Rosetta shot to her feet, still clutching the explosive. “Stop this.”
The anger on the conductor’s face transformed into concern. He hadn’t lied. That bomb was really armed, really on a timer—and the conductor hadn’t cared to create a kill switch.
The girl was going to die if she refused to pass the explosive.
“Please,” the conductor said. “Move it along.”
“Come take it yourself,” Rosetta said. She sat back down.
The conductor tried to speak. “Nothing . . .” A lump caught in his throat. “There’s nothing I can do.”
Even through the horror, Rosetta sat up straight and raised her chin. “Then I’m sorry I ever said hi to you.” She shrugged in disgust. “If you care about me, let everyone go.”
“Rosetta,” the conductor said sharply. “Please—”
Heat blasted past my face as an explosion shook the entire building.
23
SUNDAY, 7:56 P.M.
My arms shot up to protect my face, but the heat faded almost instantaneously. I sucked in a drag of air, not realizing that I’d stopped breathing.
I dropped my arms and looked around, still seated in row 1, seat 28.
Alive. The girl was alive. The people in the amphitheater were alive. I was alive. But the bomb was still in Rosetta’s hand, fully intact.
What had exploded?
And where was the conductor?
I looked at the speakers and cameras throughout the amphitheater—well, what was left of them. They had been the source of the explosion, not the bomb.
“Janet,” I whispered. She had to be the one behind it. She hadn’t turned on me to help the conductor. She’d turned to sabotage him. I didn’t know how the disturbance hadn’t triggered the real bomb, but Janet had to be the reason they all were still alive.
The security guards in red looked confused. They all had been forced to play an awful role in the string but were now seeing that the conductor’s plan had gone sideways.
“Do the right thing.” I raised my hand high and kept my gun low. “We stop him for good—now.”
The guards each kept their guns lowered and backed away from the crowd, shoulders hunched, looking as though an evil spell had just been lifted off them.
People scrambled away from the bomb, huddling in corners of the building. What the conductor might do now that his plan had been disrupted, I didn’t know. But considering how many more stolen guns were unaccounted for, these people were safer in the building than outside of it.
“Stay where you are—there’s no time to explain.” I surveyed the amphitheater. The man who’d been crawling on the ground shot to his feet. It was . . . Alec? Wearing a CREW T-shirt.
The student journalist made his way toward Rosetta. “Everyone, listen. That man up front”—he pointed at me—“is the good guy, no matter what you think you saw. The conductor took me hostage and spilled it all.” He turned to Rosetta. “Give it here, quick.” She handed the bomb over and Alec ran the explosive to me. “Cody’s got the bomb in the gymnasium—please tell me you have a gun and can find the psycho.”
I lifted it.
The doors at the back of the amphitheater leading to the sky bridge opened, and there stood Janet. “This way, away from the bomb, stay low,” she said, motioning everyone to the sky bridge. “You, you, you,” Janet said, pointing at the red-jacketed men and women with guns. “Protect these people with your lives if you don’t want to spend life in prison. Phones are blocked—don’t let anyone go anywhere until I can get the authorities to come to us. He has others out there ready to kill.”
They took to her command.
Rosetta came running to Alec and me. “I know where he is. I can take you to him.”
I shared a look with Alec, and he understood. We each had tasks we needed to accomplish.
“Wish me luck, the string’s coming.” Alec held up his phone to show a group text that had come through moments ago. It included a photo of the guns I’d stolen, and four more photos of me and those who’d helped me to this point.
Take up arms! Kill Markus Haas, Cody Caulkins, Janet Blevins, and Alec McCullers . . . or every terrible thing I’ve ever uttered comes true.
Amphitheater. Gymnasium. Sky bridge. Now!
Alec pushed through the emergency exit door to the outside. The kid was making amends, doing what was right.
I needed to do the same. I turned to Rosetta. “Take me to the conductor.”
How he’d gotten to this point, he couldn’t quite fathom right now.
He’d made the connection between the conductor and Rosetta. She’d refused to give him a name but had indulged him by getting them both into the performance under the guise of CREW T-shirts.
Then he’d used Rosetta’s phone to reconnect with Janet—who somehow hadn’t killed him on the spot—and learned how the conductor had used Officer Mike Mitchell to threaten Lucy and force Janet back into his service.
And now he was running with a bomb.
And he could die.
Alec sprinted away from the amphitheater, explosive firmly clutched in the crook of his arm like a football. He just needed to get the bomb somewhere it couldn’t wreak havoc. Only one place came to mind: the fountain. It was away from the building, sunk into the ground, and would contain the burst . . . right?
Whatever remnant of the string still loyal to the conductor would be headed straight for the amphitheater, gymnasium, and sky bridge—most likely armed.
Alec sprinted the brick pathway that weaved between buildings. He spilled onto the campus courtyard, where the fountain flowed and was blasting water into the night sky, light shining on it from every direction.
“Hey,” a voice cried out from somewhere in the courtyard. It wasn’t one of the red security guards, but it was a man with a gun. A Trenton cop.
“Gonna explode, gotta go,” Alec shouted.
The man was gearing up to tackle Alec. “Stop!”
“Do you want to die?” Alec tried dodging. “It’s over!”
But the man—Mike Mitchell, according to his tag—blocked Alec like a linebacker, body-slamming him to the ground. The bomb came loose, rattling along the bricks.
Mitchell swore and drew his weapon.
“What are you doing?” Alec yelled. “The conductor lost—don’t you get it?”
He pressed his gun to Alec’s head. “He doesn’t lose.” The man gripped Alec’s neck with one hand and leaned over him, pressing the gun harder to his temple. “You should have never gone against him, kid.”
Dear Lord, he was going to die.
A gunshot pierced the air.
Mitchell collapsed on top of Alec, blood leaking from a shot to the back of his head.
“Go!” a voice said. It belonged to . . . University Police Chief Jackson Renfroe, whose face looked as if someone had taken a baseball bat to it.
Alec wasn’t sure what had just happened, but he jumped to his feet, picked up the bomb, and ran through the courtyard to the fountain.
Coming from his right was another man in a dead sprint: Cody Caulkins, whom Alec had also passed a note to without revealing his identity, for fear of what Cody would do to him. He too was carrying a bomb, the gymnasium bomb.
Their eyes met. Cody looked as though he were watching a purple cow pass his car on the freeway. Alec imagined his own countenance looked similar.
They both turned their gazes back to the fountain and crow-hopped the bombs through the air. The explosives spun in the night sky before splashing into the fountain nearly in sync—detonating just before impact. The combined, powerful burst of heat knocked them both to the ground as flames shot over their heads.
Alec rolled on the bricks and huffed. But he wasn’t on fire. Or dead.
Cody, also sprawled on the bricks, met his eyes. He crawled over toward Alec, who instinctively blocked his face with his arms.
“Calm down.” Cody knocked Alec’s arms away from his face. “Haas, where is he?”
“Going after the conductor with the girl—I don’t know where.”
Cody looked confused. “Girl?” He winced and stood up, making his way over to the lifeless Mitchell. Alec joined him.
In the distance, they saw Renfroe moving as fast as a man in his condition could, sprinting toward the sky bridge.
“Didn’t see that coming,” Cody said. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To stop the string.”
24
SUNDAY, 8:05 P.M.
Rosetta pulled me behind the amphitheater’s curtain, then led me backstage through a prepping area and into an office cluttered with boxes, costumes, and miscellaneous decorations. But it was a dead end. He wasn’t here.
Rosetta spun around to me. The courage she’d mustered up to talk back to the conductor and lead me this far had suddenly morphed into confusion, anger, and fear. Her facial expression was making that abundantly clear.
“What are you going to do to him?” she said.
From somewhere outside, a thunderous boom rocked Trenton University. We both froze.
Then I became all too aware of the pistol I was wielding right in front of her line of sight. She was worried for the monster, trying to reconcile the person she’d known him to be with the person he actually was. “Whatever I have to in order to make sure no one else gets hurt.”
Rosetta tucked her arms into her chest and gazed at the floor. “He’s . . . he’s just a student.”
My eyebrows turned inward. A student? The conductor hadn’t seemed particularly old, but his appearance hadn’t hinted toward being college age either. Either the makeup added years to his face or he’d enrolled late in life.
“What’s his name?” I said.
“Prescott.”
“How’d you get the truth about him?”
“Your journalist friend—Alec.”
“Friend?”
“He told me the whole story. He’s sorry.” She lifted a palm. “And he just risked himself for you.”
I nodded.
Rosetta turned back to face the room. She high-stepped over boxes and was headed for what appeared to be a wall. “People forgot about this closet at some point.” She shoved aside a clothing rack to reveal a door handle.
“How’d you find it?”
She looked at the ground. “We—we found it together.”
I got her message. Wasn’t about to shame her.
“A homeless person lived here for nearly a year without anyone knowing.” She gripped the door handle. “Abandoned film room. There’s even a bathroom down there.”
Down?
Rosetta opened the door, revealing what appeared to be nothing more than a closet packed with junk and old equipment. “In the back, behind the hangers.”
I walked past her, light on my feet, gun aimed down but ready to draw. Reaching into the garments, I brushed them aside. Sure enough, there was another door, well hidden.
I glanced back at Rosetta. She was right at my heels. “You can’t follow.”
“And you can’t stop me and get to him at the same time,” she said with some bite.
She had a point, and I wasn’t going to waste time trying to convince her otherwise. But I had to steer her mind straight before progressing. “He’s not the person you think he is. He’s a master manipulator and dangerous. Part of the person you think you know may show up in him, but he’s not that person, got it? He’ll spend the rest of his life behind bars for what he’s done. Stay behind me.”
Rosetta was clearly a smart girl. She knew what she’d seen. She nodded and stared at the mystery door, ready to move.
I twisted the handle gently. The door opened to a tiny area with a small walkway leading to a metal spiral staircase, a room straight out of a nightmare. I stepped onto the first step of the staircase, gun steady on my balancing hand, descending as quickly as quiet would allow.
The walls were tight against the staircase, making it impossible to see what was to come around each step. I reached the bottom, where two doors stood before me. One was open—the bathroom Rosetta had mentioned. And the other led to the old film room, closed.
I signaled for Rosetta to stay back. She took a couple of steps in reverse on the staircase.
Finally, I checked the old, rickety doorknob. Couldn’t tell if it was locked, but it definitely wouldn’t hold. I put the proper distance between the door and me, then launched my foot into it, breaking it wide open.
The room’s details came to me in a flash.
Pipes and cupboards. A long table immediately to the right and a scuffed-up blue desk complete with wooden chair on the left. Dark gray paint everywhere. On the far end, a scale and a burgundy chair that looked to have reached its final days fifty years ago. And in that chair sat the man with the white-caked face, a dark hood cloaking all but his mouth—about the same spot I’d locked my gun on to.
“Move an inch and it’s over—your games, the string, you.” I jutted my chin. “Grab your knees, left hand on left, right hand on right.”
The conductor didn’t move or shift or give any indication that he’d heard anything at all.
If there was one way to break his trance, I thought I knew it. “Didn’t think you had it in you, the ability to care for someone. Rosetta is a sweetheart.”
It had no such effect.
Behind me, I could feel the girl approaching. I knew she shouldn’t be anywhere close to this man, but my gut was telling me to let it play out, let her talk.
“Prescott,” she said, stepping around me, careful to stay out of my sight line.
The conductor didn’t acknowledge her either, remaining perfectly still.
Rosetta took a couple more steps toward him.
“That’s far enough,” I said.
Rosetta bent and leaned forward, trying to find the conductor’s eyes. “Prescott?” She inched closer.
So much for my gut. This was a bad idea. “Any closer and I shoot him, got it? You don’t want that.”
I could hear the conductor breathing. He was conscious. He just had finally shut up for once.
“Wha—” Rosetta stood straight, backed up.
“What is it?” I said.
“This isn’t Prescott.”
I took two strides toward the silent man. “Then who are you?” I pointed the gun at his legs. “I swear you’ll never walk again.”
“Hello again, Haas,” the man whispered.
I knew that voice. But how—
Rage coursed through me like a pack of rabid wolves. “Declan?” I raised the barrel of the pistol from his kneecap to the middle of his forehead.
He smiled. “You’re not going to want to do that.”
I reaffirmed my grip on the firearm. Declan’s voice was distinctly different from the real conductor’s voice, which I’d heard multiple times in the past twenty-four hours. They couldn’t be the same person. Rosetta had confirmed that. She’d identified the conductor on the big screen in the amphitheater as Prescott.
“Where’s the real one?” I said.
Declan showed me his hands—no brass knuckles—then slowly slipped his fingers into his jacket.
I applied pressure on the trigger but didn’t pull.
Declan withdrew a tablet and held it up for me to see a live feed, which was being filmed from the sky bridge ceiling.
People everywhere were on their hands and knees or flat on their stomachs, staying below the window line on either side of the sky bridge. But three men were standing: Cody, Alec, and . . .
Chief Renfroe?
A bloodied and battered Chief Renfroe. He was shouting out orders, trying to organize and protect the people.
The tablet switched to another angle outside of the sky bridge, gymnasium, and amphitheater. There were clusters of people showing up, each equipped with more of the weapons I’d taken from the armory. They were blocking all exits, trapping everyone in the sky bridge.
“Ready to see?” Declan said.
I didn’t re
spond, and he pressed something on the back of the tablet.
Renfroe, who’d been moving with lightning in his step and speaking with fire in his gut, stiffened. He squinted, and excruciating pain filled his face as new bloodstains oozed all over his lower back. He collapsed on the floor, and people scrambled away from his lifeless body.
Declan clicked a button that activated the tablet’s audio.
Some people were shouting that the chief was dead, that they should leave; others that there were people with guns surrounding them, that they should stay.
“Why?” I yelled. “What are you trying to accomplish? Your life’s over.”
“My life was over,” Declan said. “But thanks to the conductor, the girls are mine forever—and you and Steph get exactly what you deserve.”
“Where is he?” I shouted.
“Who?” Declan responded.
I fired a bullet into the antique chair. White dust and feathers poofed out like pixie dust.
Declan had barely flinched. “Predictable, Haas. You’re too good for your own good—no room for power in your life.”
“That a fact?” I planted my right hand into Declan’s neck, pushing him back against the chair.
Declan was trying to say something, but his airways weren’t having it.
“It sucks when all you want is a breath of air, a human right, but someone takes it from you.” I squeezed tighter, beating back whatever will Declan was fighting me with.
I felt him give up, so I released.
Declan choked and coughed, inhaling breaths between jerky spasms.
I glanced back to check on Rosetta. Tears filled her eyes, though it was impossible to decipher what she was think-ing.
Keeping my hand on Declan’s throat, I raised my gun level with his nose.
“I bet you want this so bad you can taste it,” he said. “But you can’t, you just can’t, and the saddest part is you don’t even know why you can’t.” Declan raised the tablet. “But I do.”
The cameras in my house were now on the screen.
“There she is, Haas. Perfect Stephanie. You finally thought she was safe. You pulled out all the stops. Called in all the favors. But what good are a few armed agents patrolling the henhouse when the wolf is already inside?”
The String Page 23