Ms. Daughtry made a few announcements about the next and final round coming in a few days. And then she shooed them all away for the parents’ conference.
Alex wasn’t there for that, but when his parents took their leave later, to go to their hotel in Geneva, he learned that it had been the civil bloodbath that Sangster predicted, since it appeared that returning to Glenarvon’s campus was not going to be as fast as most parents had hoped. By the next morning Glenarvon Academy was seventy-five students lighter, bringing them down to one hundred, and the Merrills were just another ripple in the wave.
Chapter 17
It was one in the morning in the Kingdom of Cots, and Alex awoke suddenly to the sound of crashing glass in the distance. His eyes shot open and he was awake. For a moment he was confused about where he was, forgetting about the shrouds that hung around each bed on the riggings that had been put up, hospital style, throughout the gym.
Alex blinked, reaching for his new glasses underneath the cot and putting them on, and sat up.
The room was full of the sounds of snoring and slow, steady breath. He reached out to the sheet and pulled it aside to see Sid in the next bed, fast asleep.
Then he heard another sound, outside, beyond the back door of the gym. The scrape of metal, like an old window closing.
He slipped on his shoes and grabbed his jacket off the rack, putting it on over his pajamas.
Alex tiptoed into the corridor of white sheets that ran the length of the gym, looking up and down the line. No static in his head. But now he heard a door closing somewhere. He reached back into his sheeted cubicle and grabbed his go package just in case.
He began to step quickly to the back of the gym until he reached the metal door at the rear. He opened it and peered out into the night.
Across the lawn, under the moonlight, there were no lights on in the main house of LaLaurie. Off to the right was a gate, and beyond it the woods. He let the door shut behind him and pulled the jacket closer, wishing he had put on jeans over his flannel pajama bottoms.
In the darkness a shimmer of cloth gleamed, satin, legs moving steadily and slowly, next to the gate. Not just one. As his eyes adjusted, Alex became aware that he could see three different pairs of legs crossing the small drive beyond the gate, going into the woods.
A window scraped open at the house. Alex stuck to the wall and saw a girl in pajamas, climbing through an open window, rolling and dropping silently. He recognized her—she was tall with chestnut hair and Asian features. He’d seen her at the library. She began to walk, steadily and without a glance in any direction. Alex realized with shock that she was barefoot. He could see his own breath; she must be freezing.
Not far from her window he saw several more standing open. One of them was broken, and there was a robe caught on it. What the hell?
He heard footsteps from around the gym, off to his right, and shrank back into the shadows. More girls, two of them, one about sixteen, the other about eighteen, both brunettes. Both barefoot, too. They walked steadily toward the gate, silently, moving through it. They came within fifty yards of him along the way and never cast him a glance.
For a moment Alex thought of running back to grab Paul and Sid, but the Asian girl and the two brunettes were still going, and he was about to lose them.
Alex ran across the lawn, looking back to see if there were any more coming. Not a soul. Hurry. He headed across the drive and into the woods, and was lost for a moment, perceiving no actual path. He was about to get on the ground to see if he could find footprints in the dark when he caught sight of another pair of legs in the distance, satin pajamas glimmering in the moonlight through the trees.
He made a beeline for the pajamas. He started to see more pajama’d legs, a procession up ahead. Alex headed off to the right, moving faster, until he was parallel to them. He stepped on a rotten branch. It snapped loudly, but not one of them noticed.
Now Alex saw them more clearly. There had to be a dozen or