What was that supposed to mean?
She gave him a smug smile. “Xioxang was here this morning to arrest her.”
Her?
“Who?” demanded Dane, a cold suspicion slowly filling the pit of his stomach.
“Don’t be naïve.” The slender girl curved her blood-red fingernails around his arm possessively. “We all know which student has the best tech skills on campus. Zaniels even gave her an access code to the lab.”
Chapter Eight
ACCUSATION
AERIN FAILED TO HEAR THE DOOR OF THE EMPTY basement room click, but she knew she was locked in. The cement floor, blank walls, and stark, stained ceiling all closed inward, pulled by the magnetism of her own fear. She felt her mind and body shut down, her muscles tighten, her limbs grow rigid. The dim light crumbled to darkness, blackness seeping beneath the inner layer of her skull and the outside of her cranium.
Whether Xioxang would return, she did not know. What she did know was terror, the bone-numbing terror of being cornered. Would they send her back to Vizhan and the slow torturous death of a runaway? Or would she face prison? Aerin knew little enough about Allied legal justice, but she knew prison was worse than death. Slave owners sent you there if they thought you were hiding something. And the screams that echoed from the cells were the screams of torture victims. No one ever came out alive.
She should have run, should have avoided capture at all cost, should not have followed Xioxang over here to the Great Hall in a useless stupor. How much did he know? Had he known everything before arriving in her dorm room? Or had her late-night adventure tipped him into doing a background check? No answers came. Only the blackness. And the knowledge that she was trapped.
Time became an enemy. She could not sense it. Or track it. Or force it to an impenetrable halt. It lurked relentlessly out of reach.
Until a tussle of sound crept along the ridge of her awareness, then shifted. “You should think about the circumstances in which I found her.” The sharpness of Xioxang’s voice sent a chill beneath Aerin’s flesh. He must be standing guard outside the room.
“I have no say.” The second voice vibrated under strain. “If the files have been tampered with, the solution is out of my hands.” Aerin could not help but shudder as she recognized the second speaker: Mr. Zaniels, the one teacher she had almost trusted. So he, too, served as her jailer.
Again darkness swallowed her whole. Seconds or minutes or hours passed, her face and feet going numb before dialogue jolted back into her conscience.
“We should get on with this,” said Xioxang.
“We can’t. Livinski wants to handle it.”
“That was before she started fielding angry calls from parents.”
The words sliced through Aerin’s brain. Angry calls.Everyone knew then: the parents, the teachers, the members of the Council.
“I have better things to do with my time than wait. It doesn’t take an expert to question someone,” Xioxang growled.
A glacial female voice cut through the complaint. “Perhaps your expertise would be better employed upstairs seeing that I am not disturbed.” The command shattered the dialogue.
“Yes, Dr. Livinski.”
“Oh, and Mr. Xioxang, no more calls . . . from anyone.”
At the sound of fading footsteps, Aerin allowed a thin stream of air to exhale from her lungs. At least the hawk with his probing stare would not be present for her interrogation.
Then light slammed into the room. Her chest lurched as she clamped her eyelids shut and pressed her back against the wall. Clicking skidded over her eardrums. “The bulb must be out,” came the smooth voice. “Come here, Miss Renning.”
Aerin cracked her protective lids wide enough to make out the rigid figure in the doorway. The square-cut jacket, straight skirt, and tight bun left no room for leniency. Lips pressed together with a hint of disgust around the edges. For the first time, Aerin understood the power behind this woman. As a Council member, Dr. Livinski could condemn an entire nation with an accusation. It would cost her nothing to condemn one person.
“I assume you know why you are here,” said the principal.
Aerin worked her jaw without sound. A single word might serve as her own betrayal. Fool, she chided herself. They know already. Still, she could not bring her tongue to attempt a defense for her illegal presence at the school.
“Come. Here.” The principal spoke each word slowly, then raised an eyebrow. “Unless you prefer to remain in the dark.”
Somehow Aerin pried her body away from the back wall. Numb legs staggered, and she stumbled forward. Long fingers gripped her by the elbow and, to Aerin’s surprise, led her not only out of the room but straight into the tech lab.
The buzz of the computers, once a comfort, now hissed around her with sharp discord. She flinched at the sight of Zaniels looming beside his personal computer, arms crossed over his bulky chest. Anger marred the typically kind face.
But the dark expression moved past her as his gaze focused on the nearby machine. “Someone broke into the academy files last night,” he said, “from this computer.”
The grip on Aerin’s elbow loosened. “You wouldn’t have any idea how such a feat might be accomplished?” asked the principal.
Aerin felt her mouth drop open. Was this why she was here? Because they thought she had compromised school security? If this was all—
Then the hopeless insanity of the situation struck her. If she admitted to knowing how to bypass security, there was nothing to keep them from thinking she had broken into the lab, and if she denied it, there was nothing to convince them she was telling the truth.
Unless she could prove someone else had hacked into the machine. “I might . . .” she tried to speak. “I might be able to track the culprit.”
Zaniels glanced at the principal.
The look was unclear, but Dr. Livinski gave a slow nod, then made a sharp gesture toward an empty chair. “By all means,” she said.
Aerin sat down, nerves firing along the short hairs up and down her arms. She might trace the hacker, but then again, she might not. If he or she had equal skill, there would be no trace to define the culprit and perhaps not even a path to unravel.
Her fingers moved slowly over the keyboard, paused half a second, then circumvented the password. The back of her mind screamed out that she had just given them proof of her own ability to break in.
But the risk was calculated. She had no hope without taking it, and this might be her only chance to clear her name, at least before they began a real investigation.
At her side, Zaniels grunted, but Dr. Livinski remained silent. Aerin did not dare look at either of them. She could not afford to gauge their reactions. Her full attention focused on the screen and the clues revealed there.
She did not have to look very hard. The hacker’s path opened with startling ease. To her relief. And her growing anger.
Had the terror she had gone through this morning been due to nothing more than a silly prank? The hacker had entered a dozen restricted sites without any attempt to scroll for information or disguise the path. If she was not mistaken, he had even taken a few extra measures to ensure being caught.
And it was a he, of that she had no doubt, nor was there any question who had done the searching. Her temper boiled under her skin. How exactly like him! To waste all that energy and effort getting nowhere. It was maddening. And the most maddening thing of all was that he had somehow dragged her into it, because here she was, with the proof right at her fingers, capable of printing up his whole ridiculous route in a matter of seconds.
Except she suddenly did not care for the idea of telling. This had been no crime, really, and there was something infuriating about the way the culprit begged to be caught.
When she finally looked up, the principal was gone. Zaniels, perhaps too nervous to watch, had moved to a far corner where he paced back and forth. “Any luck?” He gave a grim smile.
Her throat felt dry, and her
gut rebelled, but she could not dismiss the horror of the dark room.
Then Dr. Livinski stepped back into the lab. “Well, Miss Renning, do you know who broke into the database?” The icy voice and cool facade demanded a response.
Aerin opened her mouth . . .
Then closed it.
Less than two feet behind the principal stood the shadowy outline of a human form. And not just any human: with shoulders slouched, hands in pockets, head tilted to the side. She knew that look, the deceptively relaxed stance of Dane Madousin.
His dark eyes swam into view and for one endless moment met hers.
Aerin had a sudden vision of him fending off the entire debate class. She pushed it away. She owed him nothing. Nothing! This entire nightmarish morning was his fault. He deserved everything he had coming to him and more.
So why didn’t she do it? Why didn’t she tell Dr. Livinski the culprit was standing right behind her at this very moment? Why was he standing there?
The answer came in jagged memory, ripping its way down Aerin’s chest. He wanted to remind Aerin that if he went down, she was going down, too, all because she had shown him that stupid shortcut their first day of class. Hadn’t he threatened her that same day?
She hated him. With a passion.
“I asked you a question, Miss Renning.” The principal stepped closer. “Do you know who broke in here last night?” The words hung in the air.
Aerin’s eyes riveted on Dane’s.
“No,” she said.
Silence cluttered the space between them.
The response in his gaze was not what she had expected. He blinked, shook his head, then furrowed his brow as if trying to figure something out.
The principal’s question rang with sarcasm. “You’re certain?”
“Now wait a minute,” said Zaniels. “She’s done what we asked. If she says she doesn’t know, she doesn’t—”
“She knows,” Dr. Livinski snapped. “Madousin confessed not three minutes ago, and according to that confession, Miss Renning showed him how to bypass the security code herself several weeks ago. I’m not sure what I find more reprehensible, a student who breaks into school property, or one who lies to cover up her own part in it.”
Confessed? Aerin stared at Dane with shock. It made no sense.
“Listen, I didn’t . . . that’s not what I . . . it’s not Aerin’s fault.” Dane struggled for words, something she had never seen him do in two weeks of debate. “She had nothing to do with this. You can’t expel her just because—”
“Expel?” The principal gave a sudden turn. “Oh, believe me, Mr. Madousin, neither one of you is getting off that easy.”
The light on Dr. Livinski’s transmitter was blinking an hour later as she returned to her office. Red. The signal of the Council. One interrogation finished. Now time for the second. She closed the door and pulled black shades over the glass walls. Visibility would not save her from this conversation. Reluctantly, she lowered the lights, then pushed the Input button.
The image of General Gregory Madousin shot onto a shade, his military jacket sporting every medal he owned, including the most recent, earned on Wyan-Ot. “Jane,” he said, his face dark. “Our colleagues informed me of the lockdown.”
“It’s taken care of,” she replied, the tips of her fingers settling on her desktop. “None of the files you are worried about were accessed.”
“You can’t know that.”
Actually, she could. She had been perfectly aware of the fact ten minutes after sitting down at Zaniels’s computer. But that had not answered how the young culprit had bypassed the security code, the discovery of which had been the entire purpose behind her investigation. She descended into her chair without breaking eye contact. “We have a trace of the entire path taken by the hacker.”
“I want the culprit arrested.” His chest puffed up like an Ondavan grouse.
“I can assure you there will be consequences.” Dr. Livinski squelched the urge to tell him his own son was to blame. She had a firm policy about handling school discipline herself. Besides, she had spent more than enough time on the transmitter discussing Dane with his father the previous evening.
For the moment, however, the General’s attention was consumed by someone else. His tone was a command. “I want every file related to the Traitor transferred.”
Her hackles rose. She had known this would happen. The Traitor had been at the heart of Gregory’s vendetta for more than fifteen years. “You already have the sensitive files,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I will not doctor school records.”
“This is a political concern.”
It’s personal, she thought, and you and I both know it.“School records are my jurisdiction.” Her fingers dug into the edge of her desk. She was not about to let him usurp her control of Academy 7.
“And my son is mine.” The image from the transmitter blurred.
“Not while he’s attending my school.” She was not going to have this conversation again, after four hours of it the night before. As the image cleared, he opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “I’ll send you a scan of the trace, Gregory.” And she severed the connection.
Her hand clenched on the closed transmitter. Overprotective parents: always doing their best to undermine their children’s education. Already, she had wasted an hour that morning defusing the anger of Mrs. Entera, though how the woman had known about the lockdown had been a mystery until the admission that she had disregarded school rules by giving her daughter a personal transmitter. Soon to be confiscated, before the entire episode became a matter of public record. Fortunately, upon reflection, Mrs. Entera had been none too eager to have the news of the lockdown, and with it her own deceit, released to the press.
And then—Dr. Livinski shoved the office transmitter across her desk—there was Gregory Madousin. She knew he had a grudge against her, and she could not entirely blame him for it, but that was no reason to forfeit his son’s chance to attend the best school in the universe. Or to make the ridiculous claim that Dane had cheated on the A.E.E. Any parent that denied his or her child’s accomplishments in order to win an argument was appalling.
Though Dane had certainly done his best to prove his father’s point.
She sighed and pushed back her chair. She probably should have expelled the boy. But wouldn’t Gregory have loved that!
And then there was the girl. Somehow as soon as Zaniels had mentioned his aide, Dr. Livinski had known Aerin would be tangled in this mess. The decision to question her had proven effective, though not in the manner the principal had anticipated. She had already identified Dane as the guilty party and had fully expected the girl to turn him in, after explaining how the boy had achieved his feat. But it had been Dane who had confessed.
Expulsion was not the answer. Dr. Livinski eyed the now clear, still light on the transmitter. A thin smile creased her lips. Those two students were going to have to work off every ounce of stress they had manufactured for her this day. And maybe, just maybe, if they spent enough time together, they could terminate Gregory’s crusade against the Traitor. Though God help her when the general found out she was harboring Aerin Renning.
Chapter Nine
PUNISHMENT
CLEANING FUMES STUNG DANE’S EYES. DR. LIVINSKI’S view of punishment involved rags, metal pails, and ammonia water. A great deal of ammonia water. He wrapped his fingers around thin bucket handles and heaved the steaming pails up the narrow attic stairway.
“It’s on your left.” Xioxang’s voice called from below, stabbing Dane’s back. “Just before you reach the message room. No, your left.”
Dane squinted into the darkness, trying to spot an Entry button. If he had not been told, he would never have known there was anything up here except the message room. The weight on his hands cut into his fingers, and it was just dawning on him that he was not going to be able to push a button even if he found one, when Aerin, laden with a tower of rags, swept around him and slapped t
he wall. And what must have been the button. A harsh squealing filled the air.
Then dust erupted. Dane coughed, the movement causing hot water to spill over a pail rim, scalding his thigh. He swore under his breath.
Aerin stepped forward, a dim stream of light illuminating her profile.
He blinked, startled by the vision. Her hair glimmered past her shoulders. Though still straight and mousy brown, the long tresses were no longer limp. And the skinny arms and legs he had observed on the first morning of class had somehow lost their sharpness. The exacting pace of Academy 7 must have agreed with her. That or the physical demands of knocking him on his ass every day.
“Move on, Madousin,” came the harsh command from below.
Dane stumbled forward into a narrow room lined with dusty shelves. Grateful to relinquish both buckets onto the floorboards, he rubbed his aching fingers with his thumbs.
“Clean it up.” Xioxang suddenly stood in the doorway. “Livinski wants every piece of memorabilia to shine.
Memorabilia? Dane squinted at the shelves. Sure enough, beneath the dust, cracked plaques fought for space with corroded trophies.
“What’s the matter, Madousin?” the teacher challenged. “Never learned to perform physical labor?”
Dane did not dignify that with a response. Two hours of labor every day for the foreseeable future were less a purgatory than a reprieve.
What he could not fathom was why hell had not come for him. His father would not have given up on pulling his son from the school. Nor would the General have changed his mind. The only explanation Dane could devise for why he was still here was that Dr. Livinski had blocked his father’s request for removal—that she had refused to let Dane leave because she wanted to inflict her own version of punishment. As the Council member in charge of education, she had that power. Still, Dane had never known anyone to—
Aerin interrupted his thoughts as she slid past him for a second time without speaking. She wrapped a rag around a bucket handle and snatched up the heavy pail with its steaming contents. Within seconds she had scaled the top of a ladder and begun scrubbing down trophies.
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