Defiance

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I flipped every single lock on the door, settled the bar in its brackets with shaking hands, and turned around. Put my back against the door and let out a long, quivering breath. The wards flexed and trembled, bright blue, sliding soundless through the walls.

That was not fun. So not fun.

It was only four-thirty in the morning. Just about time to start winding down. Nathalie would be along soon, or she’d go to the room where I was supposed to be studying to pick me up. I felt bad about leaving her hanging, but Jesus.

I needed some time alone in the worst way. They didn’t leave me alone much except to sleep. It got a little . . . overwhelming, having someone on me all damn night and day. Always someone watching, some danger, something I hadn’t thought of, having to keep my face composed and my thoughts to myself all the time. I was used to Dad giving me some space, at least. And at the other Schola, well, I could feel them watching, but I didn’t see them much. It was different now.

Everything was.

My mother’s room looked different, too, with the lights off and the breathless dark of early morning covering its skylights. Like a stage set, the white bed floating ghostlike and the books all closed, shadowed doors. The bathroom glimmered, and the wide white window seat looked like the edge of a bleached skull.

I shuffled across the room. My sneakers were going to smell like coffee until I could wash them, so I dropped down on the floor next to the white bed and stripped them off, flung them in the general direction of the closet, and grabbed the pair sitting next to the small nightstand. I got a good look at the empty space underneath the bed and had a sudden, disturbing thought.

Is that my mother’s mattress? Oh, God.

The dizziness came, sweeping over me in a dark sparkling wave. I folded my knees, rested my forehead against the hardwood, and tried to control my breathing. The shallow gasps I was hearing were from me, I realized, and the reality of the past few hours hit me like a sucker punch.

I rolled over on my back, digging in my change pocket. The earring was warm, and I tweezed it delicately out. My stomach hurt; I was making little noises in between the gasps.

The bed was neatly made, but I crawfished up to it and reached. Nathalie made it tight enough to bounce a quarter off of—Dad would have approved—and I had no idea how she did it with the coat in there all the time.

I wormed my hand between the top and bottom sheets, pulling everything askew. My fingers touched rough heavy canvas, and I yanked and pulled until I’d got the length of black material free. With the earring in my sweating fist, I hugged the balled-up lump the coat made and buried my face in it. Willed the shaking to stop and the touch to show me something, anything. To give me some hope.

Nothing. I was too miserable, trying too hard, for the touch to do more than give me a throbbing headache. The sobs quieted; I rocked back and forth, holding the balled-up coat. I knew I was getting tears on it. I hoped I wasn’t also smearing snot.

If Graves just would have listened. If he would’ve come with me after Anna and I had our last real run-in. If he’d just been . . .

But that was wrong, wasn’t it. I hadn’t been able to find the words to make him stay. I hadn’t been able to make my stupid mouth work. It was my fault Sergej had him now. And Anna? What game was she playing? How had she gotten his earring, and had it hurt him when it was taken out?

Oh, God.

There was no blood on it, at least. I blinked the tears away and held the earring up, a hard gleam in the dimness. Just a little dangling thing, silver if the guy that sold it to Graves had told the truth, the skull’s grin mocking me.

The shakes and gasps retreated, little by little. I got up, aching all over like an old woman, and made it into the bathroom.

The diamond studs Christophe had made me wear the other night still glittered in my ears. I undid the one in my left ear, tested its golden back on Graves’s earring. It fit just fine, and I slid it in. I didn’t even bother to clean it. What was the point?

It was a little heavier than the stud. I shook my head a little, testing. It would sway like this, each time Graves turned his head sharply. It tapped my cheek just above my jaw, a little lower than it would hit on him.

All at once I felt better. Numb, yeah. Cried out. But still, better. Like I had a handle on something.

I washed my face, blew my nose, and shrugged into his coat. The mending I’d done with navy thread—Nat hadn’t found black thread, but it was good enough—was pretty good. Gran would have sniffed at the job I’d done on some of the rips, but jagged claw-ripped seams aren’t any good without a machine to help. The sleeve had been kind of a bitch to reattach, but I’d done it over a few nights. All in all, it was a pretty fair patch-up job.

The coat was absurdly big on me, since I was slighter than even the average teenage male, and he’d been tall.

Not been. Is. Graves is tall. I took a deep breath, did not look at myself in the mirror. My hair hid the earring just fine, and the tumbling curls were dry by now. It was a moment’s work to throw my hair into a ponytail, then I shut the bathroom light off and crossed to the window.

The white satin window seat, wide as a single bed, creaked slightly. I knelt awkwardly and yanked at the window, pushing it up. Cool air, laden with the scent of spring, flooded past me. It was getting nicely green down in the gardens and out on the lawns. The smell of cut grass was probably the polo field. I’m told djamphir play polo, mostly to teach them to control horses. It’s a tradition. Werwulfen play soccer and basketball. I wanted to catch a game one of these days. I’m not big on organized sports, but seeing a bunch of wulfen play hoops sounded like a good time.

“I hate it here,” I whispered. “I want to go home.”

That was what my mother would have said. She never could stand being cooped up. It was one of the few things Dad would ever say about her.

God, I understood.

I didn’t really have a home, did I? Dad and I traveled. It was what we did. No place was home, unless it was maybe the old blue truck with him driving and me naggervating. Or Gran’s house, all closed up in Appalachia, everything under dustcovers and the key right where it should be. We only went back once after she died, to set everything to rights so it could be closed up.

Other than that, there was nothing. No place was safe. I didn’t have anywhere to go. I could’ve kept Graves and me on the run for a while, before the suckers hunted us down. Long enough to figure out something else, right? He was smart, he could have helped.

If I’d been smart enough, quick enough, to explain. Instead, he’d thought I was covering something up. Just like his mom.

It was kind of ironic, actually. Both of us paying for things other people did, over and over again.

I braced my hands on the windowsill. Doing this without Nat was going to be a little freaky. I hadn’t realized how, well, used to her I’d gotten. She was just that kind of person, easy to spend time with.

Benjamin told me that some svetocha had made a game of slipping away from their guards and escorts. At the time, I’d thought it was a stupid idea. Escape from your only protection when there were vampires trying to kill you? At least I’d always had the sense to go during daylight, and never very far without Nat.

But some kinds of protection are more like smothering. Suffocation kills you more slowly than evisceration. The end result is the same. You get to where you’ll run almost any risk to escape, if only for a few minutes.

I made sure my sneakers were tied securely, braced my palms on the ledge again. Peered out and down.

It was a different thing to be doing this at night, too.

At least I didn’t sense anyone outside my door. I could bet they were out in the hall, though. Probably Benjamin, and most probably Christophe. Just waiting for me to come out and argue.

I didn’t give myself time to get nervous. There was a ledge running around the building here, just below the window. I crab-walked my foot out, then twisted so I was crouched with my back toward the drop. Graves’s coat hung like black wings, and for a second I felt like I was inside his skin, tilting my head the way he would have.

Just do it, just like you’ve done it before. And don’t make any noise.

I jumped.