Page 35 of All Saints: Pledge

“A note?” Li watches my bra as it soars through the air and lands in my bag. “Are all Americans like this? I have to admit, I kind of get why Dominic is into you.”

I laugh and she shrugs. “You seem to come with baggage, so it’s probably for the best." She gives me a brief smile that turns brittle. “I don't do well with thugs.”

My own attitude sours as I yank on my black pinstripe trousers. “Here, I'll write Dominic a note and ask him to meet me. Secretly.” I scribble on the back of a page of my sheet music and hand it to Li.

“This is old school,” she says, folding it up and putting it in her purse.

I cast an eye at my phone. I don’t want to tell her that it’s occurred to me that Kendall might have a way to monitor my phone through the app I installed. “This way Kendall can't accidentally see a text or something.” I ponder whether or not he could actually be listening right now.

Her eyebrows rise. “Are you meeting him tonight?”

“Not him specifically, but he'll probably be at the event.” I blanch, trying to picture how I’m supposed to act naturally around that human being.

Li hesitates like she’s not sure she should speak but finally says in a rush, “Look, if you're in over your head with this volunteer stuff, maybe you should just quit. You look stressed.Your friends are getting beaten up, and I gather that you're having to spend time with this Kendall character because he's got the same scholarship. You could solve all the problems by just cutting ties.”

“This scholarship is the only reason I'm here. This is my dream. I want to be at Oxford. I need to be here. I can't explain it. I feel like my destiny is here.”

Li eyes me. “Worth selling your soul?”

I shove everything back in my bag, and fight off a chill of foreboding. Hadn’t I said the same thing to myself just a handful of nights ago? “Don't be so dramatic. I'm not selling my soul.” I'm telling her as much as I'm telling myself. “It's just a service scholarship. It's demanding. And while Kendall is out of line, that's between him and me. There are no bad guys running around in black robes, sacrificing virgins. I just have to stay the course and make it through this year. Then I'll have enough money to afford to drop the scholarship.”

“If you say so,” Li says skeptically. She turns to exit the door of the music room and gasps. “What were you just saying about no men in black robes?”

On the other side of the glass stand three men in black suits. All of them look pissed.

Li shrinks back. I don’t even think they could see her to begin with. “They can’t get in here,” I say. “I locked the door.”

She lets out a breath. “Maybe they’re here to murder us. Dominic was a warm up.”

“They are not here to murder us,” I say in a flat tone I don’t feel. “They’re in tuxedos.” No, this has to do with All Saints. I can taste it in the fine cut of their suits and their perfectly coifed hair. I yank open the door. “I’m not even late?—”

They grab my arms and pull me forward.

“Helena?” Li whispers, sounding scared. I hear her fumbling for her phone, probably about to call the police. I silence herwith a sharp look that tells her to stay out of sight. As long as they don’t come into the booth, they can’t see her. I’m terrified of what they’ll do if they think I’ve told her anything about the scholarship.

“Let go of me,” I growl at one man. He's made of solid muscle, but I stomp on his foot and it earns me a wince.

“Mr. Saint James requires a word with you before the event this evening.”

I pretend to address the guy still bracketing my wrists with his fingers, hoping Li will know I’m really talking to her. Trying to alleviate her fears. The very last thing I want is her calling the police on All Saints business. I pitch my voice high and loud. “Oh is this some hazing thing? I forgot they told us this might happen. All in good fun, right?” I will the terror to leave my eyes and hope my smile looks genuine instead of a silent plea to continue the call. They drag me out the door. I'm not so sure I'm fine. These men seem to mean business.

I guess I was wrong talking myself down about teams of men in black abducting people. That's exactly the kind of organization I'm in, apparently. I can only hope I'm wrong about the sacrificing virgins and trading my soul parts too as they pull a black bag over my head and drag me out of the building and down the sidewalk.

18

Iwalk forever in darkness. The only clue to my path is the changing landscape beneath my feet. Sidewalks, then cobble stones. More sidewalks and then through some sort of doorway and down a sloping path that smells like wet grass and soil. Then a long, long stretch of stairs. It feels like forever, but it's probably only ten minutes before the hood is yanked back off of my head and I'm gasping air in a dark room.

It's a...tunnel. A giant tunnel. A tunnel big enough to house an airplane. Are we at a secret airport? The barest hint of the arch of the ceiling sits maybe twelve feet above my head. A tang of damp and mold permeates the air and hits the back of my throat—kind of like an abandoned subway with hints of grease and metal mixed in.

The men drop my arms, then stride down the corridor, confident I'll follow them. I don't enjoy being stuck in the dark in creepy tunnels alone, so they're not wrong. I scramble to follow, my footfalls echoing off the stone of the floor.

“Where are we?”

The guy closest to me flicks a look over his shoulder. “Steam tunnels.”

“Steam…tunnels?”

As if he’s used to conducting tours of the dark and nefarious parts of the campus, he nods. “After coal, some of the campus converted to steam heat. All the radiators in this quadrant were fed by this tunnel.” Maybe he’s a history major here. Even the henchmen have genius IQs.

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