The sound of strange voices and heavy footsteps on stone woke Allie with a start from an awful dream in which Jo cried out for her but she couldn’t find her anywhere.
Her eyelids seemed stuck together and her head pounded with nauseating intensity. She rubbed her eyes and they fluttered open to an extraordinary vision – bright yellow, vivid blue, green, and red light flooded the room, blinding her.
It was like being in the middle of a rainbow.
‘What the…?’ Squinting, she shaded her eyes with her hand.
Mark grumbled in his sleep as her elbow dug into his ribs.
‘Sorry.’ She said the word reflexively just as she recognised the stained glass, the pulpit, the flickering candles melting into pools of wax, and the crowd of people standing around them.
‘Oh bollocks. Mark.’ She shook his shoulder hard. ‘Wake up.’
Without opening his eyes, he swatted her hand away. ‘Don’t. Jus’ fell asleep.’
In front of them, a police officer stood with his hands on his hips, disgust in his gaze. ‘Both of you: Up. You’re coming with me.’
The local police station was in a small, squat building near a slow-moving stream at the edge of town. After a short, nearly silent ride together in the back seat of a police car, Allie and Mark were led through the utilitarian entrance.
As the police led them from the church to the car, Allie had heard someone complaining to the officers in strident tones about ‘hooligans’ and ‘vandals’.
There was a time when that would have made her proud.
Once they were in the station, the two were steered into different rooms. As she saw Mark’s blue head disappearing down the corridor, a sudden surge of panic made Allie’s heart leap into her throat. She turned to run after him but a police officer shut the door in her face.
The room where they held her was small and crowded with desks, filing cabinets and shelves. It smelled unpleasantly of mildew, but at least it was warm, and Allie’s limbs slowly began to thaw. Windows set too high on the wall for her to see out let in bright daylight.
Two officers stayed with her. One was young, with a penetrating gaze. The other was older, and had a beard that needed trimming. Neither of them seemed openly unkind.
Allie sat in a battered metal chair, facing them. The younger one was at a computer, where he typed things in using only his index fingers. The older one made notes on a pad of paper. He asked her name and age, and she answered numbly as the young one entered the information into the computer with surprising speed.
When the older one asked for her parents’ names and address, though, she pressed her fingertips hard against her aching temples.
This was so bad.
‘Please. Could you just call Isabelle le Fanult at Cimmeria Academy?’ she said after a long pause. ‘She knows me. Can I have some water?’ Her mouth was so dry it felt like her tongue was permanently attached to the roof of her mouth.
At the mention of the school, the two officers exchanged a look.
‘Are you a student at the school?’ the older officer asked. With a fatherly face and greying hair, he didn’t look threatening.
Allie nodded.
‘Now that is interesting.’ He turned to the younger officer, who was typing busily. ‘Have we ever had a Cimmeria student in here before?’
Without looking up from his monitor, the younger officer shook his head. ‘I don’t think we have.’
The fatherly cop turned back to Allie, studying her with open curiosity. Squirming a little, Allie had a good idea what he saw – a teenage girl with dirt on her face, tangled dark hair and a pounding hangover.
‘What’s a nice boarding-school girl doing burgling a church? Couldn’t your parents just buy one for you if you really wanted one?’
The computer cop snorted a laugh.
Looking back and forth between them, blood rushed to Allie’s face. She hated being laughed at.
Tilting up her chin, she met the officer’s gaze coldly. ‘You have no idea what my life is like.’
But the cop didn’t seem intimidated by this in the slightest. In fact, he looked as if it was the reaction he’d hoped for.
‘Oh really?’ He leaned back in his chair so far the front legs came off the ground. ‘Why don’t you tell us?’
Sullen, Allie shook her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘That is a shame,’ he said, his smile disappearing. ‘Because talking about it is the only thing that’s going to get you out of here in a hurry.’
A tingling sense of suspicion made goosebumps rise on Allie’s arms. This wasn’t right. She’d been arrested several times before and the police had never acted like this. They never cared where she went to school. It was always straightforward and no nonsense: ‘What’s your name? How old are you? Who’s your parent or guardian?’
Keeping her voice steady, she held his gaze. ‘I am sixteen years old. I can’t talk to you without a responsible adult present. Call my headmistress, Isabelle le Fanult. She will tell you everything you need to know.’
‘Oh, we’ll do that,’ the officer assured her. He didn’t look so fatherly now. ‘But first we want to ask you a few questions.’
For what seemed an interminable amount of time, they asked questions and she refused to answer them. How many students were at the school? How many teachers? What were their names? What went on at the school? Any strange classes? Any odd behaviour? Anything illegal? Drugs?
Allie just stared at the floor, angry and exhausted. All she would say was, ‘Call Isabelle le Fanult. She will answer your questions.’
When she finally heard Raj’s familiar voice from the front desk, the relief felt like fresh oxygen in her lungs. She took a steadying breath – she was going to get out of here.
The two officers left her alone then. The walls were thin, and she could hear Raj calmly presenting paperwork proving she was a student at the school, explaining – lying – that Mark was a student too, and that it was all just a childish prank. The school would, he said, pay for any damage.
He was nothing but polite although she could hear simmering anger beneath the surface of his voice. Whether that anger was directed at her or the police, she couldn’t tell.
When the police asked him about the school’s security system, he never raised his voice but his tone was chilling.
‘I could answer your questions, of course,’ he said. ‘But first, why don’t you tell me how long you held these children before you notified the school they were in your custody?’
A pause followed.
‘We would have called you sooner,’ the officer replied after a moment, ‘but they refused to tell us who they were. We had a devil of a time identifying them. Seems you’ve got some problem kids up at that school.’
Hearing the flat lie, Allie stared at the door in disbelief.
But the unspoken threat in Raj’s question seemed to have the intended effect. After that they asked no more questions. When she walked into the room a few minutes later, Raj’s eyes searched her face for signs of harm.
‘You OK?’ he asked.
‘No thanks to them.’ She shot a contemptuous look at the officers.
Raj’s face darkened. ‘Don’t blame them. You got yourself into this trouble.’
With that, the sense of relief evaporated – Raj might be rescuing her from the local cops but he was also still angry.
As they walked from the police station Allie squinted tiredly into the sun. The sky was bright blue, the late winter air crystalline and cold. The beauty of the day struck her as ironic.
At that moment, Raj’s black-clad security guards appeared at her side to escort her across the small car park. Her eyes were sandy with exhaustion and her head pounded as if someone was beating her skull from the inside. She was being ushered into a black SUV when she spotted Mark being placed in another car driven by one of Raj’s guards.
‘Mark!’ she cried after him. He didn’t look up.
Anger – al
ways looking for an excuse to strike these days – uncoiled inside her.
‘Where are you taking him?’ From the back seat, she leaned forward to where Raj was climbing into the driver’s seat.
When he didn’t reply, she just kept asking, her voice shrill. ‘Where? Where?’
‘To Cimmeria,’ Raj snapped as he started the engine and pulled out on to the road. ‘The same place we’re taking you. Now be quiet.’
‘You can’t do that!’ She stared at the back of his head in disbelief. ‘He’s not a student. That’s kidnapping. You have to let him go.’
‘He’s been released into our care legally,’ he said evenly.
‘Legally?’ Her voice rose. ‘You lied to the police. You said he went to Cimmeria and he doesn’t. How is that legal?’
A wave of helpless rage left her trembling.
When he didn’t respond, she reached for the door handle, glaring at the back of his head. The car was moving fast now but she was so angry she didn’t care. ‘Maybe I should just go back and tell them the truth —’
Without warning Raj slammed on the brakes. The car screeched to a halt, skidding from the force of it.
Allie was thrown forward against her seatbelt, and back again hard.
Raj spun round in his seat to face her – for the first time she noticed the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. ‘You have caused enough trouble for one day. Isabelle has been worried sick. I was up all night searching for you. My team hasn’t had a break in fourteen hours because they’ve been out looking for your body.’
Flinching at the last word, Allie struggled to make herself hold his condemning gaze.
‘Now, unless you want to be restrained for your own protection,’ he said, each word sharp as a blade, ‘you need to sit back. And be quiet.’
She knew he was right. Knew she was behaving like a child. But she couldn’t back down – he wasn’t the only one who was angry and tired. With an exaggerated gesture, she lifted her hand from the door handle and rested it in her lap, holding his gaze defiantly.
After a moment, he turned back to face the front and the car began moving again.
For the rest of the journey she stared out of the window.
I have no one left, she thought, fighting back tears. Even Raj hates me.
When they arrived at the school the grounds teemed with activity. At first Allie was puzzled to see so many people around, but then she realised it must be lunchtime. The rare February sunshine had drawn everyone outside.
Students gazed curiously at the line of cars as they rolled up the long gravel drive to stop at the front door. Raj stepped back and let his guards open her door. She climbed out of the car with a guard on each side of her, like a prisoner. She saw Mark being similarly escorted.
As the students gathered around them to watch and whisper, Allie shrank back behind the guards. Within half an hour, everyone in the school would know about this. Rumours would spread like wildfire.
The thought made her feel sick. All she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and hide from their prying eyes. But she couldn’t let them see her humbled.
Raising her face, she swept the crowd with an imperious look – as if this was exactly what she wanted. As if the security guards worked for her.
Suddenly, though, her gaze encountered a pair of extraordinary eyes the precise colour of the clear winter sky above them.
Allie froze.
Standing at the top of the steps leading to the front door, Sylvain watched her incredulously. She could see his tension in the way he held his shoulders and the set of his sharply defined jaw.
For one bittersweet moment she let herself wish he would sweep her up and take her away from this moment. But no one could do that.
Holding her gaze, Sylvain held out his hands questioningly.
Colour rushed to Allie’s cheeks and she dropped her eyes. Because what was there to say?
When she glanced up again he was gone.
Inside, she was met by a furious-looking Isabelle who didn’t say a word to her. As she led the way to her office, Allie couldn’t take her eyes off the stiff, angry line of her back. Her heart sank with every step.
Without saying where she was going, the headmistress left her there, in the care of one of Raj’s guards, who stood silently in front of the door, his arms crossed.
She didn’t see where they took Mark.
Her nerves on edge, Allie looked around the familiar room as she waited for Isabelle to return. Low wooden cabinets lined one wall, while Isabelle’s large desk took up much of the remaining space – her eyes darted to the elegant leather blotter where she’d found the mobile phone yesterday. It was empty now.
Isabelle would never make that mistake again.
Before she could think about that further, though, Isabelle returned accompanied by Night School instructor Jerry Cole. The two looked solemn and tense as they asked the guard to leave them alone.
Isabelle sat at her desk; Jerry perched on a filing cabinet. Isabelle was white with anger.
Jerry spoke first, his voice stern. ‘Allie, you are in a tremendous amount of trouble. We need to know exactly what happened, and you will make things better for yourself if you answer our questions.’
Her stomach roiling, Allie nodded to show she understood. ‘I just… could I have something to drink? I’m really thirsty.’
Silently Isabelle opened the small refrigerator she kept in one corner and handed her a bottle of water.
Allie didn’t think anything had ever tasted as good as that water.
Their questions were straightforward. How had she got Isabelle’s phone? How had she escaped? How had she got into town? Had anyone helped her?
She tried to answer as clearly as she could – hoping that would get her out of there quicker – but they just kept asking more questions.
When she told them what happened at the police station, Isabelle and Jerry exchanged a dark look.
‘I’ll take care of it, Isabelle,’ Jerry said placatingly. But Isabelle didn’t appear mollified.
‘Find out who they are,’ she said. ‘I want to take care of it myself.’
Still the questions continued. The pain in Allie’s head had worsened, and she was hungry and tired. Her temper grew short.
‘I wish you’d worked this hard to find out who’s helping Nathaniel,’ she snapped.
Jerry glowered at her. ‘How do you know Mark doesn’t work for Nathaniel?’
‘You must be joking.’ Allie scoffed, the very idea making her laugh. That was a mistake.
‘Do you think this is funny?’ He nearly shouted the question.
Before Allie could reply, Isabelle held up her hand. ‘That’s enough. Both of you.’
Allie’s shoulders slumped. She was so tired. The pounding in her temples was growing into a kind of banging. She couldn’t think straight any more.
Isabelle turned back to face Allie. For the first time today, she didn’t look angry. She looked sad. ‘Just answer this one last question, Allie: what did you tell Mark about Cimmeria?’
Allie’s mind unspooled hazy drunken memories of rambling about Night School and Carter. Nathaniel and Isabelle. Security and threats. Jo.
But she didn’t blink. ‘Nothing.’
‘You expect us to believe you ran away from school and spent the night with that boy, but told him nothing?’ Scepticism was clear in Jerry’s voice.
Allie whirled to face him, her anger spilling over. ‘I didn’t run away with Mark to tell him all your amazing secrets. I ran away because I didn’t want to be here any more. Because someone here helped Nathaniel kill Jo and you haven’t done one thing to find him. I’m not safe here. No one is. And I just…’ She pressed her fingertips against her burning eyelids. ‘I wanted to be with my friend.’
‘You may yet get the chance to do that permanently,’ Jerry muttered.
From beneath her hands she shot him an irritated look. ‘If you want to throw me out so badly, why’d you bother bringing m
e back? You should bloody thank me —’
‘Language.’ Isabelle’s tone was sharp. ‘I will not have you swear at a teacher. All the rules of civilisation have not been cancelled simply because you are having a bad day, Allie.’ Turning, she said, ‘Jerry, if you don’t mind I’d like a few minutes alone with Allie. Could you please leave us?’
When he’d gone, the headmistress leaned back against the door, her shoulders drooping, staring at the floor. She looked uncharacteristically vulnerable and an unwanted bitter rush of guilt stung Allie’s heart.
Fracture Page 4