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Hold.
Laura’s footsteps come toward her.
Hold.
She steels herself for the moment she is going to run. Closer they come. Closer… Closer still.
Hold
It’s tempting to run now, but if she makes her move too early, she’ll just run right into Laura. She has to catch her off-guard.
Now.
Storm bursts from her hiding spot and sprints for the cupboard, diving out of it in a wild panic. Laura is right behind her, but not close enough again. Storm slams the door shut and leans against it. There’s a dullthudas Laura makes contact with the shut side.
“Let me out at once!”
Laura’s voice comes through the door, loud and frustrated.
“I’m not letting you out until you promise not to punish me.”
“Of course I am going to punish you, you little brat,” Laura growls. “I am going to make what Miss Strict did to you with that birch look like nothing.”
Storm braces herself against a stair railing in the common room, feet against the bottom rung, back against the door. Laura’s not getting out of there any time soon.
“You better be nice to me,” Storm calls back. “Or you’re going to be the old lady in the roof forever.”
She can’t help but laugh at her own joke, adrenaline making her absolutely goofy, along with the relief of not actually being caught. She has no idea how this is working out so well. Someone or something must be watching over her.
“Stand back, or you’re going to get hurt,” Laura warns.
Storm can hear Laura backing up a step to take a run at the door. She doesn’t know if she can hold it or not, and in an instant she decides not to even bother to try.
She runs down the common room stairs as Laura comes flying out of the roof cavity behind her, the cupboard door bursting off its hinges under the weight of the angry guard.
Again, Storm has the advantage, but it is not as much this time. She bolts for the staircase that goes to the first floor, hearing Laura behind her. Gripping the bannister, she jumps and slides down to the first floor, adding maybe a second or two to her time.
But Laura didn’t bother with the bannister. Laura jumped. And as Storm hits the bottom of the staircase, the guard comes down on top of her in a tackle that brings them both to the ground, cursing and growling like a pair of furious animals.
Storm doesn’t know what the woman is trying to achieve, but she fights for all she is worth, squirming and cursing, kicking and even trying to bite. After an intense few seconds of tussling, Laura grips her by the back of the neck in one hand, and pulls her right arm up and behind her back. But Laura is not letting go, and that arm grip means she can barely squirm. She’s got Storm pinned, and she’s keeping her pinned.
“Not this time,” she says. “This time, you get what is coming to you. Nothing is going to stand in the way of you being punished by the both of us.”
Trembling in Laura’s grip, Storm prays to whatever deity watches over the reckless and badly behaved. That force seems to have abandoned her for the moment. Laura has her, and judging by the pair of high heels coming toward her, Jane is about to have her too.
Laura and Storm both look up to see Miss Strict standing over them with a composed, yet shell-shocked expression.
Something is wrong. Storm knows it. She’s never seen that kind of seriousness on Jane’s face before. For once, this is nothing about her. She stops fighting and goes curiously limp. Laura keeps a hand on the back of her neck, but sits up, running a hand through her hair to push blonde strands out of her face.
“What’s wrong?” Laura asks the question on Storm’s mind.
Jane looks at the pair of them, not seeming to mind the improper scuffle on the floor, a most unladylike display if ever there was one.
“My employment was just terminated,” she says.
“What?” Laura and Storm ask the question in one voice.
“Kiera’s father, Baron Marlin, arrived this morning and petitioned Frau Lotte to have me removed from my position as disciplinarian. She has seen fit to do so…”
Jane pauses a moment before enunciating the worst news Storm has ever heard.
“I’ve been fired.”
* * *
