Ace of Spades: Part Three–Epilogue

Half an hour later I’m in Waffle Palace, sitting back, watching the sky through the window as it shifts from dark blue to pitch-black, devoid of stars and light altogether.

I look down at the dark brown of my hot chocolate, flecks of cream still visible on the surface.

There’s concern riddling her face.

CeCe’s never liked me much; she made that clear when she told me once in sophomore year, Someday someone’s going to knock you off your high horse.

CeCe sips her latte with her usual blank expression, but Ruby has now turned back around, her eyebrows raised, interest piqued.

No one who is even a close match to the scant details we have to go on.

My voice rises, and the bile in my stomach itches to crawl through my throat and spew all over him and his suit.

Mr. Taylor walks back over to his piano and strokes his fingers across the keys as a loud, discordant pattern of notes screeches out.

I stare at the men, pausing when I spot the face of a familiar student who grins at me in the corner of the page. Greasy hair—as black as the night—slicked back, face gaunt, and spindly, bony fingers wrapped around the same playing card.

Like me, parents can’t see through his façade; they can’t see that his charm is manufactured and underneath it all lies a really terrifying person.

Searing pain in my stomach.

Her piercing scream.

The waves scream, hit, beat the sand down, like the sand is an abomination.

How do I begin to explain the incoherent questions that have been circulating in my brain since last night?

The resemblance to her sister is striking.

I’m breathing fast, chest billowing.

Even though the place was bleak, dark, and gray, I was excited to be there. I don’t think anyone in the history of life has been excited by a prison.

Devon arrives after me, looking as tired as he did last night. Eyes red, hair messy, sullen expression on his face.

“Welcome to my humble abode. You guys want anything? I went to the grocery store before you came, so there’s a bunch of stuff if you want, kitchen’s that way—”

“How can we trust anyone but ourselves after this? This whole experience has taught me that we only have each other in this fight.”
“How do you propose we go about taking them down, then? Since you want to be cynical and irrational.”

“Even if Central News 1 doesn’t want our story, we can go to any other station that wants this,” she continues, oblivious to the car, oblivious to how agitated I am.

He says this like he’s reciting some bigoted script that was fed to him.

It was a poisoned chalice; good at first, but it slowly ate away at me until I was nothing but bits of flesh and marred bone.

It’s hard to gauge what someone who wears the same dreadful hoodie, pants, and sneakers every day would wear when it comes to formal outfits.

“Before I forget, I got us masks. I figured it would be weird being the only ones without them,” I say, reaching into one of my drawers and handing him a black mask. The Snowflake Ball has always been a masquerade.

I’ve come to realize that what I felt for Jamie was not love or even infatuation.

He’s so pathetic, lying there, writhing around on the floor.

Every ten years, Niveus accepts two Black students. Niveus waits until their senior year to really strike, to enhance its campaign of psychological and physical abuse. The aim? To force these students to drop out, ruining every hope they had for a future. It’s a game Niveus calls social eugenics.

“We gave you the chance to leave with some of your dignity intact, but instead you two clearly want the Dianna Walker treatment,” Headmaster Ward says.

“Alice, is that true? Are these two heretics going to destroy us all?”

We sit in a somber silence for a few moments.

Since 1965, the school caused undue trauma to all enrolled Black students, including, but not limited to, emotional and physical harassment and severe mental trauma as well as attempts to sabotage academic records, college applications, and employment possibilities.

This is a school set up by the Underground Society—a society founded to tackle the systemic inequality in schools across the country.

“God, I’ll never get tired of looking at your face,” he muses out loud.

I think about the boy, Rhys. How much unwarranted suffering he could face at that school. Like we did. Like our ancestors did.