Sugar & Squall Read online

  The weather was now exponentially worse outside. Rain morphed from needles to knives, each driving itself deep into my skin. The wind blew it in waves so it looked like a floating ocean, the miniature shrubs and trees that made up the garden bending back on themselves against the coming tide.

  It was hard to believe we’d been up here just moments ago, one being, connected to each other on a level deeper than I’d ever imagined.

  How spectacularly I’d managed to screw that up.

  We reached the top of the stairs, stooping low as if the sky itself was spying on us.

  Logan started to whisper, but was forced to raise his voice over the wind and rain. “Go over to that side. Stay low and see if you can see anything down there. I’ll check the other side.”

  I nodded and crab-walked over to the wall, raising my head ever so slightly over the edge and looking down into the dark below. Everything looked as it should, not that I knew exactly what I was searching for. The weather made it difficult. I could make out the dorms running off each side, the courtyard and statues below, but not much more.

  A sheet of lightning lit up the sky, blowing out the landscape in stark white. For a few seconds it was like daylight again. There was no one out there.

  I met Logan in the middle of the roof. We brought our heads together under a small shrub in some attempt to shield ourselves from the downpour.

  “Who the fuck are they?” I asked, my voice jumpy.

  “I don’t know,” Logan replied, “but I don’t think they’re part of a rescue party.”

  “Did they cut the lights?”

  Logan looked down at his watch. “No, it’s just lights out. The generators are on a timer.”

  “Good timing.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do we do?” The million-dollar question.

  Logan bowed his head. Water snaked through his hair and down the nape of his neck.

  “The cave under the chapel’s safe, but there’s no way to escape from it either. We’d be better off heading out into the open, down to the beach or somewhere where we can see him, her, whoever they are, coming.”

  “But we’d have to go back through the school to get out again?”

  The last thing I wanted to do was go back in there, with whatever it was.

  What worried me more is Logan jumping in front of said bullet. I absolutely could not live with that. I’d had enough taken from me prematurely.

  “Why are they were shooting at us?” I questioned, rain running into my mouth.

  Logan turned his lip out. “I have absolutely no idea, but it’s not good. Not good at all. The security guard. He could have been shot. That would account for the blood.”

  He looked to the sky, agitated. “I could try to disarm them, but I don’t know what, or who, we’re dealing with. Someone with a gun but no sense how to use it can more dangerous than a trained killer. They could get four or five shots off before I even got close. We’ve got to be a bit more careful about how we go about it. For now, we just need time to think. We’ll be right here for a while.”

  Disarm them? What the hell was he talking about?

  I looked to the sky. “What about the lightning? We’re not going to get struck up here?”

  Logan pointed to a lightning rod running up from a small weather station in the far corner. “It’ll hit that before it hits us – hopefully.”

  “Look,” he said, a guttural rumble rolling through the roof beneath us as another fork of lightning stabbed into the sea, “we’ll keep watching over the walls for a while. We’ve got to be sure no one else is coming. Once we see them walk out of the school, then we make our move.”

  There was another crack in the air, distinctly metallic. At first I thought it was a lightning strike in the distance, but the way Logan’s head snapped around to the stairwell made me think otherwise.

  “Damn,” he said, “the door. Someone’s shooting at the lock.” There was another bang. I heard the door whip open in the wind and slam against the stairwell wall.

  “Go!” Logan motioned towards the back of the garden. I stood and started sprinting, the rain cutting into my face.

  It was maybe two-hundred yards to the end wall, but getting there was taking too long. I braced for the bullet to strike, to be knocked down, until Logan dragged us down behind a hedge at the back of the roof and the scant safety it offered.

  We stared through the leaves at the stairwell. A figure emerged, alone.

  They were dressed solidly in black, like a soldier. They wore some kind of poncho, a balaclava, eyes reflective, treading forward carefully, scanning the shadows.

  “I’ll give myself up,” Logan hushed, looking at me.

  “Are you insane?!” I said, slightly louder than I should and pulling at his shirt just in case.

  “They’re coming this way.”

  He was right. The figure was walking slowly and methodically down the distance of the roof, what appeared to be a gun steadied out in front. They hadn’t seen or heard us, but it would only be moments before we were discovered.

  “What should we do?” There was urgency in my voice.

  Logan glanced down the side, as did I. I was certain he was thinking the same thing. There was not enough cover and it was too far. We’d never make it.

  He crawled over to the wall behind us and hung his head over the side.

  “We have to jump,” he said, sliding back over.

  “No way.”

  “We’ve got to jump,” he repeated. I turned back to the stairwell and saw the distance between the figure and our hidey-hole closing fast. If we were to stand, even for a second, they’d see us. Logan was right. The only way out of here was directly down behind us.

  He grasped my hand. It was wet and slippery, but strong. He started pulling me toward the wall, trying all the while to keep us out of direct sight.

  We had our backs against it now. The stone bricks were cold, edges sharp and unnatural against the silk of my dress.

  I hooked my head over the wall, fearful all the while it’d be blown off.

  Connected directly to the main building was the girls’ dormitory. It didn’t look good. The dormitory roof was flat and graveled, but too far below. I could just imagine jumping, breaking my leg and then looking upwards as we were shot at from above.

  Logan dragged me down. His breath was hot and heavy against my face. A faraway shimmer of light reflected in his eyes. They sparkled.

  “When I go, you have to follow me, okay? Just jump. Don’t look back.”

  He was right. ‘Ladies first’ did not apply. We’d be here all night if I had to go first. If Logan went first, however, I’d follow. I’d have to.

  He took another look over the wall. “Drop like a cat, arms and legs outstretched and loose. Then roll. Take the impact with your legs. Copy me.” He stood up and leaped over the wall, my head snapping over the top to watch. He glided down through the air, arms outstretched. He hit the roof, took the impact with his legs and rolled, almost instantly jumping up and turning to face me.

  This was it. There was no choice now. I stood and put one leg up. Behind me I heard someone shout, but it was lost in another drone of thunder. Fear paralyzing every part of my body, my legs bent and I fell, rather than jumped, off the wall.

  When Logan dropped it was like a feather, as if he’d simply floated onto the roof below. I was leaden. I landed hard about ten feet to the right of him and tried to roll like he’d said. The motion was natural, I’d done combat rolls by their hundreds, and it did help alleviate some of the shock that had been taken up by my legs and feet, but my shoulder blade took the brunt of it instead, biting painfully into the gravel. I came out of the roll almost running, over-balancing. Logan caught me and before I knew it we were again sprinting towards another door at the far side of the girls’ dormitory roof. It was too far. They’d have made it to the edge by now.

  The door loomed up. Logan ran out in front and literally launched himself through it with his s
houlder, disappearing into the nothingness beyond. I was too close and had too much momentum to stop, so I crashed through as well, piling up onto his back as we both slid down the stairs on what remained of the door.

  When we came to rest at the bottom of the stairwell, it was like stepping out of a car wreck. Logan had cut his arm. A vibrant shade of red etched itself out against his shirt.

  I untangled myself from his legs as fast as I could, pushing the panel of wood off my arm I assumed was once part of the door.

  Logan groaned ahead of me, lifting himself free and up to his feet. I joined him just as a shot of pain ran up to my shoulder. My right foot, too, was starting to sting and throb. Taking that kind of fall on bare feet would have been completely stupid in any other circumstance.

  Suck it up, I told myself.

  Logan kicked the remaining debris from the door back up onto the stairs in order to clear some space and open the door in front of us to the dormitory. He heaved it open and we rushed inside, away from the rain and wet. Logan drew the door shut and turned the lock.

  “That’ll slow them down,” he said, pain punctuating his words. “That’s if they jump at all.”

  If they did, they needed only shoot this lock out and the chase would be back on.

  We moved down another set of stairs and found ourselves on the top level of the girls’ dorm. I’d developed a slight limp.

  “Your foot,” Logan said, having turned to me at the bottom of the stairs. He was pointing to the area behind me. “You’re bleeding.”

  I glanced back and saw an inky blotch on every step we’d come down. I flipped my right foot over in the darkness, leaning against the wall, to find my entire sole wet with blood, a dark cobalt in the darkness.

  Logan came up beside me and held my foot in his hand, examining it, turning it over.

  “It’s a bad graze, but it should okay.”

  “I need shoes. I can’t leave a trail.”

  We went into the room on our immediate right. The top floor was occupied by the seniors. Their rooms were free of the pinks and pastels that so dominated the lower, freshman and junior levels, the walls instead illegally pinned with pop-art, sketches, Polaroids.

  In this particular room the closest bed had been turned over completely and lay stacked against the next like the start of a domino chain. It was a good thing the curtains were open. It was hard enough to see as it was.

  Logan threw over a pair of shoes from the far-side of the room. I instantly knew they’d be too big. I shook my head and he continued to rummage. The focus was now on time, not noise, so he made no attempt to keep quiet as he pulled out drawers and felt around the floor.

  I found a pair of heels under one of the beds, another set of sneakers. The heels were useless, sneakers too small.

  Logan threw me another set. These were slip-ons of some sort. I pulled one onto my right foot. Disturbingly, the blood made it slide on easier. But it did fit – perfectly.

  “These are okay,” I said, easing the other onto my left foot.

  “It’s going to be cold outside,” he said, flinging a jacket over. It was one of those horrible puffer numbers with the faux-fur linings I so detested. This isn’t fashion week, I reminded myself.

  Logan was in the darkest part of the room. I could hardly see him at all.

  “If there are pants, grab them too.”

  There were dance pants, leggings or something near my left foot. There was no time to take the shoes off, so I just pulled the pants over them. They were small, way too small, and they were going on back to front. The bottom of the left leg tore with the effort.

  I hadn’t gotten them completely over my hips when the roof vibrated slightly above us. It didn’t matter it was raining. We’d both felt it, because our eyes met in the muted light. Our pursuer had jumped after all.

  This was confirmed by a door slamming above us. They couldn’t have made it across the roof that fast, I thought to myself, but how long had we been crouched here, looking at each other?

  We stood in unison. “They’ll see the footprints,” I whispered. “We’ve got to hide.”

  I moved first, almost tripping over myself as we came out through the door into the hall. I looked down as I regained balance to see my bloody footprints run right into the room, clear as day.

  We ran down the hall. I took us into another room on our left. The rain was falling hard, but someone was coming down the stairs. The confines of the stairwell amplified each step.

  I looked around frantically, stopping at the wardrobe in the corner. Every dorm room at Carver had one. As space was at a premium, each was claimed by the room’s alpha. I’d succumbed to the fact my clothes would, for at least a while, be living out of a suitcase.

  I opened the wardrobe door and pushed Logan inside first. I heard the clothes already hung there clatter around to accommodate him before I too was stepped in. The problem was the door. There was no way to close it from the inside. We’d be spotted for sure.

  The steps stopped. They were in the hall.

  I knelt down and reached my fingers under the bottom of the door, drawing it closed and standing at once so the door itself was no less than an inch from my face.

  The wardrobe smelled of Tommy Girl and vanilla. Logan was pushed right up against the back wall. I could feel him breathing, again, steady and measured against my frenzied intake of oxygen. If my heart were to beat any faster it would inadvertently open the door.

  There was a noise outside. I closed my mouth.

  Close to hyperventilation, I was thankful for the soundtrack the rain created, drowning out all the diminutive noises that would have given us away under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, it also meant we could not hear the stranger creeping around the room. We couldn’t place them. Then a shadow skewed under the door and I knew they were standing right there on the other side.

  I closed my eyes. One of the floorboards creaked. That much I could hear.

  I strained, physically starting to shake and willing myself somewhere else.

  I couldn’t be sure of how long we were there, compressed in that space together. When I opened my eyes, the wardrobe door was there. Logan’s body was still pressed up against mine.

  Slowly, he tapped the top of the door, swinging it out into the room. They were gone.

  He raised his finger to his lips and slowly stepped out to the bedroom door. I held his hips, moving behind him, his shadow.

  He leaned around the corner, crouching and then walking back out into the hall. I followed, looking right. There they were, back turned and headed down the hall, gun in front. I swallowed.

  We were close to the stairwell. It couldn’t have been more than ten feet away, but when I started towards it, my back to theirs, I felt naked.

  The next thing I knew Logan and I were rushing down the stairs as quietly as we could.

  We moved faster now. We both realized there were a lot of rooms on that floor. How long they’d spend going through them was a different matter.

  Logan stopped at junctions, checking everything was clear before moving on. These half-shoes weren’t so perfect after all. My heels didn’t sit right in them, and I could feel the innersole going squishy from the blood in the right.

  “Where are we going?” I whispered.

  Logan turned his head, still moving. “We have to get to the principal’s office. There’s something there I need.”

  All I wanted to do was head out into the open. It seemed a whole lot safer than being boxed up in these corridors, yet I trusted him with everything. If there was something he needed from the office, then it must be important. That was all there was to it.

  We came into the foyer. Logan led us up the stairs and through the first door. We walked across the admin office, toward the principal’s quarters at the back.

  “Stand by the door,” he said, as he rushed in. “Keep a lookout for anyone coming. If they do, I don’t know, snap your fingers at me or something.”

  “I can’
t snap my fingers.” It might have been funny in a different context.

  “Okay, just throw something at me.”

  There was certainly no shortage of ammunition. The secretary’s desk was full of productive-looking projectiles.

  I stared at the first doorway and the hall beyond. It vanished into pure black. Our pursuer was nowhere to be seen. I stole a glance at Logan.

  He was pulling a painting off the wall behind the principal’s desk. There was a large safe behind it.

  He placed the painting on the floor and turned the dial on the safe, quickly and surely until the door swung open. He took something out, slung it over his shoulder and started walking back, safe wide open behind him.

  He took a blue sport’s jacket off a coat stand in the corner on the way, ‘coach’ written across the right pocket. When he got to the door, I saw it was a backpack over his shoulder, black and modern. He slipped it off, crouching down and facing away from me. I saw him unzip the backpack, take something out and place it in his jacket pocket.

  “How did you know the combination to the safe?

  He looked up. “I’ll explain later. We have to go.”

  Truthfully, I didn’t care whether he’d taken the Crown Jewels. I just wanted to be as far away from the school itself as possible. It seemed every second longer we spent here simply drew us closer to the inevitable.

  “Stay with me,” he said, drawing the straps of the bag over his shoulders. “Stick to the walls and shadows.” He darted out into the hall and I followed as close as I could, my right hand extended out in front of me like a blind man’s cane.

  We moved quietly and quickly. As before, when we neared a corner or intersection, Logan would stop, peek around the side and motion us on.

  Again, for what seemed like the fiftieth time that night, we were back in the dining hall. I knew the rear door to the kitchen led directly out in the open. Of course, there were many other exits placed around the school, but the door coming from the kitchen was the only one hidden away by the tree line.

  I hated it here. It was far too open and bright with the windows either side. We ducked down behind chairs in the middle of the room. I assumed Logan was letting me catch my breath. It wasn’t so much the physical pain, but the psychological pressure I felt fast developing into something real and tenuous.