Fracture

Heat seemed to flood through her.

If she was truly brave, then she could say what she needed to say to him.

She walked closer to where he stood, leaning against the desk across from him. The skeleton hung next to her and she touched the plastic bones of its hand without realising she was doing it.

He looked at her as if he was trying to figure out what she was thinking.

‘There’s something I wanted to say to you,’ she said, uncomfortably aware that this was almost exactly what Carter had said to her in the woods the other night. ‘I’ve wanted to say it for a while.’

‘D’accord,’ he said in French. ‘Dites moi. Tell me.’

It was devastating. He was always at his most charming when he spoke his own language.

She took a deep breath. ‘Ever since Jo died, I’ve been avoiding you.’ His eyes flicked up at hers sharply – almost in warning – but she kept going. She needed to say this. ‘I avoided everyone but you most of all. I was a wreck, and I felt like I had to be alone. All the time. For ever. I even felt guilty for caring about kissing you when she wasn’t alive any more.’ She squeezed the plastic skeleton’s hand as if for support. ‘It seemed… selfish of me to want anything for myself when she would never have anything ever again. And I was angry, because I thought no one was looking for her killers. But I know how much it hurts to just be… dropped like that. And it must have hurt you that I was so cold and… distant.’

‘You do not need to apologise.’ His voice was gentle. ‘You needed time. I knew that. I was never angry.’

‘And you waited for me.’ Her lower lip trembled and she paused to steady herself. ‘You never gave up on me. Why? Why did you never give up on me?’

She looked up at him but he quickly dropped his gaze.

‘There were times when I wanted to give up. I am not superhuman, Allie. Rejection hurts me as much as anyone. But I have always believed there was something between us that mattered. Something worth fighting for. And I believe you have felt that, too.’ He lifted his bright blue eyes to hers and the vulnerability she saw there made her chest tighten around her heart. ‘But time after time you chose Carter over me. And the other night, when you and Carter came in from the woods and I knew something had happened… I thought, that’s it. I’m not doing this any more. But then you came back to me again, looking at me like that.’ He made a circle in the air with his fingers, like a frame around her face. ‘And here we are.’

Allie fought for something to say. ‘I’m not with Carter. He has a girlfriend.’

‘I know that.’ Sylvain shrugged. ‘But I have seen how he looks at you. And how you look at him.’

She shook her head. ‘No. He’s been very clear that he is serious about Jules. And I know now we should never have got together in the first place. I feel friendship love for him. Only that.’

‘Friendship love?’ His eyebrows winged up.

Allie blushed. ‘It’s a thing… Rachel told me… Look. Never mind. What matters is we were meant to be friends, nothing more.’

Her tone was adamant.

‘So.’ He took a step closer, halving the space between them, and Allie involuntarily squeezed the hand of the skeleton, which she’d forgotten she was holding. ‘Now you are free of your obligation to Carter and here you are. Because I am your… how do you say it in English? Your backup plan.’

She was so surprised by this she almost pulled the skeleton over; it rattled wildly as she pushed it back into place.

‘No.’ She took a half-step towards him. ‘That’s not fair…’

‘Isn’t it?’ His gaze challenged her to be honest.

The problem was… he was kind of right.

For months now, Sylvain had fought to win her back. To earn her trust. But she was always waiting for Carter to decide what he wanted.

Heat flooded her face and she reached for his arm. ‘Sylvain, I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to be my backup plan. It’s just hard to know what I want sometimes.’

‘What do you mean, “sometimes”?’ His voice was so low she couldn’t be certain she’d really heard it. ‘You’ve never known what you wanted.’

As he’d done the night before in the hallway, he put his hand on top of hers. The warmth of his skin radiated through her. She knew what it felt like to have his hands stroke her face, her hair. Pull her close.

‘You have to make up your mind, Allie. I don’t want you to choose me just because Carter is already taken. I want you to choose me because I’m the one you want.’ His eyes were like blue flames; it hurt to look at them. ‘All I ever wanted was to be the one you want. But I’m beginning to think I never will be. I can’t wait for you for ever – no one could do that. Already I think I’ve waited too long. It hurts too much —’

Somewhere down the hallway a loud, unfamiliar voice shouted, ‘Curfew!’

They stood close together for a second longer, Sylvain’s eyes locked on hers. Then he took a step back and dropped her hand.

‘It’s late.’ His voice sounded empty. ‘We should go.’

TWENTY-SIX

Zelazny was at his desk when Allie walked into the history lesson the next day.

When she saw him, she froze in mid-step and the student walking in behind her ran into her.

‘Sorry…’ Allie said, never taking her eyes off the teacher.

‘Everyone take your seats today please,’ he growled with characteristic grouchiness, as if he’d never been away. Never held Eloise prisoner.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she tried to figure out what was happening. Did this mean Raj had come through? Had he brought all the teachers back?

A few minutes later, Carter rushed into the classroom at speed and nearly tripped over his own feet when he noticed Zelazny.

When Sylvain walked in, she saw his eyes widen in surprise. Catching Allie’s gaze, he raised his eyebrows in a silent question. She shook her head very slightly to indicate she had no idea where the history teacher had come from.

The exchange calmed her down a little – at least they were still communicating.

She’d been up for hours last night thinking about what Sylvain had said and how badly she’d behaved towards him. The way he’d left her the perfect opportunity to say she chose him over Carter and she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Why couldn’t she just say it? He’d taken her by surprise but… still. Why couldn’t she just tell anyone how she felt?

Zelazny stood by his desk at parade rest, his pale eyes surveying the class shrewdly.

Pulling her notebook from her bag, Allie tried to act normal. What if Zelazny knew they’d been in his room? And God – what if he knew they’d accused him of being the spy?

The thought made her shudder. She waited, so nervous her hand trembled when she picked up her pen and drew shaky prison bars and a gigantic lock on the paper in front of her.

But then Zelazny just… taught the class. They were studying the battle of Austerlitz and he picked up precisely where the replacement teacher had left off without a word of explanation or apology for his absence.

At first, Allie waited for the axe to fall, and for Zelazny to call her out. Accuse her of looking through his bedside table, the box under his bed. But as time went by, she realised that wasn’t going to happen.

Slumping down low in her seat, she prepared to take sparse notes and bide her time until she could talk with the others about this development.

But the lesson was surprisingly interesting. As Zelazny explained the battle between Napoleon and an overwhelming coalition of British, Russian and Austrian troops, she found herself absorbed.

‘Napoleon was a master strategist,’ Zelazny explained, drawing a quick map on the whiteboard. ‘He knew he couldn’t win by sheer force because he was outnumbered and outgunned. So he decided to create a trap.’

He wiped out part of his design on the right side and tapped it with his fingertip. ‘He intentionally weakened