‘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 – always 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
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
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.
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.
