Read Online Inquest by DelSheree Gladden - Free Book Online

assignment late last night
and had very little time to prepare. It’s not an easy task to
consolidate a lifetime of research into a curriculum overnight. And
we only have an hour at a time to work with. I do hope that by the
end of the year you’ll have a better understanding of what you will
be expected to do as the only member of the Destroyer class.”
    “Uh,
really?”
    You would
think the majority of the world would be much happier if I had no
idea what I was supposed to do as the Destroyer. I’m not even sure
I want to know what I’m supposed to do. Every time I’ve tried to
find out it never led anywhere good, so now I’d like to avoid
finding out in the hopes that if I don’t know I’ll never actually
do anything bad.
    “Of course,
dear. You have to know your purpose in life if you expect to ever
accomplish it, don’t you?”
    There is
something wrong with this man. “But I don’t want to fulfill my
purpose. I don’t want to hurt or destroy anything. You don’t want
me to do that either. Nobody does!”
    “Well, of
course no one wants to see you harm anyone, but that’s hardly the
point,” Mr. Walters says.
    “How is that
not the point?”
    “Because the
point of this class is to teach you to be the best Destroyer you
can possibly be. What you do with that knowledge is completely up
to you, but I refuse to have a student leave one of my classes not
fully trained to do their duty.”
    He’s serious.
As if my killing people a few years from now has no bearing on his
teaching me to do it, he opens his notebook and instructs me to do
the same. What choice do I have but to follow him?
    “Now,” he
says, “I have been researching the Destroyer class most of my life.
It has always fascinated me that there is only one member, one
single person meant to destroy our entire society. When we have
millions of Guardians to fight against the Destroyer, Visionaries
who might see her coming, Concealers to find her, etc., I have
always been curious about how this one person is actually meant to
succeed.”
    I cough and
interrupt his rambling. “If the Destroyer, me, has all the talents
of the ones meant to stop me, then all I have to do is use the
talents I have against them, right? That’s hardly a mystery.”
    “Precisely,”
he says, “but the problem is that while a Guardian only needs to
focus on honing Speed and Strength, you must master all seven
talents if you have any hope of surviving past your eighteenth
birthday. Mastering one or two talents takes years, decades even,
but you only have two years. That, my dear, is the real question
that has plagued me for so long. How can one person reach
perfection before the whole world turns on her?”
    “Oh. Yeah, I
guess that would be something of a problem, if I was planning on
actually surviving longer than two years,” I say.
    Mr. Walters
simply blinks at me. “You mean you don’t plan on surviving?”
    “Uh, not
really.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because it’s
impossible, for one, and surviving would mean hurting people,
ruining lives. I don’t want to be a part of that. I’d rather let
one of those psychotic Guardians slice me into little pieces than
watch myself do the same thing to someone else.”
    No matter what
anyone says, I will not hurt anyone. Not again.
    Walking over
to my desk at a slow, thoughtful pace, Mr. Walters surprises me by
touching his index finger to the spot of dried blood on my neck.
“If you don’t want your gifts then why didn’t you let Lance or the
Guardian kill you last night? Why don’t you kill yourself right
now?”
    He pushes back
his blazer sleeve and snatches the Guardian blade out of its sheath
so quickly I barely see more than a flash of light on steel before
it is pressing against my throat. A Guardian. My heart is pounding
against my chest, my mind screaming at me to run. I am alone in a
room with a Guardian who is apparently obsessed with the Destroyer.
With me. And he has a knife balanced exactly against my