Sacrifices Read Online Free Page B

light.
    “Where’s Muirin?” Spirit asked, looking around. Muirin was the only one missing.
    “She went back to Radial with Ovcharenko after dinner,” Addie said, her voice flat with disapproval. “I don’t know why she even bothered putting in an appearance tonight.”
    “To show the rest of us what we’re missing, what else?” Loch said lightly.
    Spirit sat down between Burke and Addie. Muirin’s absence made her uneasy. She wanted to think Muirin wasn’t, well, falling to the Dark Side. But it was hard to be sure what Muirin was doing when they all saw so little of each other. And the trouble was, Breakthrough seemed to know exactly how to offer each of them what they wanted most.…
    “That fight tonight … ugh,” Addie said, shuddering.
    “It’s just going to get worse,” Loch said quietly. “This place was a pressure cooker to begin with.”
    “And now Breakthrough’s turned up the heat,” Burke said wearily. “It doesn’t make sense. If they want us, why’re they trying to kill us?”
    “Survival of the fittest,” Loch said, shrugging.
    “Well I’m just about fit to be tied,” Burke muttered.
    “Maybe the lid will blow off the pressure cooker,” Addie said thoughtfully. “The more rules Breakthrough makes, the more everyone rebels against them. Which reminds me…” Addie reached into her blazer pocket and brought out a pack of cigarettes and a half-pint bottle of vodka. “Courtesy of Muirin,” she said, as the others stared at her. “It makes a good excuse, if we’re caught together.”
    So at least Muirin’s still helping, Spirit thought uneasily. She just wished she could be sure Muirin wasn’t just giving them all enough rope to hang themselves. The four of them—the five of them—had been the ringleaders of what passed for a rebellion here since last October—and Muirin knew all the details. If she rats us out …
    “Good for Muirin,” she said, a little too forcefully. The others stared at her. She won’t turn us in, Spirit thought desperately. Muirin never does things just to please people.
    As she wrestled with her fears—it hurt to distrust Muirin, but things had gotten so bad lately that Spirit kept expecting them to get even worse—Addie lit one of the cigarettes. They handed it around the circle, waving it in the air so the place would smell of smoke. When it had burned down, Addie held it up carefully, concentrating. In the light of the flashlights, Spirit saw the paper go soggy, and there was a faint hiss as the ember went out. Addie’s Gift came from the School of Water. There wasn’t much water in the air, but there was enough that she could douse a cigarette.
    She dropped the butt fastidiously to the floor and opened the bottle. “Time to become a teenaged alcoholic, I guess,” she said. She poured a little into the palm of her hand and dabbed it on her cheeks and neck. “No way am I actually drinking any of that,” she said, passing the bottle to Spirit. “I don’t want to be off my game for even a second anymore.”
    Spirit copied Addie’s gestures. The vodka was cold, and it smelled worse than rubbing alcohol. She’d thought vodka was supposed to be odorless and tasteless.
    Burke slopped himself lavishly with it, and even ran his wet hands through his hair before passing the bottle to Loch. Loch carefully soaked his shirtfront in it, grimacing. “This stuff’s never going to replace my Cuir de Russie, ” he said, forcing a smile. “So. Who wants to go first?”
    “I will,” Spirit said. “Ovcharenko picked Trinity for his sparring partner today in Systema, but she wasn’t having any. She ran off. Anybody … seen her?” Spirit finished awkwardly.
    “She’s assigned to my table. She wasn’t at dinner,” Addie said. “I guess she could have just skipped it.” There was a moment of silence. None of them wanted to say what they all knew: Trinity had joined the missing.
    “I heard the Systema classes are going to be combined,”