Night School: Resistance (Night School 4)

She pretended to bow.

Allie was genuinely touched by this gesture.

‘Thank you, French peasant.’ She gave a regal wave. ‘You may rise.’

Laughing, Nicole leaned back on her heels to study her. ‘You look good in a crown.’

Someone called to her from the front steps and she climbed to her feet, shading her eyes with one hand as she peered towards the front door.

‘It’s Isabelle,’ she said, glancing down to where Allie sat straightening her flower crown. ‘I’ll go see what she wants.’

‘You have my permission,’ Allie said, still playing queen. ‘Sally forth and report back.’

As Nicole hurried off, though, she called after her: ‘Tell Isabelle I need to talk to her.’

But neither Nicole nor Isabelle seemed to hear her.

The two disappeared inside the school building. The door closed, and the guard resumed his place outside it, staring out over the grounds intently.

Why didn’t Isabelle want to see me? Is she too busy to talk about guns? And Nathaniel?

She leaned back on the grass, considering her options. She could run after them and insist that Isabelle explain what the hell was going on. She really could.

But she didn’t move. There had to be a reason why Isabelle was making her wait.

Something must be going on.

The exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours caught up with her and, in the warm sun, her eyelids felt heavy. The soft grass tickled her bare legs. In the distance she could hear Lucas and Zoe shouting and kicking the ball. The faint buzzing of bees in the nearby flower beds formed a soothing backdrop.

Maybe she fell asleep for a while or perhaps no time passed but, suddenly, something blocked the sun. Allie blinked her eyes open to find Carter towering over her.





6





Six





‘Carter …? What?’ She was instantly wide awake.

‘I can’t believe you,’ he said. ‘You bloody idiot. How could you be so stupid? Why the hell did you come back?’

‘Hey!’ Allie protested. ‘I mean … what?’ She scrambled to her feet.

‘You got away,’ he said. ‘You were free. And you came back? Why would you do that?’

He sounded both angry and genuinely baffled, as if she’d done something unbelievably stupid.

Allie bristled. ‘You don’t know what happened out there, Carter. I didn’t have any choice. And whatever happened to hello and welcome back, anyway?’

He ignored that. ‘Oh really?’ His tone turned sardonic. ‘Couldn’t you have run away? I mean, that’s your thing, right? Running away. Why don’t you do it when it matters?’

That one stung.

Blood rose to Allie’s cheeks. ‘I came back because it wasn’t safe out there,’ she said. ‘That’s all. Not because I wanted …’ to see you ‘… to be here.’

This didn’t placate him.

‘Look around you, Allie.’ He flung out his arm and the sweeping gesture took in the quiet grounds, the mostly empty school building, the muscular guards prowling the edges of the lawns. ‘Do you feel safe now? Because you’re not. Out there, at least you could run. Here, you’re in a cage.’

Allie wanted to argue with him – to tell him how wrong he was. But hadn’t she felt it all morning? And in that meeting? The insecurity. The futility of their resistance against Nathaniel. The guards watching their every move.

The fight went out of her.

‘Look, Carter, all I’ve done for months is run.’ She ran her fingers across her forehead, which was beginning to throb. ‘And it wasn’t any safer out there. Nathaniel found me. It was … bad.’

A flicker of surprise and concern lightened his eyes. So he didn’t know what had happened.

And he cared.

‘I don’t know if I’m safe here or not,’ she continued. ‘I doubt it. I’m not safe anywhere. But neither are you. So maybe you should worry less about me and more about yourself. Seriously, Carter …’ Her glance slid across his sharp cheekbones, and the tired circles under his eyes. ‘What’s the matter with you? You look like crap.’

Instantly, his expression hardened. He took a step back. ‘What’s the matter with me? Nothing. I’m just the only honest person you know. You’ve got grass in your hair.’

And with that baffling combination of statements he turned and walked away at a rapid pace, kicking at the ground.

As she watched him go, Allie reached up cautiously to touch her hair. Her fingers found the wilted daisy chain Nicole made for her earlier.

‘It’s not grass,’ she said, although he was too far away to hear. ‘It’s a crown.’