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44
“Ye want me tae haul ye over it?” Finlay asks, looking thrilled at the idea. “‘Cause I can dae that, Wells. Trust me, ye’re a stunted wee thing. It’d take nae effort at a’ on my part.”
Rory watches this play out, his arms still folded across his chest, his expression cold and calculating.
The corridor is stuffed with silence. The only thing audible, to me at least, is the fury of my heart battering against my ribcage. And then Callum whispers through the bleeding mess of his lips, “Please.”
“Whit was that?” Finlay asks loudly, lifting a goading ear to Callum’s mouth. “P-p-p-whit?”
“Please,” Callum hisses, turning his face away from his followers as though disgraced.
But Finlay looks like he’s enjoying his role of torturer far too much to let it go. He angles his ear against Callum’s blood-stained lips and says in a bright, sunny tone, “Naw, still cannae hear ye — maybe one o’ yer wee hingers-oan can translate?”
He pushes his luck. Callum rears his head back slightly, and with impeccable precision, spits a glob of bloodied saliva into Finlay’s ear. Finlay flinches at the sensation and Rory automatically moves forward, as though for backup.
“Ye filthy scrote,” Finlay mutters instantly, shoving Callum hard into the railings, and there’s an audible clunk and crack of bone. Callum cries out, a pitiful sound, before he’s hauled from the railings. He’s trembling between Finlay’s hands, sagging as if in relief that he won’t get tossed down to the ground floor. “Shakin’, Wells? If ye’re gonnae crap yerself, ye can dae it over there,” Finlay sneers, and at Callum’s confused look, he kicks him across the stairway, where his body collides with the stone steps and lands with a sickflumpagainst the opposite wall.
The only thing piercing the shocked silence is Callum’s weak cries. It’s not just the cry of pain but the cry of misery, of defeat and humiliation. He’s moments away from outright sobbing, from destroying his tough-guy act in front of his followers, but at least it tells us he’s not dead. He’s not paralyzed or permanently disfigured. He’s just a giant baby who got what was coming to him.
Even so, Luke looks appalled. His dark eyes are owlish as they watch Finlay triumphantly depart the scene, as they watch the proud little smile curling at his friend’s lip. “What are you playing at?” he asks, unnerved. “You could have killed him.”
Finlay shoots him a puzzled smile as he swaggers over to the chiefs. “I did it for you.”
“I know. And he could have been killed inmyname — how do you think that would have ended for me?”
Finlay’s puzzled smile doesn’t lessen. “Relax. He’s dealt wi’. He wullnae touch ye again, no’ since I’ve put the fear o’ God intae him.” He meets Rory’s gaze, and Rory gives a single approving nod.
“You did good,” he murmurs, quiet enough that Luke won’t hear. “Go to the dorm and clean yourself up. I’ll take care of the rest.”
The others seem to have taken Finlay’s savagery to heart, and continue to beat up Callum’s followers with glee. Rory strides over to them as Finlay leaves for the dorm, shooting me a pleased beam as he passes. I watch his dark head bob down the stairs, leering at Callum’s crumpled form as he goes.
“That was… something,” Danny acknowledges in a remarkably mild voice.
“He’s trying to make amends.” Luke sounds tired. “I really wish he wouldn’t. He doesn’t need to prove himself to me.”
“What do we do about him?” I ask, nodding at Callum. “We can’t leave him there.”
“I’ll help him,” Luke announces. When I stare at him in astonishment, he shrugs. “He liked me once upon a time. And it can only elevate me in his eyes, right?”
“I’m not sure he canseeout of his eyes,” I state, to which Luke gives a grim, humorless smile.
Danny and I watch carefully as Luke approaches Callum. Callum seems entirely out of it, slumped against the front wall, lying broken and bloodied. But so too are the rest of his followers, some of whom are still fighting Rory’s gremlins. They’re stronger than the one from whom they take their orders, a fact that doesn’t seem to bypass Rory. He goes over to each small cluster of brawling, scrabbling boys and speaks calmly to them — whatever he says, I can’t make out no matter how hard I focus on reading his lips, but one by one the boys gradually break apart.
“The fuck is this?” Li’s voice startles me, sounding far too close for comfort. I turn to see her and Arabella coming downstairs, arriving at a scene of mass devastation. Blood on the floor, boys lying injured and broken, pockets of fighting still breaking out. Her eyes flit to each body in disgust before landing on me. “I should have knownyou’dbe involved.”
I’ve been extremelyuninvolvedin this festival of chaos, but there’s no use in protesting my innocence when they’ve already declared me enemy number one. Arabella’s nose wrinkles as she looks around. Luke, I notice, has already left with Callum. Her gaze settles on Rory hovering near the fighting.
“I hope you’re taking down their names,” she says loudly, primly, in her best Head Girl voice to Rory. “Whoever did this needs to be punished.”
Rory ignores her but Duncan doesn’t. “You not got a hot date with paedo Moncrieff?” He contorts his face into one of exaggerated pleasure, his tongue flicking lewdly. “Ohhhh, yes, sir, I’ll do anything, sir, three bags full, sir, as long as I get that A+.”
Arabella turns scarlet. Li jumps in to defend her. “Ignore them. They’re clatty wee bastards.”
“That’s the spirit,” Duncan says, gesturing at them to leave. “Fuckity-bye.”
“You don’t get to tell us to go. We have every right to see what you twisted freaks are up to.”
Arabella looks at me, the person closest to her, and her expression is a mix of poisonous loathing and deep-set woe. “What onearthare you doing, hanging around with these psychos?” She shakes her head sadly. “Every time I think you can’t sink lower, it’s like you’re delighted to prove me wrong. You’re a lost cause, Jessa.”
