The SVE Club

31. Walls

    The van that approached Sam was black with very tinted windows. With a tap of her thumb, she fired off a group text to the SVE Club.

    They're here. Fingers crossed, guys ;)

    Before the van stopped at the curb where Sam stood, she pocketed her phone and took a deep breath. She was on the street where she and White Flame had spoken two days ago. The van's breaks squealed as it stopped by the sidewalk. The driver rolled down the window. An older woman with dark shades leaned towards Sam.

    "Samantha Wilson?" she asked.

    Sam nodded, her mouth dry. "That's me," she croaked.

    "Backseat, please," the woman ordered.

    Sam forced her instincts, which screamed at her for even considering getting in the car, to quiet down. She forced her wobbly legs to walk to the automobile, open the door and scoot herself inside. The interior was surprisingly cramped, a full wall between the driver and the passenger. When she closed the door, it was locked automatically and a black covering slid over all the windows, including the rear one.

    "You okay back there, Miss Wilson?" the driver said, speaking over some sort of intercom.

    "Uh, ye-yeah!" Sam replied, looking around for where the sound was coming from.

    "This is all to protect the location of ISH," the woman said. "None of the students know the school's true location."

    Midas did, Sam thought. She pulled out her phone, and just as she had expected, there was no signal.

    "Their cars will jam your phone," Midas had told her earlier, "And it will be confiscated before you enter the campus. After that, you'll be on your own in there. We'll all be doing our part on the outside. We're counting on you to do yours."

    Sam took a deep breath to steady herself. She couldn't mess up here. This was her chance to prove herself to the team, to Midas.

    As the car began to move again, Sam closed her eyes and imagined the street outside. She noted when the car made a left. A left. A right. Another left. In her head, she recalled a map of the town that she had studied before departing.

    That's strange, she thought, scrunching up her face in concentration. We've taken a lot of unnecessary turns. There's no way this is the most direct route to the Yard School. Maybe Midas was wrong. What if ISH is somewhere else?

Sam shook away these thoughts to focus on her task. She continued to picture her mental map. Right. Left. Right. Right.

Nearly twenty minutes had passed. If anything, they were getting farther away from the Yard School. The route was making no sense. They had even gone down some streets twice.

Suddenly, Sam laughed. She had figured it out. The ISH people must be so paranoid that they make their drivers take longer to get the students there. After all, who would consider the Yard School, which was ten minutes away, to be ISH when it took over a half hour to get there? Sam was still smiling, proud of what she'd deduced, when they approached the street the Yard School was on. To Sam's great annoyance, they circled the building four times before the driver finally spoke.

"We're nearly there," was all she said.

We've been here for the past ten minutes, Sam thought. Without warning, a box popped out of the wall in front of her.

"Please empty your pockets and put everything in the locker," the driver said. "It will all be returned when you leave."

With a sigh, Sam deposited her phone, a pack of bubble gum, her Batman wallet and two nickels into the receptacle, which sealed shut after a moment.