AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Look,” Finlay says with a deeply exasperated sigh, “can a lass no’ just rent a room so she can have herverywicked way wi’ the handsome lad she fancies?”
“I know that the state of our nation is a subject of enormous mockery for you, Mr. Fraser. I am aware of your stunt with the flags this morning.”
“Oh, I dinnae thinkI’mthe one makin’ a mockery o’ oor nation,” Finlay retorts smoothly.
Before this interaction becomes too heated, I hesitantly interject, “Can I ask… whyisthere an Antiro flag on the castle?” Baxter attempts to silence me with the sharpness of her glare, but after a moment my courage returns, and I tell her, “I just don’t think it’s appropriate.”
“Whatisn’tappropriate, Miss Weir, is abandoning this school without so much as a word as to your location. And since you were gone for so long, you may have missed the recent developments regarding Mr. Milton.”
We stare at her, giving away nothing, but our ears prick with interest.
“A bounty is on him,” Baxter announces, and my stomach lurches. “The king wants him arrested and charged in the highest court in the land. A warrant is out for Mr. Milton and there is a manhunt for him across the kingdom. They believe he’ll rise again, and so they need him dealt with — and preferably dead.”
Her last word resounds like a dropped anvil.
“And that’s okay, is it?” I find myself asking, the muscles in my legs trembling, my voice shaky, as I’m suddenly scared at the thought of losing Luke from afar. “A zealous mob goes after a former student — agoodstudent, who did his best when he was here — and you think absolutely nothing of this? You have nothing bad to say about it?”
“For how much?” Finlay’s voice is husky, his face ghostly white. “How much is Luke worth?”
Baxter ignores my condemnation of her and chooses to talk figures with Finlay. “Fifteen million.”
I feel sick. Finlay’s face seems frozen in shock, but his eyes are alert, his mind processing. “That’s a lot o’ money,” he says carefully, but there’s a flicker of something beyond the despair of this situation, a flicker dominant enough to give me hope.
“So it isn’t us you’re concerned with,” I whisper. “It’s fifteen million pounds, and this was pretense. You don’t give a damn about us or any student in this castle. All you care about is Luke’s whereabouts for your own sick gain!”
Baxter says nothing, but her nostrils flare wide enough that I expect smoke to start coiling from them. Her lips purse as she glides silently to the back of the door, where, I note for the first time, a thick brown leather belt hangs on a hook at the back of it.
I meet Finlay’s gaze, suddenly fearful. My voice, my accusations — they ring throughout the room like the resounding echoes of bells.
In a low, lethal voice that I’ve never heard from Finlay before, he says, “Touch Jessa and ye’ll regret ever bringin’ us intae this room.”
Baxter ignores him. “Hands out.”
We remain motionless, our hands behind our backs.
“Handsout.”
My heart is a tight, angry drumbeat against my ribs and my panicked swallow sounds deafening in the small room. “No,” I say. My voice is small, but it’s still a voice, and, confronted by the sheer unjust tyranny of Baxter with a weapon, it feels like the bravest words I’ve ever spoken.
It doesn’t matter. She pulls my arm, yanking it from its shelter behind my back, and, before I can process it, the belt strikes my upturned, shaking palms. I gaze up at her with wide, disbelieving eyes as fiery lances of pain rocket up my nerves. She does it five times in quick succession, and by the end of the ordeal, tears fill my eyes.
All I can make out is the blurry outline of Finlay, shouting in outrage, trying to wrench the belt from Baxter with both hands. “Are ye aff yerheid?” he cries, diving for the strap, trying to bat it away from me. “Get thefuckaff her!” He manages to intervene, slotting himself between me and Baxter, knocking over a stack of papers in the process. I watch dismally as his hands are struck instead of mine, and aside from a stinging intake of breath at the first one, he makes no giveaway that he feels any of it. He receives fifteen lashes, one for each million Luke is worth, all the while shielding me from the worst of it. I’m wiping my eyes until the end, scarcely believing what’s happening, and, scrambling for something to do with my numb, quivering hands, I place them on the soft fabric of Finlay’s black jacket and run my flushed cheek against the studs.
I inhale. I note the tension running along Finlay’s broad shoulders with every hit.
My cheek traces each letter on his back, and it grounds me.
Alba gu bràth.
20
Iskip lunch. I skip dinner. The only reason no one comes after me is because of Baxter’s incessant patrols. It’s fine by me. Right now, all I want is to curl up in self-pity, and metaphorically, and perhaps even literally, lick my wounds. My skin is a bright, beaming red, and the cold bite of the belt buckle had managed a blow against my wrists. Whenever I close my eyes, pain flashes and surges up my arms. I feel weak and the world is one giant, hopeless mindfuck. I don’t understand how Finlay could remain so stoic, how he could even remainupright, taking it and taking it in my stead. He’d done his very best to defend me, to protect me, and I wish I could fling my arms around his neck and have him hold me tight, sheltering me away from this cruel world.
Instead, I pick up the small egg Luke gave me, wishing it would turn on, willing it to buzz. It doesn’t even feel like a sex toy anymore, but a talisman, a secret message divulging Luke’s status in this rotten world. I just want to know he’s okay. It must look ridiculous, but I hold the egg to my forehead like prayer beads and yearn.
At some point, I fall asleep. When I wake, after dreams of gunshots and slumped, bleeding bodies, my room is pitch-black and freezing, the temperature having plummeted at night. I’m still clutching the small black egg in my hand. It doesn’t move. It doesn’t buzz. I’m starting to think it might not even work in Lochkelvin since I haven’t heard it vibrate once.
When I stand, rolling out the tight tension of my wrists, I notice a small card at the foot of my bed, something that, from its battered edges, seems to have been frantically pushed beneath my door. I pick it up, urgent, and read the message:Round table – 1am. There’s no signature, but the longer I inspect it, the more I’m certain I recognize the neat simplicity of Danny’s handwriting.
