Good vs. Evil High (13 page)

I let out a sigh. Luke and I couldn’t be
friends. And I’d finally gotten him back when I never thought I
would. I felt the same pain I’d felt years before as he was taken
away just like that. I realized I should have seen it coming, since
even the grown-ups of each school felt such apparent loathing for
each other.

But there’s still tomorrow. One day to go
back in time together
. I held on to that thought as I unpacked
and got ready for bed, not speaking to anyone for the rest of the
night.

Chapter
Sixteen

~ Cinder Territory ~

I felt the light hit my eyes before someone
started shaking me. “Come on, Kristine. We’ve got physical fitness
in a little while,” Harmony said.

“Are you serious?” I sat up and climbed
slowly out of bed. A few girls were still there, but the room was
mostly empty. “Why’d you let me sleep so late? Now I can’t eat
breakfast.” And I was seeing Luke today. For some reason, I felt
like I needed time to figure out what I was going to wear.

“You didn’t set an alarm. I thought you
wanted to sleep in. You didn’t say anything about it last
night.”

“Yeah...” I rubbed my eyes and tried to go
over my wardrobe in my head. “Sorry. I should have set an alarm.
How long do I have?”

“Twenty minutes, so we should probably leave
in fifteen.”

“Okay. Just don’t leave without me. I have no
idea where I’m going.”

She laughed and grabbed a magazine from the
top of her dresser before she climbed onto her bed. “Don’t worry, I
won’t.”

All I really needed to do was brush my teeth
and hair, get it all into a ponytail, and pull a bodysuit on. Then
I could pick out clothes and shoes and put them in my bag.

When we walked out of the room fifteen
minutes later, I dreaded going back into the gloomy hallways of the
southland school. And on the way down the stairs, I realized
something I hadn’t thought of before. “Do Cinders have to do
something really bad to get recruited, like us?”

“We didn’t do something really bad.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” she giggled. We reached the end of
the stairway and started toward the cafeteria. Miss Tripside was
sitting at the end of the hallway now. “I can’t say for sure.
Obviously they have to do something to get noticed by their
headmaster, but I don’t really know much about them. None of us
do.”

“That doesn’t bother anyone? I mean—aren’t
you even curious?”

“Not really.”

I smelled the buttery biscuits and bacon as
we passed the cafeteria and continued for a while to a set of doors
on the other side of the hallway. They pounded loudly against each
other when we closed them behind us.

The gymnasium we walked into wasn’t nearly as
big as the one I was still getting used to up north, but it was
full of familiar faces wearing white suits like mine, which felt
nice. “This is all ours. Cinders never come in here,” Harmony told
me as we walked toward Coach Beckham’s group. “The girls’ showers
are through those doors on the right. Boys on the other side.
Nadine and the other competitors usually aren’t here. They train in
their own arenas.”

Sassy waved when she saw us.

“Fayre!” Coach Beckham bellowed as we joined
the crowd. “I’m timing you sprinting today. Everyone else, give me
two laps around the wall.” Coach and I walked toward the wall while
the other girls began stretching.

“Why are you timing me?” I asked.

“Coach Ling wants to have a record of
it.”

I looked back when I heard the door shut and
saw Roman running toward us. “Can I speak to Kristine for a minute,
Coach Beckham?”

Say no, say no, say no
, I silently
pleaded.

“Does Coach Rolland know you’re here?” my
coach asked.

“Yes, sir. I just need her for a minute.”

“All right, but only for a minute. I wanna
get her timed before the rest of my students finish their laps.”
Coach walked ahead to wait by the racing lines.

I stared at Roman, still angry at him for the
night before.

“Kristine...I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t
have told you not to talk to that guy. But I can’t help myself.
You’re so beautiful; I wish I could lock you away and keep you to
myself sometimes.”

I raised an eyebrow. He was
not
helping his case.

“But I’ll make it up to you, okay? I’ll make
this better. Just...don’t be mad at me anymore.” He put a hand on
my arm and leaned forward to kiss my cheek, keeping his lips there
a few seconds longer than necessary.

As soon as he let go, I turned away and ran
toward Coach Beckham. The next hour was as hardcore as always,
working out until we all thought we’d collapse. Then it was off to
the showers. Sassy had a lot of fun trying to get my hair just
right. I even let her put some eyeliner and lip gloss on me.

When we walked out of the gym, I searched the
Cinder faces as we passed them in the hallway. But we got all the
way to the cafeteria, and still no sign of Luke. “Looks like he’s a
no show,” Harmony said. The three of us stopped in front of the
cafeteria doors. “Do you wanna get something to eat with us
instead?”

“No, I’ll wait. I really want to see
him.”

Harmony gave me a sympathetic look.
“Kristine, you can’t trust Cinders. He probably won’t even bother
to come.”

“Yes, he will. I’m sure he got held up or
something, but he’ll be here.”

“If you change your mind...” She and Sassy
left me alone for the food on the other side of the door, which was
already making my mouth water.

As I turned around to go sit under a torch
and draw, I walked right into someone’s rock-solid chest, his
shoulders and arms pushing forward enough to help me regain my
balance. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—Luke! Where did you come from? I
didn’t see you anywhere.”

“You should be careful. Apologizing to a
Cinder’s kind of a slap to the face.” His smile was playful as he
took a step back.

“Right. I’ve got to remember that. So, do you
wanna get something to eat?”

“Sure, but let’s go somewhere else, somewhere
more private.”

“Okay.”

He pulled open the door across the hall from
the cafeteria and held it for me. Everything felt unreal as we
walked through an empty gymnasium and into another hallway. I still
couldn’t believe I was with him. I kept sneaking glances his way,
unable to believe how big and buff he’d gotten. The spiky hair
really worked for him, too.

“You might want to put this on. You’ll stick
out pretty badly without it.” Luke handed me a black
sweatshirt.

We began passing rooms with no doors on them.
The first few had music blasting and people dancing around inside
them. Then we passed a couple with kids sitting around watching big
screen TVs.

“Haven’t seen one of those in awhile,” I
said.

“You don’t have TVs at North Haven?”

“No. I guess we could watch something on our
cons if we really wanted to, but we’re usually pretty busy with
classes and having fun doing other stuff. I’ve hardly thought about
TV since I got recruited a few weeks ago.”

“A few weeks ago?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve only been here a few weeks too, but
what’s a con? Is it like a laptop or something?”

“I’ll show you.” I reached in my bag as he
stopped in front of a door with long chairs and a few people
sitting on them in pairs inside. When I pulled my con out and
touched it, it began to unfold.

Luke grabbed my elbow and pulled me to the
side away from the room. “What are you doing? Put that thing
away.”

“Why?”

“Someone will see it. Put it away now!” The
urgency in his voice and in his eyes scared me.

“Kristine Con, return.” As it fell into my
hand, I began to understand.

Luke didn’t want anyone to know he was with a
North Havener. I should have realized when I saw all the kids in
black and the depressing atmosphere that I was stepping into Cinder
territory. That was why he didn’t want to go in the cafeteria with
me. That was why he wanted me to wear dark colors. My eyes began to
tear up. “You don’t want to be seen with me.” I looked down so he
wouldn’t see me cry as I turned to walk away.

“No, Kristine, that’s not it.” He grabbed my
shoulder and turned me around. “It’s just...” He looked back and
forth through the empty hallway as he came to stand right in front
of me, leaning down to place his face only a couple of inches from
mine. His voice became a whisper. “It’s not safe. If people saw us
together we could both become targets. I can handle that, but I
won’t let that happen to you. No one from your school has ever set
foot on this side of the fitness rooms. It’s dangerous. I’m only
trying to protect you.”

It was hard to focus on what he was saying,
because with his body against mine like that, my heart was pounding
like it never had before. He licked his full lips and lifted his
eyebrows, making me want to melt all over the floor.
What is
going on?

“I’m going to take you to the counter in
there. Grab what you want and follow me to a chair,
understand?”

I nodded, still having a hard time thinking
of anything other than the face, once so young and innocent, which
had become what it was now. I could almost see the heavenly angels
spending years around him, chiseling away every perfect detail that
made up that face. In the dim shadows of the hallway, I began to
see him in a whole new light.

He turned around and led me into the room and
over to a counter. I was surprised to find a small lamp on each end
of it, revealing a glass-front mini-fridge full of sandwiches and
drinks, and baskets full of snack stuff. I grabbed a turkey
sandwich, a bottle of water, and a giant gingersnap cookie before I
followed Luke to the chair farthest away from the burning fireplace
in the back of the room.

The chairs were far enough apart and the
other kids were talking loud enough that no one would hear what we
said. We had to sit pretty close together, so I tried to sit kind
of sideways so I could still look at him while we talked.

“Do you want one?” I asked, offering him half
my sandwich.

He shook his head and waved a hand.

I ate as quickly as I could, because I really
wanted to hear what happened to him after I saw him last. Halfway
through my cookie, I couldn’t wait any longer. “Where’d you get
transferred to when I was sent to the Broken Ridge girls’
home?”

His eyebrows moved down. “The old woman at
that place said she didn’t know where you’d ended up.”

“What old woman?”

“I don’t know. I walked all the way there and
this old hag with big glasses and half her teeth missing told me
you were sent to a foster family in a different part of the
state.”

“You walked all the way there? But we were in
the middle of nowhere outside of the other end of town. That must
have taken you hours. And Ms. Wendy told me the same thing when I
kept asking her if I could go see you.”

Unmistakable rage filled his face. He leaned
forward and began shaking his head.

“Are you all right?” I asked, setting my
cookie on the floor to put a hand on his arm.

He leaned back and began nodding his head
instead of shaking it. “I’ll kill her.” His eyes were wide now,
almost afraid, the way they used to get on his bad nights when he
came over. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT I WENT THROUGH—” He looked up at the
kids turning to stare and lowered his voice. “Do you know what I
went through because of her? I thought I would never see you again,
and you were always right there.” His fists clenched and unclenched
several times as he took up shaking his head again.

“You weren’t moved away, either?”

“Yeah, I was. The Rorks couldn’t handle all
the trouble I started getting into, so they sent me away. I was so
angry that I would never see you again, and there was nothing I
could do about it.”

“I’m here now, and killing Ms. Wendy won’t
change the past.” I smiled, hoping he wasn’t serious when he said
that.

“I know, but—all that lost time. I died
inside when you were taken from me, and everything went wrong after
that.”

“I died inside, too. It felt like you were
the only thing that could keep me together after my mom died, and
then you were taken away too...”

He stared into the fire with so much anger
and pain. I wanted to make him feel better more than anything else
in the world. My head tilted as an idea came to me. “But look at us
now. We kind of live together for the next three months. And it
never would have happened if you hadn’t gotten into whatever
trouble led you here. Things worked out really well.”

He laughed softly as he smiled over at me.
“Yeah. You’re still my Kristine, always seeing the bright side of
everything.” He put his arm around me, so I leaned against his
side. “Just like before.”

“Just like before.” It felt so good to be
curled up beside him again. I decided I didn’t care about
Cinder/North Haven rivalry. I finally had Luke back, and I wasn’t
giving him up again.

“Luke?”

“Everyone here calls me Knight. Most of the
kids who come through here without Cinder-worthy names get renamed.
I was lucky enough to have a last name Headmaster found acceptable,
so you might want to call me by that one.”

“Knight? That’s weird. You’ll always be Luke
to me.”

He smiled over at me. “I know, and I guess
it’s okay when it’s just us. But the rest of the time, it’s
Knight.”

I looked at the fire this time, as it began
to sink in how everything was so temporary. “When will we ever see
each other when we’re not here?”

“When we’re eighteen, I guess. We’ll both be
leaving school.”

“I’m never leaving North Haven.”

His head jerked to the side. “You never want
to have a life?”