I stare into his icy blue eyes and show absolutely no emotion.
It seems to unsettle him, as it should. I know I look less than human with this blank stare in my eyes.
“You’re facing several years in jail, Vivian. And if your friend doesn’t wake up, you could be charged with manslaughter. You’re eighteen, so you’ll be tried as an adult.” He’s becoming more frantic in his quest to elicit emotion from me. “She might not make it through the night, and then you’ll have to live with her death on your conscience for the rest of your life. How does that make you feel?”
When I say nothing, he slumps in his chair. “Do you have any questions?”
“Am I allowed a phone call?” I ask. My voice is dead, frozen, desolate.
He nods, slamming the folder down and standing up. “Come with me.”
I follow him into the next room, the main room of the station. There are only three desks, each one piled with messy stacks of paper. No one else seems to be here.
He points me to a phone on the wall. “You get only one call,” he says.
I nod, close my eyes, and take a deep breath. My fingers fly across the familiar numbers before I can think any more about it.
“What?” Mother answers, that brittle voice resounding in my ear.
“I’ve been arrested,” I say. The cop crosses his arms and watches me, showing he has no intention of giving me any privacy.
“For what?” Her voice is low. A deadly calm.
“They’re accusing me of possessing and selling drugs. My roommate overdosed, and Arabella’s framed me.”
The cop raises his eyebrows and then grins, telling me clearly that he doesn’t believe me.
“He is in London,” Mother says, meaning Helper. “Tell me where the jail is, and he will come get you out.”
I shiver as I tell her, though I try not to let the cop see.
“Vivian?” Mother adds. “You know what happens when I am disappointed in you.”
There’s a bang as she slams the phone down, and the line goes dead.
The cop puts me in a cell by myself. It has a cot, a toilet I have no intention of using, and metal bars that are supposed to intimidate me.
I should want to stay in here forever. I know what’s waiting for me as soon as I step outside the security of these bars.
As the hours melt on, I realize I have no concept of time. I can’t tell if the world outside is sunny or dark. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. But I want a window. I want something that will assure me that I’m not back in the closet at home, locked away for days, that Mother’s cold gray eyes won’t be waiting for me on the other side of this cell.
I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths, trying to brush off the claustrophobia. I’m fine. I’m going to be fine. This is all just a misunderstanding, and Mother will come to see that. It won’t harm my chances with Ben, which I know is what she’s afraid of. It may even help them.
I hear footsteps approaching, and I open my eyes and hold my breath.
Helper and the cop who questioned me stand before my cell, wearing twin looks of disapproval, though for very different reasons. Helper grips his cane so tightly that he looks pained, his mouth in a deep frown.
The cop unlocks the cell. “Come on,” he tells me. I follow him and Helper down the hall and back into the interrogation room.
“We don’t have enough evidence to hold you,” the cop says. “You’re released.”
I swallow as I look up into Helper’s flashing eyes. I’ve never seen him look so emotional—I’ve never seen him not looking cold and calm—and I know it doesn’t bode well for me.
I hope with everything that I am that Arthur stays away from the police station.
“I’ll go get the release paperwork,” the cop says. “You two stay in here.”
Helper continues to stare at me as the cop closes the door, sealing the two of us off. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” he asks, his voice low and deadly.
I swallow and look up at the corners of the room. “Don’t they have cameras in here?”
He shakes his head slowly. “Not in a middle-of-nowhere station like this. And how about you let me do the talking?”
I bow my head.
“Why didn’t you call your mother if you had suspicions about this girl?”
“I thought I could handle it on my own,” I say, refusing to meet his gaze. “I didn’t think she would go to such lengths.”
“Well, she did, didn’t she?” he says, his voice quiet but brutal. It’s the kind of quiet that fills up the room, and I wish he would just yell instead. My knees go weak. “You’re ruining everything.” He steps forward, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me. “You can’t marry him if you’re expelled before you’ve even convinced him to run away.”
“Marry him?” I ask before I can stop myself. Helper finally stops shaking me.
“Yes, marry him. It’s what your mother needs. Otherwise this is all for nothing. You convince him to run away, and then you get him to marry you.”
Marry me? That’s been her goal all along? The money. She wants the Collingsworth money, which I can access through Ben, but that’s only guaranteed if I marry him. Of course. But what teenage guy wants to get married?
“Your mother is on her way,” he says, “to take matters into her own hands. And you are going to pay for your incompetence.”
I feel myself go slack as he digs his fingers into my shoulders.
She will kill me.
I can see it in his face, the way his eyes fill with rage as he watches me. If I fail, she will kill me, just as Arthur said. Just as she would have killed Emily, if her plan to get her expelled hadn’t worked.
I didn’t want to see it before. I thought that she was too weak for that, that those nights she spent weeping in her room meant she would never really hurt me. I thought that she needed me. She was my mother, and she relied on me. But now I see that she doesn’t care about me. If I don’t do the one thing I was born to do, she won’t need me anymore. She will have to kill me to make sure her secrets stay secret. And she won’t care. Just like she didn’t care when she had her own mother killed. I can’t ignore the truth, not when it’s screaming at me like a banshee trapped in my head. She had her mother killed, and she will kill me.
There is a rustle at the door that draws Helper’s attention away. I turn and see Ben standing in the doorway, fury etched onto his face. But it’s not directed at me. It’s all for my tormentor.
“She didn’t do it,” Ben snaps. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you can’t talk to her like that.”
Helper seems to have been struck speechless as he watches Ben come to my defense so strongly. His grip on my shoulder loosens, and I step out of his grasp.
His emotionless face is back. “I’ll go see about those release papers,” he says.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Ben as soon as Helper leaves.
He crosses the room and enfolds me in his arms. I’m still trembling from the realization of how precarious my situation really is, and he hugs me tighter.
“It’s all around school,” he explains, rubbing slow circles on my back.
“I didn’t do it,” I say.
He stops me before I can keep defending myself. “I know. I know you wouldn’t do that to Claire.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. Even though he knows I have ample access to drugs, he doesn’t believe I could be that twisted or careless. Nothing will make him doubt me. He doesn’t know how dangerous I am.
I bite my lip.
“People are saying you’ve been expelled,” he says softly.
I shake my head and nestle it back on his shoulder. “I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Headmaster Harriford seemed furious. He’ll probably send me back on the first plane to America.”
“What am I supposed to do? If they expel me, I have nowhere else to go.”
He takes a deep breath, looking at the floor for a moment before looking back up at me. “Run away with me.”
There it is. I’ve done it. For a moment, that’s all I can think. He’s mine, completely. He is mine to ruin.
I’m so relieved that I want to sink down onto the floor and weep, but then there’s another part of me. . . . I look into those hazel eyes and see complete trust and love and care. And I wish that I had actually earned those things.
I nod and let him pull me close. I can’t speak.
“We’ll get out of here, okay? We’ll go where my father and your mother can’t find us. Everything’s going to be okay.”
The door opens, and the grim cop stands there with the papers in his hands. “You’re free to go,” he says. “For now. You’ll need to stay close in case we charge you.”
I catch Helper’s eye over the cop’s shoulder. I try to stop shaking, to look confident and in control. “I just need a moment alone with Ben,” I tell him. Helper nods.
I let Ben walk me out of the room, out of the station. I know Helper is watching us, even though I can’t see him. He never misses anything.
“I’ll withdraw as much money as I can out of my bank account before my father notices,” Ben says as soon as we reach the bright sunlight of the world outside. “And we can go to Oxford—I have a mate there who can put us up for a while. We’ll be safe, okay?”
He cups my head in his hands, and I know I have to look at him. I have to reassure him that this is what I want. That he is what I want.
But before I can look at him, I realize something that I’ve been trying to deny for months: I don’t want this boy to ruin his life for me. I want him to run far away from me, to the ends of the earth, where I can’t reach him. I care about him too much.
I care about him.
The shock of that thought nearly undoes me.
Everything is so confusing and happening so fast. I can’t catch my breath. I feel it growing shallower and shallower in my chest, and then I’m falling, actually falling to the ground, my knees hitting the hard cobblestones of the sidewalk.
Ben has a strong hand on my back. “Breathe,” he tells me. “Just breathe.”
He draws in a long breath, encouraging me to do the same. I try, but it catches. Finally, I get a good one, and I expel it just as slowly. I close my eyes, feeling my heart rate slow. I wipe away the tears that have escaped.
If I let this opportunity slip away, she will kill me. That thought comes to me again with startling clarity. She will have no more use for me, and I know too many of her secrets to be allowed to escape.
Arthur’s face flashes across my mind. He escaped. Helper has never been able to find him, though I know he’s tried. He could help me.
But he won’t. He doesn’t trust me, doesn’t care about me. He’s made that clear.
What I need to do is get Ben to run away with me and marry me. And then what? Will Mother feel content with her revenge? Will she let me let him go? Or will something happen to him? Will something happen to him if I don’t marry him?
Arthur was right all along. I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into. I don’t know where it will all end.
I shiver, looking into Ben’s trusting hazel eyes. I have to make a decision about who I can trust: Arthur or Mother. I remember what Helper said, that Mother is coming to take matters into her own hands. I know who I have to trust. There’s no other way.
Ben must see my face brightening, because he lets out a sigh of relief and steps back. “Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod. “Let’s go. Let’s run away.”
CHAPTER 31
I stand up, and he pulls me in for a kiss. And while his lips brush over mine, I scramble to think of what to say next.
“We can go somewhere, some small town, and get jobs,” he says, his words somersaulting over one another. “You can draw and I can write, or something. Anything, as long as we’re together.”
It all clicks together, and I stifle a sigh of relief, biting my lip as I look up at him. “I’m on a student visa, though,” I say, looking back into the police station as if I’m afraid they’ll come out and arrest me again for even thinking of violating the terms of my visa. “If I’m not in school, I have to go back to the States.”
“We’ll hide from them,” he says, taking my hand. “You’ll be safe, I promise.”
I beam at him like he’s my salvation, my eyes filled with love and admiration. “I trust you,” I whisper, tightening my hand around his.
He looks down in wonder at the worshipful expression on my face, a surprised smile playing across his lips. And then his eyes widen as he lands on the idea I hoped he would. “We could get married.”
I blink in feigned surprise. “What?”
“We could get married,” he repeats, his eyes still locked on mine. “Then you’d have your visa, and we can stay here.”
I part my lips slowly, like I don’t know what to say.
He pulls me closer, his hands burning into my shoulders. “My mom wanted me to find the girl that I loved and never let her go,” he says softly. “I can’t let you go back to the States. I want to be with you, Vivian. Forever.” He pauses, then lets a smile stretch wide across his face. “Marry me.”
“Yes,” I say quickly. “Yes.” I wrap my arms around him and hug him as hard as I can. I feel like I might start sobbing.
He pulls back and looks into my eyes again, searching them as he cradles my head in his hands. I do my best to look back at him with every ounce of excitement and joy I can muster, but that almost breaks when he tells me, “I love you.”
I swallow, hard. “I love you, too.”
He glances back over his shoulder at the police station, and I close my eyes, still dizzy and shaking from everything that’s just happened. “We have to hurry,” he says, his voice now urgent.
He takes my hand and pulls me toward a dark and dangerous future.
We call a cab and hurry back to Madigan. Ben needs to find his friend’s address, and I need to set the other details of my plan in motion.
As he runs to his room, I hurry to Arthur’s cabin and, pretending to stop and readjust a shoe, slip a note under the door, trying to do it quickly in case Helper is watching.
And then, in a matter of hours, Ben and I are on a bus to Oxford. We ditched our cell phones so we can’t be traced, and we’ve told no one where we are or where we’re going. Helper will have seen us running away, but I haven’t caught sight of him since the police station. I’m hoping that we’ve escaped him for now, at least. I just need to buy some time.
“Tell me why we can trust this friend of yours again,” I demand.
Ben sighs. He’s told me three times already, but something in me needs to make absolutely sure. My entire plan hinges on some guy I’ve never met.
“Mike’s American, like you. He came to Madigan as a fifth former, and he was a year older than I was. He was quiet—didn’t make many friends, kept to himself, you know? But he and I got to know each other pretty well on the rugby team. We both hated our dads and wanted them to shove off, I guess. So he told me when he graduated that if I ever needed to get away, I could stay with him.”
We sit in the back of the bus, huddled together in a corner with no one around us. Still, we speak in low voices. Our lives have become a series of whispers.
Ben didn’t even call Mike from the hall phone back at Rawlings, afraid someone would overhear. “And he won’t care that we’re just showing up?” I ask.
“He won’t mind, I promise,” Ben says.
&nbs
p; I bite my lip and watch the landscape fade from the harsh wildness of the moors into a soft green idyll, filled with tall trees and grassy hills. Most of the trees have lost their leaves, but soft green smudges are beginning to cover their dark, naked branches. We speed past farm fields and clusters of lumbering cows in between small villages with gabled roofs and the occasional grafittied urban sprawl. The only thing that doesn’t change is the sky: The clouds above are the same gray and threatening ones, hanging low over the ground. I’ve left my sketchbook behind with everything else, but my fingers itch to fly across a page, capturing this transition.
Ben sits silently beside me, his eyes wide open and fixed out the window, his hand still grasping mine. He has hardly let it go since his desperate proposal. Neither of us has slept in hours, but there’s too much adrenaline coursing through us to allow for any rest.
It takes almost four hours traveling due south to reach Oxford. But as the bus rolls through the town toward its stop, I feel as if we’ve traveled back in time. It’s a world of gray, brown, and dark green, and everything breathes history. The university’s various colleges tower above us, their Gothic spires reaching into a sky fading into a sea of rose and gold as the sun sets. Students amble along narrow cobblestone paths, disappearing from view. I can hear their loud conversations and shouts of laughter through the thin plastic window. They wear heavy sweaters and bright smiles.
I glance at Ben. If he followed the path his father had chosen for him—if I had not come into his life—this is where he would end up. He would be one of these bustling students, trekking from important class to important class, discussing literature and politics with his classmates, maybe even punting on the narrow green river we ride over. I am looking at everything I’ve taken away from him.
We get off on a more commercial street, with pharmacies and clothes shops and streams of people crowding the sidewalks. As I step down from the bus, swiveling my head to take it all in, Ben offers me his hand. I take it, and he wraps his hand securely around mine, quirking the corner of his lips into a hint of a smile. We can do this.
Mike lives in a flat not too far from the bus stop. We wend our way over a few blocks, past impressive stone walls and gates that lead to the colleges, bells pealing from their towers as the hour turns. We pass several restaurants, the smell of cooking food wafting through the air and making our stomachs rumble, and finally come to a street of brightly colored row houses.
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