by Sofia Daniel
The sound of a metal object scraping wood filled the silence, making the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Had the woman really come equipped with tools to break into a boy’s room? The threat of her making things worse for Sebastian now held a new, more sinister promise.
“Sebastian Garraway,” she said in a blood-curdling whisper. “Let me in this instant, or I’ll hurt you.”
Nausea rose to the back of my throat. Regardless of what had happened between them in the past, no adult should enter the bedroom of a student while they slept. I knelt on the mattress, bracing my elbow into my torso and holding my forearm steady to stop the cameraphone from shaking.
“Go away, Miss Claymore!” Sebastian said. I gave him an encouraging nod to continue talking so that whoever watched this video knew exactly what was happening. “Please, I’m not having sex with you anymore.”
Whatever Miss Claymore had done with her metal implement had worked because the door opened several more inches. Enough to slide her hand through the gap and switch on the light. Squinting against the burn on my retinas, I clenched my teeth and held my breath. This was all the better for me to capture her.
It took her another several more seconds to squeeze part of her body through the door. A broad shoulder entered first, covered in the fluffy dressing gown she wore worn the day she had dumped me in that cave, with her long, black hair flowed and loose.
“This is your last warning,” said Sebastian.
A throaty laugh was her answer. “Consider this your last warning. If you make me file down any more of this doorstop, you won’t like your punishment.”
My nose wrinkled. Did she turn dominatrix before or after she discovered she’d been pigged?
“Get up and stand by the bathroom door,” Sebastian whispered to me.
Leopold pulled me to my feet and backed me toward the other end of the room. I didn’t resist. If Miss Claymore had any sense, she would come after the smartphone in my hand before ripping off Sebastian’s boxers. Once he was sure I was in position, Leopold stood in front of the door, giving me an excellent shot of his sculpted chest and the thin, white briefs that barely covered his modesty.
Moments later, Miss Claymore filed down enough of the stop to push the door open and stepped inside. Her thick dressing gown gaped, revealing a babydoll nightgown that barely covered her muscular thighs. Her black hair flowed over her shoulders, softening her made-up features.
Leopold clapped a hand over his pecs. “Miss Claymore! How inappropriate of you to sneak into a boy’s bedroom in the middle of the night.” His gaze flickered down her form. “And dressed for sex, too!”
The lustful gleam in her eyes dimmed to a dull horror, and the muscles in her face drooped. Pulling her robe closed, she turned to Sebastian, eyes gleaming with betrayal. “What is the meaning of this?”
“A sleepover with two friends,” said Sebastian.
Her gaze fixed on my smartphone, and I zoomed into her disappointed features. Baring her teeth, she snarled, “This is entrapment.”
“Sebastian didn’t invite you into his room,” I said.
“You did that all by your horny self,” Leopold added.
“Give me that phone!” She barreled toward me like a charging bull.
Leopold grabbed her by the arm. With a lightning-fast martial art movement, Miss Claymore broke out of the hold, twisted toward him, and made a hard palm strike that knocked him into the wall. Then she swept her leg under Leopold and sent him falling onto his back.
A gasp caught in my throat, and I fumbled for the door handle. Her head turned in my direction. The fury that burned in the woman’s eyes made her look ready to throw me head-first out of the window.
She rushed toward me, hissing, “Give me that phone!”
Leopold sprang up from the floor, grabbed Miss Claymore around the waist, and tackled her to the ground.
She thrashed about, trying to release herself from his grip. “Get off me, or I’ll expel you for assaulting a teacher.”
A shirtless Sebastian piled on top of her, and she raised her head, trying to buck them both off. I continued filming Miss Claymore. This footage was becoming more and more incriminating as time passed, and her dressing gown slipped off her shoulders and down her back.
“Stop this, right now!” She tried pulling herself up but only exposed the scandalously transparent, lace cups of her baby doll.
My eyes bulged, and I zoomed into her seduction attire. The red lipstick smudged across her face as she snarled and bucked, giving us the ammunition we needed to make her leave. Perhaps the woman was drunk. Perhaps she felt like she couldn’t get herself into any more trouble, perhaps she was confident that she’d eventually seize my smartphone before I would upload the footage to the cloud, but she acted like she was going to kill us all as soon as she got free.
After several moments of struggling, she flopped down to the floor. “Enough. I won’t go after Miss Evergreen.”
Sebastian flicked his head, gesturing for me to move further away. I backed into the bathroom and continued filming through the gap in the door with my left leg wedged against the wood. When I gave him a nod, he rolled off her and kept his muscular arms up, ready to catch her in case she bolted toward me.
Miss Claymore twisted around and glowered at Leopold, who still had his arms wrapped around her waist. “Let go, Mr. Brunswick!”
He backed off, remaining on his knees and ready to pounce, but Miss Claymore settled herself on the mattress with her long legs outstretched. She pulled her dressing gown closed, dipped her head, then her shoulders shook with what looked like silent sobs.
Leopold scrambled to his feet and stood in front of the bathroom.
“What do you want?” her voice broke.
Sebastian knelt at her side. “Stop pursuing me. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve apologized for pigging you. It was a vicious, vindictive game, and I was a vicious, vindictive, little bastard.”
She shook her head. “You never gave us a chance.”
I wrinkled my nose and continued filming. Did she have some kind of disorder?
Sebastian scowled. “I never meant any of those things I said to you. They all came from my grief counselor.”
“That’s the plot of Cyrano de Bergerac,” she spat.
I blinked. Cyrano de Bergerac was a fictional soldier with a big nose, who wrote love letters to a woman called Roxane on behalf of another man named Christian. Roxane fell in love with Christian, never learning the identity of the letter writer until Cyrano’s death.
“True,” said Leopold, “But the grief counselor is in his early thirties, which might be a bit old for a woman of your tastes.”
I rolled my eyes. Now wasn’t the time to rile the wounded beast.
“Detention,” she snarled.
“For insolence or for defending myself against an older woman trying to ride a boy young enough to be her son?”
Miss Claymore’s gaze traveled past Leopold and straight to me. The fury in her eyes turned my blood frigid. “Come with me, Miss Evergreen. The school has specific rules about sexual conduct.”
“I’m aware of them, but the Teaching Regulation Agency also has rules,” I said. “Someone tried to kill me multiple times, and this video is proof that you’re willing to hurt anyone who gets in the way of you molesting Sebastian, including Sebastian himself.”
“If you upload that video, I’ll—” Her teeth clacked shut. The woman was demented, but she wasn’t stupid.
“You know what?” Leopold picked up his phone. “I’m going to call my mother and tell her everything.”
“She’ll have you sent home for consorting with Miss Evergreen.”
He snorted. “A small price to protect the young boys at the academy from your groping hands.”
“You make me sound like a—” Her face tightened. “It wasn’t like that, and you know it.”
“That’s how it looks now,” he said.
Sebastian stood over Miss Cla
ymore, giving her a pitying look. Part of me wanted to throttle him for feeling bad for her after everything she had done, but the anguish in his eyes assured me that he would never play that game again—despite what the knights, the queens, Cormac, and even Miss Claymore had told me.
Miss Claymore’s shoulders slumped, and she let out a long breath. “I’ll get counseling. Just keep that video to yourselves. The Board of Governors allowed me back until they could find someone else to curb the bullying.” She raised her head, revealing a face streaked with mascara-tinged tears. “For the sake of the other students, let me stay.”
“Leave,” said Sebastian.
“Are you going to report me?” she asked.
“He will if you don’t get out this instant.”
“A-alright.” She pulled herself to her feet and adjusted her thick dressing gown. “But if you get me fired and I hurt myself, it will be on your conscience for the rest of your life.”
My jaw dropped, as did the hand holding the camera. I turned to Sebastian, who winced, then to Leopold, who scowled. Miss Claymore strolled to the door and let herself out.
For several minutes, nobody spoke. I remained behind the bathroom door in case Miss Claymore burst in and tried to get my smartphone, while Leopold placed a brand new wedge under the door.
“What do you want me to do?” I whispered.
“Upload the video to youtube, back it up in the cloud, and send it to Mrs. Brunswick,” Sebastian said with a snarl. “This time, she’s gone too far.”
My phone rang. It was an unknown mobile, and probably Mr. Byrd telling me he would destroy whatever item of mine he had pilfered. The asshole had kept it for nearly two weeks, and I hadn’t even noticed it was missing. I clicked the answer button, ready to give him a piece of my mind, and snapped, “Yes?”
“Hello?” said the voice of an old woman. “It’s Mrs. Ochill from number fifty-four.”
A bolt of panic shot through my chest. “Is everything alright?”
“Someone’s been prowling around your house. I called the police, but when I told them it was unoccupied, they said a squad car would be around in the morning.”
My mind whirred. So, the prowler couldn’t have been Miss Claymore. I doubted that Mr. Byrd would travel three-hundred miles to sneak around an empty house. “Right. Thanks for telling me.”
The old woman said goodbye and hung up.
Sebastian placed a hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“We need to go to Cummersdale.” I turned from Sebastian to Leopold. “The prowler has returned.”
Chapter 16
Since it was early on Saturday morning and Mr. Blunt had removed the clamps from the jeep, we piled into Sebastian’s car and set off for Cummersdale. Clouds streaked over the moon and stars, plunging the mountains into intermittent darkness. At times, the road seemed too narrow, with trees arching over us like creeping specters. When the road widened into two lanes, the trees disappeared, revealing deep, fathomless valleys that made my stomach lurch.
Visibility was abysmal, with the headlights illuminating a mere few feet ahead. The times when the road seemed to end abruptly were the worst, as it indicated a treacherous, hairpin turn. Sebastian took the sharp bends with great care. Leopold drummed his fingers on the dashboard, and I held onto the edges of my seat, squirming with impatience and trepidation.
I forced deep breaths in and out of my lungs. Sebastian was a careful driver, but tonight’s encounter with Miss Claymore had been harrowing enough to affect anyone’s reflexes. As much as I wanted to reach out and ask him how he felt about the deputy head’s parting words, I couldn’t distract him.
“At least this proves one thing,” Leopold said, cutting through my musings.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Claymore wasn’t behind the break-in at your cottage.”
“You think it was a random burglar?” asked Sebastian.
He shrugged. “My money’s on Mr. Byrd.”
A shiver ran down my back. “He blames me for the break up of his family.”
Leopold twisted around in his seat. “But not for pushing Bianca off the east wing. Did you notice that?”
“He already knows who maimed his daughter,” I muttered.
As soon as we left the mountain and joined the well-lit highway, the tension in the air melted. Leopold and Sebastian laughed about tackling Miss Claymore, and I relaxed into the back seat. If that had been Mr. Byrd breaking into our room and needing to be physically restrained, I certainly wouldn’t smile about it—ever.
My mind drifted to the cottage, and I hoped the intruder hadn’t set it on fire. A pang of sadness pierced my chest, spreading cold toward my limbs. With Uncle Trevor so busy with his young family and Ashley in Ibiza, living her dream life with DJ Bones, that home really was my last connection with Mom and Dad.
I shook off those thoughts. Mrs. Ochill would have called again if she’d noticed any smoke.
By the time we reached Cummersdale, the clouds had cleared, revealing an indigo sky bright with the moon and stars. Their silvery light reflected on the white rendering on our cottage. Swallowing hard, I shook my head. It was my cottage now. Thanks to Sebastian and Mr. Pinkerton, the property was now registered in my name. All the lights were off, making me hope the intruder had already left.
Leopold stepped out of the car, holding two cricket bats. I clutched at the huge flashlight I had picked up on my way out of the academy, opened the car door, and stepped out into the warm night.
Sebastian exited and took one of the bats from Leopold before turning to me. “We’ll enter in single file. I want you in the middle,” he whispered. “That way, if the prowler circles back and attacks from behind, he still won’t get at you.”
“Right,” I whispered back.
My fingers trembled over the house keys, but Sebastian took them and headed for the door. I followed after him with Leopold at my rear. Palpitations reverberated in the tips of my fingers. What if the man was armed and still in the house?
We reached the doorstep, and Sebastian turned the key in the lock. I held my breath, bracing myself for a balaclava-covered man to fly out brandishing his crowbar. He pushed the door open and swung the cricket bat in a defensive arch, but the hallway was empty.
Sniffles and sobs filled the air.
Sebastian stepped inside and crept down the darkened hall with me at his heels. Leopold let the door click shut before catching up. We passed the empty living room and stepped into the darkened dining room, where the sounds became more pronounced.
A shiver ran down my spine, and my heart beat faster. I pushed aside thoughts of wrathful ghosts and glanced around the empty dining room. Nobody sat on the wooden seats or even crouched underneath the table, and the bookshelves in the alcove were untouched.
We continued to the kitchen, where a long-haired figure in a grubby white nightgown sat by the kitchen sink. Black hair obscured her face.
A cold, hard fist slammed into my gut, ripping a scream from my lips. I staggered back into Leopold, who pulled me into his arms.
“Fucking hell!” Sebastian held his cricket bat like a flame-thrower and backed further into the dining room.
“Willow?” said a small, broken voice.
“A-Ashley?”
Leopold tightened his grip around me, while Sebastian ventured back into the kitchen. Despite Leopold’s warmth, a cold sweat broke out across my skin. The last time I’d seen her, she still had her blonde hair from her disguise as a maid. The last time I’d heard from her, she had left the country to become the girlfriend of an international DJ.
The muscles of my stomach tightened. The last thing I’d heard about her was that she had mixed heroin into Bruce Wilmington and Jarrett Riley’s marijuana and gotten them killed.
Leopold growled. “You’ve got some nerve to show your face after—”
I wrapped my hand around his forearm and squeezed hard. Accusations would only scare her away. Right now, we needed to know why
she had returned and what danger she posed. Leopold let go of me and stood to the side.
Sebastian walked into the kitchen and turned on the light. Dirt encrusted the skirt of Ashley’s white nightgown and caked her hands and bare feet. I frowned. She looked like she had trekked through the mud.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
Ashley raised her head. All the bruising had faded, but her nose had thickened around the bridge. One side of her jaw protruded more than the other, and her eyes were bloodshot. “Why didn’t you take Mr. Byrd’s calls?”
My brows furrowed. “Why the hell would I speak to that maniac?”
“Because he held me hostage for weeks?”
“What?” I gasped out. “Why?”
“You ruined his life, and he wanted revenge.”
I glanced from Sebastian to Leopold, who each wore incredulous expressions. Something in Ashley’s anguished face told me there was a kernel of truth in her words.
“You were in Ibiza. How did he find you?”
“Bones wanted us to drive down to the Isle of Wight for the April Showers Festival, so we all went down in a converted bus I bought.”
“Right.” This still didn’t explain how she ended up with Mr. Byrd, but I let her continue her story.
“At some point, someone must have broken into the bus. Most of our things went missing by the end of the festival.”
I clenched my teeth, predicting where the financial aspect of this story was heading.
“By the time I called the police and got through the bank, they’d already used my card to buy all kinds of things, and they withdrew a lot of cash.” Her voice wobbled. “The bank tried to say it was me because the person had my passport and driver’s license.”
“It sounds like someone you confided in stole your identity,” said Leopold.
Ashley nodded. “I’ve had time to think. Bones’ girlfriend disappeared on the first day. I thought it was because she was jealous, but I think she stole my money.”
Sebastian turned to me and grimaced. I gave him an apologetic grimace back. All those funds he had put into her was squandered, and she would probably want more.