Blood Ties (5 page)

Cassie managed to laugh. Taking hold of Isabella’s ankle, she started to drag her out of bed. ‘Let’s get going, girl. You can’t avoid Herr Stolz for ever, you know.’

‘True.’ Isabella threw off her bedclothes and jumped to her feet, pouting. ‘But with my powerful new roommate, I was hoping I could.’

Cassie giggled. ‘We all have our problems. I get to be possessed by a demon, you get to face the deadly algebraic equations of the maths master.’

‘You know, Cassie?’ Isabella sighed. ‘I’m not sure which is worse …’

CHAPTER FIVE

C
assie remembered all too clearly the way she’d felt at the beginning of last term, the fish-out-of-water awfulness of it. She must have looked a bit like a fish, too, if the handful of new students were anything to go by – all wide eyes and gaping mouths. She smothered a smile, feeling sorry for them, but a little superior too. She wasn’t the hopeless newbie any more: it was almost as if she belonged here. And that felt nice, it really did.

She’d lost Isabella in the throng of students in the atrium, excitedly squealing greetings and indulging in excitable one-upmanship about holidays in exotic locales. As she made her way towards Herr Stolz’s classroom, Cassie noticed at least one familiar face of her own. Jake was standing near a bank of sleek lockers with electronic keypads. He looked slightly nervous as Cassie approached.

‘Hey, Jake! How’s it going?’

‘Uh, hey, Cassie. I’m OK, how are you? Feeling better today?’ He reached over and gave her an awkward hug, and Cassie felt her heart sink. It had taken months for her and Jake to overcome their mutual wariness. Then, just as they had become real friends, events had taken over. Now, as well as being a walking reminder of his lost sister, Cassie was also one of the Few – part of the group responsible for Jessica’s death. No wonder there was tension between them; his feelings towards her must be almost as mixed up as her own. She only hoped she’d be able to show Jake that he could still trust her – and prove it to herself …

As they made their way into the classroom, Cassie’s attention was drawn to a pale, nervous red-headed girl who had dropped her maths books outside the glass door. A tall boy appeared slickly at her side. He crouched down to help, touching the redhead’s elbow in a way that sent a visible shiver through the poor creature. She gazed at him awestruck as he passed her books into her arms, and finally Cassie caught sight of his face. Foppishly handsome, with a dazzling grin.

Richard Halton-Jones.

Cassie felt cold. Obviously he hadn’t changed: still an incorrigible flirt. Show him someone – anyone – that walked upright on two legs and he just couldn’t help himself. She’d once thought it was endearing; now the memory of their last encounter felt like a punch in the stomach. She’d liked him, trusted him, even started to believe that he was interested in her too, and look where that had got her. Richard was the one who’d lured her to the Arc de Triomphe and a ceremony she’d wanted no part of. She didn’t care that it was at the request of the elderly Madame Azzedine, who had taken a shine to Cassie, and deemed her the perfect new host. If it weren’t for him, she wouldn’t be in this mess.

Averting her eyes sharply, she edged past Richard and into the classroom, hoping he wouldn’t take any notice of her. After all, he was lucky he hadn’t been expelled. Surely even someone that brazen must be ashamed to be around her after what he had done …

Apparently not. A hand squeezed her arm, halting her in her tracks.

‘You have no idea,’ he murmured, ‘how different you look.’

She spun on her heel to glare at him.

Around them, the last students were rushing into class, still loud with gossip and the excitement of a new term, but Herr Stolz was now standing at the front of the room, clearing his throat, tapping his fingers on the desk.

Richard ignored him. ‘Hello, Cassie.’

‘Class is starting,’ she said crisply.

He ignored that as well. ‘You look … amazing.’

‘Thanks.’ Her voice was arctic.

‘Ah. You sound different, too.’

Was she imagining it, or was that a touch of sadness in his voice? Who cared? Turning away, she saw Isabella breeze into the classroom and fling herself at Jake, almost toppling his seat over. That raised a smile, though Cassie noticed that Jake, who had been scribbling furiously in a notebook, still looked a little distracted. Cassie frowned – after all the time it had taken for Isabella to win him over, she’d have hoped Jake would pay her best friend a little more attention. She slid into a seat next to the pair.

‘Steady on, Isabella! You’ll damage the furniture.’

‘Ah, Cassie! There you are! Fear not, Jake’s manly body is sturdy enough to hold little old me.’ Isabella fluttered her eyelashes at her boyfriend, who finally put down his pen and swiftly kissed her nose.

Surveying the room properly for the first time, Cassie realised that the sleek, modern desks and chairs were probably too well-made to give way in any case. They were fantastically stylish compared with the traditional wooden furniture that had filled the Academy back in Paris. In fact, they looked as if they’d been carved from lumps of blue ice by Phillipe Starck himself.

‘Cassie!’

She turned to see where the call had come from, and found herself staring at a small clique sitting at the back of the classroom, slightly apart from their fellow students. Some of them seemed to regard her with loathing, some with cautious smiles, but all were, without exception, stunningly good-looking.

The Few. Her new ‘family’.

Ayeesha and her Irish boyfriend Cormac, two of the more friendly-looking, waved enthusiastically. The Bajan girl called her name again and beckoned her towards an empty desk next to where they were sitting. Ayeesha looked genuinely welcoming, and didn’t make Cassie’s antennae tingle the way some of the others did. Surely she hadn’t been one of the dark, hooded figures at the Arc de Triomphe ceremony. Surely … Remembering the sinister horror, Cassie shivered.

‘I think you’re being summoned,’ Jake said, his dry humour not quite covering the note of disdain in his voice.

Cassie averted her eyes hurriedly. ‘Don’t be daft. I’m not going over there. I’m sitting with you guys, same as always.’

‘Ah, we are honoured, Ms Bell!’ A mischievous singsong lilt was in Isabella’s voice, but Cassie’s sideways look stopped her short. The last thing she needed was to give the impression that she wanted to be treated differently now, especially around Jake – she was already wary of his feelings towards her.

Cassie nudged Jake and forced herself to smile. ‘Oh, I get it. You want to get rid of the third wheel so you can have Isabella all to yourself, eh?’

Jake chuckled and held up his hands in mock protest, but his grin quickly faded as he glanced at someone approaching behind her. ‘I think we have the full complement of wheels,’ he muttered, turning away.

‘Is this seat taken?’

Cassie looked up sharply and her heartbeat broke into a sprint.

‘Ranjit!’ Cassie felt her face redden at the undisguised enthusiasm in her voice. ‘Um, hi. No, it’s not taken.’

‘Can we come to order, please?’ At the front of the classroom Herr Stolz was attempting, with little success, to exert his authority. ‘Welcome back, all of you. Mr Singh, if you could take a seat, please? We must begin.’

Ranjit nodded a nonchalant apology in Herr Stolz’s direction before sliding elegantly into the chair beside her. Isabella looked at Cassie and giggled; Jake remained silent and unsmiling. Ignoring the low ripples of surprise surrounding her (maybe not everyone in the school had seen their clinch in the atrium after all), Cassie opened her textbook and smoothed down its pages carefully. She flushed as Ranjit half-turned his head to her and smiled.

A tingle on the back of her neck told her that more eyes were upon her. She glanced quickly up and turned in her seat, expecting to find half of the Few drilling daggers into her back.

So it was a surprise to meet only Richard’s steady, miserable gaze.

Richard must have got some of his joie de vivre back over the course of the lesson, cheered by his own good-natured taunting of the hyper-serious teacher. When he approached Cassie at the bell while Ranjit was delayed by Herr Stoltz, he was all charm once more.

‘You’re angry with me. You’re angry with me! Cassie, sweet girl, I can’t bear it. I shall kill myself. No, I shall throw myself on the streets. I shall sell my body for a few groats and die, pale and thin, in a garret. I shall waste away. I shall write desperate, terrible poetry. I shall—’

‘Shut up, Richard.’ Cassie turned away, adjusting the heavy pile of books in her arms as she peered through the jostling students, trying to catch sight of Isabella and Jake. They were already out in the corridor and all wrapped up in one another. She glanced around for Ranjit, but now he was speaking to his roommate, a lean Danish boy called Torvald.

‘For you, darling, I’ll shut up,’ Richard said smoothly.

‘In my dreams. In everyone’s dreams.’

‘I’m still in your dreams?’ He clasped his hands to his heart, mock-swooning.

Cassie scowled, cross with herself. If she got drawn into his silly banter there was a chance she’d forgive him. And he didn’t deserve to be forgiven. ‘Bugger off, Richard. I mean it. Surely you must realise that your little act is totally wasted on me now.’ Cassie walked deliberately away towards Isabella, stopping at her roommate’s side with a feeling of vicious satisfaction. Richard was left standing in the doorway; she could see his reflection in the glass, looking lost and genuinely wounded. Good.

The thought of Richard was banished from her mind by a jolt of electricity as Ranjit returned and placed one hand gently on the small of her back. Ayeesha and Cormac followed closely behind him. A little reluctantly, Cassie turned to them and smiled. ‘Hi, guys.’

‘Hey, Cassie, Ranjit,’ called Ayeesha as she approached. She turned to Ranjit and nodded with obvious respect. Cassie still didn’t have a full grasp on the hierarchy of the Few, but there was no doubt who was top dog. A little thrill of power went through her at the thought that she was dating him. A smile twitched at Ranjit’s lips, as though he knew what she was thinking.

‘Don’t wander off,’ continued Ayeesha. ‘Come up to the common room. We should show you around, Cassie.’

‘We’re going there now, thought we’d skip English lit,’ added Cormac.

Cassie took a breath. In spite of Isabella’s obvious interest, she’d been half-hoping she could avoid the Common Room: the elite, exclusive, sacrosanct common room of the Few …

‘Uh, well, I have a free period now, so I thought I could catch up on a bit of unpacking and stuff. And I don’t know about cutting class …’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Come on! Come and meet the others. Have a chat. Get to know us all.’

Was she anywhere near ready for this? For small talk with people she might last have seen behind red hoods, chaining her down at the mercy of Estelle Azzedine? She didn’t even know which ones they were …

‘Go on, Cassie!’ Isabella chimed in, jiggling her arm. ‘It sounds like fun.’

Jake looked thunderous. His silence spoke volumes for Cassie, and she opened her mouth to decline the offer. But just then, three sixth-form girls swept past towards the atrium. One of them – Sara, was it? – shot her a supercilious glance and muttered something sotto voce to her friends, prompting a fit of giggling. Cassie couldn’t make out exactly what was said, but she’d distinctly heard the word common, and she was pretty sure they weren’t talking about the room.

Sara was Few, Cassie knew that. Did her eyes look familiar? Had she seen those cool, grey-blue irises through a slit in a red hood? Rage rose up in her. There was only one way to find out …

‘You know what?’ Cassie told Ayeesha loudly. ‘Actually, that’d be great. I’ll come along later on this afternoon.’

‘Great! See you then.’

As Ayeesha and Cormac walked off, Cassie’s heart sank. She regretted being so impulsive. She really wasn’t ready to face the common room. Cassie eyed Jake self-consciously as Ranjit turned to her and took her hand.

‘I’ve got a couple of things I need to take care of too. But I’ll come and meet you after your English class and we can head up there together.’

Cassie smiled as she watched him stride gracefully away. How did he know exactly the right thing to say? With Ranjit at her side, the common room suddenly wasn’t such a daunting prospect.

‘Ugh. Socialising with the chosen ones. I can’t wait.’

‘Cassie!What did I tell you about looking on the bright side? Embrace the good things! If I had the chance to skip boring old English lit, I would have jumped in it!’ Isabella dug her elbow into Cassie’s ribs.

‘Ouch! Jeez, Isabella!’

‘So … you and Singh are making a go of it, huh?’ Jake said, his voice tight. Cassie could tell he was about as keen to ask that question as she was to answer it. She shuffled along beside them, keeping her eyes on her battered trainers.

‘Uh, yeah. I know it’s a bit awkward, but he’s one of the good guys, Jake. I’m certain of it.’