The rain had been falling for half an hour – an icy, relentless drip of misery. It was such a pointless waste of time – here they were doing detention when they could be inside the school finding the spy. And not freezing to death.
Muttering to herself, she pulled the edges of her wet woollen hat down, wishing she could pull it over her whole face.
She stopped for a second to watch Carter work. Having grown up on the school grounds – he was essentially raised by Mr Ellison – he was much more practised than her and yet he never got very far ahead of her. She had the feeling he was pacing himself to stay near her. And yet he hadn’t said a single direct word to her all morning.
It was driving her crazy.
Last night with Sylvain had really made her think things through. Things were different with Sylvain from the way they’d been with Carter.
Sylvain seemed to have absolute belief in her ability to do things well. He made her feel confident. After the guards had left they’d sneaked back to their respective dorm wings in a hurry. There hadn’t been a chance to talk. But that moment in the corridor – when their hands had touched… Thinking about it made her heart flutter in her chest. How could something as simple as the touch of a hand affect her like that? But then he always could. Sometimes, before Jo died, all Sylvain had to do was look at her and she fell to pieces.
Romantic love.
Carter’s spade sliced through the mud with a clean thud, reminding her she should be working.
With a sigh, she whacked the mud ineffectually with her shovel. Raindrops clung to her eyelashes and she studied him through the watery prism. His cheeks were red from the cold and he was soaking wet. He never looked up at her.
She hit the mud again. Harder this time.
With Carter things were always so complicated. His emotions were like a labyrinth of trust and mistrust, faith and doubt. One misjudged step and you were lost for ever.
Today, for example. Here they were, alone in the garden. They had a lot to talk about. She knew Sylvain would have told him about the key last night. They’d agreed he would let Carter know and Allie would inform the girls – she’d gone door to door in the dormitory wing to tell all three of them what they’d found.
Yet this morning Carter hadn’t said a word about it. In fact, he hadn’t said a word about anything.
They couldn’t go on like this. Something had to be done.
‘Are you going to ignore me all day?’ she said finally. ‘Or just when we’re alone in the pissing-down rain and stupid-arse mud.’
He didn’t look up from his work. ‘Language.’
‘Yeah, language.’ She made an angry, half-hearted attempt to chop at the soil. ‘It’s that thing you use when you talk to each other.’
‘Fine.’ Straightening, Carter leaned against his shovel, studying her guardedly. ‘Hi, Allie. How are you this morning?’
‘Brilliant, Carter. I’m just brilliant.’
Rain ran down her face, seeping beneath her scarf to her shoulders. It was too much.
‘I’m going to take a break and try not to die of pneumonia,’ she said, looking at him. When he didn’t respond, she tried again. ‘Want to come with me? I’m just going in there.’ She pointed her shovel at a small lean-to shed at the garden wall.
For a moment Carter didn’t look up and she thought he might refuse. But then he straightened and hoisted his spade. ‘I suppose I don’t want to get pneumonia either.’
The shed had no heat but it did have doors to shut out the rain and a bench in one corner to keep them off the cold floor. After hanging her dripping hat and wet scarf from a rusty nail jutting out of the wall by the door, Allie shook out her damp hair sending a spray of cold water around her. Her hair was getting longer; it hung below her shoulder blades in long, dark strands.
‘I kind of miss your red hair.’
Spinning around, she found Carter sitting on the bench watching her. When they’d first met she’d had dyed red hair. She’d let it go back to its natural colour months ago.
‘You do?’ She held up a strand, studying its darkness dispassionately. ‘I always feel weird when I dye it now. Like, I look in the mirror and it’s not me.’ She dropped on to the opposite end of the bench with a sigh. ‘Then again, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.’
‘Why?’ he said. ‘Don’t you like you?’
‘Sometimes,’ she shrugged. ‘Not so much right now.’
‘Why not?’ he said.
She gave him a look that said she was quite certain he knew the answer to that question already.
‘Oh,’ he said, dropping his gaze. ‘That.’
‘Yes. That.’ She crossed her arms tightly. ‘Can we talk about that?’
Carter made a noncommittal gesture.
‘Look, I just…’ Allie searched for the right words. ‘I feel really weird about what happened. And ever since then we’ve both been avoiding each other, and being all cold around each other. It’s like we were getting better at being friends and now we’ve taken this giant step backwards. And I…’ She sighed, her shoulders slumping. ‘I hate that.’
Carter shifted on the rickety bench and it swayed unsteadily.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘But I just… I guess I don’t know how to handle this.’ He was studying his hands intently. ‘You have this way of confusing me. I think I know what I want and then you come along and everything gets muddled up.’
Allie knew that feeling well. ‘You do the same thing to me.’
Carter rubbed his eyes. ‘The thing is – Jules and me – we’ve been friends since the first day she came to Cimmeria. Did I ever tell you that?’ Allie shook her head. ‘We were just kids. I was this angry, messed-up orphan. She walked in on her first day at Cimmeria with her expensive suitcases and her nanny, took one look at me and said, “My name’s Jules. I’m your new best friend.”’ He chuckled at the memory. ‘And she was right. We were always friends after that. She was so confident and determined. We studied together, grew up together, joined Night School together… I guess it was always sort of inevitable that we’d get together some time. But when it happened at the winter ball, it was an accident. We’d had too much to drink and it just… happened. The next day I thought it was a mistake. But then, as time went on, I thought maybe…’ He hesitated. ‘Maybe this is right. She knows me so well and… we get along. It’s different with her.’
She knew he didn’t mean to hurt her but his words cut with the precision of a razor blade. The one thing she and Carter had never done well as a couple was to get along. The idea that he and Jules didn’t argue – that they just understood each other – somehow felt like another indication of her own failure as a girlfriend.
‘Then, the other night, you and I were running through the woods together, and… it was like it used to be. And I just looked at you and remembered how things were between us – the good things, anyway. And then… I don’t know. I lost it. I messed up. I’m sorry, Allie, but I care about Jules. She’s important to me. I can’t…’ Spots of colour had appeared high on his cheeks. ‘If she ever found out what happened…’
This was the opening Allie had been waiting for.
‘She won’t,’ she assured him fervently. ‘Not from me. And you mustn’t ever tell her. I didn’t mean to kiss you either. It was an accident. Like a… a car crash or something. We were out there alone, it was dark and we’re used to kissing. But now we have to pretend it never happened and learn how to be friends. We were good friends once. Really good friends. I want us to be that again.’ Her voice was passionate. ‘I can’t lose you all over again, Carter. Please. Just… be my friend.’
Clearly surprised by the depth of her emotion, he turned to face her. ‘You never lost me, Allie. Not really.’