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16
Hell is what we get.
The gremlins are dotted all around the school, informing their master on everything Danny and I do. They attack without mercy.
Every time I arrive at the tower, a new layer of dirt decorates my bedroom door. They bring in the mud from the grounds below and slap it onto the door. Sometimes they get fancy and arrange it into words —slut,bitchandwhoreare popular choices. Once, I find a particularly artistic gremlin has molded it into the shape of a snowflake.
The wordconfessis up there for a long time.
Arabella corners me in the girls’ tower, wearing a disgruntled expression as she talks to me for the first time in weeks. “You havegotto stop this silly quarrel, Jessa. You’re bringing the school into disrepute.”
I ignore her, the way she’s ignored me so easily, slamming my mud-streaked door in her face.
My books regularly go missing. This I could cope with, because there are a thousand other politics books to choose from. While I’m revising in the library, my politics notes mysteriously vanish, and that’s a different story.
There’s a wild judder in my heart. The thought of losing all my painstakingly researched politics notes brings bile to my throat, and I can’t tell if it’s from the newly freezing cold air or the shock of potentially losing them.
I stare at the too-innocent collection of gremlins at the table opposite me. I knew it was a bad idea to study out in the open when I had a target on my back, but haulingallthe political reference texts to my room would have been a nightmare on my ankle. It’s not very disabled-friendly, this castle.
“Where are they?” I snap at them. The gremlins blink up at me, utterly bemused. One of them starts to singYankee Doodle Dandyunder his breath, so I direct my glare at him.
He’s ridiculously young. A second year at most. This thing they have with Rory ordering them around is absurd, so maybe the key to ending thissilly quarrelis to make them realize that.
“You don’t have to do this,” I tell them in my kindest voice, which pains me, because all I want to do is throttle the living daylights out of them. “Rory doesn’t care about you. He’susingyou. What do you get from him bossing you around? Why don’t you be your own boss and, you know, turn it back on him? You must really hate him deep down, for all the things he makes you do.”
“Confess that you trashed their dorm.”
“I had nothing to do with it!”
But no matter what tactic I try, it doesn’t get inside their heads. When I refuse to confess, the singing one just increases the volume onYankee Doodle Dandy, blocking me out.
“Just give me back my notes,” I end up pleading. I’m on the brink of tears and I really,reallydon’t want to cry in front of these bastards.
“Callum hid them,” the singing one eventually says, offering a small shred of pity as he nods over at the boy across from him. “Good luck trying to find them in here.”
Callum gives me nothing, even when I threaten to tell a teacher. But the threat’s as empty as it sounds when they know that even the teachers are on their side. As I stare out at the lines and lines of packed bookshelves, my legs begin to tremble.
They’re lost.They’re gone.I’m going to have to revise from scratch.
Danny doesn’t escape it, either. In fact, he seems to get theworstof it. Every time I eat beside him, there’s a new purple bruise blooming through his white shirt. Over a few days, his expression darkens into one of grim determination.
“You don’t have to sit with me,” I remind him quietly, as all eyes focus on us once again. “I don’t want you to suffer.”
He gives me a stern look from beneath his brown hair. “If I were by myself, doing nothing to help you,thatwould be suffering. There’s no way I’ll let you go through this alone.”
I start to wonder if Danny has some kind of death wish, because he sure makes the oddest choices on my behalf. It’s like maybe he’s read one too many sci-fi novels and believes himself to be the victorious hero, valiantly culling hordes of alien enemies before they can attack us.
When my suspension ends, the first subject we share is gym. Physical education, otherwise known as PE. The whole year group is led outside onto the frosty grass. Danny and I stick together, relieved for there to be no gremlins — though the gremlins’ masters are here instead. It’s only when Danny’s wearing shorts and a T-shirt that I see the full extent of the abuse he’s received.
Every single limb contains a huge colorful blemish, whether it’s bright red scarred skin or boot-sized bruises. I stare at him, aghast.
“What the hell? What have theydoneto you?”
Danny refuses to meet my eyes. When Finlay leaps over to us — actuallyleaps— he whistles low as he observes Danny for himself.
“Nice. Very emo. Didnae think ye had it in ye, Hammy. As lang as you gowi’the veins, no’ against them, am I right?” He glances over his shoulder in Rory’s direction, but Rory’s too busy plotting and planning with Luke. “Friendly word o’ warning,” he says quickly, like he’s trying to rush out all his words as fast as he can, “the harder ye fight, the harderthey’llfight. So I’d advise maybe takin’ the sassenach’s lead on this occasion, unless ye fancy a trip tae A&E.”
With a friendly clap to Danny’s back, Finlay turns to me. He looks me up and down. I’d already felt absurdly exposed in my gym clothes, my teeth chattering from the cold, the hair on my unshaven legs standing on end. But now it’s as though Finlay’s lasering into my soul, peeling away layers I didn’t know existed.
