Good vs. Evil High (32 page)

Luke caught him halfway to the first fatal
blow, where his skull would have undoubtedly been bashed in. Luke
set his headmaster down hastily and began up the stairs again. He
was slowing down, leaning forward enough that he used the hand not
holding his injury to help carry his weight up the stairs.

“Why did you have to help me?” his headmaster
asked breathlessly. “Knight! Get back here.” Luke kept going,
though.

“Fayre,” the headmaster said darkly when he
saw me. “What’s going on?”

“Roman framed Knight.” I hurried past him, my
ankle hurting a hundred times worse in the merciless climb.

“You come back here!”

It crossed my mind that Ripper and Hanghard
should have been there to save their headmaster when I slammed into
something hard at the top of the stairs, something that I couldn’t
see. And then a giant greasy man appeared. He reached out to grab
my shirt before I fell back. Crooked, brown teeth snarled at me as
he said, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“And I’ve got the other one,” an equally
monstrous man with dreadlocks and clear blue eyes said, walking up
behind him with Luke thrown over his shoulder.

“Luke!” I screamed, fighting to get away.

“Shut up, witch,” the man holding onto my
suit said as he lifted me over his shoulder, too.

Luke was shivering and pale now, his eyes
fluttering open enough to see me and whisper, “Kristine.”

“Let him go or I’ll shoot,” I said, pointing
the gun at Luke’s captor’s face. He only laughed and nodded to the
man holding me.

I felt myself being bounced up on his
shoulder and then sliding back down in front of him. I did my best
to hold onto the gun, but with my balance gone and everything
happening so fast, the man who had dropped me took it away easily.
He put one hand around my neck and the other on top of my head.
“I’m gonna break your neck in two,” he said menacingly.

“No, Hanghard...” I could hear his master
still trying to catch his breath as he hurried up the stairs.
“...Armstrong...Get me Armstrong instead...”

Hanghard glared at me and growled as he let
me go, pushing me back enough that I had to grab the wall beside me
not to fall. Then he ran away with Roman’s gun.

“We’re still taking care of Knight, aye?” the
man I presumed to be Ripper asked.

“No...” His Headmaster took a deep breath. “I
owe him a great debt now. You must get him to the hospital wing
immediately.”

Ripper looked almost as livid as Hanghard had
as he turned away and walked stiffly down the hall.

“You will come with me, Fayre,” Tobias
said.

“I’m going with Luke,” I said as I walked
after Ripper.

“You would do well to remember that I hold
his life in my hands.”

I stopped in my tracks. I felt the same
frustration and stiffness Ripper had shown as I turned around.

The Cinder headmaster went down the hallway
in the opposite direction as the other three. I followed because I
had to. Two turns later, he stopped beside a tiny shelf with a
small black vase sitting on it and picked it up. He pressed a
button underneath and I heard a robotic voice say, “Headmaster
Tobias Veziamo, password.”

“Loyalty to your master and to your
school.”

He placed the vase back on the stand as a
piece of the wall below slid back and then to the side. Lights came
on in the secret room behind it. Luke’s headmaster led me into a
round office room, decorated with antique-looking things. The desk
he sat behind was badly stained and scarred. The books and little
toys lining the walls were dusty and faded.

“Where did you get all these old things?” I
asked curiously, taking a seat in a beaten up green chair.

“All taken from the house I grew up in.”

As the wall slid back in place behind me, it
struck me that this headmaster might be a bit more sentimental, at
least about his childhood with his parents, than mine. Suddenly,
the man before me almost seemed human.

“When can I see Luke? I mean Knight,” I
asked.

“The problem is that everyone is hunting you
and Knight. If I let you go off alone, the first Cinder that found
you would take you prisoner or kill you. I’ve given orders to every
student and adult I employ to do either one of these things if they
should find you.”

“Then what about Knight?! Won’t the Cinder
doctors try to kill him?” I fought very hard to keep from jumping
out of that chair.

“Not as long as he’s with Ripper. Any command
he gives will be a command from me, and he won’t leave Luke’s side
until I say otherwise.”

Cinder Headmaster put an elbow on his desk
and rubbed his forehead. “I wish he hadn’t saved me from that
fall.”

“Seriously? You would rather have fallen and
broken half the bones in your body?”

He turned his powerful stare back on me.
“Don’t you understand? Now I owe him a great debt. Whatever he
wants, even. I swore I’d have him killed when he beat those guards
half to death and got away. Now I can’t. I have to go back on my
word, which is something I’ve never done before. My students will
no longer respect me as their master.”

This was followed by a long, heavy silence. I
didn’t know what to say to this. But I was so, so, so relieved to
know he wouldn’t kill Luke.

“Well...maybe you could tell them he’s paid
his debt—Tell them he’s suffered or been punished nearly to death
and that he begged you for it. Instead of killing him like he
wanted, you kept torturing him or something.”

His gray eyebrows bent down halfway to his
nose. He was looking at me like I was absolutely insane. And then
he cocked his head and smiled, making him look even more human.
“Are you suggesting I lie?”

“Well, yeah, if that’s what it takes to keep
Knight alive.”

He sat back and continued to smile, but not
the happy sort, more of a deranged grin. “I do believe you’re more
Cinder than Havener, deep down.”

“I am not,” I said defensively.

“You stood up to me for a Cinder. You got
yourself down to the prisoner’s floor. How you did this, I have yet
to figure out. You held a gun to Ripper’s head, even though
Haveners don’t use them. You’re sitting here trying to help me come
up with a manipulative way to get around this situation so that
I’ll let your Cinder boyfriend live. And—” He leaned forward to
grab my hands and turn them inward. “—you’re wearing one of my
suits.” I pulled my hands away and sat back. He was confusing, not
the terrifying vulture I was used to.

Maybe the last few weeks had hardened me. But
it was survival. Mine
and
Luke’s. That didn’t make me a
Cinder. “Yeah, but I’m still a North Havener at heart.”

The smile dimmed slightly, but he didn’t look
angry. “I’ll find a way to explain this to my students, but first
you need to explain what you said earlier—about Armstrong framing
Knight.”

“Okay,” I told him everything from getting
caught in the hallway on my way to find Luke up until this very
moment, but I refused to tell him how I got to the underground
prison cells. All the while, I couldn’t decide if I was more
worried about Luke’s life or mine. He was in the hospital wing with
a bullet wound. And his headmaster still hadn’t mentioned sparing
my life.

“Hmm...” He leaned back in his chair and
stared at the stone ceiling when I was through. “My brother would
never have one of his own students killed. Always the weaker twin.
If Hanghard catches him, I’ll kill Armstrong myself for making such
a fool of me.” The silence that followed was driving me crazy.

I couldn’t wait to know if he planned to kill
me any longer. “What about me? Will you have me killed, too? For
helping Knight?”

He stared at me lazily. “That depends on him,
I suppose. If he survives, the thing he’ll ask me for will probably
be your safety. He loves you, I’ve been told, so much so that he
would sacrifice his own life to save yours.”

“You mean you’ll kill him if he wants you to
let me go?”

“I’ve already explained; I can’t kill him
now. He saved me from that fall, forcing me to be forever in his
debt. He’s untouchable. You don’t understand Cinder code.”

Not the clearest answer, but it sounded like
we were both okay.

Except that Luke’s life was still on the line
somewhere upstairs. I felt myself tearing up already. “Couldn’t I
use this shadow suit to go see Knight? I need to know how he’s
doing.”

“We’ll wait for Hanghard to report back. Then
I’ll have him escort you to my brother and explain what’s
happened.”

We sat there in that drafty room for a long
time. I fought not to cry, because I didn’t want to appear weak to
Luke’s headmaster. After everything he said and the way he seemed
to tie the two of us together, it felt like anything I did would be
a reflection of Luke. I needed his headmaster to continue viewing
me more like one of his Cinders.

They weren’t all bad, after all.

Chapter
Forty

~ Manhunt ~

When the wall finally slid to the side and
Hanghard walked in, I jumped out of my seat. “Is Knight okay?”

He glared at me and then looked at his
headmaster. “Armstrong got away. I lost him near the front. He may
have fled the school entirely, but I doubt it. With that arm, he
wouldn’t be able to survive out there.”

I stared at his master, hoping he’d finally
let me go. Then maybe
my
headmaster could tell me how Luke
was doing.

“I’ll alert both schools and send guards to
the tunnels and out on the grounds,” the headmaster said. “He must
be found. In the meantime, I need you to take her to her
headmaster. Tell him not to let her out of his sight until I join
him. It’ll be Knight’s request that she be kept alive and safe when
he wakes up. Nothing can happen to her.” I could tell he resented
Luke for that.

I could also tell that Hanghard resented
having to look after me, as he grabbed my arm and pulled me toward
the open wall.

“Use your shadow suits, both of you,” his
headmaster said, walking out of the room behind us. Hanghard and I
looked at each other as we did what we were told. His grip
tightened, making me want to cry, but I held it in. We all walked
together until we entered the dining hall.

The delicious smells and the sight of my
schoolmates laughing and eating breakfast filled me with joy. Until
then, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see them again. It felt like the
nightmare of the last two weeks was finally coming to an end. If
only Roman wasn’t still out there and I knew Luke would be all
right...

I’d never wished death on another person, but
I did at that moment. As long as Roman was alive, Luke was in
danger. I hoped the Cinders would get to him before we did.

Tobias walked to his brother at their table
and leaned down to whisper something in his ear.

Seeing my headmaster made me smile. I’d
missed him and his fatherly way more than I can put into words.

His eyes became wide as he looked in my
general direction. Then he got out of his seat swiftly and hurried
toward his office. Hanghard pulled me along behind him.

“I need everyone’s attention now,” Cinder
Headmaster called out from the table, his magnified tone instantly
silencing the room. “North Havener Roman Armstrong has been charged
with the kidnapping of North Havener Kristine Fayre and the
attempted murders of North Havener Rose Jennings, Cinder Titus, and
Cinder Knight.”

The buzz of everyone’s astonishment spread
throughout the hall. We were halfway across the room, then, and I
saw my roommates sitting at our table. But they weren’t talking
like everyone else. They were staring at the Cinder headmaster,
obviously very concerned.

It felt like my ankle would snap as I pressed
it against the ground as hard as I could. I pulled against
Hanghard, trying to stay and listen, but my feet slid and I
stumbled as he dragged me on.

“SHUT UUUP!” Cinder Headmaster shouted. The
room got quiet. “Time is short. I need your cooperation. The
allegations against Knight and Fayre were put in place to throw
Armstrong off until we could be sure it was him. Now we are. If you
come across either of these two innocents, you will leave them
unharmed. They were only acting as instructed to ensure that we
caught the one responsible for threatening our Winter Competitions.
I need every one of you, Cinder and Havener, to stop what you’re
doing and aid in this search for Armstrong immediately. I must
leave now to gather the rest of our students and inform them as
well.”

Kids hurried out of their seats to leave the
room—some looking confused, some scared, and some angry—as Hanghard
flung me into Headmaster’s office and shut the door with both of us
inside.

“Where is she?” Headmaster asked as Hanghard
appeared behind me.

“I’m here,” I said, turning my arms out.

“Oh my dear girl.” Headmaster hugged me
tightly. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

“My master said not to let her out of your
sight until he returns to talk to you,” Hanghard said.

“Yes, yes, of course. Thank you for bringing
her to me.”

Hanghard grimaced and then disappeared before
he left the room.

“What on earth happened?” Headmaster asked
me. “And what’s this about Roman Armstrong?”

“It was all him—everything...”

Headmaster pulled his chair around the desk
and sat beside me as I told the dreadful story for the second time
that day.

“You’ve been through a lot,” he said, shaking
his head when I was through. “I can’t believe Roman Armstrong did
this. He’s always had a rather bad temper, but this...I just can’t
believe it. What am I supposed to do with him?”

My first thought was to hand him over to the
Cinders and let them deal with it, but I held it back out of
respect for my headmaster.