into her eyes, and turned her head to look at her neck. What was he doing that for? He couldn’t possibly suspect —no, this is not the time to get paranoid, Ronan. This isn’t about you, he reminded himself, it’s about Phaedra.
Narrowing his eyes, Ronan was able to get a better look at her condition. He thought her complexion looked better, more robust, and he could no longer see the veins through her skin. He tried to get even closer, but was stopped. Without looking up from his patient, MacCleery spoke, “Wait for me outside.” Ronan didn’t want to leave Phaedra alone with the doctor; he wanted to see what he discovered, but Lochlan’s tone made it clear that he didn’t want to work before prying eyes. Maybe it was for the best, Ronan thought. Leave the doctor alone to do his job and take care of Phaedra, and use some of the time alone to come up with a story to cover his own tracks just in case the doctor did uncover that she wasn’t human.
He could only hope that she had enough strength left in her body to help herself. When he looked on the wall above Nurse Radcliff’s desk, he shuddered. Phaedra wasn’t the only one who needed help.
There was a mark on the wall where the crucifix used to hang, a shadow of darkness created from faded paint that outlined the space where something previously existed, something that had been there for as long as Ronan could remember. Now, for some reason, it was gone and he felt unsettled, as if he had lost a friend, as if Double A had lost a protector. “Why would you leave us?”
More practical concerns demanded attention when Ronan saw MacCleery emerge from the examination room. “Is Phaedra all right?” It was weird to see the doctor standing there in wet bedroom slippers, wearing a white undershirt and gray sweatpants instead of his usual, slightly more professional outfit. “Will she be okay?”
Wiping the lenses of his glasses with his T-shirt, MacCleery answered him. “Miss Antonides is going to be fine.”
“Really?!”
Thrusting the glasses back on his face, the doctor looked at Ronan skeptically. “You’re surprised by my diagnosis?”
Making an exaggerated attempt to appear nonchalant, Ronan shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head to the side. “No, no, I’m thrilled.” MacCleery remained silent and so Ronan continued to speak. “It’s just that when I found her, she looked pretty sick, you know, like she had been hurt.”
That’s right, the doctor thought, keep quiet and these kids will always supply you with more information than they’d like to. “She’s dehydrated, physically exhausted, but her vitals are fine. She just needs some fluid and rest.” Now that that’s out of the way, Lochlan wanted to get on to the real reason he wanted to speak with Ronan, “Now, where did you say you found her?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Don’t play dumb and don’t call me sir,” the doctor huffed. “Tell me where you found Phaedra and I won’t report you to our new headmaster.”
Get control of yourself, Ronan, you’re too smart to be caught by some old man’s tricks. Give him a simple explanation, nothing more. “I heard a noise outside and went to investigate.”
“Where outside?”
“Outside my dorm.”
Perfect. This one thinks he’s wise; he thinks he can’t trip himself up, but with each answer, he makes it more difficult for himself to escape. “So you’re saying that you found this girl unconscious outside St. Florian’s almost two miles from her own dorm in the middle of the night wearing just a flimsy T-shirt and jeans,” the doctor summed up. “Is that what you’re saying Glynn-Rowley?”
Fine, you want to play hardball, I’m through with being the nervous, accommodating student. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Ronan answered. “I have no idea how she got there or why she was there. You might try to ask her yourself . . . sir.”
Ah, here he is, here’s the Ronan I’ve grown to mistrust. “I gave her a sedative; she won’t be talking for a few more hours.” Plopping down into one of the waiting room chairs, the doctor smiled at Ronan. “Why don’t you have a seat so we can have a proper conversation or, as I said, I may feel the need to wake up our new headmaster.”
That’s the second time he’s mentioned his name. Hesitating, Ronan tried to maintain eye contact with MacCleery, show him that he wasn’t anxious, but he felt his eyes roam the room, for what exactly he wasn’t sure. Did he think the doctor had a hidden surprise somewhere, an ally crouched behind a desk, one of David’s people waiting just outside the window, or maybe David himself was hiding somewhere. Could that be it? Could he and the doctor be on the same team? “Fine,” Ronan said, sitting across from MacCleery. “I don’t know what else I can tell you, though.”
“You can tell me what you know about David Zachary.”
This is a trap. I sensed it from the moment I walked in here. Ronan locked eyes with Lochlan; he didn’t dare look anywhere else. He had learned that if you want to outwit your opponent, it was crucial to look into their eyes, where every move began, where every motive could be seen. “And what makes you think I know anything about Archangel’s new leader?”
MacCleery inhaled a deep breath through his nose. He didn’t like Ronan, he never did, but he knew he could be helpful. He just sensed it. “I know the two of you are connected somehow, in some way,” the doctor replied. “I can’t explain it, but I can feel it.”
And now the student has become the master, Ronan said to himself. Unable to resist showing the doctor a little smirk, nothing too broad, just enough to show him that he was no longer scared, no longer such easy prey. “I thought doctors were taught to rely upon fact and not feelings,” Ronan said. “It seems to me that you’re going about this exercise counter-intuitively.”
“Enough games!” MacCleery erupted. “Tell me how you know Zachary!”
Feeling the contempt for this man rise up from his gut and wrap around his limbs, Ronan could no longer remain seated. Rising up, he walked over to the doctor. He didn’t want to threaten him, he didn’t want to reveal himself to him, but he wanted him to know that he too had had enough of the game playing. “I don’t know what you have against me, doc, but I’m telling you that it ends right now,” Ronan seethed. “If you’ve got something against Headmaster Zachary, I suggest you take it up with him and not me.”
“I would, but according to my file, Headmaster Zachary doesn’t even exist.”
“What do you mean your file?”
So I’ve piqued the young man’s curiosity, have I? MacCleery thought. That’s the first step toward gaining his confidence. “You’re right about me. I’m a man of fact, not feelings, so when I felt disturbed by Zachary’s presence, by his sudden intrusion at this school, I decided to do some research,” the doctor explained, pausing to see if Ronan was growing even more curious.
Ronan sat back down. “Go on.”
It was working, the student was beginning to appear quite studious. “I haven’t been able to find anything on the man,” he continued. “I cannot find a shred of evidence that David Zachary existed before he came to this school.”
MacCleery might be a brilliant physician, but he was an incredibly stupid man. “Maybe being a private investigator isn’t your thing, doc.”
“Could be,” he agreed, shrugging his shoulders. He then leaned toward Ronan, resting his forearms on his knees and folding his hands, trying to create a connection with him. “I figured I’d have a problem digging up any dirt, I mean information, about the man’s past, but here’s the strange part: I can’t even find proof that anybody by the name of David Zachary was ever a student here at Double A.”
Why is he doing this? Why is he getting involved with this man who could destroy him in an instant and without an ounce of mercy? “People change their names.”
“Yes, they do,” MacCleery replied, thrilled that Ronan was now participating in the dialogue. “But I checked the records of the years when he would have been a student here, and all the Davids are accounted for. All seventeen of them. I was able to track down each one of them.”
You’re never going to find out anything about him because he doesn’t want you to; don’t you get that, you stupid git! “Somebody’s been busy.”
“Yes, I have because somebody’s got to protect the students!”
What? Ronan watched MacCleery’s face even more closely. There was something else going on with him.
