A Drop of Red by CHRIS MARIE GREEN

Author:CHRIS MARIE GREEN [GREEN, CHRIS MARIE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101016756
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2010-03-08T02:45:54.498000+00:00

FOURTEEN

LONDON BABYLON

The Same Night

ONCE again, Noreen was complaining.

“I can’t suffer another night of this,” she said, tugging at the rusted iron shackles bolting her to the wall of their underground hideaway.

Della watched her for a moment, then became bored with Noreen and glanced to her other side, where Polly wasn’t quite as active. Like Della, the other girl was sitting against the rock and taking their latest punishment in stride, tracing a finger round the hole where a key might’ve unlocked one of Thomas Gatenby’s servants once upon a time.

“Noreen,” Polly said, “listening to you has got to be the worst punishment of all.”

Next to Polly, Blanche was also calm about their wall-chained lot in life.

But a restless Violet was shackled away from them all, her chains attached to the ceiling far from the rock’s face.

With her hands extended over her head, she pouted as if wrongly accused. Never mind that she’d been the one who’d dreamed up the entire raven scenario that had kept the school whispering about “bad omens” throughout Sunday and today. Never mind that she’d attempted to blame the idea on Blanche.

Their superior knew better and had punished them accordingly.

Violet, her brown hair covering most of her face as she swiveled from the ceiling, glared at the other girls. “Stop rabbiting on, you two. I can’t bear to hear any more.”

With a rattle of chains, Polly shirked away from her friend’s harsh command, but she and Noreen did fall quiet.

Yet this was no doubt what they were meant to do, Della thought, leaving her mind open because she didn’t care if anyone else heard her. They should reflect on their behavior and carelessness. Their superior must have taken great pleasure in knowing that they had spent all of Sunday in Violet’s room waiting, then today sitting through classes and wondering when the hammer would fall. For Della, knowing that Melinda Springfield had become ill was the most excruciating punishment of all and, although lingering here in chains for hours wasn’t precisely a dream come true, it was fitting.

In fact, throughout their punishment, none of them had dared to shrug out of the shackles, even if the task would’ve been a simple one. Accepting their due was symbolic—an admission that they were willing to redeem themselves.

But, Della mused while laying her cheek against the rock, if they continued misbehaving after this . . .

Thoughts of Briana and Sharon flooded her. Before both girls had left school, each had been punished for masterminding one misbegotten adventure or another, just as Violet was being punished now.

Yet at one point, both had also challenged Violet. . . .

Della went back to closing her eyes, knowing she might be here all night with the rust scratching into her skin, the shackles rife with a stench that reminded her of tainted blood.

After what seemed like hours, footsteps sounded in the tunnel.

Della didn’t breathe. None of them did. They didn’t dare stir for fear of seeming naughty again.

But when the footsteps paused, Violet sniffed.

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