Everyone was OK.
‘We need to get going,’ Zoe said impatiently. ‘Raj said we had to go straight back to the school.’
‘Yeah, let’s keep moving,’ Carter agreed. ‘I don’t know how long Nicole’s leg’s going to make it.’
‘I’m fine,’ Nicole insisted, but Allie could see the pain etched in her face.
The rain had stopped but the footpath was slippery mud and they moved with caution.
The adrenaline that had kept Allie going up until now was wearing off, and as they made their way down the hill she began to feel again. The cut on her arm throbbed. Her entire body felt stiff and bruised – as if she’d been in another car crash. But she knew the others were hurting, too, so she set her jaw and kept going.
When she tripped over a rock, though, the movement sent pain shooting through her shoulder and she was unable to suppress a whimper.
‘Here.’ Sylvain slipped his arm round her waist, supporting her weight. ‘Lean on me.’
‘I’m OK,’ she lied and he almost smiled.
‘I know you are,’ he said.
It seemed to take hours to reach the school, although Allie knew it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes.
When they limped across the terraced back gardens and through the door, they found the building flooded with light and almost too warm after so long out in the rain. Allie hadn’t realised she was shivering until she reached the heat.
But the wide hallway was strangely empty.
Exchanging puzzled looks, they walked past the marble statues and oil paintings, their footsteps echoing in the quiet. When they reached the foot of the grand staircase, they stopped, looking around them in bewilderment.
‘Where is everyone?’ Zoe whispered.
Carter shook his head. ‘The great hall?’
But when they pushed open the door the big ballroom was dark and empty.
‘Maybe we should try Isabelle’s office.’ Allie’s voice was calm, but her heart had begun to race. Something was wrong. It was too quiet.
They made their way back to the staircase. Underneath it, the door to Isabelle’s office was ajar, but the light was turned off. The office was empty.
‘I don’t get it,’ Zoe said. ‘They have to be somewhere.’
‘Maybe they’re all outside,’ Nicole suggested.
‘Not Isabelle and the teachers, though…’ Carter said. ‘Not all of them.’
Stepping away from Sylvain, Allie turned a slow circle, listening to the silence. The building didn’t feel the way it should. There were no creaking sounds of footsteps above them. No distant laughter from the dorms.
It felt… hollow. Empty.
In the silence, they all noticed the soft sound of shushing footsteps above them; someone was coming down the stairs.
Sylvain, Carter and Zoe – the only ones not too beaten to fight – stepped forward with caution.
The footsteps continued at a slow, steady pace until they reached the landing above them – then the sound stopped.
‘Oh my God,’ Katie said, horrified. ‘What happened to you?’
Her red hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail and she wore her white Cimmeria pyjamas and slippers. In her hand she carried an empty hot-water bottle. She looked so clean – so normal – that for a long moment they all just stared at her.
Tired and trembling from the cold and the loss of blood, Allie ran a shaking hand through her wet hair, as if to smooth it, before she realised what she was doing.
‘Where is everyone?’ Zoe hopped up a few steps towards the redhead.
‘Everyone… who?’ Katie asked, giving her an odd look.
‘She means the teachers,’ Carter asked.
‘The teachers are meeting in the classroom wing,’ Katie said. ‘Or at least they were an hour ago.’
But Allie still had a bad feeling. Something about the quiet.
‘What about the students?’ Her voice sounded hoarse and tired. ‘Where are the students?’
Katie walked closer to them, her slippers shushing on each step.
‘The students who remain are in the dorms.’ She held up the bottle. ‘I’m getting this for Emma. She can’t sleep.’
‘You say those who remain.’ Nicole looked pale and drawn in the white light of the crystal chandelier. ‘How many students are left?’
Katie’s gaze took in Allie’s torn sleeve and bloody arm, Carter’s swollen chin, Rachel’s bruised face.
‘There are about forty of us,’ she said gravely. ‘I’m sorry.’
Allie’s chest tightened. This morning there’d been nearly two hundred students at the school. Now there were forty?
She wanted to cry but she was too exhausted. They’d fought and struggled and nearly died tonight. They’d defeated Nathaniel and saved Rachel and yet they still lost?
How?
Despair was like a weight in the air, dragging them all down.
Katie seemed to try and fail to think of something to make them feel better. Then, she held up the bottle in her hand. ‘Look, I’ve got to get this filled. Emma can’t be alone.’
Numb, they stepped back to let her pass, and she shuffled down the hallway. She’d only gone a few steps, though, when she stopped and turned back. ‘You did the best you could. We all know that.’
When she’d gone, they stared at each other helplessly. Allie couldn’t think of one word to say – nothing would make this better. The students were gone. They hadn’t found the spy. And Nathaniel was still out there.
Her arm throbbed a reminder of how hard they’d fought, and she gripped it with her good hand to hold it steady.
In her mind she saw Nathaniel’s face, the victory in his eyes. ‘Tell Lucinda she’s already lost.’
Was he right? Was it all over? It seemed impossible to imagine. But this felt like failure.
‘What happens now?’ Zoe asked, her voice echoing.
Allie looked at her muddy face. She’d fallen and scraped the skin on her forehead at some point but her brown eyes were bright.
It was Carter who replied, gruff but unflinching. ‘We fight. And we win.’
Sylvain made a soft sound and stepped away. Allie knew without a word what he was thinking. Because she was thinking the same thing.
How?
EPILOGUE
‘T
his way, Miss Sheridan, Miss Patel.’ The man in the uniform handed their passports back with elaborate formality and gestured for them to follow him.
Exchanging a glance, the two girls walked behind him down the stairs. The morning light was unforgiving – Allie could see how Rachel had attempted to cover her black eye with makeup and failed. The powder only made the marks on her skin more obvious.
Allie’s wounded left arm was held tight against her chest in a sling. She’d had to cut the sleeve off her blouse to accommodate the thick bandages. She could only imagine how they must look to a stranger but their escort hadn’t raised an eyebrow when he saw them.
At the foot of the stairs, he opened a door and they stepped out on to the tarmac. The air was cool and damp. Allie’s nose wrinkled at the acrid smell of jet fuel.
Ahead of them, Lucinda’s private jet gleamed silver on the runway. At any other time she would have been thrilled at the chance to ride in it. But this wasn’t any other time.
They were running away.
Lucinda had explained it simply on the phone. ‘Until we establish who the spy is, the school isn’t safe for you.’
‘But where am I going?’ Allie had asked.
‘I’m not telling you or anybody else that information,’ Lucinda said. ‘You will find out when the plane lands. This has all become too dangerous, Allie.’
Allie, who now had fifteen new stitches in her body to remember Nathaniel by, knew this already. But she wasn’t going without a fight.
‘I’m not leaving the others,’ she’d said stubbornly. ‘What about them? It’s dangerous for them, too.’
‘It’s not them Nathanie
l wants,’ Lucinda said. ‘It’s you. And if I can get you out of the picture I think it will make them safer, at least for a while.’
‘But why can’t they all just come with me?’ Allie had asked, not giving up.
Lucinda’s reply had been simple. ‘Because it’s easy to hide two people. It’s harder to hide six.’
She said she was sending Rachel with her so she wouldn’t be lonely and also to act as a tutor. Raj would coordinate their security.
Ahead of them, the plane’s door swung open; its stairs unfolded like an insect’s legs, stretching down to the runway.
In silence the two girls followed the uniformed man to the plane.
Inside, it was all luxury. The cabin’s twelve armchairs were upholstered in buttery leather dyed a tasteful shade of taupe. The furniture wouldn’t have been out of place in an upscale hotel or a fine office. The jet had a clean scent of leather and furniture polish – nothing like the commercial jets Allie remembered from family holidays.
Allie and Rachel sat where they were told, facing each other across a polished walnut table. A flight attendant brought them glasses of iced orange juice and Allie watched the beads of condensation gather on the glass and fall like rain.
Her arm ached and she touched it gingerly. The doctor had given her painkillers but she hadn’t taken any yet. She knew they’d make her sleepy and she wanted to know everything that was happening – she needed to stay alert.
Most of all, she wanted to know where they were going.
The engines roared into life.
Across the table, Rachel looked tired and scared. Allie reached out her good hand; Rachel took it and squeezed it lightly.
‘You OK?’ Allie asked.
Rachel nodded. ‘Fine… just…’ She made a vague gesture that said, ‘All this.’
Allie knew what she meant. It had all happened so fast. There hadn’t been time to process it. There wasn’t even a chance to say goodbye properly. Zoe would be so upset when she found out they were gone. Nicole was still in the infirmary. And Carter and Sylvain… they’d all risked their lives to save her last night. And now she was leaving them behind.
Leaping on to the plane just before the doors closed, Raj strode to their table. ‘Are you both ready?’
They gave dutiful nods.
He rested a hand on Rachel’s shoulder before heading up to the cockpit to sit with the pilots and, a few minutes later, the wheels began to turn. The plane sped down the runway with a kind of eagerness – as if it couldn’t wait to be in the air.
But all Allie wanted to do was stay.
In physics they’d studied the way aeroplanes take off. There’s something called the point of no return, when the plane’s speed is so high, and the amount of runway ahead so limited, there’s no physical way to stop safely. The plane must either take flight or crash.
That’s what this journey felt like – like they had to go. They had no other choice.
The jet was so powerful, so fleet, when the wheels left the tarmac Allie barely felt it but she gripped the edge of the table as the world dropped away. The green English countryside spread out beneath them, with its ancient hedgerows and castles, small villages and busy motorways, all fading slowly behind a curtain of grey clouds, and then disappearing entirely.
Allie saw it through a haze of unshed tears.
There was no going back now.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
If you are reading this book you are one of my favourite people in the world and I would like to thank you so much for coming with me on this journey so far. Your emails, letters and tweets fill my days with joy. I am forever in your debt. Thank you.
I want to thank the amazing Madeleine Milburn, who is both my friend and the best agent a girl could ever have. Were it not for her, there is no way this book would be in your hands right now. She makes things happen. Maddy, you are my hero.
Huge thanks also go to my international team of amazing editors and translators. First, to the team at Atom/Little, Brown in the UK – especially the fabulous and ludicrously talented Samantha Smith. Sam – I will follow you to the ends of the earth. Thank you for everything. Also to my French team at Collection R/Robert Laffont – led by the brilliant Glenn Tavennec, who is just as suave and calm under pressure as you’d hope – and my incredible German group at Oetinger, led by the unflappable and wonderful Doris Jahnsen. And to all my international publishers – thank you so much for your hard work! We are doing this together.
The first readers of this book are a group of my friends who do the difficult but so important thing of being honest with me. Laura Barbey, Kate Bell, Catriona Verner-Jeffries, and Hélène Rudyck, you are my muses. I couldn’t do it without you. Thank you all so much. Please read all my books for ever. In return, I will give you all the cupcakes.
To all the booksellers and librarians who have personally put my books into people’s hands – if I weren’t already married I’d want to marry you all. If it weren’t for people like you I’d never have read so there’s no way I could ever have written. You make people’s lives better. Thank you.
And, finally, to my patient, thoughtful husband, Jack, who reads my bad early drafts, helps me work out sticky plots, picks me up when I fall down, and convinces me not to give up when the going gets rough – thank you so much. I love you.
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