by April Marcom
Ripper closed the door once he and his headmaster were in the room.
I went to stand against the wall farthest away from the torch and beds.
“What about Fayre?” Ripper asked, standing guard by the door. “She wears the shadows as we do.”
His headmaster went to feel over my bed from top to bottom. Luke had withdrawn his arm. “She’s not here. Knight!” the headmaster barked.
Luke started and gave his headmaster a zombieish look, still half asleep. “What are you doing here?” he asked, sitting up and looking at the clock. Midnight.
He struggled to keep both eyes open as he looked over at my cot. His sleepy eyes became alive with vehemence. “Where’s Kristine? Did you take her?”
“I owe you something,” his headmaster said calmly. “I’ve come to see what you will ask of me.”
“I want Kristine back. I want her name cleared for trying to help me when I was locked up on the prisoners’ floor.”
“But you could have anything you wish. The world is at your fingertips at this very moment. Are you certain you wish to waste this opportunity on that girl?”
“I want her,” Ripper said in a beastly voice. My heart quickened at the crazed look in his eyes. “I want the girl with the gun.”
Tobias looked back at Luke.
“I want Kristine,” Luke said. “I want her untouchable like me from now on.”
“Wouldn’t you even like to think it over?”
“No. Give her back to me—now!”
“I don’t have her, you fool. You’re wasting an opportunity on her which you will never have again.”
Luke stared at my blankets darkly, clearly unsure of whether to believe his headmaster or not.
“Your decision is final, then?”
“Yes.”
The headmaster nodded to Ripper, so he opened the door. Six guys came in the room— the six higher-ups—each of them appearing a few steps in and standing in a half-circle around Luke’s bed, an arc of muscle and malice that made me shiver. Luke raised an eyebrow and stared at each one in turn.
“The six that stand before you, Titus, Damian, Orion, Bane, Axel, and Phoenix, are what they are because I made them that way,” the Cinder headmaster began. “They stand proudly above everyone else for a reason. When they were chosen, their instructors and I made sure that anyone who challenged them in any way was threatened or punished until it ended.
“Bane will be eighteen soon. He will be leaving us this fall. Whenever one of the six I consider my sons leaves, another must take his place. Bane recommended you not long after your arrival.” He stared at Bane, who took a step closer to Luke.
“When you stepped into that fight against Titus, I figured you were dead and I’d wasted a trip recruiting you,” Bane said. “But you took him out in five seconds flat. Then you walked in on a Snow Rider practice and beat out every guy on the team right then. So I decided to keep an eye on you, and you haven’t disappointed me yet.
“But what really made my decision was Fayre. You’re the first Cinder who’s ever had the guts to be with a Havener and go public with it. It didn’t hit me right away, but then there was this Haven girl I really liked and I was too chicken to ask her out. That’s when I realized the kind of nerve it took for you. I’m supposed to be this big shot, and I couldn’t even do what you did. And you just went for days undetected, even though our whole school’s been looking for you. I’m giving my place to you when I leave, if you want it.”
Luke sat there with his arms hanging over his knees and his face expressionless, as Bane stepped back into the semicircle. I knew he had to be throwing a party inside, since he’d wanted into the six from the moment he heard about them. But he’s always been a master of disguise when it comes to emotions.
His headmaster picked up the conversation again. “Whether you accept or not, you must never share what you’ve heard tonight with anyone else. Doing so would cost you your life, no exceptions. Choosing to join us would mean more time training to fight, as well as increasing your abilities. Any future you desire when you leave here is yours. But once you choose, there is no turning back. You cannot change your mind, and you must choose now.”
“I’m in,” Luke said at once, still keeping the party of one completely concealed.
“Meet me in my office at eight o’clock tomorrow night, and bring Fayre if you see her. My brother and I need to have a word with you two. Your training will begin after North Haven leaves.” With that, he turned to leave, followed by the others.
Luke lay back down and stared at the ceiling when they were gone. He knocked absently against his mattress with his fist, keeping an eyebrow raised.
I waited a couple of minutes to appear, in case they came back. “Luke,” I said, moving away from the wall.
“Kristine?” He sat up too fast and reached painfully for his side, before deciding to lie back down. “You were here the whole time?”
I hopped across the room and sat on my bed beside him. “I had to go to the bathroom. I sneaked in when I saw your headmaster. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” The lines that formed all over his forehead as he looked back to the ceiling told me he was thinking about something extra hard.
“Aren’t you happy?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m just—I’m kind of in shock. I’ve spent so much time thinking about how I could get into their crew, and now I’m in, just like that...” He smiled over at me. “I should be thanking you, really, since I wouldn’t have gotten in without you.”
“No.” He held out an arm for me as I lay back. “You’re the one who did all those things Bane was talking about, not me...Thanks for using your one request to save me.”
He laughed quietly as he rolled over to put his other arm around me. “Nothing could have compensated for you. I love you.” He kissed me and pulled me even closer.
His body felt enormous, pressed against mine. I felt safe, like nothing could hurt me when he was there. “I love you, too, Luke,” I said, as I snuggled up against his chest.
Chapter Forty-Three
~ Ambassador ~
Luke and I were sitting across from Bane and Titus in the dining hall at fifteen until eight the next evening, getting ready to head to his headmaster’s office, when someone slammed two Cinder medals down on the table. Thorn sat sideways beside me so that she was facing me. Somehow I’d avoided her all day. “I still hate you with every particle in my body, but—we’re straight.”
“Uhh...” I was relieved, but not really sure how to respond. “I hate you, too?”
Thorn smirked before she picked up her medals and went to sit somewhere else.
Luke stood up and held a hand out to me. “We need to go.”
“Okay.” I used it to pull myself up and then grabbed my crutches. I felt like a big holdup, having to use those stupid things. But Luke didn’t seem to mind.
We hardly passed anyone—that we could see, anyway—as we walked through the bleak Cinder hallways. How can he like this place so much? I wondered, feeling the gloom of it pressing against me.
“What do we do now?” I asked him when we got to the hidden office.
“Knock, of course.” Luke banged on the wall twice. It seemed silly to me to be knocking on a solid wall, but it slid back and to the side after a few seconds.
Tobias’s eyes shot fiery daggers at me the moment they met mine. “Your headmaster was supposed to be here ten minutes ago.”
“Umm, d, do you want me to go find him?” I asked hesitantly.
“It isn’t your job to look after him,” he snapped. “You’ll have to wait here with Knight.”
I followed Luke’s lead when he sat down in front of the desk. The old cuckoo clock on the wall told me we were five minutes early, assuming it still worked. “Can you tell us why we’re here while we’re waiting?” I asked.
“Insolent girl, I will tell you nothing until my brother is here.”
I let out a sigh and forced myself not to roll my eye
s as I leaned back in the musty old pea-green chair. It seemed he was back to being his old hateful self with me again.
Ten more minutes passed by before a knock came on the wall. Luke’s headmaster reached under his desk, and the wall slid open. My very disheveled-looking headmaster stood there with his snowy hair all over the place, clearly out of breath. “Roman Armstrong has escaped,” he wheezed, leaning with his hand against the open doorway.
“What?!” Luke shouted.
“How did that happen?” Tobias asked, standing up.
“He injected one of your doctors with enough anesthesia to put him in a coma hours ago.” He paused to huff and come stand behind my chair. “Someone just found the victim and alerted me. I’ve got every North Havener, short of Miss Fayre, and every Cinder I could find out searching for him.”
“You should have given him to me from the beginning,” Tobias seethed, moving around his desk. Luke stood up to follow him, but he turned and said, “Stay here with Fayre. I’ll have Ripper and Hanghard out looking for Armstrong, so you’ll have to look after her. Take a gun from my bottom right-hand desk drawer and do not leave before I get back.” Luke went to find the gun as his headmaster stopped beside mine. “Go ahead with what we talked about. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Luke let out a whistle from behind the desk. “This is a nice collection.” He held up two shiny handguns, one black and one gold. “Take this,” he said, handing me the gold one. “It’s the best one in here.”
“No, Mr. Knight,” my headmaster said, going to take his brother’s seat. “My students do not use guns.”
“She needs this to protect herself.”
“No.”
“I’m not leaving her side tonight unless Armstrong’s found or she’s got a gun.”
My headmaster crushed the armrest of his chair with one hand and shut the drawer full of guns with the other. “Do you honestly believe I would leave her unprotected? I love my students like my own children and I promise you I will see to her safety myself. Now, kindly take a seat so I can explain why you’re here.”
Luke’s nostrils flared with abhorrence. He shoved both guns into his pockets and came to sit back down.
Dinner bubbled in my stomach as the reawakened danger swirled through my mind. Roman was loose. He would be looking for me until he was found. If he was found. But the petrifying fear I felt wasn’t for me. It was for Luke, because Roman wanted him dead.
Headmaster looked more like the man who’d sat in that chair before him as he spoke, the situation with Roman obviously wearing away at him. “My brother and I would like to propose something to the two of you. We’re hoping you will become ambassadors of sorts for your schools.”
I glanced at Luke and then gave my headmaster a puzzled look. “I don’t understand. Don’t ambassadors work for presidents and kings?”
“Generally, but I’m speaking strictly for your school.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Tobias and I have been discussing how you two are the first Cinder and Havener to get along so well and how we could encourage this sort of behavior between other students.”
“My headmaster wants us to be friends with Haveners?” Luke asked incredulously.
“Not friends, exactly, but perhaps the two will simply behave more civilly to one another if things go well enough.”
“That doesn’t sound like him.”
“You’re right, and I’ll admit that I had to talk him into our arrangement. But he did agree that it might be nice not to have everyone hating each other quite so much.”
Luke didn’t look convinced.
“Anyway, as ambassadors you would spend a few days out of each month at the other person’s school, teaching the students and adults about your own school and letting them know what sorts of things have happened over the previous month. You could share classmates’ achievements or new recruits. You would make the decisions about what your presentations would consist of. I believe it would help each of our schools get a feel for one another. That way when we get together we don’t feel so unnatural to each other. Would either of you be interested?”
“Yeah,” I said, totally psyched about the extra time I’d get to spend with Luke.
“Hold on,” Luke said, his eyebrows sinking lower. “Would we be going to each other’s schools at the same time?”
I hadn’t thought of that.
“No, Miss Fayre could come here for a few days. Then you would fly back to North Haven with her. You could even assist each other with presentations if you like.”
“We could spend a week and a half together every month,” I said, turning to Luke.
“Your teachers will put your work together for you, so you won’t get behind,” Headmaster added.
“This still doesn’t sound like my headmaster,” Luke said.
“I assure you he has put the offer on the table for you.”
“I’d like to give him my answer, if you don’t mind.”
“Luke,” I pleaded, but he ignored me. What’s his problem?
“That’s fine,” Headmaster said. “You can think about it, too, Kristine, if you like.”
“All right.” I wanted to say yes right then, but Luke was acting weird.
Headmaster stood up, his wispy hair rising with the motion and then resting itself in a great mess once again. “I’m going to check on our situation. Don’t open the door for anyone.”
He left the room, so I shifted in my seat to face Luke. “You said you’d come every chance you got.”
“I know, but it sounds suspicious.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“You don’t know my headmaster.”
“But I know you, and I can’t believe you’d pass this up.”
“I’m not passing it up. I just want to talk to my headmaster about it first. If he’s seriously into this, then I’m in, too. I just wanna be sure.”
I stared at him and shook my head, not understanding. How could he even give this a second thought? I continued shaking my head in frustration as I turned to stare forward.
“Take this.” Luke took the golden gun from his pocket and held it out to me.
“My headmaster told me not to.”
“So? Keep it in your purse so I know you’re safe.”
“No. I don’t know anything about guns.” And I wasn’t going against my headmaster for him when he couldn’t even decide whether he wanted to come see me for those extra few days or not. I hadn’t been so mad at him since we were kids and he knocked me over in the cafeteria when I was holding a tray full of food, even though I knew he didn’t mean to. That fight didn’t last long.
“I’ll take you underground and teach you how to shoot. This is the safety. Red means blood, so it’s off when you see the red dot. The clip’s full. What else do you need to know?”
I turned in my seat to face him again. “No.”
“Yes, now take this!”
“No.”
“Kristine!”
I looked away and decided to ignore him. I was too mad to talk to him anymore, anyway.
So he stood up and put the gun in my bag. “I’m teaching you how to use that thing tomorrow.”
I sat there ignoring him and staring at a picture of Tobias playing with a dog as a kid, but not really looking at it at all, because all I could do was get madder and madder. But I realized, after a few minutes, that it was more hurt than anger, because I couldn’t believe Luke. It might sound small and stupid, but it was a big deal to me. Finally, I stood up and went to find the button under his headmaster’s desk.
“What are you doing?” Luke asked when I knelt on the floor behind the desk.
“Leaving.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
He stood and came around the desk. “Armstrong’s out there and I can’t leave this room. So you can’t either.”
“Yes, I can. You gave me a gun. I’ll be fine.” I leaned over and reached for the button under the d
esk.
“No.” Luke grabbed my arm and pulled me back so I couldn’t reach it.
“Let me go,” I shouted as he pulled me up until I was standing in front of him. But he held me securely against him as I fought to get away, surprising myself, because I didn’t think I even had the ability to want to get away from him.
“Stop fighting me!” he yelled.
“Then let me go.”
“No. I love you and you know I want to come see you at North Haven. Every second that goes by that I’m not with you, I’m wishing I was. But I’ve got to protect you, and that means I have to be careful. I can’t just go doing things that could set my headmaster off. Even if you want to get mad and act ridiculous, I’m going to talk to him first, because I love you. And I’m not letting you leave this room!”
I was a little stunned by the way he was talking to me, but I felt better, knowing that he was putting off his decision because he loved me so much. I leaned my head against him in defeat. “Fine.” But I stepped away and went back to my chair when he let his arms relax, still feeling a deep sting.
The wall slid open behind me as Luke retook his seat. We both turned to see his headmaster walk in, while Ripper and Hanghard stayed outside. “Armstrong’s still loose,” the headmaster said. “My men will stay with you outside until I’m through with Knight, Fayre.”
My eyes met Luke’s, and I hoped they portrayed my apprehension. No matter how upset I was, I didn’t want to leave him to be with those two. He rested one hand over the gun in his pocket to remind me of the one I had in my bag.
Tobias stood behind his desk and fixed his men with one of his deadliest looks. “If one of you harms one hair on her head, the other is ordered to kill him immediately. Understand?”
Ripper took a deep breath and cocked his head back. “Yes, sir,” he grumbled. Obviously, the warning was meant for him.
Luke let his fingers reach out and brush against my arm as I walked past him with my crutches and left the room, his neck turning so he could watch me leave. He was still staring at me when I turned around to lean against the far wall outside and didn’t look away even as the door closed.
