An Excerpt from ALTERED by Aubrey Coletti
When Toni, Joseph and Charlie arrive at their new boarding school, they are glad to leave their families — and respective problems — behind. Isolated as boarders, they meet a handsome senior with a personality like iced snake’s blood, teachers with a penchant for physical punishment, and four other outcasts who reveal that their being brought to the Academy wasn’t random at all. When the arrivals discover that their new school is engaged in “behavior modification” through electric shocks, isolation, restraints, and an ever-evolving set of methods to “fix” them, they declare war on their Academy. During their campaign of sabotage, they fight, hate, scorn, love, and begin to uncover the reasons why they were brought to the school. But as their war against the school escalates beyond their control, will they become the very things the Academy believes they are: dangerous, delinquent — and mad?
Chapter Twelve
“Toni White,” Mr Sanders said, pulling her status up on the computer. “Let’s see —”
“You can go in,” Mr. Sanders said to her. She nodded, and moved quickly past Joseph into the Store.
She glanced over at Lieutenant, who scratched her neck. Toni picked her nails. Lieutenant exited the Store.
Anthony got off the video game just as the screen fizzled out. His eyes caught Toni’s for a second, and she picked at her nails again.
Slyly, Anthony pulled out one of his wires which fizzled with electricity, as Seth walked in.
Toni moved away from the aisles of the Store to one of the couches, pulling out a book. She kept her eyes down as the sound of sizzling electricity built up nearby.
The other students and guards looked around as something short circuited with a blast. A video game emitted a puff of smoke with a bang. The other students near it jumped back just in time as the lights went out.
Toni felt someone bump into her as screams filled the room. It was utterly dark.
That is, until with a whooshing sound, a fire ignited all along the aisle of the Store. It gained speed quickly, almost as if half the contents of the Store had been doused with gasoline.
The two girls nearest the blaze shrieked and sped out of the Store. There was a rush on the door as the two security guards tried to evacuate everyone. Toni felt fear as the fire swept up its prey faster and it began to move away from the aisles towards the carpet in the other room. Toni tried to move and realized she couldn’t. Her legs felt like lead, and it was as if someone had replaced the blood in her veins with ice water. One of the security guards grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the door, pushing her through before smashing open the glass and pulling out the fire extinguisher. Toni felt a hand pulling her away from the door and sitting her down.
“You okay?” Anthony asked, eyes watching her intently. “You froze up in there.” Toni tried desperately to catch her breath.
“Yo,” Anthony cried. “I think she’s havin’ an attack or somethin’.”
“Come on,” said Mr. Sanders taking them both by the arms. Toni realized they were the only one’s left in the waiting room. “Let’s go.”
Toni let herself be dragged away from the noise of the guard and his fire extinguisher, still fighting their blaze.
Aubrey Coletti is a nineteen year old author, choreographer, and singer-songwriter originally from Milton, Massachusetts.
She began working on Altered when she was fifteen, and completed it at seventeen, during the summer before her senior year of high school.
She currently attends Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, and is working on the sequel to Altered.
