by Sofia Daniel
Cormac sped toward a hairpin turn, bellowing something about meeting Corrine. With each accelerating second, the wind roared louder in my ears to the point where Cormac’s rantings became a dull roar.
As we approached certain death, my fear notched up from nine to ten to eleven.
Then it dialed forward to twelve.
I didn’t know how things worked after a person died, but if there was an afterlife of any kind, there was no fucking way in hell I would let myself be shackled to Cormac. With the belt no longer restricting my movements, I sprang out from my seat and jumped.
Jumped a split second before the Aston Martin leaped off the mountainside.
I became weightless for a heartbeat while velocity warred with gravity. Pushing aside Newton’s laws of motion, I cradled my head in my hands for the inevitable landing. It came with a painful thud, a roll, a crunch, and then darkness.
The throbbing in my head was nothing compared to the pain searing down my left side. My arm was either broken, dislocated, or shattered into several pieces. It hurt so much, I couldn’t tell the difference. My left hip also throbbed in time with my head.
“Willow?” A voice echoed through my empty skull. “My name’s Wesley, and I’m a paramedic. You’ve had a nasty accident, but you’ll be okay.”
“Ark?” My throat was so dry, I could barely form words. From the jerky movements and slight incline of the smooth surface beneath my body, I guessed I was on a stretcher being carried up the mountain.
“How is she?” shouted Sebastian’s voice.
“Stand back,” said someone else.
“Willow!” Leopold’s voice broke.
I cracked my eyes open to find a female paramedic staring down at me, her blonde hair backlit by the sun. “M-my phone.”
Her face morphed into a frown. “Don’t worry, it’s probably in the car you jumped out of. I’ll tell one of the officers to fetch it for you later.”
“No.” A flash of pain made me squeeze my eyes shut. I tried to raise my right arm, but it had been secured with a strap. “Down my top.”
Something squeezed my right arm so tight, it felt like it would burst. My eyes snapped open. I lay in a hospital bed, and the curtains were drawn. Hopefully, this didn’t mean that the staff thought I’d somehow contributed to my situation. Jumping out of a moving car was an act of self-preservation, not recklessness.
The pressure continued on my forearm, making my fingertips tingle. With a groan, I glanced down at a blood pressure cuff. Oddly, it was the only source of pain anywhere in my body, making me wonder what kind of medication they’d given me. Especially considering my left arm was in a cast.
“Wills?” Leopold stood, his wide, aquamarine eyes roving my face and body. “How are you feeling?”
My drug-addled mind marveled at the way his golden hair framed his high cheekbones, full lips, and strong jaw. Leopold was a work of art that I’d somehow become lucky enough to acquire. I let those thoughts drift to the back of my mind to ask, “What happened to Cormac?”
“He’s alive,” Leopold growled. “And under police guard.”
Relief whooshed out of my lungs. Not that I had forgiven Cormac for his actions, but driving a car off the side of the mountain was too easy a way out.
“And Seb?” I asked.
“He listened to your recording on the drive back up to Carlisle and sent it to Mr. Pinkerton.”
A doctor pulled open the curtains, frowned at Leopold, and then checked my vital signs. He explained that I had broken my humerus, severely bruised my hip, and was lucky to escape my ordeal with a mild concussion. I grimaced. There were some parts of that hair-raising trip through the mountains I wanted to forget.
After the doctor left, Leopold grabbed my right hand and pressed it to his lips. “I’m so glad you survived Gibbons. You should have seen what he did to Geraldine.”
“What did he…” My words trailed off. Miss Claymore’s text had said enough.
“It makes what he did to Ashley seem tame,” Leopold said.
“You listened to the recording, too?” I asked.
“Seb emailed it to me.” Leopold shook his head. “Shit, I never saw that coming at all.”
The curtains parted, and Sebastian stepped through, followed by Prakash, who wore the same school uniform he’d been arrested in the morning we’d found Bianca at the bottom of the east wing. My heart flipped like a crepe, and a breath stuck to the back of my throat.
“Kash,” I whispered.
He rushed up to the bedside, grabbed my uninjured arm, and pressed a kiss to my hand. “Willow.” His voice was choked. “You nearly killed yourself to get a confession. You should have jumped the moment you found out.”
“Not that it’s unappreciated.” Sebastian brought in two chairs and drew the curtains around us. “As soon as Mr. Pinkerton’s contacts at the Crown Prosecution Service heard the recordings, they dropped the case against Kash. But you should have put yourself first.”
Shaking my head, I drew Prakash close for a hug. His bergamot scent, the feel of his smooth skin against mine, his very presence filled my heart until it overflowed. Cormac had falsified so much evidence against Prakash that a guilty verdict was guaranteed. I hadn’t realized that until Cormac had revealed his plan to punish Prakash.
I threaded my fingers in his silken hair, still giddy at the thought that his name was clear. When I finally raised my head, it was to find Leopold and Sebastian staring down at me. I supposed they wanted me to promise that I’d never put myself at risk for them.
“You three mean too much to me to leave anything to chance,” I said.
Sebastian leaned over Prakash and pressed a kiss on my temple. “No more putting yourself in danger. It’s our job to protect you.”
I gave him a wide smile. “Are you going to take care of me the same way you did at Christmas?”
Leopold snickered. “You’ll have three helpers, this time.”
Prakash drew back and lowered himself to the seat on my right. “I can’t thank you enough. If you hadn’t joined the academy when you did, I would be facing a long prison sentence for a crime I didn’t commit.”
“Aren’t you glad I didn’t listen to your warnings to leave?”
He gave me a wistful half-smile. “I would have missed out on meeting the woman I love.”
“Shit,” said Sebastian.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I wanted to be the first to say I loved you.”
“Ha!” said Leopold. “I beat you both to it because I told Willow first.”
“You did?” I turned to my left and met Leopold’s sparkling, aquamarine eyes. “I don’t remember you saying any such thing.”
“You were sitting on my face at the time.”
The curtain flew open, and a furious-looking nurse glowered at us. “Boys, we have patients recovering from severe injuries. I’m going to have to ask at least two of you to leave.”
“My apologies.” Leopold guided the nurse out through the curtain and drew it closed.
Sebastian, Prakash, and I stared at each other in silence for several moments. This felt like Economics class, where Mr. Begg would send Leopold out of the room for an inappropriate comment.
Before I could ask Sebastian to text Leopold, he appeared through the curtain with a sly wink and a roguish grin. He’d probably charmed the nurse into letting them all stay.
Sebastian turned to me, his green eyes shining with hope. “With the worst of the bullies gone, next year will be different.”
Leopold smoothed down my hair. “We’ll stamp out bullying in Brittas Academy and recruit successors who will do the same.”
Prakash raised his head and gave me the warmest smile. “Will you help us?”
Leopold laughed. “Of course she will. She’s our queen regent. Our royal court doesn’t work without Willow.”
Epilogue
With its sprawling gardens, complete with a gazebo covered in pink and orange roses, Springfield Manor
looked more like a spa than a secure mental hospital. But on closer inspection, it was clear that the institution was designed to keep people inside, rather than out.
From the inside, it was impossible to tell that the tall evergreens hid the eighteen-foot-tall walls reinforced with barbed wire. Or that the internal doors were reinforced with layers of security.
I walked into a small parlor room with a beautiful view of the rose garden. A lone figure sat at a table laden with cupcakes and scones already sliced and prepared with jam and clotted cream. He wore the khaki tracksuit of an inmate but had somehow managed to make it look formal.
My throat dried. Even though half a decade had passed, Cormac looked exactly the same as he did when I’d last seen him in the Aston Martin. He had spent months in Cumbria Royal Infirmary before the doctors had deemed him fit to stand trial.
When his lawyer used the defense of diminished responsibility, Prakash hadn’t wanted Cormac to languish in a state mental facility and paid for him to be sent to Springfield Manor.
“You came,” Cormac said in a voice full of wonder. He stood and gestured for me to sit opposite.
“I was curious.” I nodded to the two male nurses at the door leading to the gardens and walked around to the table.
Cormac’s eyes glistened as he watched me sit. I wondered if he remembered happier times when we sat together in the scholars’ common room, or if he even remembered all the torment he had inflicted on me in the name of avenging the suicide he had helped Corrine to commit.
“Did you read the letters I sent you?” he picked up a plastic pot of tea and raised his brows in question.
I offered him my plastic teacup. “Yes. I’m glad the medical team here have been so supportive.”
As Cormac poured the tea, no steam billowed out of the spout. Springfield Manor was careful that its inmates didn’t hurt themselves or others, no matter their level of recovery. Cormac filled my cup three-quarters-full and then picked up the milk jug.
With a smile, I let him pour an excessive amount of white liquid into my cup. Cormac grinned, but I didn’t fall into our usual banter about the preparation of tea.
Six years had passed, I’d moved on from Brittas Academy, and hadn’t allowed myself to dwell on the time I’d spent with Cormac. My life was already full, and it was about to become even more occupied.
Cormac’s face fell, but he smoothed out the disappointment and prepared himself a cup of cold tea. “It’s been good here. I realize now that Kashaayah was a scapegoat for everything that went wrong in Corrine’s life. Our problems started long before we joined Brittas Academy.”
I turned to one of the cameras in the corner of the room and shot it an I-told-you-so look.
Cormac scrubbed his hands through his hair. “Corrine finally thought she’d found love, and—”
“I get it.”
He blinked away his hurt expression and said, “MIT has offered me a scholarship in the States. It’s a bloody fortune compared to what we were offered at Brittas.”
I brought the plastic cup to my lips. “Congratulations.”
“My recruiter mentioned what happened to the academy in my interview, but I didn’t know what he was talking about. Were you there for the trial?”
With a nod, I explained to Cormac that Mr. Riley had joined forces with Mr. and Mrs. Wilmington to sue Brittas Academy for corporate manslaughter.
Miss Claymore had already resigned and left the country the week after Cormac had tried to abduct me, leaving Mrs. Benazir and the school governors to face the full wrath of the court. Several students gave evidence via video, but I chose to take the stand and explain to the court how those in charge of Brittas Academy had failed to take care of their students and gotten three killed and three subject to brutal attacks.
Mr. Byrd hadn’t been available for the trial due to serving a twenty-year sentence based on the testimony of Bianca and his younger daughter.
The three-million pound fine was the largest paid in the history of corporate manslaughter, and Mrs. Benazir was sentenced to two years in prison for criminal negligence under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Although the board employed alternative headteachers, a group of parents took the school to the civil courts and won a lawsuit for negligence.
Cormac shook his head as he listened to me recount the downfall and subsequent bankruptcy of Brittas Academy. A year after I had graduated and joined Cambridge University to study mathematics, the board of governors had to close it down and transfer the students to an academy in Mercia, which already had enough empty buildings to accommodate all the students.
“I wanted to apologize to you before I left,” he dipped his head and stared at the cupcakes on his plate.
A lump formed in my throat. Two years ago, Cormac wrote to say he had discovered the identity of his parents. His father was a notorious British serial killer, famous for consuming his victims’ body parts, and his mother had been rescued just before the murderer had finished his act.
The discovery had set back his recovery several months and had led to Cormac opening up about the abuse he and his sister had suffered in foster care. I set down my cup and tried to meet his eyes.
Cormac’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Of all the people I hurt, you were the only one who was completely innocent. Not that Bianca deserved to end up in a wheelchair for the rest of her life and Geraldine deserved what I did to her face, but—”
“It’s alright,” I murmured. Both girls had also graduated from university and were getting on with their lives.
His shoulders drew up to his ears. “If you’d joined a year earlier, you would have made a great friend to Corrine. Maybe even talked some sense into her.”
“Thanks.” The old me might have reached out across the table to hold his hand, but I’d just come to help give Cormac closure.
We sat in silence for a few more minutes. I sipped my cold, milky tea and nibbled on a cupcake, the way I did whenever I attended the tea-parties of Prakash’s little nieces.
“Did you ever visit Ashley in prison?” asked Cormac.
“She refuses to see me.”
“What went wrong?”
I shook my head. Once I had recovered from jumping out of the Aston Martin, I had persuaded Ashley’s lawyer to send her for a psychiatric evaluation. Unfortunately, the assessing psychiatrist couldn’t find any mental conditions that would have affected her judgment, and she was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. She did send Uncle Trevor and me long letters detailing how we had both ruined her future.
Cormac leaned forward, eyes alight with curiosity.
I blew out a long breath. “It’s like you said. Ashley saw me as a scapegoat for everything that went wrong in her life, starting from when she fell in love with a private tutor who showed her no interest.”
“Sorry.” He sipped his cold tea.
“So am I.”
“I saw an announcement of your engagement in The Sunday Times.” Cormac wrinkled his nose at the three-carat diamond engagement ring on my finger. “Why did you choose him of all people?”
A laugh huffed out of my throat. “I didn’t.”
He tilted his head to the side. “I don’t follow.”
“It’s complicated and doesn’t matter.” I wasn’t about to explain that we were on our way to India for a polyandrous wedding. That was nobody’s business but my own.
Cormac shrugged. “I suppose not. Are you happy?”
“Very.” Warmth filled my chest, and my gaze darted to the security camera above the door. If anyone offered me the chance to reset the last seven years of my life, I still would have gone to Brittas Academy, even if it meant reliving all that fear and pain and anguish. Because it had led me to my three soulmates and move love to fill three lifetimes.
“Although life isn’t without its challenges,” I added.
“How is Kashaayah?” Cormac bit into a lemon cupcake.
“Busy expanding his tea label to the rest of the world.”
/> Cormac chuckled. “Garraway won’t like that.”
I raised a shoulder. “Kashaayah Mountain isn’t competition since the brand is only available in high-end retailers like Harrods and Fortnum and Mason.”
“Whereas Garraway Tea is available in any old supermarket.”
“Exactly.” I gave him a half-smile.
A silence stretched out between us. Whatever connection we used to share had gone. All that remained were memories now soured by a negligent academy. Its leadership had been so preoccupied with money and grades that it had exposed two vulnerable young people to the horrors of the elites. Still, it was good to see that the doctors had deemed Cormac well enough to return to full-time education.
I smoothed down the skirt of my silk dress and stood. “Congratulations, once again. I hope you enjoy Massachusetts.”
“It was nice to see you after all this time.” He dipped his head and peered at me through his lashes.
“Likewise.” I turned to the door and strode across the room.
“Willow.”
My fingers paused over the handle. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry for using you to get revenge on everyone who hurt Corrine. Of all my regrets, this one has plagued me the worst.”
“I forgave you after your first apology.” His letter had been long, eloquent, and heartfelt. I hadn’t replied, but he continued to update me on his progress at Springfield Manor. There was enough material for a book if he ever wanted to publish his story. “Now, go to America and start a new life.”
As soon as the door clicked shut, all the tension left my shoulders. That part of my life was over. Uncle Trevor now lived in Mom and Dad’s cottage with my four cousins, and Ashley’s sentence had been extended for violence and for being caught dealing drugs behind bars. Nobody knew when she would be released because she kept reoffending.
I continued down the hallway, past rooms that looked more like they belonged in a spa, and toward the waiting room where I’d left my young men. As soon as I stepped inside, all three of them stood from where they had been watching the monitors.