do you know any of them?" I asked.

                Beckett nodded. "I've been at this Academy a long time."

                He went over and pulled up the board cover. We got to work, taping up the pictures until the whole board was covered.

                Beckett grabbed one of the papers and taped it in the middle, leaving a little blank space between it and the other pictures. I eyed it, wondering what the relationship between Beckett and the boy was.

                The picture showed a boy with an undercut in a maroon vest. He gave an easy smile at the camera but his eyes were sharp. The name under the picture read out "Casimir Warrick" and his current profession was listed under his name.

                Beckett's gaze lingered on the picture for a moment before he reached up and pulled the cover back over the board, hiding our work. I figured we were done, but then Beckett went over and turned on Mr. Sudlow's laptop.

                "Password," Beckett said.

                "KBS514," Tessa said, sitting on Sudlow's desk.

                "How the hell did you know his password?" I asked as Beckett typed it in.

                "He types it in during class every day," Tessa said.

                "I'm just going to pretend you're a really good guesser," I said. Sure, Sudlow typed in his password during class every day. But we sat on the opposite side of the screen, and he typed with quick fingers.

                Beckett pushed the laptop towards me. "Go crazy."

                I picked it up and placed it in my lap, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do. But even as I wondered, I found my fingers maneuvering the mouse to his lesson plans, opening them and deleting the ones for the rest of the week.

                In their place, I typed "Inspire kids instead of crush them" and "Stop taking out my anger over how pathetic my life is on innocent students".

                I pulled up a Word document and typed, making the letters big and bold. Beckett leaned over to peek at the screen.

                "We already used Frankenstein," he grumbled.

                "I'm keeping up the trend," I said.

                "I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict," was typed out on the screen. I copied a picture of the class roster and pasted it under the text.

                Leaving the Word document open, I shut the laptop and set it back down where it had been. Beckett go to his feet and Tessa jumped off the desk.

                "This isn't much revenge," I said, looking around at the room. "Revenge would be lighting this whole place on fire while he's trapped inside. But that's just my humble opinion."

                "It's the little jabs to get under their skin," Beckett said, playing with his yo-yo though I hadn't even seen him taking it out. "Small things to let them know they're not winning. The bigger stuff comes later."

                "You were just trying to test me, weren't you?" I said with a sigh.

                "Just a bit." He flicked the lights of the classroom off, plunging us all into darkness. He waited a minute for our eyes to adjust before kicking the books out of the way and opening the door.

                The four of us crept out into the hallway and around towards the back entrance. My body was excited, but not with the restless energy of earlier.

                This was the excitement that came from striking back against people who deserved it. People who abused their authority and positions. People who dragged others down or thought they had a right to crush them.

                I realized I was grinning and didn't bother trying to hide it. This was dangerous and reckless and stupid and it was glorious.

                Until Beckett hissed out a string of curse words and threw his arm out to stop us.

                "Leon," he said quietly, voice angry and impressed. "He'll think we're going after Sternberg."

                "Are you sure?" I asked, keeping my voice down.

                "He'll think we wanted revenge for Fagan," he said.

                "I'm still pissed that you didn't want revenge for me," Fagan said.

                "Shut up," Beckett growled. "Leon's going to come in from the back entrance and I guarantee the front and side entrances are guarded by his friends. We need another way out."

                "Is there another way out?" I asked, trying to remember the layout of the building. I hadn't exactly explored it.

                Beckett nodded, gesturing at us to go backwards. He moved ahead of us and took us through a heavier door and into an unfamiliar hallway. We moved down the hallway until we reached a door at the end.

                Beckett tried it and seemed relieved when it actually opened. Oh, great, our escape route was a door that tended to be locked. Great plan, leader.

                Beckett waited until we were all in the room before shutting the door and locking it. He went over to a window and unlocked it, pushing it open.

                "We are not seriously going to climb down the building," I said in disbelief, looking out of the window. It was high enough from the ground that a wrong step could land you with some broken bones. "Can't we just wait them out?"

                "They'll check your rooms if they haven't already. We have to get back before them," Beckett said.

                I felt my face pale. Shit, I hadn't even thought about that. If they had checked our room and saw that I was gone too, it would be game over for me.

                Fagan went out first and we crowded the window to watch his path. He scaled the wall slowly, not as used to this route.

                But he founded a way down, relying heavily on a pipe that was stretching down the side of the building and the windows below.

                Tessa went next, and I watched in amazement as she followed Fagan's exact path, copying his steps and holds. She hit the ground and waited.

                "Go," Beckett said to me.

                "If I die, I'm going to haunt you," I promised, swinging myself out of the window.

                I carefully made my way down, trying to take the same path as the other two. My foot slipped at one point, but I caught myself on the pipe, my heart slamming. Not the place to die, Brennan.

                I could've kissed the ground when I reached it. Beckett was already starting on his way down, pulling the window shut after himself. He reached the ground and took off, the three of us following him.

                We quietly snuck our way around the academic building. Beckett was right; two Blues were waiting outside each entrance to the building.

                This was risky. Reckless.

                But that grin was back on my face, even as my heart pounded in anxiety. Beckett took us down a path that got us out of sight of the Blues and back on our way to the dorms.

                "Is it always like this?" I asked.

                "Only when Leon predicts our moves," Beckett said. "He predicted wrong this time. I figured he'd think we were going after Sternberg. That's why we went after Sudlow instead."

                "But you didn't think he'd block off the entrances," Fagan said, laughing. "Even when he's a step behind, he's a step ahead."

                "Even if he found what we did in Sudlow's room, he wouldn't think to check the laptop. He doesn't know Tessa knows the password," Beckett said. "It'll be fine, no matter what happens. We'll still piss Sudlow off."

                We reached the dorms and Beckett gestured at the two to go ahead of us. Once they were out of sight, he turned to me.

                "What got you sent here?" he asked.

                "You could buy a guy a drink first," I said.

                "I handed you that laptop and you went right to work. You acted like you were afraid of scaling down the building, but you didn't even hesitate. I saw you grinning. You've done these kinds of things before, haven't you?" he said.

                "Maybe I just watched The Brave Little Toaster a lot as a child," I said.

                He scowled. "Fine, keep your secrets."

                "I plan to," I said. "Now, can I go to bed? I've got class in the morning."

                "You're going to piss me off," he grumbled.

                "Something tells me most people piss you off," I said. "That picture you taped up on the board. He a friend?"

                "Answer for answer," he said.

                "Yes, I've done this kind of shit before," I said.

                "Yes, he's a friend," Beckett said.

                "Goodnight, Beckett," I said.

                "Goodnight, Brennan," he said.

                I slipped back into the dorm building, letting the door shut behind me. I crept my way back up and into my room, where Fagan was already lying on his bed.

                "You're not as much of a pussy as I thought you were," he said, tugging his covers over himself.

                I struggled my way into my bed and laid down on my back, my arms spread out as I stared at the ceiling. I knew I should leave it as a one-time thing. If they hadn't checked the rooms earlier, I would get away with it. But I wasn't guaranteed to get away with it again.

                My heart was still racing, my body trembling in excitement. I covered my face with my hands as I began to laugh, a wild, relieved sound that filled the room.

                "Oh shit, he's lost it," Fagan said.

                But he was wrong. I wasn't laughing because I'd lost it. I was laughing because I'd found it.

                I'd found a reason to go on. I would fight the abuse here, small sparks that would distract the teachers while we fed the real fire.

                My future was hanging by a thin thread, but I couldn't sit back and do nothing. Beckett had taunted me and I'd taken the bait and now I was hopelessly hooked.

                This would crash and burn, I had no doubts about that. But when it all went up in flames, I'd make sure it was one hell of a show.