Page 138 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

The source of the fire quickly becomes obvious. Flames soar and flicker in front of the white tents, looking curiously out of place in such a neat, well-kept civilian area. A clustered group of protesters surrounds a lit metallic container resembling a wheelbarrow, into which several books are viciously tossed, drawing the flames out higher. One protester comes along with a whole stack of books, piled up past his chin, and, to the others’ immense cheers, he dumps all of them into the barrow at once. Fire consumes the books in a swift heartbeat, the pages curling and blackening, the smoke puffing up self-importantly, the crowds’ roar growing rowdier.

“This is a proportionate response,” Rory remarks mildly, his eyes drinking in the revelry, the gleeful burning of innocent books.

My heart hurts. It seems to me somehow sacrilegious to burn books, a line that should never be crossed. The curbing of information, the control of entertainment and the ban on another’s thoughts… Even as a symbolic gesture, it represents a wrongness and provokes in me a wariness toward any cause that believes burning books is a legitimate, sympathetic act of protest instead of an unnecessary and brutal act of autocracy.

“So she condemned the violence on baith sides — no’ that I’ve seen any violence yet fae the royalists, but aye, all right — then says there’s a need for less toxic debate. And then they go prove her point by daein’ this.” Like a budding photojournalist, Finlay takes several photos of the book-burning. “Seems like if ye’re no’ explicitly pro-Antiro, ye need tae be taken doon.”

“How d’you think they’d react,” I murmur quietly, because the answer has suddenly chilled me, “if they knew exactly who was inside this taxi?”

There’s silence as the others contemplate this.

I wonder if they’d still have turned up had Luke released his abdication speech earlier in the week.

“Fuck ‘em,” Finlay says in a rough voice. “Oor night’s no’ gonnae be ruined by these daft cunts. These slevery bastards need a boot in the fud.”

Danny winds down the taxi window, peering out, his brown hair falling across his forehead as he twists his head in an attempt to see the scene. “What is it? Luke wants to know what’s happening.”

“Protesters,” Rory says grimly. He gazes past Danny toward Luke, sheltered and isolated in the dark. “Hundreds of them, I’m not even joking. Some author released a statement they didn’t like. There’s no fucking way you’re cutting through that.”

“So where do we go?” Luke asks with a kind of soul-crushing, bone-tired fatigue that makes me want to go over and hug him right now.

Rory glances at Finlay, and some kind of wordless decision seems to occur between them. “Hotel?”

My stomach lurches, because the wordhotelseems somehow laden with meaning, with weight and intention. I’m hot and cold at once, my dress too short and exposing but also too much and far too warm, as my heart beats wildly in my chest.

“You know of any decent hotels?” Luke asks, as though the search for the best five-star hotel conducted at this time of night amid an international arts festival may be an impossible task.

“Doon the road,” Finlay says with a shrug. “We passed it on the way here. Beaumont.”

Danny’s eyes widen in astonishment. “What, you’re actually gonna rent a bunch of rooms at the Beaumont?”

“We need somewhere discreet. Somewhere comfortable, wi’ folk who willnae ask questions.”

“Questions like, ‘What are five teenagers doing trying to book rooms at the Beaumont’? Questions like, ‘Where the hell did they get this kind of money’?”

“Peopledohave money, Danny-boy,” Rory remarks in a breezy tone as he tugs open the cab door. “Just because you spend all yours on comic books doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And swanky hotels are for anyone with enough of it, no matter how old you are.”

“And besides,” Finlay says, with another of those wordless, confirming glances at Rory, “we willnae be gettin’ abunch o’ rooms. It’ll just be the one.”

Heat reverberates through my body alongside Finlay’s words. I like how they don’t even bother asking me, like I won’t have a contrary opinion on this idea. Only Danny looks at me, with a kind of wide-eyed bewilderment, as though wondering how far gone I am when it comes to the chiefs.

For decorum, if nothing else, I ask, “One room?”

But then Rory turns those pale gray eyes onto me, and I’m lost. I’m so lost. I’m lost and drowning and thoroughly, utterly his.

“Is that a problem?”

Slowly, I shake my head. He gives me a genuine smile, and suddenly the question seems worth it just for that.

“To the Beaumont, please,” Rory tells the driver the moment Finlay slams the door shut behind him and pushes past the birthday balloon. After a moment, he leans his mouth toward the shell of my ear and murmurs darkly, “I’m glad you agree, because there are so many things I want to see you do for me tonight, little saint.”

I swallow, clenching my thighs together. The desire lacing Rory’s tone is unmistakable.

For a few seconds, we sit in absolute silence, listening to the wheels trundling beneath us, all of us imagining what else will be happening tonight. I try to calm my heartbeat, which seems to be galloping in a direction toward a bed, far in front of me.

Just when I think I have my heart under control, Rory murmurs, utterly inaudible to the others, “Kiss me.”

My back stiffens, my face freezes. Getting off with each other had been fine in the club, a setting dark enough to encourage debauchery. But in a taxi, with a driver? I live out Rory’s order inside my head, picturing the obscenity of it, imagining the others’ reactions. Of Rory, innocent as I launch myself at him, kissing the living daylights from him while the rest of the cab watches, slack-jawed with awe. I lick my lips, ignoring the spike of neediness within me.

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