C. Daugherty: Fracture

As she stared into the flickering shadows surrounding them, Allie’s teeth chattered.

Mark wasn’t much of a hugger ordinarily, but when she burrowed her way into the crook of his arm he didn’t object.

‘What happens tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘Tomorrow you’ll come to London with me and we’ll find some place for you to stay. I know some guys who have their own flat – I’m sure they’d let you kip on the sofa. Then… we’ll figure something out.’

His voice was gruff and Allie could hear the doubt in it. He wasn’t certain about this at all.

She knew he hadn’t entirely believed her story – he probably thought she was drunk and exaggerating. Or losing it completely. But at least he was still offering to help her.

As she watched the candle flames shudder, she tried to imagine living with his friends. Being alone in the world. Sleeping on dirty couches surrounded by strangers. Trying to figure things out on her own.

Had she made a terrible mistake?

‘Right back here.’

The sound of strange voices and heavy footsteps on stone woke Allie with a start from an awful dream in which Jo cried out for her but she couldn’t find her anywhere.

Her eyelids seemed stuck together and her head pounded with nauseating intensity. She rubbed her eyes and they fluttered open to an extraordinary vision – bright yellow, vivid blue, green, and red light flooded the room, blinding her.

It was like being in the middle of a rainbow.

‘What the…?’ Squinting, she shaded her eyes with her hand.

Mark grumbled in his sleep as her elbow dug into his ribs.

‘Sorry.’ She said the word reflexively just as she recognised the stained glass, the pulpit, the flickering candles melting into pools of wax, and the crowd of people standing around them.

‘Oh bollocks. Mark .’ She shook his shoulder hard. ‘Wake up.’

Without opening his eyes, he swatted her hand away. ‘Don’t. Jus’ fell asleep.’

In front of them, a police officer stood with his hands on his hips, disgust in his gaze. ‘Both of you: Up. You’re coming with me.’

The local police station was in a small, squat building near a slow-moving stream at the edge of town. After a short, nearly silent ride together in the back seat of a police car, Allie and Mark were led through the utilitarian entrance.

As the police led them from the church to the car, Allie had heard someone complaining to the officers in strident tones about ‘hooligans’ and ‘vandals’.

There was a time when that would have made her proud.

Once they were in the station, the two were steered into different rooms. As she saw Mark’s blue head disappearing down the corridor, a sudden surge of panic made Allie’s heart leap into her throat. She turned to run after him but a police officer shut the door in her face.

The room where they held her was small and crowded with desks, filing cabinets and shelves. It smelled unpleasantly of mildew, but at least it was warm, and Allie’s limbs slowly began to thaw. Windows set too high on the wall for her to see out let in bright daylight.

Two officers stayed with her. One was young, with a penetrating gaze. The other was older, and had a beard that needed trimming. Neither of them seemed openly unkind.

Allie sat in a battered metal chair, facing them. The younger one was at a computer, where he typed things in using only his index fingers. The older one made notes on a pad of paper. He asked her name and age, and she answered numbly as the young one entered the information into the computer with surprising speed.

When the older one asked for her parents’ names and address, though, she pressed her fingertips hard against her aching temples.

This was so bad.

‘Please. Could you just call Isabelle le Fanult at Cimmeria Academy?’ she said after a long pause. ‘She knows me. Can I have some water?’ Her mouth was so dry it felt like her tongue was permanently attached to the roof of her mouth.

At the mention of the school, the two officers exchanged a look.

‘Are you a student at the school?’ the older officer asked. With a fatherly face and greying hair, he didn’t look threatening.

Allie nodded.

‘Now that is interesting.’ He turned to the younger officer, who was typing busily. ‘Have we ever had a Cimmeria student in here before?’

Without looking up from his monitor, the younger officer shook his head. ‘I don’t think we have.’

The fatherly cop turned back to Allie, studying her with open curiosity. Squirming a little, Allie had a good idea what he saw – a teenage girl with dirt on her face, tangled dark hair and a pounding hangover.

‘What’s a nice boarding-school girl doing burgling a church? Couldn’t your parents just buy one for you if you really wanted one?’

The computer cop snorted a laugh.

Looking back and forth between them, blood rushed to Allie’s face. She hated being laughed at.

Tilting up her chin, she met the officer’s gaze coldly. ‘You have no idea what my life is like.’

But the cop didn’t seem intimidated by this in the slightest. In fact, he looked as if it was the reaction he’d hoped for.

‘Oh really?’ He leaned back in his chair so far the front legs came off the ground. ‘Why don’t you tell us?’

Sullen, Allie shook her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘That is a shame,’ he said, his smile disappearing. ‘Because talking about it is the only thing that’s going to get you out of here in a hurry.’

A tingling sense of suspicion made goosebumps rise on Allie’s arms. This wasn’t right. She’d been arrested several times before and the police had never acted like this. They never cared where she went to school. It was always straightforward and no nonsense: ‘What’s your name? How old are you? Who’s your parent or guardian?’

Keeping her voice steady, she held his gaze. ‘I am sixteen years old. I can’t talk to you without a responsible adult present. Call my headmistress, Isabelle le Fanult. She will tell you everything you need to know.’

‘Oh, we’ll do that,’ the officer assured her. He didn’t look so fatherly now. ‘But first we want to ask you a few questions.’

For what seemed an interminable amount of time, they asked questions and she refused to answer them. How many students were at the school? How many teachers? What were their names? What went on at the school? Any strange classes? Any odd behaviour? Anything illegal? Drugs?

Allie just stared at the floor, angry and exhausted. All she would say was, ‘Call Isabelle le Fanult. She will answer your questions.’

When she finally heard Raj’s familiar voice from the front desk, the relief felt like fresh oxygen in her lungs. She took a steadying breath – she was going to get out of here.

The two officers left her alone then. The walls were thin, and she could hear Raj calmly presenting paperwork proving she was a student at the school, explaining – lying – that Mark was a student too, and that it was all just a childish prank. The school would, he said, pay for any damage.

He was nothing but polite although she could hear simmering anger beneath the surface of his voice. Whether that anger was directed at her or the police, she couldn’t tell.

When the police asked him about the school’s security system, he never raised his voice but his tone was chilling.

‘I could answer your questions, of course,’ he said. ‘But first, why don’t you tell me how long you held these children before you notified the school they were in your custody?’

A pause followed.

‘We would have called you sooner,’ the officer replied after a moment, ‘but they refused to tell us who they were. We had a devil of a time identifying them. Seems you’ve got some problem kids up at that school.’