Journey
The headmaster’shouse was nothing like I’d imagined and everything that I’d hoped for when I was a young child. It was bigger than I had suspected, with a long hall on the second floor that housed the bedrooms and two bathrooms. Every door was shut, but I saw a blue light shining underneath one of them, and I assumed that was Jack’s bedroom.
Jack was Isaiah’s little brother, and although the headmaster and Isaiah weren’t related, they had grown up thinking he was their uncle. Jack had no one else to live with when Isaiah’s father went to prison, thus ending up here, and I had to say it: the kid lucked out.
“Girls,” the headmaster started, looking more weary than usual. He was wearing dark-gray athletic sweats with a black t-shirt, making him appear so much younger than I had always thought him to be. There was no loose tie around his neck or coffee-stained mug in his hand. He wasn’t perched behind his messy desk in his half-lit office. Instead, he looked youthful and spoke warmly. He was concerned about my injuries as Gemma kept a warm rag pressed to my busted lip. There was another wet rag wrapped around my hand that he kept looking down at, and I was afraid that he thought I had made it up like the last time I was attacked. Does he think I’m lying?
Before he could say anything else, the panic got the best of me. “I didn’t do this, Headmaster Ellison.”
He was taken aback, shock flickering over the shadows of his face. He walked toward me as I sat on the edge of the chest propped at the end of the full-size bed of what I assumed was a guest room. “Journey,” he whispered, bending down low and placing his forearms over his bent knees. “I know. You’re safe here, okay?”
I wasn’t sure what I was more worried about: someone trying to kidnap me or Headmaster Ellison thinking I tried to hurt myself again and sending me away. Cade’s face popped into my head, and my heart squeezed. Would I be feeling so worried about leaving here if it weren’t for him? To think, I came back to St. Mary’s after running away from a corrupt psych ward with a vendetta against everyone, not trusting a single soul, and now I was surrounded by a kind man who was obviously worried about me, friends who were trying to tend to my wounds, and the Rebels who were currently out for blood.
Maybe I was the lucky one here.
“I do have a favor to ask,” the headmaster said, slowly standing up and backing away from me. Gemma moved in closer and peeked at my hand, which was still bleeding a little. “I don’t want you telling anyone what happened.”
Sloane stepped forward. “Headmaster Elllison, I think that ship has sailed. Just about every student saw Journey.”
His eyebrow flicked upward. “And what exactly were you all doing together after curfew?” His attention bounced to each of our outfits, landing on Gemma in particular.
“Don’t pretend that you don’t know we have the occasional get-together after curfew, Dad.”
The surprise on Headmaster Ellison’s face was plain as day. His mouth opened, his jaw slacked, and then he clenched it back shut and crossed his arms. “You only called me Dad to sweeten me up, didn’t you?”
A small smile, that wasn’t anywhere close to being fake, crept onto Gemma’s face. “Yes and no. Don’t make a big deal out of it.” Her cheeks blushed. “Or else I won't call you Dad again.”
There was something so light and airy about their conversation that I had forgotten that I had just been attacked.
“But also, guess what? Tobias came.”
“He did?” The headmaster leaned back on the wall beside the door, peeking out into the hall for a second. “That’s a first, right? I knew that having Sloane be his student aide would be a good idea.”
Sloane crossed her arms over her skimpy outfit. “What does this have to do with me?”
There were a few sounds from somewhere in the house that had me climbing to my feet quickly, reaching for my knife, which was no longer with me. I dropped it. There was an emotional kick to my stomach, and I suddenly felt stupid. Why do I want to cry?
The metallic taste from earlier, that had since left, was back as I tried to right my vision.
“It’s just Isaiah and Cade,” Gemma whispered, looking at my tense stance. Just as my shoulders dropped and Mercedes squeezed my uninjured hand, a clomping of heavy footsteps grew louder, and then my heart picked itself up off the floor when I stared into a pair of warm yet worried eyes.
“Hey,” Cade said, moving past the headmaster and bending down to be level with me. My legs spread open to let him in closer, and a wave of exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks. “You okay?”
No. “Yeah.”
“No, idiot. She isn’t okay.” That came from Sloane, but Cade didn’t even bat an eyelash.
Headmaster Ellison cleared his throat. “Okay, listen. I don’t want this spreading around the school. The SMC is already on edge about Journey being back, and if they get wind that someone from the outside came in and attacked her? They will do one of two things.”
My body tensed, waiting for the worst of it.
“They’ll either send her away, claiming that the rest of the students aren’t safe with her being here, or they’ll shut down the school.”
“Shut down the school?” Mercedes asked.
“That’s if they even believe that I was attacked,” I whispered, feeling the vulnerability cover me like a heavy blanket.
I heard the grinding of Cade’s jaw without even looking up. The headmaster pushed off the wall and crossed his arms. “Isaiah, I want you threatening everyone that saw Journey, and tell them that I will personally tell each of their parents that they were caught after curfew—at a sex party, nonetheless.”