Read Online The Judas Scar by Amanda Jennings - Free Book Online Page B

to Drysdale, “Well, all I can say is he’s a little bugger. Do what you must.” You should have seen the bastard’s eyes light up. Parental permission to make my life misery.’ He drew a laboured breath and exhaled heavily. ‘Come on, it’s a fucking shithole. Let’s get out of here.’
    That was the last time he’d talked about school.
    ‘You know,’ Harmony whispered, turning her head on the pillow to look at him, the moonlight from the window bathing his face. ‘If you’d been my child I’d have kept you with me as long as I possibly could. I’d never have sent you away.’
    ‘You mustn’t worry about me. It wasn’t great but I’m fine. It was just school. Children adapt to everything and we all found our ways to cope. It’s in the past now and that’s where it belongs.’

C H A P T E R    S I X
    Will couldn’t sleep. He lay still as Harmony mumbled quietly beside him, every now and then letting out a torrent of mutterings. This was something she did – talking in her sleep – yelling out as if in surprise then murmuring unintelligibly, her head moving back and forth emphatically, arguing perhaps in her dreams before she finally settled. He listened to the noises outside the flat, the occasional car, a police siren not far away, the faint footsteps and muffled talking of a group of people as they passed the living room window. His mind whirred; he was never going to get to sleep. He eased himself out of bed, careful not to wake Harmony, lifted his clothes off the chair in the corner of the room and crept out of the bedroom. He dressed in the hallway, then took his keys off the hook by the door and slipped outside.
    Night-rambling, he called it. Walking at night. It was a habit that started when he was about ten or eleven, when one night, unable to sleep for worrying about going back to school, he called for his mother. She’d sat on the edge of his bed, patted his hand, and told him to count sheep. His heart sank as she left the room, closing the door behind her so that he was plunged back into darkness; he suspected counting sheep would do little to ease his fear. He was right. By the time he’d counted a flock of four hundred he was no more sleepy than when he began. It was then, on a whim, that he climbed out of bed, let himself quietly out of the house, and set off on his very first night-ramble. In the years that followed he often found himself creeping downstairs, holding his breath as he stepped over the creakiest floorboards, pausing every now and then to listen for the telltale sounds of adults on the prowl. Back then these night-time treks would set his pulse racing, send adrenalin pumping into his blood, push his worries into the background. As he got older the night-rambles became calmer, those first deep breaths of fresh night air like Valium, his tensions easing with each step he took.
    It was a ramble, or at least the repercussions of one, that first brought him and Luke together. One night in the third week of his first term at Farringdon Hall, Will was caught sneaking out by Mr Fielder, a reedy history master with a sparse moustache who smelt of coffee and cigarettes. Will had opened the door to the building and walked straight into him. The man sent him back up to the first years’ dormitory, his thin voice laced with what might have been regret as he told him he’d have to see the headmaster the following day. Will’s stomach had churned with dread for the whole night and following day until, finally, in the evening after prep, Drysdale summoned him.
    ‘Tell me, English – I’d love to know – exactly why you want to run away from school? Why you’d want to cause us bother? Worry your parents? Hm?’
    Will’s stuttered mix of ums and ers failed to convince this terrifying man, and the caning that followed was brutal. Will limped back to the dormitory bruised and biting back tears, and climbed straight into bed. Later, after Matron had turned the lights out,