Chapter 33: Out of Sight

Speechless, Milo stared at Layla in the doorway.

As far as she knew, he escaped containment. After which came a whole school comms announcement about not opening sealed doors, and a failed hunting session by none other than Aldous Rolt, the Parish Warden of Jence.

The girl took a step closer, out from under the shadow of her coils, and met him with her hazel eyes.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I’m fine. It’s worse than it looks."

Layla advanced another easy step, worry cracking the soft-and-composed act, and Milo flinched back.

The girl wasn’t crazed to the point of hugging him, right? If she did, she’d feel the flail, and then—

"No emotional support needed," he blurted out.

They looked at each other.

God, the vomit pond. Unless a janitor had been by, it lay out there with the bowl’s shards and the leftover die. One glance at the grease drying on his sleeve and anyone would connect them.

In the awkward silence, Milo faced the mirror again. The front of the sweater looked all right.

Joining him, Layla surfaced in the reflection a hand’s width short of his shoulder.

"You stole a relic?"

That finally pulled her eyes off his and down to the Iron Turnhook in his grip.

"This, yeah." He bobbed the hook up. "I took it in self-defense."

"You fought the entity?"

"No, but I saw the whole relic room thrashed."

She extended her arm, pointing at the metal.

"Those things have Wards."

A lie here was far more believable than the truth: a student swallowing the relics and getting electrocuted, all while nearly choking on them.

"They didn’t."

"So the Ward came off the hook?"

"I can explain everything, later."

"And what people are saying about you? You can explain that too?"

"Yes?" Sweat trailed down Milo’s jaw. "Have you been inside the collection room? It’s like a storm hit it. Shelves down, cases busted open. Plenty of relics missing."

"I’ve seen the room." Layla’s eyes shifted to his ear. "How long have you been here?"

The ear in question went cold. What was on it?

He’d survived two rounds with the Parish Warden of Jence and one with the Plague’s Host. No girl in a mirror was cracking that record.

"I was coming out for help. I only wanted to wash up first." He scoffed and shook his head twice, gaze dipping to the floor. "You can see how I look, right?"

With a nod, Layla backed out into the corridor and left him to it. The pipe knocked twice before the water hissed down, and he splashed it over his face. She wrestled with the door, gave it up as beyond help, and settled on giving it her back.

The chains quiet under the hunch, he followed her out and checked left from the corner of his eye.

The vomit pond was gone, but the items from before stayed put. Now there were even more of them.

"Wait... what are people saying about me?"

Layla spun around, her pink coils lagging in an arc as a smile took shape on her face.

"Nooothing, nothing much." The smile spread to her eyes, where his posture cut it short. "Hang on, are you okay? Do you have a stomachache?"

The stoop, at least, was doing its job.

"I wouldn’t call it that." He straightened a few millimeters, the most the flail’s head had to spare. "It’s just some bruising."

"If it’s been hurting this whole time, we’re seeing a nurse before anything else."

"What did they say about me, Layla?"

"I can already see the old Milo’s back. Steamrolling my questions with his own."

His gaze flattened. "Layla."

"Those are all gifts left for the academy’s ghost."

Apple to ribbon-wrapped hairbrush, he went down the line again, mouth curving into a crooked wince.

"Only, you were gone, and so, you see... there were rumors."

An apple? Okay, that one did prove useful.

"With Paul and Maigh missing too, everyone thought you were the ghost, taking back what was taken from him."

A boot...? Really...? A hairbrush, with a ribbon? Apparently I’m not as attractive as I thought...

"We, I mean, some people figured you were out for revenge on your bullies."

Milo closed his eyes and sighed. It all added up.

"Now, let me take you to the nurse and see what’s under your sweater."

Milo’s eyes shot back open.

The nurse was welcome to the bruising. The Flanged Flail on top of it, less so.

"No, that’s not necessary. I’m sure Mr. Thwaite wants to see me first. I was missing."

Layla gave the slouch one last look. "Fine, he can send for the nurse."

Picking her way between the presents, the girl led him down the corridor to the principal’s office, where the whole band waited: Mr. Thwaite, Miss Rolt, and Grace.

She gestured for him to go in first.

He opened the door, and the distress inside nearly bowled him over.

"He’s here, he’s here!"

On the desk, a fresh cup of tea steamed.

Mr. Thwaite abandoned it and vaulted the furniture in his tight jeans. Limbs loose by sheer force of will, he jogged for a workroom on the right. Grace shrieked at the sudden burst of speed.

"The missing boy. Spotted."

Miss Rolt continued to sit on the table, purple dress pooled on the wood, as Layla followed him in.

Right, if the ghost was out for revenge on the people who wronged him, no one made a better target than Mr. Thwaite. The man had expelled him mere moments before the sightings began.

Once Milo, on closer inspection, looked haunted rather than haunting, the principal emerged and settled behind the very desk from which he had once politely recommended psychiatric help.

Grace stayed in the workroom, pretending to be busy.

"I know the plan you’re about to lay out." Miss Rolt leaned back to meet the man’s eyes. "So allow me a question of my own first. Must we test him?"

She was near Aldous’ age, beautiful and playful. Of course the Warden brought her along.

"Milo must be tested," the principal said, squaring a stack of papers for the second time, a light tremor in his hands. "I mean no harm by it, but... look at him."

"You are aware of the false negatives. Students have begun coughing."

"And they have been isolated."

"The kits are, I’m afraid, not a good indicator." She faced Milo with an assuring smirk. "Besides, Aldous is seeing to the Calamity as we speak."

The Host lay dead, and nobody in this building was cured for it.

He’d gotten rid of just one. For the greater good.

Either way, he needed to be cleared and released before commanding the Plague particles to, gently, end themselves.

He couldn’t detect them, but the sheet hadn’t forbidden a blind attempt. Worst case he tired out, or his head ached trying to control nothing.

"Procedure." Mr. Thwaite picked up the cup and got it not one centimeter off the table before his tremor slopped tea over the rim. Setting it down, he pretended to no longer be thirsty. "Test him, please. Milo was in isolation."

After making sure the principal had seen the roll of her eyes, Miss Rolt reached into a paper bag and fished out a buccal swab attached to a small plastic device.

Milo stepped up for it.

"Oh, you have a hole in the back of your sweater," Layla pointed out.

He froze.

"I do, huh?"

The swab waited in Miss Rolt’s fingers.

"Overall." Layla tilted her head. "You need to change."

"I know. I’ll do it later," he said, hunching deeper, the flail tucked out of sight of the dead owner’s wife.

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⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "Logic and Shit" ... ⤵︎ [!]