Sacrifices by Mercedes Lackey, Rosemary Edghill Read Free Book Online Page B

custom carpet with a repeating design of the Breakthrough logo (surprise). There were thirty computer stations—state of the art, of course—along the left wall and across the back. The screen savers all showed an animated version of the logo: the dragon coiled around the tower flapped its wings, arched its neck, spat fire. The right side of the room held half a dozen fridges, some tables and chairs, a counter with sinks, microwaves, coffee machines—and the biggest plasma television Spirit had ever seen. It was showing a football game. The middle of the room had several couch-and-chair “conversation groups,” all upholstered in black leather.
    “Enjoy!” Teddy said. He bowed with a theatrical flourish and left them.
    Brett rushed over to the nearest computer and sat down. Juliette rolled her eyes and shook her head. Zoey walked to one of the fridges and opened it. “Oh, man,” she said. “There’s everything in here! Hey, who’s up for another Coke?”
    “Potato chips,” Kylee said feelingly, opening one of the cabinets. Spirit could see it was filled with every kind of junk food in the entire universe—cupcakes, pretzels, Cheetos, chips …
    When Zoey closed the fridge she was holding two six-packs of soda and half a dozen tubs of chip dip.
    “Okay, let’s get this over with,” Brenda said briskly. “The sooner we’re done, the sooner we can get on the computers.”
    Even Juliette didn’t argue. Looking at the faces of the Radial teens, Spirit realized that if he could read their parents the way he could read the kids, Mark was going to be able to buy the whole town out of pocket change—and everyone there would be eager to sell.

 
    THREE
    The Dance Committee got back to Oakhurst barely in time to make dinner—not that most of them would have cared if they’d missed it. The meeting had been brief and perfunctory—Juliette had wanted to set up a joint email list for planning, and had sneered when Maddie said Oakhurst didn’t let them have Internet access—and then everybody had sat around stuffing their faces on junk food until Hailey and another driver showed up to bundle all of them into a couple of cars and drive them home.
    Zoey and Dylan and Maddie had been loud and giddy with their sugar high, and even Chris and Kylee had been cheerful. Only Spirit had nothing to say. Bread and circuses, Mom’s voice whispered in her mind. Bread and circuses. She hated to think that people could be bought off—or distracted—that easily from something (especially if it was really bad ), but she was starting to realize the problem was actually that you didn’t know how bad something was at first.
    Maybe you didn’t know until it was too late.
    She had just enough time to dump her coat and things in her room and run to the Refectory. She got inside just before the doors closed. She scanned the room quickly and winced. The resemblance between Oakhurst Academy and a teen slasher movie had never been stronger, Spirit thought. Every meal, now, there were a few more missing kids. Spirit might not know all their names, but she could count. So could the faculty, so there was never an empty chair to let you be sure someone was gone. Between lunch and dinner, everything had been shifted around even further—a quick count told her two of the tables had been removed. Spirit shuddered: that was thirty places.
    It didn’t mean that many students were gone (yet): the chairs had all been crammed so close together at the remaining tables you probably wouldn’t be able to reach for your glass without elbowing whoever was beside you in the ribs.
    She wondered how many more of them would have to vanish to make the staff remove another table.
    “Hey, White. Glad you could join us.”
    Spirit tried not to groan. If she’d had to make a list of “Oakhurst Proctors Most Likely To Become A Shadow Knight Upon Graduation,” Joe Rogers would have been near the top. Ever since Breakthrough took over, he’d made it clear he