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“Hey.” Rory’s voice cuts across to me from the other side of the table, and I raise my head from Danny’s shoulder to meet his gray stare. Funny, how I’d once found it so cold. Now warmth to me is the exact sky-gray of Rory’s eyes. He leans across the table, past the radio, capturing my hand in his. His skin is warm and smooth to the touch. “We’re going to be okay.”
“I know.” I don’t dispute it — I feel it in my bones. Yes, we’ll be okay. We’ll survive, one way or another. And Luke — we’ll find a way tomakehim survive, too.
Because that’s what this is about now. Not winning. We’d been so naive before, so terribly innocent. We hadn’t known how stacked the deck had been against us when we’d hoped Luke would reclaim what’s rightfully his.
No. We aren’t going to win.
But we’ll survive.
We have to.
It’s with these thoughts that I pack later that evening for Dunhaven. Everyone else is more into the trip than me, enticed by the town’s famous ruined castle which apparently juts out from the mainland — an architectural marvel. I don’t particularly care. There are more pressing matters.
I sleep, dreaming of survival, of being thrust into a tight, suffocating space, not unlike the back of the fireplace in the girls’ tower. I’m surrounded by gray stone and I hear Luke’s gentle murmur from somewhere far away. When I wake, my first thought is a kind of hunger, of claiming The Daily Toot for myself and reading it from cover to cover.
It’s nowhere to be found.
It isn’t on any of the newspaper racks in the library, all of which are empty. In the front entrance, the reading material left out for parents and visitors has been cleared. I scour the whole castle, trying to think where newspapers would be hidden. Baxter’s office, probably — which, naturally, is locked. In a fit of desperation, I try our politics classroom. It can’t be later than seven in the morning, but the door opens. Nobody’s inside. I rummage around Dr. Moncrieff’s desk with its myriad papers. Nothing jumps out at me. It’s just teaching notes, diaries, stationery…
I slump over to my desk, choosing to catch a moment’s breath before collapsing upstairs to bed again.
The light is strange at this time in the morning. The sun tries. Too many fat clouds filter the rays, turning the morning sky into a sickening shade of off-white. It’s bright, brightening with every passing minute, but there’s no source for it other than a star kept hidden, shrouded far away…
“What are you doing here?”
I don’t stop staring at the sky. I want to see the sun again, feel heat licking my skin. Dr. Moncrieff slowly places his briefcase on the desk I’d inspected, and I sense his gaze scrutinizing me the whole time.
“I must ask you to leave,” he says quietly. “You are inadequately dressed. This is inappropriate.”
It’s as though his words are from far away, from the place beyond the imposing clouds. It takes a moment for them to sink in. When they do, I heave a sigh and tighten my black dressing gown around me.
“What happened?” I ask, ignoring his request. “The night of the lockdown.”
He doesn’t speak, pulling bundles of essays from his briefcase and shrugging off his tweed jacket. He places it over the back of his chair, still observing me the whole time.
“Why are there no newspapers?” I press. “What aren’t we being told?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dr. Moncrieff says blithely. “There are exams. Distractions won’t serve you well.”
The audacity of it. I should have known Lochkelvin only really cares about the grades students get instead of the students themselves. All we are to them is a walking bunch of letters and statistics to dazzle other generations, and they better all be As or suffer the humiliation of being considered the stupidest.
“We deserve to know what’s happening. We deserve to know we’re safe. You’re our politics teacher! You know it’s wrong! Why are you condoning this?”
Dr. Moncrieff settles into his chair with a weary groan. “Your interrogation methods are remarkable… Have you considered becoming an inspector for Ofsted?” I don’t know what this means. It seems to be some kind of dig at me. He still hasn’t removed his briefcase from the large wooden desk, and I realize belatedly that the smooth brown leather is his method for blocking me from sight.
When I realize he isn’t going to answer me properly, I throw out, through a snarl, “You know Arabella’s depressed, right?”
This seems to wake him up. “Pardon?”
“She’s either depressed or she’s had a personality transplant. I recognize the signs.” Finally, Dr. Moncrieff meets my gaze, his expression troubled. “I might not like her, oryou,” I add spitefully, and immediately feel sick, “but I thought you should check in on her because she’s not… she isn’t herself.”
Dr. Moncrieff inclines his head. “Are you?” His amber eyes pin me in place, and all at once I want — I want toscream. I want a punching bag, to smash every window, to rip up all my books and notes, to beat my fists against Dr. Moncrieff’s chest. To strike giant holes in the wall and break down and befree.
I want to crumble. The desire is almost overwhelming.
For some reason, I think back to my first year here, curled up in bed and miserable, devouring chocolate from home, searching for that little spark of dopamine as I cried, forced to accept my new reality as the local pariah. My standing in Lochkelvin has improved since then, but now, for believing in something other than the orthodox, I’m currently a social pariah to the rest of society. What is it Finlay had whispered to me about Scottish winters? Seasonal disorders. Vitamin D. Yes. I probably need more Vitamin D. Difficult, when we’re banned from the outdoors.
I sit at my desk, as still as a mountain, listening to the icy whirl of my thoughts.
