‘That’s good,’ he said.
‘Besides, you’ve already protected me from bullets and kidnapping,’ Allie said. ‘You don’t have to protect me from everything, you know.’
His expression darkened. ‘Yes, I do.’
He crossed the space between them in two steps and then she was in his arms.
‘Don’t you see, Allie? I don’t want anything bad to happen to you,’ he said.
Resting her head against his shoulder, she breathed in his familiar scent. ‘Bad things always happen to me.’
She said it with a complete lack of self-pity. She wasn’t looking for sympathy. It was the truth. Carter knew it already, because he was just like her. Bad things happened to him, too. It was like they were born under the same dark star. But she worried Sylvain didn’t understand it yet and he had to. If they were going to be together, he needed to know what he was getting into.
He didn’t look convinced.
‘I will never get used to it,’ he said firmly. ‘I will stop it.’
His determination warmed her heart. Standing on her toes, she kissed him. His lips were warm and gentle against hers, as if he was cautious – afraid of hurting her.
But she wanted more. She’d felt like she was going to die and now she wanted to feel alive. Wrapping her arms around his neck she pulled him closer, deepening the kiss.
He responded instantly, pulling her closer, opening his lips to hers.
Her hands clenched his shirt and she pushed him back against the counter, pressing herself against him. Demanding more …
At that moment a noise in the hallway – teachers or guards passing mid-conversation – startled them and they leapt apart guiltily. They both struck casual poses, breathing heavily.
When the people in the hallway passed by without coming into the kitchen, Sylvain leaned back against the counter across from her, studying her. He looked feverish and eager.
Allie knew just how he felt. Kissing him made all the doubts go away. All the bad thoughts. All the fear. When she kissed him, all she thought about was her body. And his body.
‘I have to be alone with you,’ he whispered, and the desire in his voice made her shiver. ‘Somewhere we won’t be disturbed.’
Right at this moment, Allie wanted that, too. But she knew it wasn’t possible. Not now.
‘Where, though?’ she asked. ‘The guards watch everything. They’re even in the girls’ dorm.’
Sylvain’s smile was confident; sexy. ‘I’ll find a place.’
Zelazny must have told Isabelle about the panic attack because as soon as Allie’s last class ended, the headmistress ordered her to the infirmary to be checked out.
Allie, who had spent weeks in the infirmary recovering from the attack that resulted in Jo’s death, climbed the stairs with heavy feet.
When she arrived, the nurse seemed unsurprised to see her.
‘I guess it’s about time we had you back in,’ she said with dry humour. ‘What have you done to yourself now?’
When Allie told her about the panic attack, she tutted sympathetically before listening to her heart, taking her pulse and generally poking her around.
‘Well, you’re in better shape than the last time I saw you,’ she said finally. ‘Your heart sounds strong. But if it happens again I want you to come right back here. Agreed? There are things you can take – medications that can help.’
Allie grimaced. Her parents had put her on medication after Christopher left. She knew how brain pills, as she called them, worked. She was convinced they slowed her down. Make her feel weird. Like she wasn’t … her.
Everyone had told her it wasn’t true but she knew her own body.
Besides, she told herself, she didn’t need them. She’d had her last panic attack. And that’s all there was to it.
Mumbling a non-committal reply, she fled down the stairs with the panicked zeal of an escaped prisoner. She was half running along the ground-floor corridor when she saw Rachel heading towards her at an equally fast pace.
‘Hey.’ Rachel stopped her, a worried frown line dividing her eyes. ‘I heard you had a thing. Are you OK?’
‘Totally fine,’ Allie said breezily. ‘Nurse says I’m not sick. I’m just a freak.’
‘Well, she is a medical professional,’ Rachel joked, but Allie could see the concern in her cinnamon-coloured eyes. ‘You haven’t had one of those in while, have you? What set it off?’
Allie made a vague gesture. ‘It was just seeing Zelazny again. Knowing he might be …’
‘Yeah. I get it.’ Rachel patted her shoulder. ‘I’m glad you’re OK.’
Glancing down, Allie noticed Rachel wasn’t wearing her required school shoes. Instead she wore a pair of blue-and-white sandals she’d favoured when they were in France.
‘What’s with the naked toes?’ At Cimmeria, only prefects got to wear their own shoes. Jules had been prefect until her parents sided with Nathaniel and pulled her out of the school.
Her eyes widened. ‘Oh my God. Jules is gone. There has to be a new prefect. It’s you, isn’t it?’
‘There can be only one,’ Rachel intoned, trying and failing to suppress a pleased smile. ‘Anyway, yes. Meet the new boss. Isabelle just told me.’
‘Congratulations! That’s massive!’ Allie hugged her. ‘Are you going to give me marks?’
‘Effective immediately. Detentions all round.’ Rachel’s tone might have been mild but Allie could see she was flushed with happiness. ‘Oh, and there’s something else I need to tell you about but I’ll tell you tonight. I’m saving it up. A surprise.’
‘This is so great,’ Allie said, feeling cheerier. ‘Yes, our teachers might be trying to kill us. But you’re prefect now and you have other fun secrets. It’s like things are finally getting back to normal around here.’
Rachel laughed as they headed back out into the corridor, arm in arm. ‘Your normal terrifies me.’
Allie shot her a wry smile. ‘My normal terrifies everyone.’
11
Eleven
After dinner that night, Allie went straight from the mostly empty dining hall to the strangely quiet common room with Zoe, her book bag heavy on her shoulder.
‘I have so much work,’ she groaned, dropping the bag with a thud. ‘Don’t teachers know we have lives?’
‘School is my life,’ Zoe said, opening her notebook.
‘How awesome for you,’ Allie said darkly.
She settled on to the deep leather sofa and pulled out her books, looking through her assignments with increasing alarm. All the teachers had given out work but the worst was history. When she and Sylvain finally returned to Zelazny’s class, they’d found him giving everyone a huge essay to write.
‘We are looking,’ he’d said, his voice jumping a little as he wrote on the board, ‘at the age of Empire. Particularly, the structure of government and the ramifications for all citizens …’
He’d droned on for ages.
Now she had a week to write three thousand words on something she knew nothing about.
Muttering to herself, she flipped through her text book, but it was soon obvious it contained far too little information.
‘Bugger it.’ She sighed, standing up. ‘I’ve got to go to the library.’
‘I love the library,’ Zoe said without looking up.
Allie couldn’t take much more of her earnestness. She headed for the door, leaving her bag behind. ‘I’m off. If I’m not back in an hour, send a search party.’
‘How could you get lost in the library?’ Zoe looked baffled.
Allie held up her hands in surrender. Zoe didn’t get irony in the best of circumstances – she should have known better.
‘It’s just a stupid thing people say.’
‘People shouldn’t say stupid things,’ Zoe grumbled.
Relieved to leave the conversation behind, Allie stepped out into the hushed main hallway. Her footsteps echoed around her so loudly it sounded as if she was being followed.
By the time she reached the library she was getting jumpy.
The library door opened with a shushing sound, as if quiet just sort of started in the doorway.
All the tables were unoccupied – the green glass desk lamps glowed for no one.
A series of thumps split the silence and she turned to see Eloise piling books on a cart. She had a notepad in her hand as she arranged the books into stacks. It was the first time she’d seen the librarian looking anything other than nervous since she’d returned to the school.
Allie cleared her throat and Eloise jumped.
Now she looked nervous.
‘Sorry.’ Allie gave an apologetic wave. ‘Didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘Not to worry,’ Eloise said, straightening her glasses. ‘I just didn’t hear you come in.’
‘The door …’ Allie said, apologetically. ‘You should add squeak to it.’
Eloise accepted this with a quick nod.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course.’ As if adding squeak to a door was a completely reasonable suggestion. Then she went back to her work.
Eloise had once been a confident, warm, friendly teacher. She was much younger than the other teachers and had always been the one the students could relate to.
Now, she looked older. She seemed more fragile, too – her nails were bitten to the quick. Some part of Allie did feel for her.
But, fragile or not, Eloise was still one of the three teachers suspected of working for Nathaniel. In fact, Allie wasn’t meant to be alone with her at all.
Turning away, she trudged through the forest of shelves. The long, shadowy room was lined on both sides by rows of tall, dark bookshelves. Each soared up at least ten feet. The top shelves were higher than the heavy, metal light fixtures that hung from the ceiling by chains.
Thick, Persian rugs absorbed her footsteps but there was no one to disturb.
She turned into the stacks at the history section. Large, leather books lined the shelves – some as old as the time period they covered. She traced her fingers across the gold-embossed titles looking for something useful, but soon realised the books were mostly about the eighteenth century. A century too early for the purposes of her research.
Her head down, still lost in thought, she turned the corner to the next aisle.
And ran headlong into Carter, nearly tripping in the process.
He grabbed her shoulders to keep her from falling. ‘Steady.’
Holding his arms for balance she glanced up at him in surprise.
He was looking down at her with the oddest expression, as if he’d dreamed her up. As if he was contemplating kissing her.
And, for some crazy reason, she found herself wishing he would. She was hyper-aware of the way his leg pressed against hers. She could feel each of his fingers on her shoulders. Feel his breath warm against her cheek.
What is wrong with me? she wondered.
He had Jules and she had Sylvain and this was over between the two of them forever. They’d agreed that last term. They were friends for life.
And yet, for a frozen second neither of them moved.
Then the shutters went down over Carter’s gaze and he stepped back, disentangling himself from her.
‘History essay?’ He spoke casually, as if the moment had not just happened. The strange longing look was completely gone from his expression.
‘Naturally.’ Copying him, she affected nonchalance, but her voice sounded too high and thin. She cleared her throat and tried to force herself to sound cool. ‘You too?’
‘Three thousand words.’ Turning to the shelves, he frowned at the books as if they held all the answers to life’s problems. ‘Ludicrous deadline.’
From beneath her lashes, Allie watched the side of his face, looking for any sign that what had just happened meant anything real but he seemed utterly absorbed in the book titles.
Dropping her gaze, she exhaled through pursed lips. She must have imagined the whole thing. That wistful look … it was all in her head.
God. Why couldn’t she just let them be friends?
‘As usual,’ she said, turning to look at the shelves, too, although the titles were a blur and she didn’t really know what she was looking for.
Pulling down a heavy book, Carter whistled under his breath as he opened it, flipping through the pages.
‘The assignment’s a bit vague, right?’ he said. ‘I mean, three thousand words on empire is like … “Give me five thousand words on the history of the world.”’
Allie snorted her agreement and chose a book at random. When she opened it, a tiny cloud of dust arose. She sneezed.
‘Bless you,’ he said solemnly.
As if that were some sort of an insult, she slammed the book shut and turned to him.
‘Listen, Carter, I just think we need to talk.’
Clearly startled, he leaned back. ‘About empire? Because I had nothing to do with that.’
‘No.’ She shoved the dusty book back on the shelf where she’d found it. ‘About … things.’
‘Things?’ Carter pulled down another book and looked at it with too much interest.
Now that Allie was in this she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say. But she had to keep going.
‘When I came back, that first day, you were so pissed off at me and I didn’t know why …’
‘I have anger issues,’ he said. ‘I thought you knew that.’ His tone was mild but she could see the corners of his mouth twitch.
‘Don’t make jokes about this,’ she protested. ‘I just thought we should … talk about why you were so angry. Or just, you know … talk. Because I missed you.’
She hadn’t meant to be quite so honest but there it was. She’d done it now.
Carter’s smile disappeared. He didn’t seem to know what to say. For a second he kept turning pages. Then he set the book down and met her gaze with guarded eyes.
‘I missed you, too,’ he said at last. ‘And I’m sorry I seemed angry. I’m an arse. I guess I was just surprised. And … well. Worried for you.’
Allie’s brow lowered. ‘Have you ever considered talking? That’s a traditional method for handling concern in our culture.’
‘I know … I’m sorry about that. Communication hasn’t been my thing lately.’ He leaned back against the shelves, watching her. He looked like he was afraid of what she might say next.
She knew just how he felt.
‘Why were you so … worried?’ she asked.
He made a vague gesture with one hand. ‘Because I thought you were safe out there. As you can tell, things are less than safe here. And I didn’t know what had happened to you out there.’
‘No one told you about the shooting?’ Allie said.
His lips tightening, he shook his head. ‘I know now. Isabelle told me. And Sylvain filled in the details. I can’t …’ His voice trailed off but she saw how his muscles tensed. ‘Once I knew … I understood why you had to come back.’
‘Still,’ Allie said gently, ‘it’s not like you to act like that. Not lately, anyway.’
A long silence followed. He didn’t meet her gaze. She got the feeling he was trying to decide whether or not to reply.
‘While you were gone …’ he began at last. He paused before starting up again. ‘Lately, I guess I haven’t been in a great place mentally.’
His frankness took Allie by surprise.
‘Because of Jules?’
His eyes met hers and glanced away. ‘Because of Jules and a lot of stuff.’
‘You know it’s not your fault … right?’ Allie said.
His face darkened. ‘You know Jo’s death wasn’t your fault. Right?’
His words were as quick and painful as a snake bite. Allie drew in her breath.
Instantly contrite, he raked his fingers through his dark hair. ‘God, Allie, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.’
‘It wasn’t fair.’ Her voice quivered and she knotted her hands at her sides. ‘Was it?’
He reached
out his hand as if to comfort her but stopped at the last minute and rested it on a shelf instead, like he’d always meant to put it there.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t. I seem to be …’ Biting his lip, he tapped his knuckles against the shelf. Allie got the feeling he’d like to put his fist through it but was restraining himself. ‘I seem to be unfair a lot lately.’
‘I know what that’s like,’ Allie said. ‘You know I do.’ She took a step towards him – invading the wide circle of personal space he’d created. ‘You can talk to me about this stuff, Carter. I really do understand. Probably more than most people. Like you get my panic attacks. I get this … stuff.’
Her sudden proximity seemed to make him nervous. He backed away, pretending he was just shifting his weight from one leg to another.
But when he replied, his voice was soft and filled with pain. ‘I know, Allie. But I just … can’t.’
It was the way he said her name that did it.
After they’d broken up he always said it quickly, like he couldn’t wait to get it over with. Like he didn’t like the taste of it.
But this time he lingered over it. Stretched it out.
Allie’s throat tightened.
She wasn’t imagining this – something was happening here.
But it couldn’t be. They were done with that.
I’m losing it, she thought. He loves Jules. I’m with Sylvain. And I am being incredibly stupid right now.
Carter was still talking. ‘It’s hard to bring things up sometimes. When there’s no … solution.’
It occurred to her that she wasn’t entirely certain what he was talking about. But they were on dangerous ground now, and she needed to pull them back to safety before they went too far. And did something they’d regret.
Because a voice in her head kept telling her to kiss him.
‘But I think there is a solution.’ She talked fast, before she could change her mind. ‘We just have to figure it out. I think we need to get Jules back here, somehow. That would make everything better.’
Carter looked at her as if that wasn’t the response he’d expected. But as soon as she said it, Allie realised she was right. That was the answer to everything. If Jules was back, Carter would be happy. And then she could be happy with Sylvain. And she and Carter could be friends again. They wouldn’t be confused into thinking there was something romantic between them when they’d been so careful to make sure there wasn’t.