by April Marcom
But there’s still tomorrow. One day to go back in time together. I held on to that thought as I unpacked and got ready for bed, not speaking to anyone for the rest of the night.
Chapter Sixteen
~ Cinder Territory ~
I felt the light hit my eyes before someone started shaking me. “Come on, Kristine. We’ve got physical fitness in a little while,” Harmony said.
“Are you serious?” I sat up and climbed slowly out of bed. A few girls were still there, but the room was mostly empty. “Why’d you let me sleep so late? Now I can’t eat breakfast.” And I was seeing Luke today. For some reason, I felt like I needed time to figure out what I was going to wear.
“You didn’t set an alarm. I thought you wanted to sleep in. You didn’t say anything about it last night.”
“Yeah...” I rubbed my eyes and tried to go over my wardrobe in my head. “Sorry. I should have set an alarm. How long do I have?”
“Twenty minutes, so we should probably leave in fifteen.”
“Okay. Just don’t leave without me. I have no idea where I’m going.”
She laughed and grabbed a magazine from the top of her dresser before she climbed onto her bed. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”
All I really needed to do was brush my teeth and hair, get it all into a ponytail, and pull a bodysuit on. Then I could pick out clothes and shoes and put them in my bag.
When we walked out of the room fifteen minutes later, I dreaded going back into the gloomy hallways of the southland school. And on the way down the stairs, I realized something I hadn’t thought of before. “Do Cinders have to do something really bad to get recruited, like us?”
“We didn’t do something really bad.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” she giggled. We reached the end of the stairway and started toward the cafeteria. Miss Tripside was sitting at the end of the hallway now. “I can’t say for sure. Obviously they have to do something to get noticed by their headmaster, but I don’t really know much about them. None of us do.”
“That doesn’t bother anyone? I mean—aren’t you even curious?”
“Not really.”
I smelled the buttery biscuits and bacon as we passed the cafeteria and continued for a while to a set of doors on the other side of the hallway. They pounded loudly against each other when we closed them behind us.
The gymnasium we walked into wasn’t nearly as big as the one I was still getting used to up north, but it was full of familiar faces wearing white suits like mine, which felt nice. “This is all ours. Cinders never come in here,” Harmony told me as we walked toward Coach Beckham’s group. “The girls’ showers are through those doors on the right. Boys on the other side. Nadine and the other competitors usually aren’t here. They train in their own arenas.”
Sassy waved when she saw us.
“Fayre!” Coach Beckham bellowed as we joined the crowd. “I’m timing you sprinting today. Everyone else, give me two laps around the wall.” Coach and I walked toward the wall while the other girls began stretching.
“Why are you timing me?” I asked.
“Coach Ling wants to have a record of it.”
I looked back when I heard the door shut and saw Roman running toward us. “Can I speak to Kristine for a minute, Coach Beckham?”
Say no, say no, say no, I silently pleaded.
“Does Coach Rolland know you’re here?” my coach asked.
“Yes, sir. I just need her for a minute.”
“All right, but only for a minute. I wanna get her timed before the rest of my students finish their laps.” Coach walked ahead to wait by the racing lines.
I stared at Roman, still angry at him for the night before.
“Kristine...I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you not to talk to that guy. But I can’t help myself. You’re so beautiful; I wish I could lock you away and keep you to myself sometimes.”
I raised an eyebrow. He was not helping his case.
“But I’ll make it up to you, okay? I’ll make this better. Just...don’t be mad at me anymore.” He put a hand on my arm and leaned forward to kiss my cheek, keeping his lips there a few seconds longer than necessary.
As soon as he let go, I turned away and ran toward Coach Beckham. The next hour was as hardcore as always, working out until we all thought we’d collapse. Then it was off to the showers. Sassy had a lot of fun trying to get my hair just right. I even let her put some eyeliner and lip gloss on me.
When we walked out of the gym, I searched the Cinder faces as we passed them in the hallway. But we got all the way to the cafeteria, and still no sign of Luke. “Looks like he’s a no show,” Harmony said. The three of us stopped in front of the cafeteria doors. “Do you wanna get something to eat with us instead?”
“No, I’ll wait. I really want to see him.”
Harmony gave me a sympathetic look. “Kristine, you can’t trust Cinders. He probably won’t even bother to come.”
“Yes, he will. I’m sure he got held up or something, but he’ll be here.”
“If you change your mind...” She and Sassy left me alone for the food on the other side of the door, which was already making my mouth water.
As I turned around to go sit under a torch and draw, I walked right into someone’s rock-solid chest, his shoulders and arms pushing forward enough to help me regain my balance. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—Luke! Where did you come from? I didn’t see you anywhere.”
“You should be careful. Apologizing to a Cinder’s kind of a slap to the face.” His smile was playful as he took a step back.
“Right. I’ve got to remember that. So, do you wanna get something to eat?”
“Sure, but let’s go somewhere else, somewhere more private.”
“Okay.”
He pulled open the door across the hall from the cafeteria and held it for me. Everything felt unreal as we walked through an empty gymnasium and into another hallway. I still couldn’t believe I was with him. I kept sneaking glances his way, unable to believe how big and buff he’d gotten. The spiky hair really worked for him, too.
“You might want to put this on. You’ll stick out pretty badly without it.” Luke handed me a black sweatshirt.
We began passing rooms with no doors on them. The first few had music blasting and people dancing around inside them. Then we passed a couple with kids sitting around watching big screen TVs.
“Haven’t seen one of those in awhile,” I said.
“You don’t have TVs at North Haven?”
“No. I guess we could watch something on our cons if we really wanted to, but we’re usually pretty busy with classes and having fun doing other stuff. I’ve hardly thought about TV since I got recruited a few weeks ago.”
“A few weeks ago?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve only been here a few weeks too, but what’s a con? Is it like a laptop or something?”
“I’ll show you.” I reached in my bag as he stopped in front of a door with long chairs and a few people sitting on them in pairs inside. When I pulled my con out and touched it, it began to unfold.
Luke grabbed my elbow and pulled me to the side away from the room. “What are you doing? Put that thing away.”
“Why?”
“Someone will see it. Put it away now!” The urgency in his voice and in his eyes scared me.
“Kristine Con, return.” As it fell into my hand, I began to understand.
Luke didn’t want anyone to know he was with a North Havener. I should have realized when I saw all the kids in black and the depressing atmosphere that I was stepping into Cinder territory. That was why he didn’t want to go in the cafeteria with me. That was why he wanted me to wear dark colors. My eyes began to tear up. “You don’t want to be seen with me.” I looked down so he wouldn’t see me cry as I turned to walk away.
“No, Kristine, that’s not it.” He grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. “It’s just...” He looked back and fort
h through the empty hallway as he came to stand right in front of me, leaning down to place his face only a couple of inches from mine. His voice became a whisper. “It’s not safe. If people saw us together we could both become targets. I can handle that, but I won’t let that happen to you. No one from your school has ever set foot on this side of the fitness rooms. It’s dangerous. I’m only trying to protect you.”
It was hard to focus on what he was saying, because with his body against mine like that, my heart was pounding like it never had before. He licked his full lips and lifted his eyebrows, making me want to melt all over the floor. What is going on?
“I’m going to take you to the counter in there. Grab what you want and follow me to a chair, understand?”
I nodded, still having a hard time thinking of anything other than the face, once so young and innocent, which had become what it was now. I could almost see the heavenly angels spending years around him, chiseling away every perfect detail that made up that face. In the dim shadows of the hallway, I began to see him in a whole new light.
He turned around and led me into the room and over to a counter. I was surprised to find a small lamp on each end of it, revealing a glass-front mini-fridge full of sandwiches and drinks, and baskets full of snack stuff. I grabbed a turkey sandwich, a bottle of water, and a giant gingersnap cookie before I followed Luke to the chair farthest away from the burning fireplace in the back of the room.
The chairs were far enough apart and the other kids were talking loud enough that no one would hear what we said. We had to sit pretty close together, so I tried to sit kind of sideways so I could still look at him while we talked.
“Do you want one?” I asked, offering him half my sandwich.
He shook his head and waved a hand.
I ate as quickly as I could, because I really wanted to hear what happened to him after I saw him last. Halfway through my cookie, I couldn’t wait any longer. “Where’d you get transferred to when I was sent to the Broken Ridge girls’ home?”
His eyebrows moved down. “The old woman at that place said she didn’t know where you’d ended up.”
“What old woman?”
“I don’t know. I walked all the way there and this old hag with big glasses and half her teeth missing told me you were sent to a foster family in a different part of the state.”
“You walked all the way there? But we were in the middle of nowhere outside of the other end of town. That must have taken you hours. And Ms. Wendy told me the same thing when I kept asking her if I could go see you.”
Unmistakable rage filled his face. He leaned forward and began shaking his head.
“Are you all right?” I asked, setting my cookie on the floor to put a hand on his arm.
He leaned back and began nodding his head instead of shaking it. “I’ll kill her.” His eyes were wide now, almost afraid, the way they used to get on his bad nights when he came over. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT I WENT THROUGH—” He looked up at the kids turning to stare and lowered his voice. “Do you know what I went through because of her? I thought I would never see you again, and you were always right there.” His fists clenched and unclenched several times as he took up shaking his head again.
“You weren’t moved away, either?”
“Yeah, I was. The Rorks couldn’t handle all the trouble I started getting into, so they sent me away. I was so angry that I would never see you again, and there was nothing I could do about it.”
“I’m here now, and killing Ms. Wendy won’t change the past.” I smiled, hoping he wasn’t serious when he said that.
“I know, but—all that lost time. I died inside when you were taken from me, and everything went wrong after that.”
“I died inside, too. It felt like you were the only thing that could keep me together after my mom died, and then you were taken away too...”
He stared into the fire with so much anger and pain. I wanted to make him feel better more than anything else in the world. My head tilted as an idea came to me. “But look at us now. We kind of live together for the next three months. And it never would have happened if you hadn’t gotten into whatever trouble led you here. Things worked out really well.”
He laughed softly as he smiled over at me. “Yeah. You’re still my Kristine, always seeing the bright side of everything.” He put his arm around me, so I leaned against his side. “Just like before.”
“Just like before.” It felt so good to be curled up beside him again. I decided I didn’t care about Cinder/North Haven rivalry. I finally had Luke back, and I wasn’t giving him up again.
“Luke?”
“Everyone here calls me Knight. Most of the kids who come through here without Cinder-worthy names get renamed. I was lucky enough to have a last name Headmaster found acceptable, so you might want to call me by that one.”
“Knight? That’s weird. You’ll always be Luke to me.”
He smiled over at me. “I know, and I guess it’s okay when it’s just us. But the rest of the time, it’s Knight.”
I looked at the fire this time, as it began to sink in how everything was so temporary. “When will we ever see each other when we’re not here?”
“When we’re eighteen, I guess. We’ll both be leaving school.”
“I’m never leaving North Haven.”
His head jerked to the side. “You never want to have a life?”
“I do want to have a life. At North Haven. It’s home now and I don’t want to leave it. The world’s cruel. North Haven is the only place in it that’s all good.”
“But...I thought they turned you out so you can do good in the world, and they turn us out to undo it.”
“What?” I had to laugh. “That’s ridiculous. We’re trained for whatever we want to do with our lives, with the goal in mind to do whatever we can to make the world a better place. I’m training to be an artist and to head the activities committee at North Haven when I’m old enough...I guess I hadn’t really thought about what you’re being trained to do. Is that really what you’re here for? To undo any good we do?”
“No. We’re trained to undo any good, really. That’s just how I’ve got it in my head.”
“But, Luke, you have so much good in you. You were a straight-A student, and you were always there for me. How could you spend the next three years being trained for that?”
He pulled his arm away and leaned forward again. “Things changed after you were gone. I knew no one could ever replace you, but I had to do something...I looked for acceptance wherever I could find it, and the guys I found it with liked to rob houses.”
I gasped in disbelief. Luke Knight could not be a robber.
“That’s what landed me here. I was the only guy in the circle the cops could never trace it to. I was smart enough not to say too much to anyone and to use a fake name, so if anyone ever ratted me out, no one would be able to find me. I never trusted any of those guys, but I found my place in the world, and they were it.”
I reached out for his hand. “I’m...sorry...I wish things had gone differently for you.”
He squeezed my hand and gave me a little grin. “Yeah, well, it got us both here, right? Everything worked out.”
“No.” I shook my head, hating the words I’d used, because nothing had worked out for him. He was still surrounded by people he would never be able to trust, and I felt responsible. If I’d ever called or found a way to get to his house, things would have gone so much differently. But I felt helpless. I wasn’t allowed to leave the orphanage for anything but school, and as far as I knew, we didn’t even have a phone there. If only there was a way to make things right. If only he’d been recruited to North Haven instead. He deserved to be there, not here in darkness and filth. As I thought of the crowd Luke had fallen in with and how they’d done this to him, I began to understand why we hated the Cinders so much. They were the ones who destroyed lives and drew really good kids into the wrong crowd.
“What now?” I asked. “We never talk to
each other again after today, because you’re a Cinder and I’m a Northerner?”
“Nah, you know that would never work for us. We need each other now as much as we did before, right?”
I nodded, full of relief that he felt the same way and that nothing had changed between us.
But what about when spring comes? It was an agonizing thought, one I would have to force myself not to think about.
Luke put his arm back around me and I eased into him, pulling my legs up and resting my knees over his lap. Then he leaned over to look at my feet suddenly. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That.” He picked up my purse and I heard it too. Bubbles blowing and popping.
“It’s my con. I need to answer it.”
“Can’t you shut it off?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never needed to.”
He leaned his head back in exasperation. People were staring. Luke stood up and grabbed my arm, dragging me out of the room. “Sorry,” he whispered in the hallway, still pulling me along. “It’s the only way to protect you.” He opened a door to our left and hauled me into a bathroom where two boys were peeing into urinals.
Chapter Seventeen
~ Mysterious Attack ~
“Oh my gosh.” I closed my eyes and turned away, not believing what I’d been forced to witness.
“What’s wrong with you, Knight?” one boy asked angrily.
“Out!”
“Dude,” another voice said.
I heard Luke’s footsteps moving toward them and then shuffling and someone banging into something. “All right, all right,” one of the strangers said. “Come on, Hale.”
I waited for the door to close to open my eyes. “Why’d you bring me in here?”
“So you could answer your thing. Now hurry up before someone else comes in.” He grabbed the handle on the door and held it shut as I pulled my con out.
When it had fully opened, Rose appeared and the bathroom was full of broken screaming. She was lying on the ground somewhere, obviously suffering torturous pain, with one eye swollen nearly shut. “—NEED HELP...HE’S STILL HERE...SOMEONE HELP MEEE...”