Isle of Night (6 page)

He shook his head. Mutely. Maybe even regretfully. “Your name appeared in our system.”

Their system? How had my name gotten into a
system
?

I thought of all the Florida universities that'd offered me full rides and got a clue. “Did you get my name from Bright Futures?” Our state scholarship program had always sounded to me more like a Scientology pamphlet than a grant.

“Aye, your name did pop up.” There was something colder in his voice. His eyes no longer glimmered with suggestion. Why wasn't he giving me one of his looks? One of those brushes of his hand?

“Why me?” I gripped my armrests, not knowing if I wanted the answer. The leather was as soft as it looked. “I mean, I can't be the only kid who got a perfect score on her SATs.”

“But you are the only student with perfect SATs and a father with a history of domestic assault.”

Of course. Daddy Dearest. There'd be all sorts of information about him, me, us in the school system, with Social Services, in the Orlando Criminal Justice database.

I wrenched my shoulders back. I'd be more than what Daddy Dearest had made me. “So, how'd you find those two?” My voice came out sharp as I gave a sneer and a nod behind us. “Are they some of Florida's brightest lights, too?”

“No, Annelise. I said the other girls were
gifted
. You're the only genius.” Something softened in his face as he delivered the news, like it was something for me to be proud of.

I gulped convulsively, thinking I might sick up all over the beige Gulfstream rug. Abruptly, I began to fumble around my seat, beneath it.

“What is it?” he asked. I thought I saw concern flicker in his eyes, but it was gone in an instant, making me doubt it'd ever been there.

And why would he need to show sympathy? Ronan had gotten me on the plane, and now I was on my own. Again.

How had he done it? How had he duped me? It wasn't drugs—he hadn't given me anything to drink. It was like he'd mesmerized me with that stupid accent. I felt like a total idiot. A cute guy paid me some attention, and I fell over myself, following him to God knew where.
Idiot.

The blood drained from my face. I wondered if I looked as queasy as I felt.

I felt like more of a freak than ever. If I'd been chosen because I was smart, why were those other girls here? I was proficient in a few languages and had aced AP calc in ninth grade. Their gifts were probably Varsity Hotness and an uncanny ability to torment nerdbots like me.

The plane slowed, turned onto the runway for takeoff. There was a tugging in my gut as it lurched forward. The sight of tarmac skimming by made my head spin with vertigo.

I breathed through my clenched teeth, frantically running my hand along the gleaming wood panel at my elbow, searching for a hidden compartment. “Don't they have any of those airsick-bag things?”

I felt his hand on my arm, and froze. Despite his treachery, a tiny part of me willed his touch to warm me once more.

“Annelise,” he said, and his husky accent was gentle. I felt that familiar warmth spread from his fingertips, and the tight coil squeezing my chest loosened. “Your gift isn't simply a high IQ. You are more than that.”

“Right.” I leaned back against the headrest and shut my eyes.
More than that?
Really? More than a weirdo? More than a hopeless social case?

I thought of the girls in the seats behind me. I had to swallow the sourness in my throat.
If I'm more than that, what are they?

CHAPTER SIX

“M
imi? And Lilac von
what
?” I kept my voice down, but I couldn't do anything about my disdain. After withstanding five hours of my incessant prying, Ronan finally told me the other girls' names, though surely I must've misheard. “You're kidding, right?”

“Lilac von Straubing,” he said under his breath. He avoided my eyes, and I wondered if I spied amusement on that stony face of his.

“Lilac von Straubing,” I repeated to myself, marveling.
What fresh hell was this?
as my girl Dorothy Parker might've said. The only
von
anybody I'd ever heard of was that superrich Claus von Bülow, and he'd been suspected of murdering his wife. Was this Lilac of the idle superrich, too? She sure looked capable of murdering loved ones.

A bell dinged, and the cabin lights went up. It was a gentle tone, in stark contrast to the alarms ringing in the back of my head.

Ronan unclicked his seat belt and stood. His gaze locked with mine and lingered for an unsettling moment. I looked away, but regretted I did. I was furious with him but impulsively longed to feel that connection we'd had in his car. It made me even surlier.

He went to the front and whispered something to the attendant. I watched avidly as she unlocked a closet at the front of the plane.

He retrieved three large satchels, handing one to each of us. They were canvas kit bags in a drab olive color, like we were off to boot camp instead of this whatever-they-called-it school. Getting issued new stuff gave an air of finality to the whole thing. I rubbed my arms, suddenly chilled.

I was in deep now.

“What's the name of this place, anyway?” I settled the bag between my legs. Private jets offered more than a little legroom, and I was determined to rifle through
my
satchel as soon as I could. I was desperately curious about what might be inside.

“I told you already,” he said as he sat back down.
“Eyja nœturinnar
.
”

“That's it? But I thought you said that was the name of the island.”

“There's naught much else on the isle
but
the school.”

Hopefully they didn't go for any lame
Go, fight, WIN, Eyja Tigers!
nonsense. I bit my cheek to avoid succumbing to nervous tittering. “Either way,
Nœtur . . . Eyjan
doesn't sound like any university I'd ever heard of.”

“Eyja nœturinnar
.
”
He looked thoughtful for a moment. “But you were close.”

I shrugged. It was pretty simple once you parsed the roots into recognizable bits. “I've got a thing for Germanic languages.”

“Aye.” Looking distracted, he stared past me out the window, even though the only view was a flat wall of black and two flickering red lights on the wing. “We knew that.”

“We, we—who's this
we
you keep mentioning?”

He stayed as he was, looking into the blackness, a grave expression on his face. “You'll find out soon enough.”

I was determined to drag some sort of information out of him before we landed. I tried a different tack. “But your accent sounds Scottish. If Icelandic is the
old tongue
, well, your old folks must be pretty old.” It was an attempt at a joke, but he merely frowned.

Finally, he looked back at me. “Many of our . . . old ones . . . speak the language of the Vikings. We value their culture. And so our island still holds their traditions close.”

Focusing on my questions was keeping me from freaking out, and so I kept probing, despite the intensity on his face that was gravitating from serious to scowling. “So are you from—”

“This?” A squeal from behind interrupted us. The shrill tone identified it as Lilac, aka Bunny von Slutling. “You're replacing my Murakami bag with
this
?”

“What
ever
with your origami bag,” I muttered.

“Clearly they don't carry Louis Vuitton at the local Goodwill, do they,
Charity
?”

I cringed. Maybe preternatural hearing was Lilac's gift. I turned my attention to my own bag nestled between my knees, eager to see what had the girl in such a lather.

It was jammed full of clothing. On the top of the pile was a sturdy gray tunic and what looked like leggings.

“You've been issued a uniform, standard to all first-year recruits,” Ronan explained to all of us.

Recruits?
The peculiar word stuck in my mind. But I shoved it away, thankful that Lilac would no longer be able to lord the whole
Charity
thing over me. Uniforms—the great equalizer.

“Cool boots.” I wrestled a pair of black, knee-high boots from the kit bag. They were lined with some sort of short fur and had laces running up the front. Kind of like a sexy version of Eskimo mukluks.

Ronan nodded. “You also have workout clothes and a set of oilskins.”

“You're going to make us wear
animal skins
?”

Lilac's comment was so ridiculous, I had to turn in my seat to steal a glimpse of her. I smirked, wondering if anyone had ever broken it to Miss Thing that her leather ankle booties had once been, in fact, the skin of some unwitting creature.

Ronan furrowed his brow at her question, and then recognition dawned. “Ah. Your oilies aren't really skin. They're made of canvas. For inclement weather.”

Lilac stared blankly.

“He's saying
oilskin
is another word for
raincoat
, Einstein.”

Lilac curled her upper lip in a dead-eyed sneer, and it made my skin crawl. The girl looked like she might fillet me and have me for a snack later. She made the Dale R. Fielding High School Cheer Squad look like
Barney and Friends
, and I vowed to give her a wide berth.

“You're to change and leave all your old clothing on the plane,” Ronan instructed us. I tuned back in, tensing, thinking of my smuggled goods. I couldn't do anything about it with Ronan next to me, and it wasn't like I could tote this ginormous bag into the airplane lavatory.

The attendant knelt at Ronan's shoulder, and I startled. “Shall I administer refreshments?”

He gave her a brisk nod, and before I knew it, we all had crystal tumblers filled with a thick, dark red liquid.

“What
is
this stuff?” I sniffed. It managed to smell both cloying and sour, like a kid's sweaty palm after holding a fistful of pennies. My stomach lurched, and I wondered again at the location of the airsick bags.

“It's what you're being served,” Ronan said sternly.

I contemplated the glass. “Can't I just have, I don't know, a Perrier or something?”

“You must drink it.” He tossed his back in one gulp. “No questions.”

I forced myself to follow suit. It was viscous, like syrup, the last of it dribbling down my throat slow and thick, like I'd just done a shooter of ice-cold Robitussin. I shuddered.

But then a strange thing happened. A buzzing began at the backs of my legs, crackling up my spine and out to my fingertips. Was it some sort of weird Viking alcohol? Whatever it was, it made me feel
alive
. Like I could breathe more deeply, and there were new scents all around.

From the hideous hurling sounds erupting from the rear of the plane—not to mention Lilac's shrieks—it seemed as though the drink wasn't having the same effect on Mimi.

Ronan stood, watching wordlessly as the attendant handed the girl a damp towel. Mimi must've shown some warning signs prior to throwing up, because she was already chin deep in a white airsick bag. So I guess they did have them hidden somewhere.

Ronan wasn't aware I watched him, he was so preoccupied with Mimi, scrutinizing her with a strange look in his eye. Almost like he was angry. But then he told her, “It's all right, love,” in such a kindly tone of voice.

Mimi raised her head, wiping her chin with the towel. She spat one last time into the bag. “We don't drink
mierda
like this in Cuba.” She wore an angry snarl and pronounced her country
Coo-ba
.

I began to mutter a sassy retort, but then I realized everyone was distracted. I'd never get a better chance to deal with my photo and iPod.

Besides, my limbs were really tingling now. I
had
to act. I was hot and alive with the sense that I was becoming aware of each individual cell in my body. That there was some epiphany within my reach, if only I'd just
move
. I felt empowered, capable, and it made me brave.

“I'd like to get changed and ready.” I grabbed a stack of gray clothing and slipped by Ronan. I didn't look back to see if he'd protest.

Keeping my hoodie balled at my stomach, I snuck into the bathroom, hoping the pile of wool in my arms amounted to a complete outfit. Sliding the lock shut, I began to undress, taking off my hat, clothes, socks, everything. The prospect of being barefoot in the bathroom gave me pause for a moment—I'd left the uniform boots by my seat—but one look at the pristine lavatory floor changed my mind. It was cleaner than our bathroom at home had ever been.

Leaning against the wall, I hitched myself into the leggings as best I could in the small space. I ran my hands over my thighs, smoothing the material into place. It was dark gray and soft, but thick and supportive, too. Not quite natural, but not entirely synthetic, either.