The summons came during breakfast, a junior student appearing at Tangeni's table with a note that said Administrator Mbumba wanted to see him in his office immediately, and Tangeni felt his stomach drop because being called to the administrator's office was never good news for someone like him.
He left his half-eaten food on the table and walked across campus to the administrative building, a squat concrete structure that looked more like a military bunker than a school office, and the secretary waved him through without even looking up from her computer like she knew exactly why he was there and didn't care.
Administrator Mbumba sat behind a desk covered in papers and forms and all the bureaucratic debris of running a hunter academy, a heavyset man with gray hair and the kind of face that looked like it had never smiled once in its entire life, and he gestured for Tangeni to sit without saying hello or acknowledging him in any way.
"I'll get straight to the point," Mbumba said, folding his hands on the desk in a way that made him look like a disappointed parent even though Tangeni had never done anything to disappoint anyone, "your parents have requested that you be sent home early."
Tangeni felt like someone had punched him in the chest because he hadn't seen his parents in almost three years and hadn't spoken to them in two, and the idea of going back to that house made his whole body go cold in a way that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.
"Why?"
"They didn't say, and frankly I don't care." Mbumba shuffled some papers on his desk like this conversation was already boring him and he had better things to do. "You're eighteen in three months, so technically you're still their responsibility until then, and they want you home."
"I can't go back there."
The words came out before Tangeni could stop them, raw and desperate in a way he hadn't meant to show, and Mbumba looked up with something that might have been irritation or might have been a flicker of curiosity, and Tangeni realized he'd just made a mistake because showing weakness to people like Mbumba only ever made things worse.
"Your personal feelings are not my concern," Mbumba said, and his voice was flat and final like a door being closed, "the transport leaves tomorrow morning, be ready by six."
"Sir, please, I only have three months left until graduation, can't I just stay and finish the year?"
"This isn't a negotiation, and quite frankly you're not going to graduate anyway since you still haven't awakened any abilities." Mbumba stood up, which meant the meeting was over whether Tangeni was ready for it to be over or not. "Your parents are your legal guardians until you turn eighteen, and they want you home, and that's the end of it."
Tangeni walked out of the office in a daze, his legs moving on autopilot while his brain tried to process what had just happened, and he found himself standing in the middle of the courtyard without any memory of how he'd gotten there.
Going back meant going back to his father's belt and his mother's silence and the closet they used to lock him in when he disappointed them, which was always, because everything he did disappointed them from the moment he was born.
Going back meant three months of hell before he turned eighteen, and that was assuming they let him leave at all once they had him, assuming they didn't find some way to keep him there forever.
He thought about the eight hundred and forty-seven tally marks on his wall and realized that he'd been counting the wrong thing all along, that he'd been counting days survived instead of counting days until freedom, and now that count was being reset to zero by people who didn't care what happened to him.
A group of students walked past and one of them shoved him for no reason, just because he was standing there and they could and nobody was going to stop them, and Tangeni stumbled and caught himself and felt something shift inside him like a gear that had been stuck for years finally starting to move.
He could stay and get on that transport tomorrow and go back to a house where no one wanted him except as something to hurt and control and break down piece by piece until there was nothing left.
Or he could leave.
The thought was so simple that he almost laughed out loud right there in the middle of the courtyard, because in almost three years at this academy surrounded by people who despised him, it had never once occurred to him that he could just walk away from all of it.
He went back to his dorm and looked at his possessions, which weren't much because students at Omafo weren't allowed to have much, and started putting the things he couldn't leave behind into his school bag.
A change of clothes, some basic toiletries, his ID card even though it identified him as a student at an academy he was about to abandon, the small amount of money he'd managed to save from odd jobs around campus over the years, and a photo of his grandmother who had died when he was ten and who was the last person in his family who had ever treated him like a human being.
Petrus wasn't there, which was good because Tangeni didn't want to explain what he was doing, and he worked quickly and efficiently and tried not to think too hard about what came next because if he started thinking he might talk himself out of it.
By the time the sun set he had everything he needed packed into a bag that weighed almost nothing, and he sat on his bed and waited for the campus to go quiet, and around midnight when he was sure everyone was asleep he slipped out of his window and started walking toward the gate.
The security guard was asleep in his booth, which was typical because nothing ever happened at Omafo worth staying awake for, and Tangeni climbed over the fence at a spot where he knew the cameras didn't reach and dropped down on the other side and started walking south.
He didn't look back because there was nothing behind him worth looking at.
The road stretched out ahead of him, dark and empty and leading toward Windhoek seven hundred kilometers to the south, and Tangeni had no plan except to keep walking until he got there or until something stopped him.
Seven hundred kilometers was a long way to walk, and he had no food and very little money and no idea what he would do when he arrived or how he would survive once he got there, but it was better than going back.
Anything was better than going back.
He walked through the night, following the main road south and staying in the shadows whenever a car passed, and when the sun came up he was still walking, and he didn't stop until his legs gave out around noon and he collapsed in the shade of a thorn tree and fell asleep instantly.