They screamed war cries and were laughing with the raw exhilaration true bullies feel. Punching and kicking and pushing, they whaled on us as they pushed us down to the bottom of the stairs. I fell to the cement floor, bashing my head and my shoulder. Something tore inside my shoulder. It screamed in protest, and I had trouble gathering up my body again. I felt jumbled and frozen with the pain of it. I just lay back down on the floor. “Zarember, go get Anna and the others,” the lead cadet ordered. “Tell them the sweet little sissies opened right up for us.” One of the two cadets started back up the stairs. I saw Jake sit up, shaking his head to clear it, trying to recover. “Mickey?” Jake said. “Mickey Zarember?” The figure on the stairs stopped and turned. “Who are you?” he asked. He had short brown hair and a huge bruise on one side of his face. “Jake Simonsen. Remember me? I was a prospective at the Academy … I stayed with Jamie—” “Holy crap, Payton,”
