A/N - tw (mostly for the next chapter) child abuse (not graphic)
Everyone kept telling her how lucky she was.
Lucky to be attending the most prestigious girls school in America, lucky to have a large beautiful home in England, lucky to have rich parents.
She didn't feel very lucky though.
Creeping through the dark halls she gasped as something warm and sinuous touched her leg.
"Oh….. Puss…!"
She bent down and picked up the cat that belonged to her house mistress, rubbing her face against his fur, smiling into his coat as he began to purr.
"You scared me." She whispered, putting him back down and tip toeing down the corridor again, the cat, tail raised, trotting along behind her.
He was good company.
Generally the cat stayed out of the corridors during the day, when they were full of chattering girls and bells ringing for classes, but at night he roamed them as freely as she did.
He reminded her of her own cat, a Siamese who was still in England, and her stomach hurt a little at the thought of just how much she missed him.
The Head mistresses office was locked, as usual, but that didn't stop her, she simply pulled out the keys she'd stolen last month and let herself in.
The cat slipped in behind her as she pressed the door shut quietly.
Sitting at the desk she picked up the phone and dialled home, waiting with her breath held through a dozen rings, in which she gripped the receiver so tight that her hand hurt
"Hello?"
"Mum?"
The sound of her Mother moving around in bed echoed down the line, a weary sigh and then the raspy click of a lighter.
She waited, listening to the sound of her inhaling then blowing smoke.
Such a familiar ritual that she could almost smell it in here.
"Darling. It's not even seven….. It must be 2am over there. Why aren't you sleeping?"
"I just….. I needed to speak with you."
There was a sigh from her Mother and she knew she had to start talking fast or she'd be fobbed off and hung up on.
"I don't want to see Dad…. At the weekend….. I don't want to see him."
"Why ever not?"
"I just don't."
"Don't be silly darling. He's driving up from Manhattan especially to take you out for the weekend. Don't be so unappreciative." Inhale. Pause. Exhale smoke. "I mean he's not rushing back here to see meis he! He wants to see you."
"I don't want to see him alone." She said quietly, pouring the words down the phone and hoping she would finally acknowledge it.
The silence that followed stretched to the point where she thought her Mother had hung up.
"You're not starting this silliness again are you Abby?" Her voice was ice cold, solidly contained anger.
"Mum…"
"I won't stand for it. The words that come out of your mouth are just awful. He has given you everything you ungrateful little bitch….. Everything….. I will not listen to one more second of your vile lies."
The connection to home was severed with a click.
Shakily, Abby put the receiver back in the cradle and took a deep breath.
No tears came.
She hadn't cried for years, but she bit down hard on her lip, letting the small concentrated pain ground her.
Breathing out long and slow, she stood up, whisking the cat off the desk and hugging him to her chest till he squirmed to be put down.
She would cope.
She always did.
The move to this school was meant to be a fresh start and she'd hoped that here, she could make friends.
But that hadn't happened.
Her father had started to visit her more and more often again, now that he was working in the states for weeks instead of days at a time, and instead of the other girls finding her interesting because she was from the UK, they shunned her, giggled about her accent, declared her a snob and refused to talk to her.
So she withdrew even more, studied hard, kept out of everyone's way and then, at night, she stole about the vast building, in the dark, taking a secret thrill from her own hidden world.
Closing the door and locking it again, she made her way slowly back towards the dorms.
No point rushing now.
There was a defeated shuffle to her gait, and the cat at her heels matched if for a while before growing bored and trotting off into the dark in search of complacent mice.
A bump from behind a cupboard door make her stop.
She held her breath, worrying for a second that one of the teachers might be about, that she'd get in trouble, then deciding that she really didn't actually care anymore.
Boldly, she threw open the door to find a surprised looking boy climbing down from a shelf under the high window.
He was about the same age as her, slim with shaggy hair, dressed like someone had thrown him in the nearest thrift shop and told him to get on with it.
Over his shoulder was a large backpack.
"Are you here to steal something?" She smiled, not at all afraid of this boy who looked like he might actually cry if she shouted at him.
"Uh… no…. I just need to use the library…" He stuttered, blushing a little and pulling his bag off his shoulder to hug it in front of him.
Abby stared him down then shrugged and turned away from the cupboard. "Fine. Come on, I'll take you."
"….. What….?"
She looked behind her and frowned. "Are you coming?"
The kids looked both ways down the corridor and then trotted after her cautiously as they made their way quickly through the darkness.
"What's your name?"
"Um… Sam… Look, this is great, but why are you helping me break into the library?"
She shrugged and pulled out her keys. "Why not?"
Abby saw him smile as she opened the door and let him in. "Why you got keys?"
"Because they're useful." She chuckled, pulling the door closed and locking it from the inside. "So. Are you going to tell me what you need so badly from the library that you can't wait till it opens?"
"My Dad needs some information really quickly, like tonight quickly, and this is the best library in the area."
He turned on a small flashlight and ran his finger down the index list on the side of the first shelf as he spoke before quickly making his way down the stacks searching for the area he needed.
Abby followed him, watching the light bob and duck in the dark before her.
She found him pulling large books from the shelf.
"Here." She held out her hands. "Give me some to carry."
He smiled his thanks and handed her six dusty tomes to carry over to a small desk in the back of the library.
"This is some pretty heavy stuff….." She muttered as they lay the books down. "Demonic omens and signs…. Cross roads lore… What do you need these for?"
Sam glanced up at her then away quickly.
"I can't tell you." He smiled apologetically and opened up the first book.
She watched him silently for a while until she noticed him marking pages and taking notes.
"You want me to photocopy some of those for you?"
The gratitude on his face was palpable, his whole body relaxed as he realised she wasn't going to demand he tell her what was going on.
"That would actually be very cool,. Thank you."
She was happy to do it.
He was the first person who had said more than four words to her in months, and none of them had been nasty.
Besides.
She knew about the importance of secrets.
By the time it was 4am Sam was stuffing several hundred bits of paper in his bag while Abby put the books away.
"You hungry?"
He nodded then checked his watch. "No ones picking me up till six. I got finished really quickly thanks to you."
She grinned at him and unlocked the library door. "Come on. I have the keys to the kitchen."
By torchlight they sat on the floor in the big industrial kitchen, eating peanut butter from a large jar and sipping on juice.
"So you have to stay here all the time?"
She shook her head. "Just term time. Christmas and summer I go back to England. Other breaks I stay with my aunt in Maine."
He frowned a little. "Don't you miss your parents."
"No."
She held her breath but he just nodded slightly and she felt something shift a little in her chest. A kind of relief to be sat with someone who was friendly and yet asked nothing of her.
"What about you?"
"Me? My Dad moves me and my brother about a lot. For his work you know."
She wanted to ask him what sort of work he did that had him sending his son to break into a school library, but she held her tongue.
She didn't want him to close up, she just wanted to enjoy these few moments, but he stood up to go anyway.
"It was really great meeting you. Thanks for your help."
"Maybe….Maybe you could write me sometime? I don't really have many friends here… so…" She stopped and looked away, embarrassed.
But he was grinning.
"Sure, I could give you an address Dad gets his post sent to. Wait! I don't know your name!"
"Abby. Abby Talbot." She scribbled it on a scrap of paper and added the school address and he did the same.
She walked him back to the cupboard and watched him pull himself up and through the window. Climbing up behind him she watched as Sam dropped to the floor on the other side, turning to wave at her before trotting off across the misty lawn to get in to a black car waiting for him across the street.
Quickly she made her way back to her dorm room, the other girls still sound asleep, she crept under her covers and pulled the book she'd stolen from the library out from under her top.
Cross roads Lore.
She clutched it tight and smiled to herself, wondering if she'd ever see Sam again..
