Empty

Chapter 27

Luke woke up the next morning to a tapping on the window. It was quiet, but too steady to be a branch. He lay, watching the window through closed curtains. It was repetitive, and it seemed to take hours for it to stop.

He rolled over and got out of bed, his head pounding. Opening the curtains, he looked for what could have been making the noise.

Across the top left-hand corner of the window was a muddy handprint. The corner was cracked. His heart fell to his stomach.

He was a floor up from the ground.

He looked out on to the empty street and took a steadying breath, stroking the soft fabric of his curtains. Something had been outside his window last night. It had almost gotten in. It would be back for him. So he had to figure out a way of protecting himself in advance.

He hurried into the spare room and shook Quinn awake, careful not to make too much noise.

Quinn was predictably not happy about being woken up so early. "What the f-"

"Shut up," he hissed. "Get up quickly. You need to see this."

She got up, rubbing her eyes and grumbling as he led her into his room. "What, at four in the morning?" she mumbled, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. "Cool pajamas, by the way. You know, I always assumed you slept in uniform."

Luke rolled his eyes and half-dragged her over to the window, pulling back the curtains and showing her the mark. "That wasn't there this morning. How the hell does someone get ten feet off the ground in the middle of the night with no one noticing?"

She rubbed her eyes. "It's ten feet, and the bricks stick out. It's easier than it looks, I used to be able to be able to go twice as high when I was a kid. Look, it's like five in the morning..."

"You're missing the point." Luke put his hand against the handprint, staring out of the window and down the street. "For that print to be there, it... They were right here... Looking for us..."

Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose, still bleary-eyed. "How would they know to look here?"

"I don't know... Unless..." He paused, and his stomach sank. "Shit."

She frowned at the handprint. "What?"

"The system. People..." He swallowed. "I used to be able to put everything on there. Every detail about everyone we know. There were other pages too that I wasn't allowed to access, but it'd still tell you a lot about a person. Including people's addresses... And whether they'd been drained or not."

Quinn looked up, still not fully awake. "Shit."

"Language."

"So, so... What does that mean?" She looked back at him, suddenly much more awake. "Are they just going to keep on attacking until they catch us both?"

Luke nodded grimly.

"Well, you're a prefect. They gave you access to their files, right?"

Luke frowned. "It's illegal to change it without consulting with a higher authority," he replied dully.

Quinn scoffed loudly. "You're kidding, right?"

"It's not a joke," He snapped. "I've never done anything like that before. If anyone found out, it could ruin me."

She rolled her eyes. "I mean, face it, what is there to ruin?"

"Excuse me?"

"Come on, you know I didn't mean it like that." She turned to look out of the window and traced the cracks with her finger. "You know as well as I do that the only person who cares what the system says is you. Nobody is gonna think any less of you if you cut a few corners here and there. Especially in situations like this. And besides," She turned back to him. "You told me you weren't doing this because of what people might write on your file, so prove it."