Thornhill Academy (By Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 188

Chapter 188

Cage

By the time we reach the end of the trail, the signature has well and truly faded into nothing, but the trackers insist this is the place it was last active. The last place she existed. Not lived. Existed. The thought sits like gravel in my mouth as I stare into the stretch of decrepit shacks sagging under their own rot, roofs patched with rusted metal, windows broken and stuffed with rags. If you could even call this a town, it would be a mercy. It’s a graveyard. A place you come when you have nothing left but determination and stubbornness to survive outside of the law. This is where Allison came. My Allison… I shouldn’t think of her that way, I don’t have the right, but the word shoves itself into my mind anyway and refuses to move. The morning is only just beginning to bleed into the horizon with thin streaks of blue cutting through the tail end of the night. People-if you can call these starved shadows of people… “people” are already out and moving quietly. Skittish as hunted things should be. And the moment they see council colours they scatter like birds under an arrow’s

shadow.

“Track teams one and two,” the head enforcer snaps, “fan out. Take signatures from every building. No one hides. No one lies. Find the girl.”

Find her body, he means…I swallow hard. The trackers kneel in the dirt, pressing palms to the ground, but the magic hardly responds. It fizzles and turns cold. Dead. “She must have died somewhere here,” one mutters. “Signature’s definitely gone.”

Gone. The word cracks my pathetic heart open an inch further, leaving me bleeding from the inside.

Enforcers begin shoving doorways open and dragging people out, throwing them into the mud just to see how hard they land. A child cries when a man is kicked to the ground. A woman begs when what looks to be her brother is struck. An old man pleads while they bind his wrists behind his back.

“Unregistered,” an enforcer barks out. “Chain him.”

My stomach twists. This… this is what she lived through. No wonder she flinched when people raised their voices. No wonder she never trusted a locked door. No wonder she looked at us-at me-like we were weapons aimed at her. My fists clench so hard my nails bite into my palms, and something inside me -something I’ve kept caged since Thornhill began drilling obedience into my spine-breaks.

“We’re supposed to bring her back,” I say quietly to no one in particular, “not destroy everything she ever touched.”

One of the enforcers hears me and scoffs.

“She’s dead. This is clean-up.”

Clean-up. They say it like sweeping dust. Like she was dust. It makes my pulse slam in my ears. We step deeper into the town. Every structure looks like it’s one strong wind away from collapse. It reeks of old smoke, damp wood, and desperation. My boots crunch over broken glass and bone-dry leaves. We pass a collapsed shack, the roof caved in. I picture her here-curled up under thin blankets, stealing food, drinking rainwater, sleeping with one eye open. Surviving. Alone. A girl this small. This brilliant. This fierce. How did no one protect her? Why didn’t I protect her?

“Sir-look,” one of the trackers calls.

They’ve found a half-rotted bit of cloth caught on a fencepost that’s browned with dirt. Thin as breath. My chest tightens painfully.

“She might’ve passed through here,” the tracker says. “Should we take it for testing?”

My vision blurs for a second from the rage, grief, something poisonous and growing inside of me, bubbling to the surface.

“She lived like this?” I murmur. “She had to?”

“Strays. They don’t know what’s good for them,” a nearby enforcer snaps. “Move. We’re wasting time.”

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17:42 Thu, Jan 1 MGA

Chapter 188

སལྟ11༠

The cruelty is so casual, so practised…Completely expected…but it hit me differently now, because now I can see her. A young Allison, all alone, hungry. hunted, probably scared for her life with every step she took. I can imagine her running through this exact street, barefoot, trying desperately to escape these very people I walk with. And now these men-these fucking men wearing the Council crest-are dragging civilians behind them with chains like they’re hauling livestock, just like they would have done to her.

A woman screams as someone is yanked too hard and falls face-first into the dirt.

“Stop,” I say. No one does. “Hey-stop,” I say louder, walking towards the commotion.

The captain turns, clearly impatient with me. “Do you have an order for me, or are you wasting breath?”

I could try to give one. I could snap something sharp, something that would make them pause or stop this, but my voice has gone strange. It

sounds…Shaken.

“This isn’t necessary.” That’s all I manage to get out.

He laughs in my face. “We are the law here, Cage. This is necessary. This is the job. Your father should have taught you that.”

My jaw ticks, my teeth clench so hard they might just crumble under the tension. I realise with absolute clarity that I am on the wrong side. Allison wasn’t wrong for running from them…From us. She was trying to survive a corrupted system. I snap out of my thoughts when a boy-maybe seventeen, filthy and trembling-tries to bolt. An enforcer grabs him by the collar, slams him against the wall, and presses a glowing rune into his neck. The boy cries out,

crumpling.

“Just a tracker,” the enforcer mutters. Just a mark. Just a chain. Just a childhood stolen. Just a life crushed. I can’t fucking breathe. I close my eyes, and her face flashes behind my lids-not the fierce siphon she became in front of everyone, but the girl who stared at me with big blue eyes the first day she walked into Thornhill. The one who flinched when I raised my voice. The one who hid behind baggy clothes. The one who never believed she deserved softness. This is what Allison endured…when she was alive. I open my eyes, and the world looks different now. It’s harsher, clearer, bloodier.

The captain barks for us to move out. “We sweep north. If her body’s out there, we’ll find it.”

Her body. My heart stops completely for one long, terrible beat. She is not dead. She cannot be dead. I’d feel it. I know I would. Someone like her…would not simply lie down and die. I will find her, and when I do, I’m going to help her burn the whole world down.

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