Pt 6

Maddie met with Eric Tan a couple of more times.  He asked a bunch of questions each time and would go off to tinker things on his end.  He wouldn't answer many of her queries, though.  "If you want me to do what I have to,  you need to trust me. " She had agreed,  though it made her anxious.  The wait made her jittery as well,  because her long weekend had ended and she had to return to school. Catholic school hostels weren't exactly the posh luxuries that sitcoms painted. Yes, they were cesspits of drama.  But they were after all, run by a bunch of nuns and that meant some rules were stricter than others.  Curfew, surprise room checks and internet access to name a few. After all, parents put their kids in schools which they were confident, could transform their 'wayward' kids into respectable ones. They were exclusive in name, fee and transformation promises. 

This had been something that left Maddie apprehensive, when she started on the quest to get her friend out.  So she decided to put her honour student reputation on the line,  and went behind the Principal's back to install a personal router in her room. She'd learnt that every electrical line can double as a connection, and had (after some shock-giving experiments)  managed to set up a connection using the power lines instead of the school telecom connection.

That was how she had done her research.

The real surprise was when he asked her to meet at a coffee shop one evening. His message left her cursing after class, as the supervising Sister checked the girls' rooms before signing on curfew and Lights Out.  It was a school night and she didn't have a permit to go out of grounds. So she snuck out for the first time in her life.

Dressed in a hoodie, and dark trousers,  she hid a nightgown under her jacket (to pretend to sleepwalk in case she got caught) and slipped out.  She made her way from the dorms to the school building,  and from there out into the garden. At night everyone focused on the dorms,  and not so much on the school grounds. 

Catholic school...

She succeeded in finding a hole the groundsman's dog had dug, and snuck out. 

Getting to the nearest town was a trek of about ten miles,  and was perhaps the most dangerous stretch of the route.  She took a deep breath,  pulled on her hoodie right around her head,  and started to run.  Running practice paid off at times like this.

Except the occasional light on the road and the gleam of the road divider strip know the moonlight,  it was forested, deserted and scary.  Another reason students didn't sneak out of her school - the campus was surrounded by woods. But she couldn't allow her fear to distract her.  She ran and ran till she happened upon a gas station in the outskirts of the town Eric had mentioned.  She got into the store in the station,  bought herself a cola, and chugged it,  gasping heavily and catching her breath.  The bored store clerk barely spared her a glance as she paid up and set out again. 

She checked her GPS and set off on a jog and managed to reach a late night joint in a corner of the town. Her exhausted self was upset with Eric calling her out this way.  She stomped into the diner and deposited herself opposite him with a huff. 

Eric was munching on waffles.  He'd used the same ice cream concoction on the waffles,  and she stared pointedly till he finished devouring a portion.  He took in her exhausted, petulant form with a grin; the trip must have really drained her if she had bothered to show her seriousness to him.

So that's what it takes for her to drop her mature mask,  he mused. 

He directed a smile at her,  face smeared with ice cream and chocolate , looking less like a formidable loner and more like someone's mischievous overgrown baby.  It didn't help.  She was still pissed.  He decided the answer to her upset state had to be chocolate. 

Chocolate did not help.  She still scowled at him, nursing a hot mug.  "Whatever you pulled me out at this time on a school night for,  it better be good"

Eric wiped his face of the ice cream and syrup,  pushed his plates aside and sat up,  in full seriousness. "I want you to come with me"

"What!?"

"When I'm setting off on the mission,  I want you to come with me ", he repeated calmly. 

She blinked, incredulity replacing anger. "You dropping a bomb like this so suddenly is just....! "

"Do you care about your friend or not? "

"Of course I do!"

"then you have to come with me"

"You do realize I'm a school girl,  right? "

"Yes.  What's more important to you?  School or your friend's life? "

She stared at him a few moments.  "My friend," she whispered. 

"Correct answer. "

"Besides, you can always repeat a school year.  And if your friend's situation is that desperate,  she may not be alive of you don't make a move.  You do realize that,  right? "

She nodded, glassy eyes at the table.

"Besides, someone who has been abused will be filled with mistrust if a complete stranger like me shows up.  Things could go terribly wrong. She knows you,  she trusts you.  And that's why you need to be there"

She stayed still for a bit.  And nodded again. 

He didn't tell her this,  but he had asked her to come out of the school on a school night deliberately.  He wanted to see how far she was ready to put herself at risk for this friend of hers. He was not going to ask her if she hadn't shown up. 

"So what's the plan? "

"First,  you get your way out of school. "

"They won't let me go unless it's an extreme situation.  "

"Accepting defeat at the very beginning,  Miss Maddie? ", he mocked.  She scowled at him.

What could she do to get out of school?

She could fake being ill and get pulled out.  But the school reported every little thing to her family, so the only way she could get out would be of she had a family member's sanction.  Anything otherwise would be  detrimental in the long run. 

Eric and she put their heads together,   developing a plan to get her out. It began with him appearing in conservative suit garb,  introducing himself as Lee, a butler in Mr. Charles Roux's estate to the Principal, the Mother Superior of the convent. Mr Roux had fallen ill, so he hoped his granddaughter's presence would help encourage the elderly gent's recovery.  He was probably being an upstart,  not getting her parents to okay it,  but with a man as advanced in years as Mr Roux,  he had taken the liberty to bypass formalities and fetch Miss King himself. 

The urgency of the matter thoroughly communicated,  the Mother Superiors ushered the young girl out with a week's worth of attendance passed over,  assuring her they would pray for her grandfather.  *And the blessed young man who serves him with such devotion* added in their heads,  eyes lingering appreciatively over the very proper,  handsome man with elfin features. 

Maddie and Eric burst into laughter in the car.  "I have never seen Mother Superior blush in her entire life! " she teased."Such a charmer! "

"You've seen nothing yet! ", he responded, grinning as they drove down to Portland.

Needless to say Charles Roux flipped his lid when he saw his favourite granddaughter out of the blue one fine morning. 

It took Maddie a whole week to convince him. 

Charles started off with a million questions to.  He wanted to know who this girl was,  why she was so important to his Maddie, how respectable young girls can't go gallivanting off on their own. He took offense to Eric himself.  A handsome shifter with a carefree attitude, he set off all of Charles' alarm bells ringing.   Who was he,  what was he doing around his pure and precious grand daughter? 

A/N: A filler before the action begins!