Fracture

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

‘This 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 Nathaniel 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.