Soon they’d lost themselves in a tangle of winding country lines, roaring over hills and taking hairpin turns so fast she started to feel queasy again.
‘Right at the crossroads,’ the guard said as they approached a junction.
The hedgerows on either side of the road were very high. The driver approached at speed, gearing up to turn. At the last minute, though, he slammed on his brakes so hard they were all thrown forward.
At first, all Allie could see was blinding headlights to their left. She had to squint to see the vehicle. When she did, her heart plummeted.
It was the tank-like car from the motorway. And it was headed right at them.
Swearing under his breath, the driver shoved the gearshift. They reversed with such force the engine gave a shrill warning whine, like a siren.
‘There.’ The guard, who had momentarily fallen silent, pointed at a dirt track behind a metal gate, barely visible in the darkness.
Apprehension rose inside Allie as she stared at the road the guard indicated. It was little more than a tractor path across a corn field. The gate in front of it was locked and chained.
How are we going to get through that?
The guard handed the driver a pair of glasses with a kind of gold tint, which he put on without question. Then the driver switched off the headlights.
Allie stopped breathing. The darkness was claustrophobic. Complete.
‘Wait…’ she started to say, but before she could get the word out the driver gunned the engine and they shot towards the closed, locked gate.
She couldn’t seem to move. Or to scream. She just stared straight ahead into the black.
They hit the gate with a screech of metal on metal. The impact rocked the Land Rover with such force, Allie’s chin banged into her shoulder. Something scraped across the roof before falling behind them with a clatter.
Then they were tearing across the field. The ground was so rough that even with her seatbelt on she had to grind her teeth together to avoid biting her tongue.
Long leaves and cornstalks slapped the windows like hands trying to reach in.
The driver and the guard had stopped talking; the only sounds were the scream of the engine and the crunch and creak of the tyres.
Suddenly, headlights swung in behind them, illuminating the field with a ghostly white glow.
‘You guys…’ Her voice trailed off as the driver accelerated, turning sharply and leaving the rough track behind.
Everything went dark again.
They weren’t on any road now. They were just jostling across the uneven field, tyres spinning in the soft dirt. Things Allie couldn’t see thudded under their wheels.
She heard herself whimper.
For what felt like a lifetime she was thrown around the smooth, leather seat and then…
‘There.’
The guard pointed at something in the night. Without a word, the driver turned the wheel.
The Land Rover hit something big and metal.
Another farm gate, Allie guessed.
A piece of metal sailed onto the Land Rover’s hood and crunched into the windscreen. Allie ducked.
‘Great,’ the guard muttered as a cobweb of cracks spread across the glass.
Like a gate nearly killing him was a minor annoyance.
Then they were thumping out of the fields and fishtailing on to a tiny, paved country road.
The driver kept the headlights off as they roared into the dark night.
From the back seat, Allie could still see nothing ahead. She turned to look over her shoulder.
No headlights.
The guard began murmuring instructions again. They took a complicated route up steep hills, and down deep, isolated ravines.
Finally, the driver took off his night vision glasses and switched the headlights on.
The guard turned back to look at Allie, who still clung in mute terror to the door. He looked grimly pleased.
‘Lost them.’
Two hours later, the Land Rover turned onto a rugged, forested dirt track. The sky was aglow with vivid pink and gold. Dawn had broken.
Allie leaned her forehead against the cool window as Cimmeria’s long black fence loomed ahead of them. It was meant to be forbidding – each metal bar culminated in a sharp point ten feet above the ground.
Beyond it was the only safe place she knew.
She was home. But what about everyone else? They’d sent at least twenty guards and Night School students to fight Nathaniel in London. She’d seen none of the others in hours.
The gate opened with a shudder, and they followed the long drive through the forest. It was strangely peaceful – the only sound the rumble of the engine and the crunch of tyres on the gravel drive. But Allie was tense in the back seat, her gaze missing nothing.
After a mile, the trees lining the lane gave way to smooth grass, and the drive coiled into a question mark in front of the massive, Gothic school building, its jagged roof and chimneys thrusting up into the pale sky.
The driver cut the engine. The silence that followed was deafening.
Allie looked at the empty front steps, her chest tight around her heart.
Where is everyone?