Chapter 13/Punishment

Later that night while we were changing for bed, I noticed the careful way in which Karl moved. When he removed his shirt, my jaw slackened slightly. Gabe looked over at my sharp intake of breath and his jaw tightened in a way that made his profile look exactly like Warren's. Adams was not in the room, for he had asked for a different room and we were still awaiting our new roommate.

Karl's back, side, and chest were covered with large purple, black, and green bruises. He twitched and glanced at us then down at the bruises he could see. I reached over and took his arm gently, he still flinched.

"Karl, you got to tell me," I said in a low tone. "Who did this to you?"

Karl would not look at me. He twitched his arm out of my grasp and reached for his sleep shirt. He put it on slowly, taking extra care not to bump any of the spots on his torso. I growled softly in my throat and narrowed my black-lined eyes at him.

"Tell me!" I insisted.

Gabe stepped forward. "He can't Alex. All of us get punished at one time or another. Sometimes we're just put under torture for other students to practice with their powers. It's an unspoken rule that no one tells on anyone else. There could be consequences for naming names."

He nodded, completely serious, which scared me somewhat. However, I was still seething. To see Karl beaten up like that and know I could do nothing about it was making me see red. Tossing my sleep shirt aside, I left the room in only my dark jeans, searching for someone to demand to know what had happened. My bare feet hardly made a sound on the cold, white floors and goose bumps appeared on the bare skin of my chest.

I found myself in the hallway of the girl's dorm and decided to just go see Violet. I knocked on her door and shifted from one foot to the other waiting for someone to open the door. She finally did, opening it wide and observing me bare-chested. She rolled her eyes and cursed underneath her breath.

"I hope this isn't some kind of weird, perverted dream," she said, somewhat sarcastically.

I forced a small laugh and shook my head. "No, it's not. Can I come in?"

I noticed she was wearing pajamas and was a little surprised by their modest appearance: simply a tank top with long, cotton pajama bottoms. I knew most of the girls here would not be so conservative, which made me wonder again what Violet was doing here.

She glanced behind her. "Well, the girls are off doing things, it's just me and Diane. Sure."

She stepped back and I walked in. Diane Stevens was on the top bunk of one of the beds, staring up at the ceiling in an almost comatose state.

"What's wrong with her?" I asked, pointing.

Violet looked up at her roommate. "Oh, she had to go through the Penalty Room," she told me with a careless shrug of her shoulders. She kept her body relaxed and her expression indifferent, but I thought I caught a troubled gaze flash across her eyes.

"Sit," she said, pointing to a chair in a corner. "And for Pete's Sake put a shirt on!" She kept her eyes turned away from me as I looked down at myself.

"How can I?" I asked. "I don't keep an extra shirt in my back pocket." I frowned.

Violet sighed and walked over to their dresser. Searching one of the drawers for a moment, she drew out a large jersey and tossed it at me. "My brother Indigo's," she explained. I nodded and pulled it on over my head. It was slightly big, but it did not dangle on me like it would have three weeks earlier. I had really gained weight.

After I put the shirt on Violet sat down on the floor in front of me and kept her gaze on me. "So . . . what's up?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Karl," I said simply.

She winced slightly. "Oh yeah, his punishment." She rubbed her forehead.

"It isn't right Violet! They shouldn't be allowed to do that to him. Someone needs to—" I cut off when I realized she was laughing, a high, cruel, bitter laugh.

"Alex! Alex!" she said, finally calming down. "This is a villain academy." She shook her head, still smiling slightly. "Did you expect us to be like Sky High?" She sat up and placed her hands on my knees, leaning forward and staring into my face.

"You're part of the Hyde story now, Alex," she said in an ominous tone that gave me shivers. "No more playing around like Dr. Jekyll."

She let go of me and sat back, staring at me. I realized I had been holding my breath and let it out slowly.

"No one does anything about the system here. They—we all agree that it is the best villain training facility in the country. And one of the reasons is that no one questions the authority. What happened to Karl can happen to you too if you don't keep your mouth shut about it."

I blinked. "You know, you can be really freaky sometimes," I said with a nervous laugh.

Violet gave me a calculating look. "I'm not kidding Alex," she told me, her voice serious.

I rang my tongue over my lip ring. I glanced up at Diane. "What's the Penalty Room?" I asked.

Violet followed my gaze and her expression turned sad for a brief moment. "That's where they send you when you do something to displease the teachers. No one wants to be sent there. It's a torture chamber." She shuddered slightly and cast her eyes to the floor.

I slid hesitantly out of the chair and knelt beside her on the ground. I touched her shoulder lightly.

"Have you ever been in there?" I asked quietly.

She nodded, not looking at me. After a pause she turned her face toward me. "Yes," she whispered.

Hardly realizing what I was doing, I reached around Violet and pulled her into a gentle hug. She clung to me and buried her face in my chest, her shoulders quivering like a frightened rabbit.

"Why did you come here?" I asked softly, stroking her head. "You don't belong here."

She did not answer right away. Pulling away after a moment, she looked into my eyes, her face impassive.

"That is my business," she said, somewhat coldly. She stood. "Don't worry about Karl. He'll make it through all right. He's tougher than most people think."

She walked over to the door and held it open, not looking at me. I took that as my signal to go and did so quietly, glancing at her hard expression once before turning away.

"Be careful Alex," I heard her whisper before shutting the door firmly behind me. I sighed and stuck my hands into my pockets, starting off down the hallway, still determined to find out who had done this to Karl.

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After questioning several students about Karl and gathering zero results, I finally found someone who seemed willing to talk. He would not talk to me out in the open though. He took my arm and jerked me into an empty classroom.

"What do you want to know about Karl?" he asked.

"What did he do?" I asked.

He leaned against the closed door and crossed his arms. "What's in it for me if tell you?"

I thought about that for a minute. "Protection?" I offered, thinking that in a place like this, having a personal bodyguard would be a definite plus.

Unfortunately I didn't really look the part. He snorted. "You?"

"I've been training," I said confidently. "With Violet."

"Right, the Kung-fu chick," he nodded absently. "Well, I don't know much about what happened, just that he did something to tick the teachers off. I think he was caught in one of their offices doing something in their files or something. Your name came up apparently."

I blinked. "My name?"

"Yeah, I guess some people out there have been asking about you and the Elridges don't want them to get too close. Karl was doing something that would compromise them or something. Look, I don't know the details. Is there anything else?"

I began to shake my head but then stopped. "Have you been in the Penalty Room?" I asked curiously.

Suddenly his face hardened and turned pale. "That's none of your business," he said through gritted teeth.

Turning away from me briskly, he opened the door and stepped out, leaving me alone in the room. I was at a loss as to what to do. I opened the door again and stepped out, almost running into someone. I stumbled back and was unfortunate to find that I had almost stumbled on Connor Adams.

"Stay out of my way," he hissed.

I stepped back quickly, not wanting to get any more on his bad side than I already was (if that was possible). He brushed past me and strode off down the hall. My dark eyes followed him.

Even without my powers I could sense the anger, hurt, and sadness bottled up inside of him. In the tense muscles of his back I could see the frustration over not being able to do anything about what had happened to his brother. Strange as it may have felt, I felt somewhat akin to him. I too had lost a brother in a horrible way. I too felt the anger, frustration, hurt, and sadness that Adams was experiencing.

I turned away then, and slowly made my way back to my room, feeling somewhat confused for sympathizing with my sworn enemy. I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes, wondering what exactly Karl had been doing in the Elridges' office.

My eyes had not been shut for very long before two large seniors burst into the room. I had barely enough time to register what was happened before I was being dragged out into the hallway.

"What is this?" I asked angrily. "The Gestapo?"

"Shut up," one senior said, and hit the back of my head hard. I blinked at the stars I saw. Doors began to open and more than one head peeped out. As soon as they saw me their eyes grew wide and they hid behind their doors once more. Somehow I had a feeling I was not going to enjoy what was going to happen next.

00000000000

"Alex, I must say: I am disappointed in you," Dr. Crypto said, shaking his head slowly.

I remained silent. He cleared his throat and kept up the mournful façade. He had me in a room that looked somewhat like an interrogation room. Sitting in a chair, I watched him pace back and forth, going between looking thoughtful and looking upset. I had not said a word since I entered the room and made no move to do so now.

"You were warned," he continued. "I know you were. Did not your classmates tell you to leave what happened to Karl alone? Now my son, you must suffer the consequences."

I didn't feel the need to point out that I was as much his son as he was my father. I did feel the need to find out what was going to happen to me. When he said consequences I finally looked up into his face.

"Yes, I am afraid for snooping around where your young nose does not belong; you are going to get a dose of the Penalty Room. Just a small dosage, not nearly enough to scar you like some of people here would like you to be. But no matter, it'll teach you the lesson you must learn."

I suddenly felt a wave of apprehension fall over me. However I was able to keep my face impassive; years of hiding my emotions from Ana Lucia had done honed that skill.

"Fortunately, or unfortunately depending, the Penalty Room allows you to use your powers."

My ears perked up when I heard that. Then I wondered how my powers of Empathy and Invisibility would help in a room that only I would occupy. It did not seem very likely that I would find any use for them. This frustrated me but I kept silent.

He took me roughly by the arm and hauled me to my feet. Opening the door, he shoved me inside a plain gray room about the size of a high security prison cell. I turned just in time to see the door close. I turned slowly back around and took a deep breath.

"Bring it," I said through gritted teeth, trying to brace myself for the horrors Violet had implied.

What happened however, I never could have been prepared for.

Ahhh cliff-hanger! :-P Soooooooo sorry about the lack of update for so long. This chapter really gave me some trouble. Please tell me what you think and I won't blame you if you think it was not as good as some of the others. I certainly think it wasn't.