The Gray Institute (The Gray Institute Trilogy Book 1)

by Leanne Pearson

  Malachy continues to stare at me, so I take his hand and reluctantly lead him back to his bed, to resume our former positions, with reversed roles. Now I must confess my wrong-doings to him, lay myself bare for little more than his understanding.

  Where to begin, I have no idea. I wrack my brains for the start of my sordid life's tale and decide that it began with my decision to take the wrong path.

  'When I was young, I was by all means a good girl,' I begin, avoiding Malachy's gaze as I cast my memory back to those hazy days. 'I got good grades, I had good friends and I was a model daughter for my parents. But at fourteen, I fell in with a bad crowd.

  People always use that expression like it was out of their control, like all their bad deeds can be explained away because they 'fell in' with the wrong group of people. I wasn't baited, convinced, bribed or threatened to be friends with these people – I chose to.

  They were older than me, most of them didn't go to school, either because they'd finished or they played truant on a daily basis. They were all different types of people but the one thing they had in common was drugs. They loved drugs, it didn't matter what type; they did anything they could to get their hands on one bag of marijuana, one pill of ecstasy.

  When I first started hanging around with them, they never pushed drugs on me. I knew they dabbled in them but at first, our friendship was purely based on having a good time. I'd go to parties on the weekend, stay over at one of the girls', Laura's, house, it was a laugh. Laura herself never did anything more than weed at that time. She smoked it at night before she went to bed and first thing in the morning, to 'mellow her out' she said. She never pushed it on me but one night I tried it, it didn't really do much for me, just made me a bit giggly and tired but I carried on smoking it, purely because there wasn't much else to do.

  Laura lived with her nan who was a bit scatty, you know, not really the full ticket. She never knew how many people were in her house and never bothered us with it, so Laura's was the best place to go. We'd stay there, smoke weed, watch TV and drink tea. The others did harder drugs when they left Laura's in the early hours of the morning. I'd stay and laugh and sing with Laura.

  My parents started getting a bit uneasy about how often I was staying there, but I was a sensible girl – or so they thought – and they trusted me.

  Then one night, some of the others convinced Laura and I to go out with them. It was a Friday so my parents didn't expect me home, and I went.

  We stayed at the house of a boy I'd never met on the outskirts of the city, he was a real strange person; much older than us and had dreadlocks and rode a motor cycle. And he was always high.

  He started passing around cocaine, mainly to the girls, trying to get us high. He saved a big bit for me but I said no.

  Eventually he convinced me, he told me it would just make me chatty and sociable, that he was on it all the time and nobody ever suspected him. So I did it, and it wasn't like the weed at all.

  Cocaine, I felt, cocaine had an effect on me, and its effect was amazing. I would talk to anyone, stay up all night and every subject – no matter how mundane it had seemed to me before – became the most interesting topic on the planet when I was on coke.

  There was only one bad thing about coke; whatever you'd had, no matter how much, it was never enough. I always wanted more. Once the effect of your last line starts wearing off you go into a state of panic. You try to cling to the high, but eventually you realise that it's almost gone.

  And that's when you need more. You don't just want it, you need it, to keep that blissful illusion that everything and everyone is so amazing and interesting and life is unimaginably good.

  But of course, cocaine isn't cheap, it's extremely expensive and as a fifteen year old, I didn't have the funds to feed what was now a daily habit. I started stealing, borrowing from people what I couldn't afford to pay back. I tried ecstasy as a cheaper alternative but, although I liked it, it wasn't a patch on coke.

  Then finally, my friend Davey offered me some heroin. He said he and his friend Ian had been doing it on a regular basis and it was the best drug they'd ever had.

  I didn't think it would be a big deal, it couldn't possibly be better than my beloved coke – I soon found out how wrong I was.

  Davey wasn't kidding when he said that heroin was the best drug – it was. A thousand times stronger than coke, it gave the feeling of being in my own world; safe in a warm, fuzzy bubble away from everyone and everything. Like I was invincible, untouchable, and like all the troubles of my life were really not troubles at all.

  It was similar to coke with the come down, except with an added something. Heroin creates a physical dependence; your body craves the drug almost more than your mind does. Without it, your body can't cope, you feel unimaginably ill, sick, shaky, with a fever and an itchiness you can't get rid of. It's like living in a bodily hell and the only way you can climb out of it is by taking another hit.

  My school grades slipped – largely due to the fact that I wasn't going – and I became sullen and recluse. I wouldn't speak to my parents, I looked terrible, I was constantly sick. It didn't take my dad long to figure it out; he took me to a doctor who admitted me to a rehabilitation programme but I escaped it.

  Then my parents tried to treat me at home. They locked me in my room with nothing but my bed, some books, my TV and three buckets. It was pretty harsh treatment but they couldn't see any other way, I guess.

  I ran away, climbed out of my window and ran to Laura's. She and I, along with five other friends, packed our bags and went to Liverpool, rented a stinking, one bedroom flat with no hot water and duct tape to hold up the walls.

  The older guys signed on the dole, and the money they got from the government coupled with what Laura and I stole funded our heroin.

  We lived like this for three months. The police were looking for me, my parents made appeals, it was terrifying, but whenever I got scared I just took another lovely hit of heroin and it all went away.' I pause to glance up at Malachy, who's listening intently. There's no trace of disgust or judgement in his eyes yet, which makes it so much harder to tell the rest of the story.

  'Then one day,' I force myself to continue. 'Davey and Ian brought a girl back to the flat. She was French, and even younger than me. Her name was Sofia, she had blonde hair and blue eyes, she was gorgeous. Her English was broken but she told us her mother was a drug dealer and had been sent to prison and she, Sofia, was living in care.

  Davey and Ian convinced her to bunk off school and every few days she would turn up and smoke weed while we spaced out on heroin. Then after a while, Ian started badgering Sofia to try some, using much the same lines as they used on me. She declined it at first, sticking to weed, but after a few days I could see her resolve weakening.

  Ian told her that if she didn't try it, he would tell the kids' home what she'd been up to.

  I remember sitting in that mouldy living room, weighing six and a half stone, my hair falling out, drugged up to my eyeballs on smack and clearly thinking: I don't want this girl to end up like me.

  This pretty, bubbly young girl with porcelain skin and bright eyes is going to end up a bag of bones with sores for arms by the time she is fifteen.

  I could barely move, my body had all but given up on me, but I knew what was happening was wrong.

  I knew somebody had to stop it.

  I looked at Laura, passed out on the sofa. I looked at the other boy, Finn, already shooting another hit, and realised that only I could – or would – stop it.

  But despite their drug-ravaged bodies, Davey and Ian still kept their wits about them. They had to keep clean to a certain extent in order to sign on. I was no match for them in my half-dead state.

  They drugged Sofia in front of me and I watched as her crystal clear eyes glazed over and that gormless look settled on her face.

  It was like looking into a mirror.

  Sofia came back everyday for the next week until eventually, she just never left ag
ain. She started going out stealing with Laura and I knew, just by looking at her, that I had to get out.

  I asked her to come with me but she said no, she was too far gone, too wrapped up in the clutches of Davey and Ian.

  I left in the middle of the night; stole Davey's dole money and headed back to London on the train.

  I thought about going home but I couldn't face my mum and dad. Couldn't stand to see their shocked faces when I turned up at their door, a wreck. I lived rough on the streets, met a prostitute a few years older than me who gave me tips on good places to sleep and beg.

  The police had long since stopped searching for me, I was a drug addict runaway, they had better things to do with their time. Plus, I was unrecognisable from the pretty, intelligent-looking girl in the 'missing' posters.

  I went cold turkey on the heroin, it was hell. But with no money and no contacts it actually made it easier and I was virtually free of withdrawal symptoms in two weeks.

  My hair started to grow back, my skin became a normal colour again. I had no money, no food and no home but I was healthier than I'd been in years.

  I longed to see my mum, though, and knowing that I couldn't go home and that there was no future for me was too much, so I tried to kill myself. Planned it meticulously, sold myself and saved up until I had enough money to buy that much heroin.

  I might have succeeded if it hadn't been for Diana.' I smile weakly at the memory of waking up in the Institute – it seems so long ago.

  Malachy is speechless, his mouth slightly open; he's stayed perfectly still throughout my story and he seems stuck that way.

  'So you see why I can't allow another girl to have her life chosen for her against her will?' I ask, determined now more than ever to get Lorna Gray out of the Institute and out of Sir Alec's grasp.

  'I let Davey and Ian change Sofia's life for the worse. I let them drug her, steal her childhood and turn her life into one of crime, drugs and poverty. I did nothing to stop it and when it was too late, I couldn't help her.

  I won't do the same with Lorna.

  She doesn't want to be one of us, she hasn't been taken from a life of horrors and changed for the better. She's been taken from a loving family and fulfilling life and forced to accept her fate as a being she can not stand.

  I can't live with myself and let it happen again.'

  'Eve, Lorna Gray is not your responsibility!' Malachy urges me, his tone pleading, but I sense a hesitation in his words which wasn't there before. He knows more than anyone what the guilt of someone's life sitting on your shoulders feels like, and how the need to redeem yourself is overwhelming.

  'Being a decent person is my responsibility. A decent person would aid a young, helpless girl in escaping a life of misery.' I reply firmly. He falters, unable to reply.

  'I'm damned either way,' I remind him. 'I can at least go out doing what's right. I can at least lie in the Confine with my peace of mind.'

  This last statement seems to break him; he slumps back on his bed, defeated, and stares at me wordlessly. For the first time there is an understanding in his eyes, a silent but clear message that he knows my position. And for the first time since we met, the two of us fully understand one another. With no secrets, our lives laid bare for the other to judge, a mutual yet unspoken respect and – dare I say it – love passes between us.

  With Malachy accepting of my will to leave the Institute, the fact that we must say goodbye dawns and the atmosphere grows tense. With neither one of us knowing what exactly is between us, if anything, we don't know how to act or what to say.

  'What will happen to you when I leave?' The question playing on my mind is finally able to be asked with no chance of a dismissive rebuke.

  'I'll be fine,' He assures me, avoiding my eyes. 'I'm good at pretending I didn't like people I actually did.'

  'So you do like me?' I let the faintest hint of a smile play on my lips and, as his do the same, I can't help but wonder how different our friendship would have been under less tense circumstances.

  'Of course I do,' He smiles, glancing at me briefly before his expression turns morose again. 'I don't want you to leave.' He states, and my heart flutters in my chest.

  This is the only sentence against my leaving I actually want to hear; not because I will be Confined, not because Lorna's not worth it, but because he simply doesn't want to be without me.

  'I wish I'd never been given this stupid task. I wish I'd never shown off that day in Practical.' I say truthfully, to which he smiles.

  'That's just who you are.' He takes my hand gently, pulling it across my lap to entwine his fingers with mine. It's a comforting gesture. 'And this way, you get to redeem your past actions. At least that's something.'

  'Malachy?'

  'Yes?'

  'I wish you'd never met Aleks Anzhela.'

  He tenses and a long pause plays out. I fidget, regretting the words now I've said them. I don't want to leave him on a sour note, why couldn't I just keep my mouth shut?

  'Sometimes I wish I hadn't either,' He says suddenly, the tension dissolving. I breathe a long sigh of relief. 'But it was my fault. I was naïve; I believed that the Auctoritas would be sympathetic towards us. That's not how they work. If they were that way inclined, they wouldn't have lasted even a hundred years.'

  'Do you want to be Auctorita?' I ask him. He hesitates. 'For you, I mean. Not to stop Lucrezia and not to save Aleks. Do you, Malachy Beighley, want to be Auctorita?'

  'No,' He shakes his head sadly. 'I want to live a peaceful existence surrounded by happiness and people I love. Not suspicion and conspiracy. It's too much responsibility for any one person; the fate of an entire species.'

  'Will you change things when you reign?' I ask.

  'Change things?' He frowns.

  'Make things better?' I explain. 'I know you don't agree with a lot of the goings on both here at the Institute and within the Auctoritas. Will you change all that?'

  'It's not that simple. I'll still have my father, and his father and his father watching over me, guiding my every move. It's not as though they're dead and I can do what I like.

  But I do hope that over time, I can lift some of the restrictions that bind Immortals so tightly. Sentences rather than an eternity within the Confine, and dependent on the crime. Like the human world. Evidence rather than rumour and suspicion in order to sentence them.

  For a superior race, we're medieval in our treatment of our people. Most Immortals come to despise humans, but I admire them.'

  I nod, understanding him perfectly, and feel a hope rise in my chest for the Immortal world. Malachy's reign will change history, change the way they live their lives, make it better.

  Even if I won't be there to see it, it gives me hope.

  'Will you free me?' I ask suddenly, the notion occurring to me. 'If I'm Confined, will you free me?'

  'Yes,' He nods, squeezing my hand tighter. 'You have my word on that.'

  A comfortable silence envelopes us as we sit on his bed, clutching one another's hands for dear life before the inevitable time comes.

  A sinking feeling in my stomach settles as I realise that, when I leave, I'll be leaving very few people who liked me behind. Malachy and Diana are the only people who will mourn their loss of me. My treatment of Tia – though for her own benefit – was harsh and I feel an overwhelming sadness that I won't get to say goodbye to my loud-mouth, bubbly and enthusiastic friend. Nor to Richard, who I hope with all my heart Tia will be happy with for the rest of eternity.

  'You do remind me of Aleks,' Malachy says suddenly, jolting me from my thoughts. 'But I know that you're you.'

  'What?' I frown. He laughs, his eyes lighting briefly.

  'What I mean is; when I look at you, I don't just see her,' He explains. 'I see you, Eve Ryder. A different person. When I first met you it was impossible for me to look at you or talk to you without it being a strain. I even tried to convince Diana not to change you, that you wouldn't make it,' He admits sheepishly. 'But no
w it's different – I only see you.'

  'And?' I smile, tilting my head up towards the light for him to view me in profile. He smiles.

  'And you're beautiful.'

  My cocky smile fades as I turn to face him, sure that his compliment must have been meant sarcastically, but his blue eyes are sincere and his face is straight.

  Before I can reply, Malachy edges towards me, leaning his lips close to mine, watching my eyes carefully for my response to his advance.

  His scent washes over me, so distinctive and familiar to me now, his bright eyes fixed on me, giving me all of his attention. It's only in that moment that I realise how much I crave it.

  I stay completely still, my breath caught in my throat as he eyes my lips, a mixture of fear and hunger emanating from his body. He's hesitant and unsure of himself and without asking, I know that images of Aleks trapped in the Confine are flashing in his mind.

  'I have nothing to lose.' My voice is barely audible, the tension and atmosphere straining it. I'm tottering on the edge of a tightrope, one wrong move could make him pull away. He stares at me quizzically, considering my statement.

  Though our frozen bodies carry no electricity, surges pass between us, back and forth, bouncing from one to the other as the air crackles and fizzles in the small, closing gap.