I rushed through the hallways after resuming time to place my homework in my locker. I would put the word homework in quotes since it was all just a ruse that Bergstrom had cooked up in case there was ever need for proof that I was indeed learning something from him in our sessions. I hurried back to the cafeteria, having wasted ten minutes of our lunch time hour. This was the first time I got to eat with my friends without having to be off somewhere, well besides the time when Texan chose to pay us a surprise visit.
It was not even one month into the term, but so much had happened in such a short time that I would have thought we had been here longer if it hadn't been for the internal clock that kept ticking away in my head and erasing the effects of relativity. Speaking of relativity, I had noticed that my mind now contained two clocks and the second one was linked to Armensia. At the moment it seemed to be moving slower than ours, but on further analysis, it seemed like ours was simply moving faster than the one in Armensia. I kept the question aside and decided I would ask Bergstrom or Kalifa about it later on.
"Hi guys," I greeted them as I placed my plate down beside Kendall and took a seat.
"Hi," they replied together.
"I'm guessing you have been let go again," Kendall said.
"Yeah, Mr Bergstrom has resorted to just giving me homework. Hopefully he realised it was all just a waste of time," I said.
"I heard about a certain interrogation," Isaac picked up on the conversation I wanted to avoid. Earlier that day I had confronted Sonia with the hope that she could tell me the origins of her ring, but somehow she had managed to twist to such that it looked like I had interrogated her in a cruel way.
"Who was interrogated?" I asked playing along to act like I had no idea what he was talking about.
"Joking aside, what did you want to ask Sonia about?" he asked getting serious all of a sudden.
"Oh, I just wanted her to tell me where she got her ring," I said honestly.
They all turned to Sonia who had been keeping quiet and invisible the whole time she was there. "I got it from my father, okay?" she said.
"Your father gave you a ring that expensive, wow, I am speechless," Isaac said raising his hands in mock surrender. The rest of us laughed it off and continued with the meal. I couldn't help, but notice the dis-satisfied look on her face after that.
Halfway through lunch, Kendall tapped my shoulder amidst a story Jacob was telling me and beckoned for me to look backwards. The table fell into an awkward silence as well as the entire cafeteria which only forced me to look faster. Ryan was coming our way along with his two cousins, Mindy and Heather. Now that I think of it, they were all mentioned in the memory I got that morning. They stopped at our table, "God afternoon, Kevin's friends, we'll just steal him now," Mindy said cheerfully before Ryan grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me away from everyone at the table. I barely had the time to think before we were outside the cafeteria.
I walked with them to wherever they were taking me, my mind still plastered on the scene that Ryan had just made in the cafeteria. "I didn't think I would be actively involved with you even during school hours," I said.
"Don't pay attention to the rest of the school," Ryan said simply.
"So you guys like live outside the law in this school or something," I asked.
"You could say that. Most of the Purgers are descended from members of the founding families of Armenville, so you really don't have to pay attention to the rest of the students. None of them know what is going on in the school or the Purgers," he explained.
"What about the principal?" I asked.
"The principal, as well as all the teachers are given a detailed orientation on how this town works and hierarchy, so they know exactly how to act towards the Purgers," he said.
"Who chose the name Purgers?" I asked.
"Full of questions today aren't you?" he said laughing. We were nearing the basketball court which didn't come as a surprise to me, it seemed as though Ryan loved basketball as well as all the rest. "That name was chosen a long time ago by one of our ancestors that you saw in the book. It isn't the original name that Daphne came up with. To be honest I don't even know if there was such a thing as Purgers back then. The name is meant to hide everything about the founding families of Armenville. That is also why they lived separate from the town in the estates."
We finally got to the basketball court and were met with the whole crowd of Purgers that I had just ditched the day before. Most of the boys stood in the court shooting hoops while immersed in heavy conversation while the girls were outside the court also engaged in conversation in the bleachers whilst they ate their lunch. They all went silent when we arrived prompting Ryan to turn to me.
"We needed one more member to even out the teams," he said. Speechless, that is the word I can use to describe myself at the moment. What was Ryan thinking bringing me here for such a petty reason yet we had not even spoke of the events that occurred yesterday. I brushed off my thoughts and agreed with him while they all split into teams. This time it wasn't a team against the Purgers, but rather Purgers against Purgers. This was making me realize just how much I needed to count them. Their numbers were never the same. The ones present currently were more than the number of Purgers I had ever counted.
Mindy was chosen to be the referee since all the boys wanted to play. "I want a nice clean game," she began.
"Get to the whistle, Mindy," Ryan complained standing.
"If you don't let me finish, the game will never begin," she said back at him. Up until now I had never seen anyone talk back to Ryan.
"We don't have all day, just throw the ball already," he said. She paused before getting back in position to throw the ball. I had been selected to stand against Ryan. When the match is beginning two players from both sides are selected to stand against each other while the referee throws the ball into the air. From then it's up to these two to get the ball for their team. Ryan beat me to it as he jumped faster and got to the ball kicking off the match.
......…
Once again I was beaten by the team Ryan was on. They had decided the match was going to end when one team scored twenty one points. Ryan was truly a force to be reckoned, his three pointers making this game even harder on my team. He made me realise just how out of practice I was. All the while we played my mind was not in the game at all. I sat beside Ryan and the other Purgers who had stayed and whom I was yet to be introduced to in a few moments, or so I hoped.
"Your head was not in the game today, Johnson. You know I love a challenge," Ryan said to me while we caught our breath.
"Yeah, I know, I found it hard to concentrate. Have a lot of things going on," I said.
He chuckled a bit before speaking, "A freshman having a lot of things on his mind. That's not something you see every day," he said.
"Tell me about it. Sometimes I wish I was just like every other normal teenager," I said finally hitting the spot. The reason I had not been able to concentrate at all during the game. The previous day I left the Purgers in a flash revealing my powers to them during my mental breakdown. This was the main reason I couldn't focus around them. They hadn't even reminded me of the event yet. "Ryan, about yesterday….."
"Be at ease, Johnson. We won't say a thing to anyone. Your secret is safe with us which brings me back to the main matter at hand. When are you joining us, Johnson?" he asked.
"Why is it so crucial that I join you anyway?" I asked.
"You will only understand that after you agree to join us. It's only information kept within the Purgers," he said.
"That doesn't help me. The closer we got to that place, the more I was filled with dreadful memories. Forgotten memories and for good reason too," I told him. He looked sad as I revealed this to him.
"They are all about him, aren't they? Your," he paused before spitting out the name, "cousin Charles." This caught me entirely off guard. The memory from the previous night came crashing back to me reminding me that Ryan actually knew who my cousin was.
"How do you know my cousin?" I asked.
"All the more reason you join us," he said.
If it wasn't for my curiosity and the fact that I knew he bore me no ill will, I would have continued to object. "I have no objection to joining you guys. But I am not mentally ready to go where you were taking me yesterday. Those memories are painful, is there a way I can still join you, but hold off on going to that place?" I asked.
"You mean you'll join us then," he repeated, his voice going up a few octaves in excitement. The bell rang as soon as he said it, but they didn't seem to care which only meant this could turn into a repeat of what happened the last time I was with him for a long time. I noticed it was not just him who was overjoyed by the fact that I had agreed to join them, but so were the rest of the Purgers present who were only five to be honest. The rest had all left to get to their classes. I was happy today was not that hot otherwise we would have been sweating like there was no tomorrow.
"I have a question to ask you, but I am hoping I don't get the same response I always get," I said.
"What is it?" he asked me.
"Are all the Purgers related to one another like you, Mindy and Heather?" I asked.
"So you noticed?" he asked, his excitement dying down. "But alas, I can only answer that question when you do agree to join us?"
"I just did," I yelled at him frustrated by all the secrecy.
"Well then you should know that once you are a Purger, you are not allowed to get out of being one," he said as if he was some mafia boss.
"Come on, get on with it already," I whined. Two minutes had passed since the warning bell and my internal clock was counting even louder now that I knew I had to get to class as soon as I could.
"Patience, Kevin, you will know everything soon enough. It is my duty to tell you all of this now that you are theoretically one of us," he said. "What spooked you yesterday by the way? You looked like you had seen a ghost."
"Well," as said whilst I got up to go to class, "maybe it's because I did see a ghost," I said before starting to walk away. I heard Ryan telling the others they could go on to class without him before he jogged up to me.
"What is that supposed to mean?" he asked.
"Well, you probably don't know this, but up until yesterday, my first memory was of the day my cousin died. Anything before that was all a blank. Yesterday as we were in the car, my memories were returning to me in flashes. It was too much for me, so I ran," I explained.
Two minutes were now left till the bell for the start of class was supposed to be sounded. I picked up the pace prompting Ryan to do the same much as he was going in the wrong direction. My school was one where many people were excellent at keeping time. The halls were almost empty as we walked through them. "When will you stop running from your memories then, Kevin," he asked.
"I don't know. All I know is that I have been trying to put the death of my cousin behind me and it was only yesterday that I realised I wasn't close to having peace of it," I told him, "why do you care anyway?"
"You'd be surprised. Thankfully, you have made all of this easy for me, I won't take you where I was taking you yesterday, but meet me after football practice today, okay?" he said before jogging away from me after we reached the door of the classroom I was supposed to be in. I got in and took my seat as the bell rang almost in response to my arrival.