Night School: Legacy

by C. J. Daugherty

  Besides, what was the point? She knew what everybody would say. They’d say, Why didn’t you tell Carter instead of Sylvain?

  And now that she thought about it, that was a perfectly good question. Why didn’t she? Over and over again Carter’s words resonated in her head. ‘Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t feel anything for Sylvain …’

  As she flipped through the pages of her history textbook, it was images of Carter’s face she saw. The intensity of his reaction had frightened her. It was the first time it ever occurred to her that he might really break up with her over Sylvain.

  Tears stung her eyes and she swiped them away with the back of her hand.

  What’s the point in crying? she asked herself bitterly. It won’t help anyone.

  ‘Hey, are you OK?’ Jo slipped into the chair next to hers, looking at her with concern. She seemed better than yesterday – her face wasn’t red.

  Still, Allie really didn’t want to talk to her right now. So she lied. ‘I’m fine.’

  Jo ran a nervous hand through her short blonde hair. ‘Look, I wanted to apologise for losing it – anything to do with Gabe makes me completely mental.’

  ‘You shouldn’t apologise,’ Allie said, setting down her pen with a sigh. ‘I’m the one who caused all the trouble.’

  ‘You were doing what you had to do,’ Jo said, surprising her. ‘I don’t think anyone would have done differently. But I’ve heard they’re planning some sort of stupid tribunal for you and that pisses me off so much. I’ve already told Isabelle how freakin’ stupid it is, but she won’t do anything.’ Jo kicked a leg of the table. ‘As bloody usual.’

  Allie stared. ‘How do you know about that?’

  Jo made a dismissive gesture. ‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is this: I’ve told Isabelle if they expel you I’m going, too. OK? And I just wanted you to know that.’

  ‘Jo …’ Allie didn’t know what to say. She was horrified and pleased in equal measures. ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I can and I will.’ Jo’s tone was emphatic. ‘I want to leave anyway. It hasn’t been the same since everything happened over the summer. Maybe I’ll go to that finishing school Lisa’s at in Switzerland. I could meet some handsome Swiss prince and live happily ever after. Anyway,’ she didn’t wait for Allie to respond, ‘I just wanted you to know. Especially after what they did to Sylvain.’

  Allie’s mouth went dry. ‘What do you mean? What did they do to Sylvain?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’ Surprised, Jo blinked at her. ‘He had his tribunal yesterday. They’ve put him on probation and suspended him from senior Night School activities.’

  The rush of relief made Allie feel lighter. He wasn’t expelled.

  The day crept by at an achingly slow pace. By nine o’clock, when Allie’s tribunal was due to take place, she longed for it to just happen. Whatever the verdict.

  Just before nine, she walked down the cold basement stairs alone. She didn’t know what to expect but told herself she no longer really cared. Nonetheless, the corridor seemed longer than usual and darker. She’d never felt more lonely.

  When she saw Sylvain ahead of her, she instantly panicked, rushing to his side. ‘What are you doing here? Is something wrong?’

  His bruises stood out in stark relief. One eye was still nearly swollen shut, and the cut on his lip looked raw. But he tried to smile anyway. ‘I just wanted to wish you luck.’

  A sudden surge of emotion made it hard for her to talk; she bit her lip. ‘I heard what they did to you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry.’ He held her gaze. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘But it was my fault, Sylvain,’ she said passionately. ‘And now you’re in trouble.’

  ‘It was worth it,’ he said. When she prepared to protest again, he reached out and lifted her chin until her eyes met his. ‘Allie. It was worth it.’

  She’d worked so hard not to care about any of this, but now one tear escaped, betraying her. He wiped it away, his fingers gentle on her skin.

  ‘Courage,’ he said, pronouncing it the French way. ‘Don’t let them see you cry.’

  Then he walked to the door, resting his hand on the handle, waiting until she’d composed herself. Taking a steadying breath, she nodded to show she was ready.

  He opened the door.

  Inside, a table had been set up with four chairs, as it had been arranged the day Night School students began their interviews. This time, though, only one chair faced it. For a split second Allie imagined running out of the room. Out of the school.

  She walked inside.

  The room was chilly and smelled faintly of dusty concrete and stale sweat. Zelazny, Jerry Cole, Eloise and Isabelle sat at the table, watching her.

  ‘Please sit, Allie.’ Eloise looked sympathetic as Allie lowered herself stiffly into the folding chair, its metal cold against her thighs. The others were expressionless.

  ‘You’re here today because you broke The Rules by going out after curfew without permission to meet a member of Nathaniel’s team.’ Isabelle’s hands were crossed in front of her. Her light hair was pinned back severely, and her narrow glasses made her face look angular. ‘You were accompanied by Sylvain Cassel, who has already verified all of this to the tribunal. Do you disagree with any of these allegations?’

  Allie held her gaze steadily. ‘No.’

  ‘Allie, this is your opportunity to make your case against expulsion, from Night School and from Cimmeria Academy, the most serious penalty this tribunal can issue.’ Eloise’s voice was gentle. ‘Tell us any mitigating circumstances – any reasons why what you did was justified. Please start by giving us your account of what happened that night. Why did you break The Rules?’

  As Allie recounted the events of that night, her voice started out shaky but gradually steadied until her words rang out clear and confident. When she reached the part where Gabe grabbed her off the path and explained how she’d freed herself from him, a half-smile flickered across Isabelle’s face before it was suppressed. Again, though, she left out everything Christopher had said about the headmistress.

  When she’d finished she said simply, ‘I take full responsibility for everything that happened that night. None of it was Sylvain’s fault. He wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t threatened him and refused to follow his advice. He was trying to protect me.’

  Zelazny spoke immediately. ‘And why did you not follow his advice?’

  Keeping her expression blank, Allie turned her eyes to his. ‘Because I knew you would kidnap my brother to get to Nathaniel and I didn’t want that to happen.’

  ‘Knew?’ Zelazny’s tone was sarcastic. ‘How could you possibly know what we could do? Can you read our minds?’

  ‘Fine. Tell me I was wrong then.’ Allie’s gaze challenged his, but he waved the comment away with a dismissive gesture.

  ‘I’m not the one on trial here,’ he said. ‘And you’d do well to remember that.’

  ‘Nobody’s on trial here.’ Jerry Cole moved in to calm the situation. His wiry brown hair was more rumpled than usual, and his glasses lay on the table in front of him as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘Allie, was your sole motive to protect your brother?’

  She nodded vigorously.

  ‘You had no interest in helping Nathaniel?’

  ‘No.’ She looked at him with confusion. ‘Why would I want to help Nathaniel?’

  ‘From what you’ve told us,’ Jerry said, ‘your brother made a fairly thorough case for following Nathaniel. Were you not convinced at all?’

  ‘I think …’ Allie’s stomach twisted, and she swallowed hard. ‘I think my brother’s lost it. I disagree with everything he said. But I had to see him. I had to find out what happened to him. I had to know he was really alive.’

  ‘Nobody can argue that there’s anything irrational in that,’ Eloise interjected. ‘There is a special bond between siblings. Anyone would have done the same thing.’

  ‘It’s that special bond I’m asking a
bout, though,’ Jerry said. Eloise shot him a strange look but he didn’t seem to notice. ‘You felt so bonded to him that you would break The Rules and risk everything to go and see him. Would you break The Rules again for him? Would you still put your brother before your school?’

  Allie hadn’t considered such a situation and for a second she stared at Jerry, imagining Christopher calling for her help, asking her to throw everything aside for him.

  ‘No,’ she said, with sadness. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘May I ask why not?’ Jerry peered at her across the table.

  Tears burned the backs of Allie’s eyes and she remembered Sylvain’s words. Don’t let them see you cry.

  She took a deep breath. When she spoke her voice was steady. ‘Because I don’t trust him.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  After questioning her for several more minutes, Isabelle called an end to the proceedings. ‘I think we’ve gathered all the information that we need to make our decision,’ the headmistress said. ‘Allie, please wait outside. We’ll call you when we’re ready.’

  As Allie crossed the room, her legs felt heavy. Outside, the corridor was empty. She leaned against the wall in the leaden silence and waited.

  After ten minutes, she slid down the wall to sit on the floor and dropped her head to her knees, counting her breaths. But even that became tedious after half an hour. Occasionally she’d hear raised voices from inside the room, but she couldn’t make out words.

  Allie was half dozing when the door opened at last, and Eloise gestured for her to enter. ‘We’re ready for you now.’ Scrambling to her feet, Allie stumbled after her into Training Room One.

  This time she stood in front of the table like a condemned prisoner awaiting her sentence. She tried to take deep breaths to steady her nerves, but her lungs refused to cooperate, and her breath came in short panicked gasps. She gripped the back of the folding chair so hard she was surprised it didn’t bend in her hands.

  ‘What you did was wrong, Allie,’ Isabelle said. As she talked, Jerry polished his glasses, avoiding her eyes. Eloise watched her supportively. ‘It violated rules that bind all students at Cimmeria. But it was worse than that, as it put your own life and Sylvain’s at risk, not to mention the lives of Raj Patel’s team. This cannot go unpunished. However, we understand the connection between siblings is strong, and it’s hard for any of us,’ she shot a look at Zelazny who was staring angrily away from her, ‘to say that we would not have felt bound to help our own family members in a similar situation. For that reason, we are not expelling you.’ Zelazny slammed his pen down on the table in disgust and the headmistress flinched. After a second, she continued. ‘Instead, we’re placing you on probation for three months.’

  Allie’s eyes flickered between them. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means,’ Isabelle said, ‘that as long as you don’t get into any more trouble – as long as you don’t break The Rules again – in three months it will be off your record. But if you are found violating any rules at all – even very minor ones – you will be expelled without further discussion. Do you understand this decision?’

  Allie nodded.

  ‘We appreciate your honesty.’ Isabelle leaned forward to hold Allie’s gaze. ‘We hope you’ve learned from what happened and that if you are contacted by anybody connected with Nathaniel again, you will come to us. And trust us to help you.’

  All the next week, Carter avoided her completely. At first, Allie wanted to talk to him, to explain and apologise and make things better. But she knew she couldn’t make things better. Not this time. So instead, reluctantly, she left him alone.

  His absence left a hole in her life. Each night at dinner, she missed the warmth of his arm draped across the back of her chair. When she sat in the common room or the library, her eyes automatically scanned the room for him.

  They’d been given another week off from Night School training to finish their interview reports, so at least she didn’t have to train in the same room with him – watching him laughing and acting normal with Jules and Lucas.

  But there was a price to pay for that, and writing the story of Carter’s life was a kind of delicate torture now that he wasn’t a part of her life any more. By the time she finished, she’d drawn a complete picture of a teenage boy alone in the world, trying to make his own way.

  It broke her heart.

  ‘I believe Carter West is the most trustworthy person I have ever met. And every word he told me was the truth …’

  As she wrote the last words in the report it was after midnight on Saturday night. Tears streamed down her face and, dropping her pen, she pulled her knees up on to the bed and wrapped her arms around them, rocking herself gently.

  When she heard Rachel knock something over in the room next door, something just snapped. She missed her friend too much. She needed her advice. Without allowing herself to think it through further, she flung open her door and ran out into the hallway where, resting her hot cheek against the cool wood of Rachel’s door, she closed her eyes and tapped twice with her knuckles.

  A rustle of papers and then, ‘Enter,’ said in Rachel’s most commanding voice.

  ‘Rach, I don’t know what to do …’ Allie tumbled into the room in mid-sentence, waving a tissue and looking, she was certain, insane. But Rachel just cleared a place beside her on the bed and patted it.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘There’s things I can’t say,’ Allie hiccoughed, the damp tissue compressed into a ball in her hand.

  ‘Tell me the other things.’ Rachel handed her a clean tissue, her almond-shaped eyes sweeping Allie’s face as if she searched for clues.

  ‘Carter and I …’

  ‘You broke up.’

  Allie stared.

  ‘Everyone’s talking about it,’ Rachel explained. ‘I wanted to ask you but …’ She held out her hands, and Allie thought the gesture said We don’t really talk any more. This brought a flood of fresh tears, and for a while Rachel just patted her shoulder until she could speak again.

  ‘He’s just so angry,’ Allie said finally. ‘And I did some things he can’t forgive me for.’

  ‘Is it Sylvain?’

  Allie knew Rachel was trying to keep the disapproval out of her voice, but she could still hear it curling around the edges of her words.

  ‘People are saying you and Sylvain – when he got beat up – you were out in the woods … you know, together. Basically, they’re saying you were having a thing with Sylvain behind Carter’s back.’

  An invisible knife twisted in Allie’s stomach as she imagined Carter hearing that gossip. She’d known word of what had happened had got out – Sylvain’s bruised face alone was enough to get people talking. But she hadn’t realised it had all been tangled up like that.

  Poor Carter. Poor me.

  ‘We weren’t doing anything like that, Rachel.’ She was almost breathless with the need to be believed. ‘Sylvain and I aren’t … we weren’t … He was helping me … with something.’ Her own inability to explain what she and Sylvain were doing made it sound like she was lying. She needed to tell the whole story.

  Can I tell her about Christopher? It wasn’t Night School, so it wouldn’t be breaking The Rules. Would it?

  Once she’d made up her mind, it was such a relief her words blurred together as she explained in rapid-fire sentences what had happened. The note from Christopher. Carter’s obsession with protecting her. Her decision to go to Sylvain.

  ‘Oh, Allie,’ Rachel whispered when she got to that point.

  ‘I know.’ Allie twisted the tissue between her fingers. ‘Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t. But Sylvain nearly died for me. And then Carter dumped me.’

  Saying those words aloud made her want to cry again, but she seemed to have used up her allotment of tears for the day and her eyes stayed dry and burning.

  For a moment that seemed to stretch on too long Rachel studied her. Allie knew she didn’t like Sylvain after what had happened
at the summer ball. Knew she didn’t trust him.

  But she doesn’t really know him.

  ‘What’s really going on with you and Sylvain, Allie?’ Rachel asked at last. ‘Do you fancy him? I mean, nobody would blame you. What happened between you – the way he saved you from the fire and now,’ she swirled her hand, ‘all of this. It must have created a connection between you. A kind of bond. And that can be hard to resist. Anyone could confuse that in their head with love.’

  ‘No,’ Allie said instantly, although her heart sped up, and she wasn’t certain anything she was saying was true. ‘No. I don’t fancy him.’ And then … ‘Oh God. I don’t know.’ Pulling her bare feet up on to the bed and wrapping her arms around her knees, she said, ‘I feel attracted to him, I guess. But that’s not why things went bad with me and Carter. I think …’ She stopped to really consider how she actually felt. ‘Rach, I miss Carter so much but at the same time I feel like now I can breathe. When he’s around I can’t breathe.’

  ‘Why? Because he’s too overprotective? He suffocates you?’

  Allie nodded miserably. ‘I love him, I really do. But he tells me what to do. He argues with me all the time. I think he doesn’t believe in me and it makes me doubt myself. And I know why he does it – I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I know. He doesn’t have anybody. No parents, or brothers or sisters, no aunts or grandparents. He’s alone and I’m all he’s got and so he hangs on to me. He wants to protect me. But when he does that I can’t breathe.’

  ‘It was that bad?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yes … No …’ Allie held up her hands helplessly. ‘I’m making it sound worse than it is. There was so much good stuff too. But as much as I miss Carter – and I do – I feel free without him.’

  Rachel let her breath out slowly. ‘Then you have to stay broken up, Allie. If you feel like that, no matter how hard it is to move on, I think you have to do it.’

  ‘But I don’t know how.’ Tears returned as suddenly as they’d left. ‘All I do is think about him. All day I’m like, Carter and I stood here and Carter and I laughed here. It’s so stupid.’ She dashed the tears away with an angry gesture. ‘But I can’t stop. It’s like my mind is obsessed with him.’