Hoping she might actually find out what was going on, Allie held her breath. She had to play her cards right. ‘I don’t get it,’ she said after a second. ‘How does telling this to people help Lucinda?’
‘She didn’t do it just to help herself. She did it for you.’ Isabelle’s golden-brown eyes held hers. ‘She did it to protect you.’
‘How does it protect me?’ Allie frowned. ‘It just seems to mess me up. Now everyone thinks I’m a liar and a freak.’
‘It protects you by letting the people who matter know how important you are to her.’
I’m important to her?
The idea seemed foreign to Allie, who hadn’t felt like she mattered to anyone in a long time. And she couldn’t really accept that it was true, that a woman she’d never met would care about her.
‘I still don’t really understand.’
‘Allie.’ Isabelle was as serious as Allie had ever seen her. ‘There’s a spy here, working for Nathaniel. For all we know this person could try to kill you. Or me. Lucinda has done all she can to protect us from somebody coming at us from the outside. But somebody who’s already here? Hiding in plain sight? We need more help for that.’
Goosebumps rose on Allie’s skin.
‘So,’ Isabelle continued, ‘Lucinda has decided to try something different. Telling people within the organisation what’s been happening here. Hoping that the attention will intimidate Nathaniel and whoever is working with him.’
This didn’t sound like the greatest plan. Allie crossed her arms across her chest.
‘Do you think it will work?’
Isabelle dropped her gaze. ‘I don’t know. You see, she’s in a bit of a situation right now – we all are. Nathaniel is trying to get high-ranking people within the organisation to side with him and help him force Lucinda’s hand. To make her change The Rules of the organisation in a way that could …’ She stopped herself. ‘Well. That could ruin everything. And Lucinda is trying to show these same people just how untrustworthy he is. How irrational his methods have been. How ruthless he can be. How dangerous.’ She sighed. ‘I know Nathaniel well, so I know he will stop at nothing. But some members of the board, they can’t see that. They just see him as somebody who says things they want to hear.’
‘You know so much about Nathaniel,’ Allie said, ‘do you know him personally? Or did you at some point? Who is he, Isabelle?’
The headmistress thought for a long moment before answering.
‘I did know Nathaniel very well, once.’ She spoke slowly, as if she were choosing her words with great care. ‘You see, Nathaniel is my step-brother.’
Allie froze. ‘What?’
‘And that’s why,’ Isabelle continued, ‘I understand what’s happening with you and Christopher. Because I’ve been through something like it myself.’
Allie felt betrayed. Why had Isabelle never mentioned this before? But she tried to focus on the conversation at hand. ‘Were you and Nathaniel ever … close?’
‘Once, a long time ago. But Nathaniel always wanted things he couldn’t have and he blamed me when he couldn’t get them.’
Allie stared at her blankly.
With clear reluctance, Isabelle explained. ‘When he died, my father left everything to me. The money, the houses, the companies. Everything. He thought Nathaniel was too unstable to be responsible.’ Her hand toyed with her glasses. ‘It is in the will that I must give Nathaniel a sizeable annual allowance – he’s well taken care of. But that didn’t matter to him. What mattered was the humiliation. The rejection. Nathaniel never forgave me for it. It’s that simple. And now he wants more.’
‘Isabelle.’ Allie’s voice was low. ‘What exactly does Nathaniel want?’
For a long moment the headmistress thought. When she spoke, her tone was resigned.
‘Everything.’
TWENTY-FIVE
When Allie thought about it, her life at Cimmeria Academy could be divided into clear epochs: before the summer ball, and after. Before Carter. And after.
And now: before Truth or Dare, and after it.
Before Truth or Dare, she was a nobody. An interloper.
After it? She was a star.
When she walked into a room, people turned to look. When she spoke, they listened attentively. People she’d never met before were incredibly polite.
Only those who knew her well weren’t affected.
‘This is ludicrous,’ Rachel said one day, after a star-struck junior student insisted on bringing Allie a cup of tea and a biscuit in the common room after overhearing her complain that she was hungry. ‘It’s going to go to your head.’
‘Or my arse, more like,’ Allie said, munching.
‘Oh, Allie, can I carry your books? Is there anything you’d like? Can I apply your lip gloss for you?’ Rachel simpered. ‘Your hair must be so heavy. Let me carry it for you.’
‘Don’t be jealous.’ Allie offered her half the biscuit, which Rachel accepted grudgingly. ‘It doesn’t suit you. Besides, it won’t last, will it?’
‘I bloody hope not,’ Rachel replied with her mouth full. ‘Although this biscuit is delicious. I wonder if he could get us some more.’
‘Wow, you corrupt so quickly,’ Allie said. ‘You’re like, “Instant Tyrant: all it takes is one biscuit”.’
‘Two,’ Rachel corrected her. ‘I’d become a tyrant for two biscuits.’
But only Rachel and Zoe could make her laugh right now. Jo was still angry with her. And the rest of her life was tension and fear. And sadness.
There’d still been no word from Christopher, despite his promise to get in touch with her again. And she still hadn’t told Rachel or Zoe what was really going on. She couldn’t tell Rachel, and Zoe was just a kid. As the weeks passed, though, not telling them grew harder, if only because she had nobody left to discuss it with.
And still she couldn’t cry. She hadn’t been able to since that day in the library with Carter. It was as if all her tears had abandoned her right when she really needed them most.
‘Something must be wrong with me if I can’t cry,’ she told Rachel. ‘Maybe I’m actually ill. I could have some disease.’
‘Sjögren’s syndrome.’ Unsurprised by this change of subject, Rachel, who hoped to be a doctor someday, didn’t look up from her advanced chemistry textbook.
Allie blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It’s a disease where you can’t make tears.’ Rachel studied her critically. ‘But you haven’t got it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It’s excruciating.’ She flipped a page in her book and wrote something in her notebook. ‘You have to practically peel your eyeballs off your brain every morning.’
‘Gross.’ Allie returned to her own work. ‘I’m glad I haven’t got that. How would I look in a fancy frock with peeled eyeballs?’
Rachel’s brows arched. ‘Like an alien. Actually, an obsessed alien. You’re obsessed with the ball, Allie. Get help.’
Before the biscuit-bearing student had appeared, they’d been talking about the winter ball. Or rather, Allie had been. Because she was, in fact, obsessed. It was only two weeks away. Aside from Allie’s lineage, the buzz in the hallways, the dining hall and class was about nothing else. Everybody talked about the ball, the ball, the ball. What to wear. Who to go with. But all Allie thought was …
Lucinda will be there.
At the very thought of meeting her grandmother – of asking her the questions that had tormented her for months now – Allie’s heart sped up. She would do anything to make that meeting happen. Including putting on a posh gown and twirling on a sodding dance floor while a string bloody orchestra played.
But the awful night of the summer ball was very fresh in her memory. And with Lucinda, Allie and Isabelle all in the same place at the same time, why wouldn’t Nathaniel do something horrible?
Lucinda will be there, she thought again. And something bad will happen.
That night, Allie stretched out o
n the floor of Training Room One, extending her hamstrings until they ached. Beside her, Zoe bounced on the balls of her feet.
‘I hope we go running.’ Her voice vibrated as she hopped. ‘I feel like running.’
‘Me too,’ Allie said, lowering her head to her knees.
At that moment Zelazny’s sharp voice rose above the din. ‘Tonight we’ll start with a four-mile run.’
‘Yay,’ Zoe whispered and dashed for the door.
Allie hurried to follow but Zelazny called her name and, turning back, she saw him motioning for her to come over.
Zoe stopped by the door to wait for her.
‘Can I have a word?’ His voice was calm and unthreatening. ‘Zoe, you can go on ahead. Allie will only be a minute.’
As she left, Zoe raised her eyebrows; Allie responded with a helpless shrug.
Zelazny waited to speak until the students had all gone. As they stood in awkward silence she could see the perspiration glistening on his forehead. He tugged at the collar of his exercise shirt as if it constrained him.
Crossing her arms across her chest, she looked down at the floor.
‘I’ve been meaning to speak with you, Allie, for a week or so.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Just to clear the air between us.’
She glanced up at him suspiciously.
‘We’ve had our difficulties over the months you’ve been here, and I … Well, I feel I haven’t been entirely fair with you.’ He coughed. ‘So I wanted to … to apologise if I was too stern with you at times. And to say I hope you’ll work with me going forward. I believe we can have a good working relationship. You’ve got a great deal of promise and, at times, I think I haven’t made that clear.’
If he’d said he’d just seen a green Martian eating chocolate in the common room, she couldn’t have been more stunned.
He gazed at her expectantly, his expression pure humility. She had to say something.
‘Uh … Sure, Ze— Mr Zelazny,’ she said. ‘That would be great. And thank you, I … I guess.’ Watching him as if he might bite her, she took a step towards the door. ‘I should probably …’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. She thought she could see a glimmer of resentment in his small blue eyes but his voice held nothing except beneficence. ‘Go and join the class. If you need extra time, do take it. No hurry.’
Allie fled the room so quickly she nearly stumbled over Zoe, who was outside with her ear pressed to the door.
As they jogged away into the freezing darkness, Zoe said, ‘He is so unbelievably lame.’
The whole thing made Allie’s skin crawl. ‘He … grovelled.’
Zoe stopped running to pogo with malicious joy – it was a clear night, and in the moonlight she looked like a manic forest imp. ‘It was awesome. He thinks you’ll tell your grandmother bad things about him.’ Pausing to think, she added, ‘Blimey, considering how he treated you he must be terrified.’
‘I need to take a shower.’ Allie increased her pace. ‘Right now.’
But there was no time to wash away the memory of that meeting. Instead, after their run, Raj Patel put them through a particularly brutal series of martial-arts style manoeuvres. No matter how painful it was, Allie didn’t mind the work; his training had helped her escape from Gabe.
Stopping to rest, she watched as Sylvain and his training partner practised a complex escape move. Sylvain’s partner attacked with a flying leap, but Sylvain parried him as easily as if he were a child, flinging him on to the mat. Afterward, he leaned over to help him up with an apologetic grin.
As if he’d felt her gaze, his eyes darted up to meet hers. For a long second she froze. He studied her curiously, as if he wondered what she was thinking. Colour flooding her cheeks, she dropped her eyes and crouched down to tighten her shoelace.
‘Your attention, please.’ They all turned to look as Zelazny walked to the centre of the room. ‘Raj Patel would like to say a few words to you about some things that will be happening over the next few weeks.’
Mr Patel walked to the centre of the room with a confident stride and turned in a circle to see them all. ‘As you know, my firm has been maintaining security at Cimmeria throughout the autumn term. You may also know that a meeting of the G8 is scheduled to happen outside London in two weeks, and we will be providing security for that. At the same time, the winter ball will be held here attracting a number of international dignitaries. So our resources are going to be stretched.’
His eyes met Allie’s for a second and she felt a chill of fear.
Something’s wrong.
‘I’m pulling in extra staff for this period but we’ll need your help. We’re putting Night School back on its regular patrols. You’ve been training towards this for months now, and you’re ready. You’ll be working directly with some of my team, who will be staying behind while the rest of us are away. These are skilled, highly trained security experts, and I think you can learn a lot from them.’
A twist of ice had formed in Allie’s chest. All his words about how safe they’d be, and how ready they were, rang hollow as she stared at him.
Lucinda will be here. Raj is going away. And something bad will happen.
TWENTY-SIX
As she walked out of Training Room One, Allie was utterly unaware of the burble of conversation swirling around her. As soon as Mr Patel had stopped speaking the students had erupted in an excited buzz.
‘At last.’ Zoe grinned. ‘We get to go out and do something.’
Across the room she saw Jules clap Carter on the back, and Lucas high-five his training partner. Like Zoe, they were thrilled to be involved at last. But Allie felt like the bottom had dropped out of her world. Whatever Mr Patel might have actually said, all she’d heard was, You will be all alone when Nathaniel comes.
In a stunned daze, she made her way to the stairwell, propelled by the crowd. When she reached the ground floor she stopped, staring into the distance, her mind a whirl of worry. When a hand touched her arm she looked up in surprise to see Sylvain’s blue eyes.
All he said was, ‘Let’s go and see Isabelle.’
It was after midnight and Isabelle had already gone to bed, so Allie waited in the corridor while Sylvain went to fetch her – as a prefect, he could go into the teachers’ residential wing. All other students were forbidden.
When they arrived a few minutes later, Isabelle was casually dressed in leggings and a long cardigan, her hair pulled up loosely. ‘Right, you two. What’s this all about?’
Sylvain looked at Allie and she took the lead, explaining what Mr Patel had told them.
‘I know this already, Allie,’ Isabelle interrupted her, sounding tired and a bit snappish. ‘I wouldn’t let him go if I didn’t think it was safe. He’s leaving us some of his best people – very highly skilled – and he’s sending in some associates of his to help as well.’
‘But …’ Her reaction caught Allie off guard. She’d expected at least some sympathy; a smidgen of concern. ‘What about the ball? And Lucinda?’
‘I think Allie has a point,’ Sylvain interjected. ‘This is not an ideal time for him to go.’
‘Look, both of you,’ Isabelle said in her most soothing tone, ‘as important as we are, we are not as important as the prime minister. So I cannot ask Raj to stay when he’s been called in for something like this. But I promise you we will not have less security while he’s away. We will have more. We’ve planned for this. His people will be everywhere – inside and out. All of them highly trained, very skilled. If I thought it mattered that Raj wasn’t going to be here to oversee this personally I would never have agreed to him going. I genuinely don’t think it does. I think we will be safe.’ She turned her gaze to Allie. ‘You will be safe.’
Her words were comforting, and Allie nodded to show she understood. But every instinct she had told her to be afraid.
After the meeting, Allie walked out with Sylvain into the now silent hallway. In the quiet, their trainers made a sticky sound on the polished floor. Somew
here in the building a door closed too loudly.
The heat was off, and the air felt cold and heavy – as if it were waiting for something to happen.
‘Sylvain …’
‘Allie …’
They both spoke at the same time.
Stopping at the foot of the grand staircase they laughed awkwardly, their voices echoing.
‘You first.’ Shivering, she wrapped her arms around her torso for warmth.
‘I think Isabelle is probably right,’ he said. But something about the way his eyes searched her face told her this wasn’t what he’d wanted to say. ‘Everything will be fine.’
‘Of course,’ she said, not meaning it. ‘I’m sure she’s right.’
‘We can still talk to Raj or Zelazny if you’re worried?’ he continued, and she shook her head.
‘No, it’s fine. Isabelle made sense.’
Dropping her gaze to her feet, she thought about all the things she wanted to tell him. To explain about Truth or Dare. How torn she felt. How she couldn’t bear to hurt Carter and yet …
Against her will, her eyes darted up to meet his.
And yet.
For a long moment they looked at each other; the moment seemed frozen in time. Allie was steeling herself to speak when they heard footsteps. Turning, Allie saw Jerry Cole walking towards them.
‘What are you two still doing out?’ he said, his tone sharp. ‘You know The Rules. Allie, aren’t you in enough trouble already?’
Instantly, she took a step towards the staircase. Jerry was usually the most laid-back of the teachers so his anger caught her off guard. A puzzled frown crossed Sylvain’s face before he smoothed it away. ‘Sorry, Jerry. We were just going.’
But Jerry’s reply startled them both. ‘Do it quicker.’
The science teacher stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching as they walked up side by side.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Allie whispered without looking at Sylvain.
Night School: Legacy Page 25
