Darke Academy 2: Blood Ties Read online

  Defeated, Cassie went over and slumped on to Isabella’s bed. ‘Remember what I told you about Keiko and Alice last term? About seeing Keiko kind of feeding on Alice? Well, that’s how the Few stay alive.’ She sighed miserably, trying to avoid meeting Isabella’s eye. ‘They draw life-energy from someone who’s non-Few. And, apparently, that’s something I’m going to have to do too …’ Cassie trailed off. She hadn’t the heart to carry on any further, to ask the question out loud.

  Isabella didn’t reply. Maybe, thought Cassie, she was remembering Cassie’s horrible description of Keiko draining the life out of her helpless roommate. Or her boyfriend’s sister being sucked dry …

  The air seemed to crackle with tension as the silence stretched on and on, but Cassie couldn’t bear to look up to see the horror and revulsion on Isabella’s face. Any minute now, it would all be over. Isabella would leave the room. She’d go to Sir Alric and demand a change of roommate. Of course, she’d say they’d still be friends, but she’d never quite forget what Cassie had asked of her. She’d never quite forgive—

  ‘OK.’

  ‘What?’ Cassie wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.

  ‘I said OK. You will feed from me.’ Seeing Cassie’s incredulous expression, Isabella flapped her hands. ‘Look, I’m not saying this is ideal. One thing is for sure, I had a very different view of the Few before I knew all this craziness was involved. But another thing I know for certain is that you’re not like Keiko. Not a bit like her. She was insane. You, on the other hand,’ Isabella grinned, ‘well, you have your moments. But you are my very good friend, Cassie Bell. If this is what you need, then this is what we need to do.’

  Cassie could only stare at her. ‘Isab—’

  Isabella interrupted, holding up her hand. ‘Hold on. Alice did not know what Keiko was doing, did she?’

  ‘No.’ Cassie picked at a chewed nail. ‘The Few have a special drink. It makes your roommate forget everything. They think it’s kinder.’

  Cassie finally made herself look at Isabella’s face, but there was no disgust on it. She was nodding, intent and serious.

  ‘Yet you don’t want to deceive me, Cassie. You have told me everything, and that shows you trust me. Thank you. So I will be honest with you, because I trust you too.’ Isabella raised a warning finger. ‘You must never give me this drink. I won’t ever be tricked or lied to.’

  ‘Isabella, I don’t know—’

  ‘Cassie, you need to feed. That’s obvious. It’s why Sir Alric is so worried about you, yes?’ Isabella grasped Cassie’s hands.

  ‘He – yes. He said he’d teach me, show us how to do it safely.’

  ‘Well, Sir Alric is a good man. He knows what is necessary and what is or isn’t dangerous. Don’t worry, Cassie.’ Isabella’s smile was cautious but sincere. ‘If he shows us how to do it right, then it will be fine. I’ll be your … what do you say?’

  Cassie swallowed. ‘My life-source. But wait, Isabella. What about Jake? He’ll never allow you to do it.’

  ‘Jake is not my boss, he’s my boyfriend,’ sniffed Isabella. ‘You’re right, he won’t like it, but this is my decision. I am not Jessica and you are not Keiko. And anyway, maybe what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.’

  ‘You can’t keep it secret from him, Isabella.’

  ‘Why not? A girl is entitled to some secrets,’ Isabella replied, her dark eyes flashing. ‘When the time is right, I will tell him. He will understand.’

  Cassie stared at her roommate. Wasn’t this the perfect outcome? She’d been honest with Isabella, and Isabella had agreed freely.

  So why did she still feel like a piece of dirt?

  ‘All right.’ Cassie breathed out and smiled. ‘Thank you. Thank you, Isabella.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Just make sure you don’t overindulge.’ Isabella grinned. ‘I am sure that my life-energy must be very strong stuff!’

  ‘There’s no way in hell I’m getting anywhere near you until Sir Alric’s taught me everything there is to know about this feeding thing.’ Embarrassed, Cassie bit her lip self-consciously. How had they come to this?

  Isabella looked at her roommate and giggled.

  ‘Your face is a picture, Cassie Bell. It will be fine. Besides, being one of the Few is not all bad news, huh? What about Ranjit? I heard how he swept you off your feet in the atrium yesterday. Surely he is some comfort?’ She grinned wickedly, and Cassie couldn’t help but smile too.

  ‘Look,’ Isabella continued, her eyes sparkling with mischief, ‘I wish this whole Few thing had not happened. But it has happened, and you’re in. And seeing as it’s Fate Accomplished, you might as well have some fun being Few, no?’

  Cassie was about to correct her when she thought: no, Fate Accomplished is quite appropriate.

  ‘Isabella, I’m not going to start throwing my weight around.’

  Isabella sniffed. ‘Hmph! Since Christmas there isn’t enough of you to throw.’

  Cassie smiled wryly.

  ‘And of course you won’t play the Queen Bee, that wouldn’t be you.’ She grabbed Cassie’s arms and shook them. ‘Don’t forget, you are still you.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  Isabella ignored her. ‘Hey, you can invite me to the oh-so-sacred common room. And extra time off for being Few means more time on Madison Avenue.’

  ‘How did I know you’d work shopping into this somehow?’ Cassie said, a genuine smile finally crossing her lips. She purposefully stood up and stretched. ‘Come on, let’s get dressed and find some breakfast. It’ll take me at least an hour to look as good as you look right now. And let me tell you, you don’t look great.’

  Isabella threw a pillow at her. ‘Swine. Anyway, it isn’t true. You look very beautiful since you had your famous “solution”. But wait till you start feeding on me!’ She preened, licking a fingertip and smoothing an eyebrow.

  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

  Cassie 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 g
irl 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 h
er 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.’