~ Whatever It Takes ~
Harmony and I had to push our way through the crowd into the girls’ quarters. All over the left side, pillows and blankets were shredded. Contents of dressers had been dumped all over the floor. Mirrors and glass containers were smashed all over the place.
Nadine and Sassy were making their way toward us, so we moved to a clean spot on our side of the room, which hadn’t been touched at all.
“Roman said he saw Luke heading this way before the dance,” Nadine said when she reached me.
“They sent Cinders to search his room,” Sassy added. “I didn’t know where you were—”
Without waiting for her finish, I ran around the edges of the frightened girls to the dresser and tapestry beside Liz’s bed. The dresser scraped noisily against the floor as I pried it away from the wall. I ripped the tapestry from the hidden door and raced through it toward the fourth floor.
When I entered the Cinder boys’ hallway, I could already see guys crowding around the outside of Luke’s room. I shoved through them until I was inside his bedroom, where Luke, Titus, his Headmaster, and a bunch of security guards stood. One was on the floor, pulling a bunch of random things out from under Luke’s bed, including many of the items that had been stolen over the last few weeks.
“I don’t know how those got there,” Luke was saying.
“I’ll bet half of this was taken from the Haven girls just now,” the rummager said.
“I didn’t put that stuff there!”
The man on the floor sat up holding a blue wire with a metal piece at its end. “Isn’t this part of what was missing from his snow bike?”
“Indeed it is.” Their headmaster turned an accusing stare on Luke.
“I didn’t do it,” Luke said. “Why would I blow myself up?”
“You didn’t. Titus took that fall.”
“That’s right,” Titus said, “because you weren’t there. You knew I wanted your ride. You knew I’d take it. Maybe that’s why you were late.”
“He was late because he was with me,” I said, stepping forward.
I recognized one of the guards from the day of the accident at the same time he recognized me. “Not you again,” he said.
The man holding the wire stood up and carried it to his headmaster. “A lying North Havener. Will wonders never cease?”
“I’m not lying.”
His headmaster stared at the wire for a moment before saying, “Search everything.”
The one from the floor reached out for the top dresser drawer.
“No!” Luke said. Three guys grabbed him when he tried to move toward his dresser. “Those are my things.”
“You won’t mind if we have a look at them if you really have nothing to hide,” his headmaster said.
Luke got an arm loose and punched one of the guys, freeing himself for a moment, but three more grabbed on. He continued fighting to get away as the guys rummaged through his top drawer.
“Would someone get a syringe to sedate him?” his headmaster said.
“No,” I pleaded, thinking fast. “He’s just trying to protect something of mine.” Luke stopped struggling to stare at me. I tried to go to the dresser, but Titus and one of the guards grabbed my arms from each side and pulled me back.
Luke went back into fight mode, kicking and clawing and pulling. “Don’t touch her,” he roared.
“I’m just getting my stuff,” I said to the guys holding onto me. Their headmaster nodded to them and they let me go. I knelt on the dirty floor and pulled open the bottom drawer. The room got quiet as Luke became still. I took the heavy safe and stood up, the hem of my yellow dress now black. Luke stared at me in a way that made me unsure of whether he was angry or just very surprised.
“Open it,” Tobias said.
“No, these are my personal things.”
“Then what are they doing here?”
“This box holds some of my most precious memories. While I’m here I thought they’d be safer in a room with only two people in it. Knight promised to protect it with his life, and there’s no one I trust more than him.” I turned to look at Luke, so he would understand. “But it’s not safe here anymore. So I’ll protect it with my own life instead.”
He offered me a look of great relief and gratitude, and allowed the guard to search his things.
One pulled a black bodysuit out of the second drawer. “This isn’t one of ours,” he said, holding it under the lamp. White spread over the area the light was touching.
“I wonder...” His headmaster rubbed the material between his thumb and fingers. “Could it be the one whose footprint was found at the location of Miss Jennings’ attack?”
“He was with me during the attack, and a bunch of other Cinders,” I said.
His headmaster fixed me with an icy stare that made me recoil. “Young lady, don’t you dare number yourself among my students—“
“I wasn’t—” I squeaked.
“And that is hardly a valid defense. No one, not even Rose Jennings, has any idea how much time passed between the attack and when she called for help.”
“But Knight wouldn’t do that.”
His lips thinned as he came to hover over me, an overbearing nightmare with the stench of death on his breath. “Do you make it a habit to argue with your superiors? Because if you were my student, I would have you thrown out into the cold to die. Knight, come with me.” He turned away and moved fluidly toward the door, looking back only to say, “Search the rest. Bring me whatever you find.” Then he and Luke were gone.
With the terror of the Cinder Headmaster gone from the room, the unique fear of what had just happened began to set in. Evidence of Luke doing the terrible things I knew he couldn’t have done had been found.
I should have pled his case better. But really, arguing that I was with him when each offense happened wouldn’t do any good. Because they could have happened before I was with him. But I knew he didn’t do it. No one knew Luke like I did, especially not the Cinders.
Then again...he was a whole other person when he was with them.
But he didn’t do it! Anyone could have put those things there. Titus could have done it. But he was the one in the explosion.
“Dang it!” I said to the room full of Cinders who I realized were all watching me. “He didn’t do it,” I said, before walking out of the room and through the Cinder boys whose numbers had multiplied since I got there.
Someone grabbed my arm in the midst of them all and began walking beside me. “I’ll walk you down,” Bane said.
“I’ll be fine.” I tried to pull my arm away, because I didn’t feel like being near any Cinder at that moment, but he held on.
“No, you won’t. It’s dangerous for you to be up here alone. Half of those guys would have jumped all over you if those security guards weren’t here.”
“Fine.” My mind spun uncontrollably as we walked past bedroom doors. “Knight will be okay, won’t he?”
Bane didn’t say a word until we were at the bottom of the stairway and he’d lit a torch in the long hallway. “Look—you can’t talk to our headmaster like that. I can’t tell you why, but—in Cinder matters, you can’t get involved. I want you to promise me that no matter what happens, you’ll stay out of it.” He looked really angry, as we moved through the passageway, and it felt like he knew something he wasn’t telling me.
“Why? What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know, but whatever it is I want you to stay out of it. Knight wouldn’t want you to get involved.”
“I love him, Bane, and I’m not going to stay out of anything. If he needs me, I’m gonna be there.”
I tried to open the door at the end so I could head back to my bed to think, but Bane put a hand on it and slammed it shut.
“You have to listen to me. Knight can handle himself.” He looked down and stared at the floor self-consciously. “You’re always so happy, and it feels good to be around you. You’ve been like a little sister to me and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
I felt a deep tugging in my heart for him. Until that moment, I’d never thought of him that way. It always felt like he was above me, the top dog in the Cinder world. I was touched, honored, to mean so much to him. I had to put my agony over Luke aside to be grateful for that. So I set down the safe and wrapped my arms around Bane’s waist.
“Wh—” He leaned away for a second, clearly not expecting it. And then, slowly and awkwardly, he put his arms around me.
“Thanks, Bane,” I let him go and picked the safe back up. “But I’m going to do whatever it takes to be with Knight.”
I opened the door again and left him behind this time.