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38
The commotion is unlike anything I’ve ever known. Talk rises like a nasty smell until the hall, even despite its vastness, begins to feel suffocating under the din. In their quest for blood, students start to flood out of the exits, seemingly with the sole aim of tracking down Luke and tearing him limb from limb.
In our horror, Danny and I turn to Rory, but he only has eyes for one person.
Arabella.
He stomps toward her, all provoked prowling animal, and snarls down at her pigtailed head, “We had a deal!”
She gazes at him coolly, looking unimpressed. “Some things are bigger and more important than me.” Her words are slurred to the point she’s almost lisping, and I honestly don’t think she’s in her right mind.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Rory snaps, and I’m surprised to see some kind of betrayal and hurt flashing in his eyes. “I never thought you’d stoop so fucking low.”
“You’re the one blackmailingme,” Arabella manages to point out with an unpleasant sneer. “Who’s worse — the Head Girl fighting for her country, or the Head Boy who’s abullyingprick?”
“Do you evenknowwhat you’ve done?” Rory’s shaking his head, looking beyond furious. I’ve never seen his face so taut with anger. “Li would have stopped this nonsense.”
“Li doesn’t care half as much as I do.”
“No onecares as much as you do!” Rory roars, voice full of violent rage, and Arabella flinches. “You’re throwing everything away on a fucking mirage!”
He storms away from her, like it’s for his own good as well as hers, as if being around Arabella somehow manages to wind him tighter and tighter to the point that some ferocious outburst is imminent.
“Come on,” he orders Danny and me, not waiting for us to catch up. Danny and I give each other anxious looks. Rory pushes through the excitable mass of people, the description of which has subtly shifted from crowd and descended into mob. Eventually, we’re freed into the darkness. Stars twinkle coldly above like detached witnesses to the evening ahead.
“We’re coming for you!” the students yell gleefully, clapping and whooping.
“I really don’t think she knows what she did,” I pant as I reach Rory, trying to block out the din of everyone else. It’s almost impossible for me to match the quickened strides of his long legs as he joins the rest of the students.
“Not now.” His voice is terse and dangerous.
We pass the woman lounging against the base of the lamp post, who looks at the passing mob with only the mildest interest.
“She was drunk out of her mind,” I rationalize, feeling it’s necessary to stick up for Arabella. Nothing about Rory has reminded me of his dad so much as in that moment, face glittering with fury and attempting to control his vicious temper beneath the stern facade. “You know what she’s like. She’s just trying to get status among the students here. Don’t take it out on her.”
Rory says nothing, just continues marching onward, his face hardened and his gray eyes blazing like liquid mercury. Empathy for Arabella, it seems, won’t be on the cards tonight.
As we crest the hill that leads to the Anchorage, the students are jeering. “Him and his trash family need to be held to account!”
“We see you!” another shrieks.
Beside me, Danny mutters, “Since when did Brits use the word ‘trash’? Imperialism’s gone mad.”
At last, the hotel is within sight. Other students pick up the pace, running toward it. But as I squint from the top of the hill, I notice the shadows of the building shifting… and realize they aren’t shadows at all but a gleaming stately black car — and it’s moving.
It’s moving faster than I’ve seen any other car move in this sleepy little university town.
Rory suddenly stops walking, watching the car speed along the rustic road and up toward the hill. Its engine revs from a low purr to a wild growl, and the car’s lights beam directly toward us and the rest of the mob. Through the lights I make out a serious-looking Mr. MacKechnie in the driver seat, with Luke and Finlay in the back.
Finlay wears an expression of absurd glee, his bright face beaming. He winds down the window beside him fully and sticks his head out of it, almost leaning halfway out of the car, and I watch this daring stunt through incredulous eyes. Luke, beside him, appears to be laughing, trying but failing to drag Finlay back into the car.
“The throne is oors today!” Finlay sings mockingly, a triumphant bellow. “The throne is oors today!” As he flies past the first of the mob, he sticks his hands in the air and cries out to the hundreds of outraged students, “Woo-hoooooo, motherfuckers!!”
When he sees Rory, Danny and me in the crowd, time seems to slow. Finlay shoots us a devil-may-care grin and begins to blow kisses with his palm, his green eyes glittering beneath starlight. “See ye in class!” he yells, with another wild, whooping, hooting cheer, as the car slinks over the crown of the hill and disappears.
I realize I’m full-on grinning by the time the world quietens. When the noise of a roaring car and Finlay’s brash, happy words and laughter no longer fill the air.
“That was… something,” Danny says, looking slightly stunned.
