Broken (5 page)

Her eyes flicker to the ceiling as if she’s asking for help from the heavens before she spills her guts. ‘You’ve been really busy lately,’ she says, like she’s stating an indisputable mathematical fact, ‘and, um . . .’

Her voice drops so low suddenly that I struggle to hear her.

‘. . . it just happened.’

A tingle starts up at the top of my spine. By the time she tells me everything that
just happened
the tingle is in overdrive, and I have a sour taste in my mouth.

‘Say something,’ she pleads.

‘Like what?’

‘Jordan, I’m so –’

As soon as I spot the pity tears, I back up quickly and plaster a smile to my face. ‘Nothing’s gonna change, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘Really?’ she sniffs, bringing her mega smile out.

‘Of course, Sophie. I’m happy for you. Really.’ The buzzer rings through the corridor ending the morning break and, even though my next class is a free period I’m supposed to take in the library, the buzzer gives me the excuse I need to leave. ‘I gotta go. But I’ll see you later, OK?’

I run through the corridor without glancing back, not sure where I wanna go next, but it should be somewhere Ebony can reach me in case she decides to leave, so probably the library.

But the moment I step out of B Block, Skinner is waiting and motioning with his head to follow him. This is all I need after Sophie’s insightful revelation.

About twenty metres past the new Drama Block extension, there is an old white building made from cement blocks. This eyesore used to be the original school toilets, but today it looks a lot more like an abandoned convict prison. Since the school opened two new facilities about fifty years ago, the local council condemned the structure, fixing steel grid gates to both male and female openings. These entrances are both tightly secured with solid brass padlocks.

Skinner produces a key, unlocks the female entrance and walks in.

I stand outside and stare at him. Even though it’s fifty years since the last kid peed in there, it still reeks of urine and, well, other stuff.

Right now, with pre-lunch classes underway, there’s no one around, not even the usual bunch of Year Seven boys that congregate at the back sometimes for a smoke.

Skinner sits on a timber bench inside, stretching his legs out and crossing his ankles. ‘Come in.’

‘It stinks.’

‘You’ll get used to it.’

‘I don’t think so. I’m not coming here again.’

He gets up and stands right in front of my face. He gives me a condescending smirk, like he’s privy to information so secret and important I could die from not knowing what it is. ‘Is that how you greet your best friend?’

‘No, but you’re not my best friend. You’re no friend at all. Not any more.’

He swings an arm round my shoulder. I don’t see it coming and I flinch and try to get away. But his grip is solid, like he’s been working out at the gym. He hauls me inside where it’s grey and cold and damp. ‘That’s why I’m here,’ he says.

‘Huh?’

‘To clarify the status of our renewed friendship.’ His face is too close. It feels wrong on every level. I stretch my neck as far away as I can. ‘We’re going to hang out again, just like we used to.’

‘Like when we were eleven?’
He can’t be serious.

‘Exactly, dude.’

He releases me and I stumble backwards in my rush to put space between us. My back hits a stained cement wall. I’m not sure in the dim light whether the stain is a shadow or mould or something else.

‘Too much has happened since then, Adam. We
can’t
go back.’

He’s in my face again, forehead to forehead, eyeball to eyeball, nose to nose. He moves fast, and with aggression. ‘You’ll do what I say, all right, Jordy-boy?’

I try to shove him. ‘It’s not
all right
. And don’t call me that.’

He pouts like I hurt his feelings.

‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.

He steps back, laughing. ‘You’re touchy this morning. Did my ex not give you the good news you were hoping to hear?’

I don’t say a word. He laughs. ‘Just relax, dude, I’m not here to hurt you.’

‘No? So why are you bugging me at school where anyone can see you?’

He swirls his hands in the air. ‘Take a look around. This is where we’re going to hold our official meetings.’

‘What are you talking about?’

He pokes his finger in my chest, his face turning serious. ‘My employer is adamant I keep my eye on you to ensure you’re sticking to the terms of your arrangement with him. So when Principal Eckard reinstates me into Year Eleven tomorrow, we’re going to be friends again, meeting down here in our matching free periods two or three times a week for an update.’

My stomach drops. ‘You’re coming back to school just so you can check up on me?’

He takes his finger from my chest, points it at my head like a gun and makes a clunking noise in his mouth. ‘You got it, bro.’

‘Don’t call me that either.’

‘Why not? You used to like it.’

‘In that other time before you tried to
kill
me.’

He waves his hand in the air dismissively. ‘Oh that. Well, you killed my brother, so I say that makes us even.’

‘Dude, it doesn’t work that way. Whatever’s going on with you, whatever you’re on, keep me out of it. I’m not going to meet you here, Skinner. Tell your “
employer
” you don’t have to check up on me. I have until Ebony turns eighteen to break them up. And I told you I would do it. I’m not backing down on the deal.’

I try to push past him to leave, but he doesn’t budge. He sticks his chest out to block me while scrutinising me with narrowed eyes. Then he lifts his right shoulder and lets it drop. ‘If you say so.’

Something’s not right. Adam Skinner doesn’t give in, not unless it’s part of his plan. I go along with it for now, keeping wary. ‘Yep.’ I point to the exit. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’m leaving.’

He doesn’t stop me. But before I feel the sun on my face he says, ‘Of course, there is another way I can survey your progress.’

I turn round slowly. ‘OK, so what’s the other way?’

Examining his fingernails, he says, ‘I’ll just have to hang around with someone else who’s close to the lovebirds.’

My mind races and it doesn’t take long to figure out which friend Skinner means. ‘No way! Leave Amber out of this. I mean it, Skinner. Do
not
go near that girl.’

In a flash he’s grabbing my shirt, bunching it up in his fists and shoving me against the wall. ‘Touchy, touchy. You’re not carrying a torch for Amber too, are you?’

‘She’s just a good person. Leave her alone.’

‘I can be
your
friend or Amber’s. It’s your choice, Jordy.’

It gets hard to breathe. I’m not sure why until I glance down and realise my feet aren’t touching the ground. ‘My friends will think I’ve lost it if I start hanging around with you. They won’t accept you.’

He releases me, and when I drop to the floor, he says, ‘You’ll think of something.’

‘Amber won’t let you come near her anyway.’

His smile is nasty. ‘I have my ways.’

And I have mine. Succumbing to this bully is not one of them. ‘No. I won’t do it.’

Surprise registers on his face. ‘What do you mean, Jordy? You won’t do what?’

‘I’m not going to be your “friend” again, and you’re going to leave Amber alone.’

He stares into my eyes for the longest moment, and then laughs. It makes me so angry that I push his chest with both hands. It does nothing but make his eyes flash weirdly like there’s a fire burning inside them. ‘One last thing I nearly forgot to mention,’ he says, his voice dead serious. ‘When your mother died it was Prince Luca who fought Solomon for her soul. We all know who won because she’s now in Skade. But no one knows what happened to her
after
the King brought her to his palace.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’re smart. Figure it out.’ He flicks my forehead with a finger and walks out the door.

‘Adam.
Adam
.’ He doesn’t stop, but I gotta know what he means. ‘
Skinner!
What did that monster do to my mother? Tell me!’ He keeps walking. Damn him. So I call out, ‘Fine. I’ll meet you here twice a week.’

He comes back, striding across the green grass and grinning like a great white shark. He puts his mouth close to my ear and whispers, ‘He brought her back to life. She does things for him the other ladies – the souls – can’t.’

I stand there, stunned. My mother is alive? She’s living as a human in Skade? A realm only for souls and dark angels? ‘What things? What things does he make her do?’ I run after him and grab his shoulder. ‘What you’re telling me, is it God’s honest truth?’

He stares at me for a long moment, then nods.

7

Ebony

The day passes in a weird kind of blur with my mind flitting from Sophie to Jordan to Nathaneal to Mum and Dad. By last period I’m over-tired, overwrought and seriously in need of unwinding.

Fortunately my last class is Physics, one of my favourite subjects. I love the sciences, and my craving to learn about life and the universe is encouraged by a great teacher – Andrea Paully. She’s young and understands my need to learn; she says I remind her of herself at my age. And in a class of eighteen, where there are only three girls, it helps to have a female teacher to even out the odds a little.

Ms Paully is really nice, but she has a thing about tardiness and hands out detentions like Einstein developed theories. And for no good reason today, only that my head’s in a daze and I’m walking slower than usual, Amber, Sophie and I end up late for class. I groan. Detention is the last thing I need. I’m
so
ready to go home.

But at the classroom door I get the shock of my life. Ms Paully isn’t teaching today. Another teacher is – a man. He’s writing his name on the whiteboard, but I don’t need to read the words to know this man’s identity. His distinguished look, polished foreign voice and expensive dark suit, are disturbingly familiar.

It’s Zavier, the man who, according to Mum and Dad, organised my adoption.

Sophie runs into my back. ‘Hey, what’s up? Are we going in?’

When I don’t answer, she peers over my shoulder. ‘Oh, yeah, I heard Ms Paully had a car accident last night.’

Both Amber and I gasp.

‘She going to be OK, but she broke her pelvis, her left leg and a couple of ribs. She’ll be absent for the rest of the year.’

‘Oh my God!’ Amber says, clutching her books to her chest.

Sophie continues moving past me when she realises I’m not budging yet. ‘
Ooh-la-la!
’ she sings after seeing the man writing on the whiteboard. ‘I could get used to seeing
him
around the corridors. Suave and sexy, that’s some combination. You know, girls,’ she calls back to us, ‘we should start sitting in the front row. I hear the view is better there.’

‘Ladies, you’re welcome to come in and take a seat,’ Mr Zavier says without lifting his eyes off the board as he writes instructions under his name in stylish, eloquent strokes. ‘I don’t bite, though I can’t speak for the rest of this rabble behind me.’

Fifteen boys laugh.

‘Morons,’ Amber murmurs, just noticing I’ve hardly spoken or moved since we got here. ‘Honey, are you coming in?’

I know I should, and that I will have to at some point if I want to remain in this class, but it’s the end of the day, I’m tired and I don’t want to face this man right now. I don’t want to ask him what he’s doing here.

‘Ebony, what’s wrong?’ She sees the teacher’s name on the board. ‘Oh my God, isn’t that –’

I wrap my fingers round her arm. ‘I can’t go in there today.’

‘OK, I understand. Do you want me to take you to the nurse?’

‘No. I just need to find Jordan.’

‘So you want to go home?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I do.’

She peels off my backpack. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she says, and hurries us away, leaving Sophie flummoxed as she watches us turn and leave.

We don’t stop until we’re outside and breathing in fresh air. In the late afternoon the winter sun is perfect to warm up my chilled blood. We sit on a bench and Amber pats my hands. ‘Hon, you’re as pale as a ghost. Are you sure I can’t get the nurse?’

I don’t want to lie to Amber. She’s my best friend. She knows about the angels. But what am I supposed to say? How do I explain that the last time I saw that teacher he was standing in the burnt-out shell of my house? ‘It’s been a long day. I just want to go home.’

She pulls her phone from her skirt pocket. ‘Mum will take you.’

‘No, don’t call your mum. Dawn’s been so wonderful; I don’t want to inconvenience her more than I already have. Jordan has Biology in Mr Dawson’s lab. It’s last period. He won’t mind.’