The Dictator

Chapter Nine

Alina walked through the door to the chemistry corridor, her nerves gnawing at her relentlessly. She nodded to Nala, who walked past with James. Nala smiled at her, and Alina noticed her quickly slip her hand away from the broad shouldered blond boy. They must have been holding hands.

But Alina was too worried to be amused. Mile's hurried words echoed through her brain. "I need you to cause a distraction." he had told her, but he had not told her what the distraction was for. She walked down the long corridor, the sounds of her footsteps like thunder. Technicality, she wasn't doing anything wrong, but it didn't feel that way. Finally she reached the door of the lab, and knocked loudly.

"Enter." called the deep voice from inside. Alina's breath caught in her throat. Miss Halliwell should have been inside, not him. She slowly opened the door, and observed the cold white walls and grey benches of the lab. On the shelf by the window, thick liquid bubbled inside slender test tubes. Mr Holis stood at the centre of the room, giving Alina a look that could turn milk sour. "What is it girl?" he asked, his tone of voice suggesting he just didn't want to know. In a voice that was barely a whisper, Alina asked "Is... Er... Miss Halliwell in?" she stuttered, Mr Holis's cruel glare eating away at her confidence. "I need to go over some of the classwork with her..."

"No." Mr Holis tolded her in a cold voice. "No. She's not here. She's ill. He looked as if he might add the words "and good riddance" but he didn't. Alina quickly scurred from the lab. Outside, Alina walked back to the blue tin waterbottle at the end of the corridor, then gasped. The waterbottle lay on it's side, slowly leaking it's wet contents onto the floor. Someone must have knocked it over. Normally she wouldn't care, but Miles had told her to knock over the waterbottle if the coast was clear. Alarmed, she quickly rushed round the corner to where Miles should have been waiting. The boy had disappeared.

Alina didn't particularly care about Miles getting caught; he had brought it down on himself, but if he was caught, Mr Holis would probably work out the role she had been supposed to play. That gave her only one option. Find Miles.

Setting her teeth, she marched determinedly down the corridor. She was wracking her brain for a way to locate him. Then, with an edgy smile, she came up with a solution. She grabbed her phone from her pocket, and dived into a nearby bathroom. Stabbing her finger at the bluetooth button, she searched desperately for Mile's phone Bluetooth signal. Finally, she found it, but the connection was very weak. She walked out of the loo, then walked a few paces down the corridor. The signal disappeared. Alina smiled grimly, then strode a few steps the other way. The signal appeared again. That could mean only one place; the chemical store room. Alina pocketed her phone and raced down the corridor, ignoring the slow footsteps behind her. She saw Miles standing in plain sight, a carrier bag in one hand, and a bottle of some dangerous chemical in the other. Seeing her running toward him, he dropped his bag. The footsteps got louder. Alina stared around desperately for somewhere to run or hide, but it was a one-way corridor. There was nowhere to go. And the pair were stood in plain sight...