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Back in her room, isolated and subdued, she knew she was making a mistake. Gram was more than a common bully. She’d seen enough of them and knew he was different. He wasn't doing it for his audience. He wasn't doing it because it made him feel big. He enjoyed it. He saw the misery in Mannik's eyes, and fed on it, like a predator. Now she was walking into his trap; eyes wide open.
She listened to the sounds of the school around her, boys settling down for a lazy evening. There was the odd burst of noise: the boys on Kitchen duty finally finished and heading off to their common rooms and dorms, the seniors, she heard Duncan amongst them, shouting in the courtyard as they headed out to the pub in Balreaig. The teachers were gone. Only the Masters remained, by they kept a low profile. There was one duty Master, that was it, and you were unlucky if you bumped into him. It was the perfect time for a card game. No one would know. No one would disturb them.
At half nine Connel knocked on her door.
'Conley's on duty,' he told her. 'But he's nowhere in sight. He must be in the Old Castle. He'll lock up around midnight and that's it. Just keep your voice down, and we’ve nothing to worry about. Come on.'
He led them through Feliformia, and beyond. Their footsteps were haunted by creaking leaking from the gaps below doors, the spaces under stairways.
Connel proceeded cautiously. Drinking, gambling and the attic rooms were all forbidden by the Masters. As they climbed higher into the castle, the walls became narrower, the steps shallower, the ceilings lower and Connel relaxed. The top levels of the castle were like a haunted house, utterly abandoned, and he did not fear being overheard here. At the very top of the school, a tiny, dilapidated staircase led to what looked like a small cupboard. Inside, however, was a maze of low attic rooms, with no corridors, only rooms leading to rooms, leading to more rooms. Some were dark and cluttered with trunks, some moonlit by overhead skylights but many were utterly empty, only a few were locked with heavy padlocks.
After a series of deserted rooms, Connel opened a room that swirled with smoke and flickered with candle light. Lennox was hit by the smell of human sweat, pungent crisps, and sweet wine. She paused, uncertain, at the threshold. Suddenly she knew without a doubt she had made a mistake. And for what? Kellas cared nothing what she did. He was with the rest of the Seniors heading out to Balreaig. He probably would never even know she had been at the game. She should leave now, before a card was turned.
Connel, however, wasn't giving her a second chance. He grabbed her hand, pulled her in, then posed triumphant, as every reclining boy stared at them. Lennox was bad tempered, and had a knack for making enemies, but she was also startling good looking, and the only girl for miles around. Bringing her to the card game was a small victory for Connel.
'You started without us?' Connel swaggered across the room, leading Lennox. Bodies moved, making way for them to sit. Connel pulled Lennox down so close to him, her thigh was pressed to his. She was opposite Gram, his legs crossed and up on a crate, a smoke dangling at his small, pale mouth, his skin yellowed and toughened like an oil skin.
'We walked straight up after dinner,’ Gram answered. ‘What were you doing? Waiting for lights out?' He sneered.
To Gram's right, Jonas was sat hunched forward, a pack of cards in his hands. He looked across at Gram.
'Shall I deal them in?' he asked.
Gram sat up straighter and narrowed his eyes.
‘Depends on what they’re wagering.'
Connel emptied a pocket. He had several notes and a handful of coins. Lennox guessed there was £20 in total.
There was no need to ask what the others were wagering. It was all out on display. In front of Gram there was a mountain of notes, coins, 2 bottles of Whiskey, and several packets of hand rolled tobacco. Shergar had an overflowing pile of notes and coins in front of him. Dennis was in worse shape. He had a pile of pound coins. Jonas, the banker, had nothing in front of him, neither did Ritter or Aston. Down the far end of the group, sitting on a thick animal skin rug, was Hugh, and in front of him, a wallet thick with notes and coins.
‘And her?' Jonas asked, as he dealt Connel a hand.
No one had spoken to Lennox, not directly. She felt like an animal lead to the slaughter.
Connel looked at her with raised brows, and she shrugged. She had nothing.
'Everyone needs to put a stake on the table.’ Jonas insisted.
But she was not going to admit to being broke. Not with Hugh sat down the end with more money than a teacher earned all year just sitting in his wallet.
'What are they wagering?' she asked, looking at Ritter and Dennis.
'Ourselves,' Ritter explained. ‘Truth or dare.’
Lennox scowled. The likelihood of her leaving the game with her dignity intact was minimal. If only Kellas had never tried to talk to her, she would be safely in her room, instead of sat in this attic, facing Gram, watching his lips part, and his tongue flicker across his teeth.
'Know the rules?' Jonas asked leaning forward her hand.
This was something else her father had taught her, not for her sake, but for his.
'No,' she lied, and saw from the way Gram's eye's gleamed that he had believed her.
'Well, we're playing straight,' Jonas explained. 'Which means I deal you five cards and you bid, or fold. That's it. If at any point you get three or more cards the same value, or a sequence of cards in ascending value, then bid.'
The first round was predictable. Most people folded. As soon as the betting got to Lennox, she folded too. Only Connel, Gram, Hugh and Shergar stayed in, for they could afford to lose. When Gram finally declared, and they all threw their cards down, she noticed with interest that Hugh had very mediocre cards. He wasn't betting to win, he was betting to stop himself from getting bored. Connel won the round with a flush, and his smirk was audible as he pulled in his winnings. He plucked a bottle of wine from the pile, took a swig and handed it to Lennox. She pushed it away. Drinking now would be fatal.
Jonas began dealing again. As he did, Connel passed the wine bottle round the circle. They all drank from it except Gram. He drank whatever was in his flask.
This time Aston started the bidding. Shergar bid, Connel bid, and then it was her turn. Again, she barely glanced at her cards. She simply folded. Her father had always told her, whatever cards you get, for the first few rounds just fold, keep your head down, watch the other players. But there was another reason she was folding. She simply couldn't afford to loose. And Gram knew it.
'Again?' he demanded, narrowing his eyes. 'There are no spectators here, you know.'
She shrugged and looked at Ritter, who had also folded. She wasn't the only spectator.
At the end of the bidding, it was the same as before, only those with money to lose were prepared to bid, and, just for this round, Aston.
'What have you got then?' Gram asked him.
Aston uncovered a full house and a smile.
The highest anyone else had was three of a kind, until Gram revealed four Kings, and a look that turned Lennox's heart to stone.
'You have a choice,' Gram explained to Aston. 'Dare or truth.'
Aston looked mournfully at the pile of money in front of Shergar.
'Truth,' he answered.
'Then next time it will be dare,' Gram warned.
Aston nodded, miserably. Beside him Shergar was leaning back against a crate, looking smug as his friend faced the inquisition.
'How far has Sherger gone with his girl from Pineham?'
Shergar's face turned black, and he glared furiously at Aston, but his friend simply shrugged. He had no choice.
'Not as far as he'd like. She just wants to kiss. She's worried about getting caught and getting a bad name!'
Gram barked a brittle laugh, and the others joined in. They all wanted what Shergar had, a pretty posh girl just an hour away. It pleased them to know Shergar wasn't having the luck he claimed to have.
As Jonas dealt another round, Conne
l's bottle of wine was also moving again. As Lennox passed it on, she felt it was nearly empty. Gram, she saw, didn't share his bottle. But Hugh did. He passed round a gleaming flask, polished as if it were the family silver. Lennox smelt it as she passed it on, gin.
This time Lennox had a pair of Queens, not good enough to bet and win, she was sure.
She opened her mouth to fold but Gram interrupted her.
'Are all girls the same? Worried about being caught?'
More laughter from the others, even from Connel.
'I don't see Ritter being daring,' she pointed out.
This provoked a round of jeers. Somehow, she had become a side show.
'She's calling you a girl!' Gram taunted Ritter.
Ritter's face had turned red but his cheeks were white. He looked at Lennox with cold hatred.
'I'll bid if you bid,' he told her.
So she did.
But it was a trap, and she had just played straight into Ritter's game plan. He had three tens, not enough to bid with, unless he knew there was someone weaker bidding. Someone like her. The bidding continued round but no one else got involved; it was only Connel, Ritter and her. They all wanted to spectate now. And when Jonas called for them to show their cards, Ritter's tens took the hand.
'Time for the girl to pay,' Ritter announced as he seized his winnings.
This was the moment everyone else had been waiting for.
'Dare!' Gram's eyebrows were curling, his tongue flickering.
'That's not fair,' Lennox protested at once. 'Aston got to choose; truth or dare.'
'It makes no difference. There's only one thing we want.' Gram's yellow cheeks had a tinge of red on his high cheekbones. 'We want to know what happened in her medical. Show us what spooked Gnarle.'
Lennox felt her heart stop beating.
'What do you mean?' Connel asked.
'She showed Gnarle something that made him go straight to Torkil,' explained Ritter. 'On the way he saw Kearns, and told him, "It covers her entire back."
Connel hadn't expected this.
'What do they mean?' he asked Lennox. He had been under the impression she’d done well in her tests.
But Lennox wasn't answering anyone. What Gram was asking, was impossible.
'I'm leaving,' she decided, standing up.
Then Gram was standing too, and Ritter, and Dennis.
'Don't be a fool.' Gram's voice was soft, deadly. 'That's not how it works. Once you're here, you're here. You can't leave. And now you have to show us what covers your back.'
Lennox hovered, unsure. She stared at Gram and wondered what it would feel like to empty his flask all over his head. But she didn't. Instead, she made a sudden break for the door.
Unfortunately, this was just what Gram expected her to do. Dennis and Ritter were already there, Jonas too, and, finally, Gram.
‘Let’s have a look,' he said, as Dennis and Ritter wrestled her to the floor.
But Lennox had spent her life covering her back. She had always known there was something wrong with it. It had begun with the concentrated look of revulsion on her father's face if she had made the mistake of turning her back on him. Her awareness had deepened when, as she grew older, her back had ached, and itched, and her father had refused to listen to her complaints. Her back was a taboo subject. It was not to be seen, or discussed. Over the years this had meant no swimming, no sunbathing, no revealing tops, nothing that might uncover the wall of silence built around her back. Whatever it was on her back, her father hated it, and avoided it, as if it were an infectious and deadly disease.
So when Dennis and Ritter tried to break the taboo, she fought. At first she was wild and uncontrolled. She elbowed somewhere soft, and heard Dennis groan. She punched at hard flesh that might have been Ritter's back. It was difficult to know. It felt as if there were a whole gang on top of her, seizing her limbs, twisting them unnaturally.
'Connel!' she shrieked. He had brought her. He owed her something.
She felt a knee in her back forcing her down. She tried to scream, but her legs were taken away from her and she fell hard onto the floor, her chin cracking against the floorboards.
'What are you going to do?' Connel asked.
No answered him. Instead there was a pull on her top, and the ripping sound of a knife moving through material.
Connel stood up. Lennox heard his chair scrape against the floorboards.
'Don't interfere.' Gram pulled out a knife, and held it in front of him, like an icon.
But Connel could not do nothing. Lennox was not his friend, but she was Feliformia, and she was also one of the most beautiful girls Connel had ever met. To do nothing, while she was attacked, was cowardice.
'You don’t need to touch her.'
'I don't intend to,' Gram sneered.
'Then what do you call this?' Connel demanded. Lennox lay on the floor below them. She had stopped struggling and was listening. Her arms were twisted and seized by Ritter on one side and Dennis on the other. 'Your friends have her in a vice.'
'She tried to leave without paying her forfeit.' Gram's stare was a challenge. His eyes were unblinking, his voice ice cold. 'She shows us her back then she can go. I’m not going to touch her.'
Then Gram made a mistake. He looked down at Lennox and at the rip in her top, like a wound, from hip to shoulder blade. In between the ragged edges of torn fabric was a dark and angry welt.
'What on earth is that?' But as the words left Gram's mouth, Connel saw his opportunity. Gram was momentarily distracted. He swept an arm out, knocked the knife blade from Gram's hand, and sent it flying far into the corner of the room.
There was an insane moment when nobody moved. Then everything happened at once. Gram dived for the knife, Connel threw himself at Gram, and Dennis and Ritter let go on Lennox and jumped on Connel. Jonas starting shouting at the top of his voice, Hugh put a hand in his own jacket and pulled out another knife, and Gram curled his fingers round his blade once more as Connel landed on his back.
'Get off!' yelled Gram, as Dennis and Ritter seized Connel by the waist and threw him to the floor. There was silence as Gram picked himself up and stared down at Connel, his knife hovering before him, and Hugh stared at Gram. Into the silence, like a stone into a still pond, came the sound of the door creaking open. The attic was supposed to be safe. Nobody ever came up, apart from on the first and last days of term. Yet somehow the unthinkable was happening. The door was opening, and in walked Master Conley.
He took one look at the mess on the floor: cards, heaps of money, empty bottles and crumpled packets. He stared at the boys in turn, particularly long and hard at Gram and Hugh whose knives had disappeared the instant the door creaked.
‘Survival of the fittest is our motto,’ Conley said, his voice low, soft, but deadly. ‘Not butcher the innocents in the attic.’
Gram looked at Ritter and Dennis, Jonas looked at Hugh, and Connel looked around for Lennox, and looked and looked. Somehow, during all the fighting, she had seized her opportunity and escaped. She was gone.