Betrayals

CHAPTER 15

Two hours later, I eased down the hall. I didn’t see anyone outside my room, but I felt them there. I made it in and locked, barred, bolted the door. And that, apparently, was that. Christophe told me not to worry about someone seeing me come back, it was getting out without being caught that was the problem.

It reminded me of Dad. Shaking a tail or pursuit was second nature, and it was better for someone to lose you on the way out to a meet so you didn’t compromise anyone else. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when someone told Dylan I’d been spotted coming back to my room. It was amusing, in a grim, ironic sort of way.

Wait, Christophe had said. I’ll come back for you, as soon as I know … when I have a safe place for you. Will you trust me?

It was just like Dad leaving me a fifty and telling me to do my katas. But scalding flushes kept going through me whenever I thought of Christophe hugging me. I would turn hot, then cold, just like alternating tap water. It lasted all the way through the rest of the sunny day and into nightfall, and I almost didn’t hear the bell for wakeup. I was too busy trying to pin down where the hot and cold was coming from. My internal thermostat was way wack.

The lunchroom was a chaos of surf noise. Graves set his tray down. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Oh God.” I stared at my plate. Nothing on it looked even remotely appetizing. “What now?”

The cafeteria echoed around us, and he took a good look at my face. “Jesus. You’re pale.”

Tell nobody. Not even Dylan. But if there is another attack, try to find him. Don’t stay in your room. Here Christophe had smiled grimly, just a slight curve of lips. Or if you do, little bird, make certain you bar your door.

“Just… I don’t know.” Now it was time for a cold flash. I shivered. The entire place was too noisy and bright. Boys kept glancing at me, though once Graves sat down they went back to what they were doing. And only snuck glances at me instead of staring openly. Except for Shanks, who stared at me from under his emo-boy swoop until I locked eyes with him, and he hurriedly looked away. He was all the way across the caf, too.

Dibs hadn’t shown up yet. I actually… well, kind of missed him. I’d gotten used to that terminal shyness.

“You okay?”

I saw Christophe again. The words boiled behind my lips. “Fine.” I still felt cold. Even the fact that my hair was behaving couldn’t make me happy. I’d braided the whole mess back and forgot about it first thing.

It would figure, the instant I get okay hair I also start getting hot flashes. And keeping more secrets than I ever thought possible. Jeez.

“You sure? You look—”

“It’s my room.” The half-lie felt dirty and left a bad taste in my mouth. “I’ve been thinking about it. Someone has to have keys. Several someones could have the keys. I can’t lock the dead bolt unless I’m in there, but someone could have the key for that too. There’s a bolt and a chain, but they’re both old and the door won’t stand up to a beating. And warding won’t stop djamphir or wulfen. It never stopped Christophe.”

Saying his name was like a pinch in an already-sore place. I saw him. He hugged me, and…

Jesus, Graves. You don’t even like me that way, but I can’t tell you about Christophe, either.

“Point.” Graves stared at the paper, chewing his lower lip gently with startlingly white teeth.

They hadn’t been that white before. It was the wulfen dental plan, get bit and never have to worry about your canines again. “You’re just frightening yourself, you know.”

Is that all it is? Well, it’s working. Spectacularly. I hunched my shoulders. Waiting for Christophe to come back and collect me was going to wear my nerves down to bare nubs.

“Really,” Graves persisted. “You’re pretty safe here. If the suckers were planning to kill you, they could do it easier if you were alone and on the run with nobody watching out for you.”

“I don’t know that anyone’s watching out for me here,” I mumbled to my plate. “Look at what’s happened already.”

“Some of them, the teachers, must be. And Jesus, Dru, I’m watching out for you too.” He picked up his burger, took a huge bite. Chewed while examining me, with the air of a man who considered the matter closed.

That only managed to make me feel worse. He’d gotten bit because of me, and he was here because of me, no matter that he thought it was a better place than where he’d been. The Real World was nothing to play with, and he could get killed tomorrow or even tonight if a group of suckers attacked again.

And Christophe. The secret trembled behind my lips again, I swallowed until it sat in my stomach like a stone.

I had to say something about him. Maybe Graves would guess and I wouldn’t have to say it out loud. “Why did Christophe send us here?” I picked up my fork and poked at the pile of salad on my plate. I’d dumped some blue-cheese dressing over it, but it still didn’t look even remotely appetizing. What I wouldn’t have given for Dad’s special pancakes, or chili the way he used to make it. Or a good heaping helping of Gran’s chicken and dumplings. Or fried chicken and slaw, with biscuits the way she taught me to make them.

“I been thinking about that.”

Well, that was good, because I was fresh out of ideas. The secrets hemming me in fought for release, met with the bubble of heat behind my breastbone, and retreated. Even in two hours I hadn’t asked Christophe half of what I wanted to. He’d been in a hurry to get me back to the Schola’s walls and disappear to make arrangements. “And?”

“Maybe he didn’t mean to send us here in specific. This is a small school. There’s got to be others. What if we got put somewhere he didn’t plan for?”

I turned it over inside my head. It would make sense, especially if Anna wanted to accuse him of killing my mother. But why? Why the cloak-and-dagger? Why all the bullshit?

I didn’t have an answer for that one, and pulled myself back to the present with a twitch. “But he found me. Came in right through the window.”

“And what if he can’t get in again because of the watch the teachers set on the grounds? This place is closed up tighter than Fort Knox. And, well, Dru, he might not have your best interests at heart.”

He’s in the boathouse, or he was and said he wouldn’t ever… and if you’d been there… But the idea of Graves standing there watching while Christophe hugged me made a weird unsteady guilt flood through me. I felt my chin set itself stubbornly. “He saved me from Sergej.”

“But he might have done that for a thousand different reasons we don’t know about. He called in the Order and said he was a part of them, but there’s just as many people here who think he’s some sort of traitor. And…” But he shut up and took another monstrous bite. He looked hungry, and his shoulders were bulking up. Now he was rangy instead of thin. Like the other wulfen boys, wide-shouldered and narrow-hipped. “Look, I’ve got an idea.”

I hunched my shoulders even further. “You don’t understand. I can’t even sleep anywhere safe.”

“So we steal a solid chair and put it under your doorknob. Even if they have keys, they can’t get past that. And it’ll brace the door, make it harder to knock down. Right?”

It was such a simple, obvious solution I felt like a moron. “Oh. Yeah.” Unless they hack the door down, but I’m sure I’d wake up for that. And get out the window again. Great. “I guess.”

“All right. So that solves that problem.” He gave me a quick sideways glance. “You okay?”

No, I’m not. Everyone’s lying to me, I’m rattled, everything’s screwed up all over, and now I feel stupid too. And to top it all off, I feel like I’m lying to you, even. I flinched away from that thought. Pushed my plate away. “Fine. So what’s your big idea?”

He told me, and I was even happier I hadn’t eaten. We argued about it until the bell rang, and he went off to his next class.

I went to steal a chair. I was sucking at the attending-classes-every-day thing, but the chair was more important. And if several someones were trying to kill me, a chair would do better than a class would. At least I’d be able to sleep.

While I was at it, I tried to think of how to break into the armory and steal my gun back, too. Once I had a firearm, I’d feel better about a whole lot of things. If more suckers attacked or someone else came after me while Christophe was gone, a gun would do me a lot better than a chair or a switchblade.

I carried the chair up the long winding flights of stairs, got it into my room, and stopped two steps inside.

Someone had been in here. I knew it even though nothing was moved. Even the dust was undisturbed, but the room didn’t smell right.

Cold and heat fought over me. Neither won. I dropped the chair on the faded carpet and reached for the switchblade. My hand stopped halfway. Nobody was in here now; the unloosed fist inside my head stroked the air with sensitive fingers and told me so. I swept the door closed and checked under the bed, pushing aside the dust ruffle.

The malaika were still there, oiled wood with its own mellow gleam. So was Dad’s billfold. But the lock of Christophe’s hair on my nightstand was gone.

My heart leapt into my throat. I stared at the edge of the blue-painted stand, the cold coming back until I had to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering.

There, delicately caught on the grain of the wood, was a single, curling, golden hair. There were a lot of curly-headed blonds at this school, Dibs, Blondie the teacher, Irving…

Which one of them would be in my room?

I crouched there for a long time, hugging myself. The cold had finally won, and it didn’t go away.