A moment later Sera reads them. I can tell because she gasps and then starts rubbing my back in small circles, the way she did when my dad was a no-show at my birthday party last year.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Yeah, me too.”
We are quiet for a moment, then she clears her throat. “It’s good we know.”
“I guess,” I say.
I mean, one of the few people I thought I could trust has turned out to have a death wish against me so it’s hard to actually cheer for this news. But once I get past that I’ll probably see that she’s right. And that’s probably when I’ll start to get angry about it too. Right now, though, I just feel like I’ve been run over by an SUV.
“What’s this?” Sera asks, pointing to a date my dad wrote on the bottom of the page. It’s by the section labeled “Toast.”
“It’s the year of your birth but two days after your birthday,” she continues.
“Right, that’s the first day my dad met me,” I say, thinking of how my mom used to talk about how I was early and my dad was in Japan when I was born. It took him over twenty-four hours to get to the hospital and—
“Oh, my God,” I say, jumping up.
“What?” Sera asks, looking worried.
“I know!” I say excitedly. “I know what my dad’s phone code is.”
And then we hear a noise in the hall. I snatch up the party plan and we streak for the grate as two agents walk in.
“Who turned this light on?” one of them asks.
The other shrugs. “Who cares?”
We are creeping silently into the tunnel. I am holding my breath and it’s not until we are a good twenty feet away that I let it out in a gust. “That was too close.”
“I know,” she says. Even in this light I can see she is pale from the scare. But then she grins. “But you have the phone and you know the code and that’s what matters.”
“Yeah,” I say, the knowledge warm inside me.
I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Though of course to know that my dad chose the day he met me as his code, I’d have to know that he loved me and that I only fully realized an hour ago.
“I need to get back,” Sera says. “I think you should still stock the weapons after you call, just in case we want to distract the agents when the police are breaking in or something.”
“I’ll do it as soon as I call.”
Sera turns to me and smiles. “See you outside.”
Without thinking I hug her. It’s so familiar yet new somehow too. “Thanks.”
She looks at me for a moment and I know she gets it. That’s the thing I somehow let myself forget these past months: Sera always has my back and she always, always gets me.
CHAPTER 25
Sera
I am running as fast as I quietly can through the tunnels. I’ve been gone for ages and drawing air into my lungs is nearly impossible every time I think about what will be waiting for me when I get back. I take the stairs two at a time, trying not to think about it. It’s hard enough to breathe in these musty tunnels.
I know I should be feeling relief about the phone but so much has gone wrong tonight that it’s hard to feel secure about anything. Plus what if it takes them a while to get here? We’re on a pretty tight deadline. At this point I think we need to carry on with our plans and hope the police are there as backup. I know Ariel will get the weapons there and Hudson can get them if I’m—okay, not thinking about that.
Instead I think about Ariel, how good it felt to talk to her, to tell her I’m not sorry and for her to get that. The absolute worst thing about these past nine months and four days wasn’t the social freeze out or the death of my social life. It was losing my best friend.
I slow as I near the bathroom, then pause for a second to catch my breath. I still can’t believe John Avery is behind all this. I mean, I can, the evidence is there, and given how much Mr. Barett yelled at him, I can see why he might not feel that loyal to him. Still, this is pretty extreme. And my heart aches for Ariel, though at least she knows her uncle didn’t do it. Hard to know which is worse really—either way someone she trusted backstabbed her pretty harshly and that sucks.
I peer through the grate and see that no one is in the bathroom. I remove the grate as noiselessly as I can, slip back into the bathroom and put the grate back. Is it possible that the agents lost track of how long I’ve been in here? My hopes lift. They’re tired and distracted and maybe the one who gave me permission to use the bathroom left. Maybe I really am going to get away with this.
I open the bathroom door and they are there, waiting for me. One grabs my arm so hard I squeal and the other is in my face yelling, “Where the hell were you?”
Behind them I can see my classmates and Hudson on the sofas. They look almost as terrified as I feel.
“Answer me!” he yells.
“The bathroom,” I whisper.
“We’ll deal with her upstairs,” the other agent says, jerking my arm so brutally my eyes tear and I’m worried he’s going to dislocate my shoulder. He shoves me toward the door.
Through blurry eyes I twist my head back and find Hudson’s face.
“Brush-busting is set,” I call out to him, hoping he’ll understand that they need to go ahead with the plan. I am pushed out of the room before I can see his reaction.
They force me up the stairs so fast I trip and the tug on my arm to get me upright practically has me seeing stars. I struggle up, my mind back in the game room with my friends. I will not get to see what happens next, I know that. But I made sure they’d have the weapons and maybe I even helped Ariel call the police. It’s possible they’ll get here in time to save everyone, though not me. My window is closing too fast.
My face is wet with tears, my arm is screaming in pain, and fear is a thick fog in my belly. But my heart isn’t back in that room with Hudson and Cassidy, it’s in the tunnels with Ariel.
And it’s my heart that matters.
CHAPTER 26
Ariel
I tap the phone to life but even as it lights up, it is flashing, telling me I have no power and it is going to shut down. It’s possible I could at least dial 911 in this last millisecond except for one thing: There is no reception deep in the tunnels.
I can’t get us help but maybe I can do one thing before the phone dies. I whip out the party plan and take a shot of the page that says John is in charge of security. That way if something happens to me and the actual pages, there is some proof that he is behind it. The phone shuts down, its light dying out. I take a moment to hide the plan in a corner, just in case I get caught, just to have another way someone might be able to figure out John is behind this, and then I head off to deliver the weapons.
It takes me three trips to get all the weapons in place and sweat is beaded at my temples by the time I am done. I am pleased with the stash though—there are more than enough weapons for everyone.
I head back upstairs and try to find Nico. It takes me a few minutes but I finally track him down in the hall outside my bedroom. I listen for a few moments but hear no other voices and take the risk.
“Nico,” I whisper.
He starts, then whispers back. “Your room in three minutes.”
I head to my room and wait just inside the grate until I hear him come in. His face is flushed and sweaty, and his hair is sticking up all over the place. These things should not make my stomach explode with fizzy, sweet bubbles like a shaken can of soda that send tingles across my body but they do and I take a second to get a grip, to mash down the fizz. Then I step out, my face neutral.
“I got the weapons downstairs,” I tell him. “They’re all set.
“Great,” he says, wiping a hand across his forehead and smiling. He has such a nice smile. “Those of us on the inside are ready as well. When we hear the attack downstairs we will do our part.”
“Good,” I say, starting to pace. It’s impossible to stand still with all the adrenaline I have cours
ing through me and it helps control the tingles I get when I look straight at him. Less than fifteen minutes now. “You guys should be sure to take off your ski masks, so no one thinks you’re with the other agents.”
He nods, probably having already thought of this.
“Do you think your uncle will try to escape?” Nico asks.
“Oh, I found out it wasn’t him.”
“No?” he asks. “How did you discover this?”
“They shot him.”
His eyes fill with pain for me but instead of hardening me, like it should, it makes my insides go a little melty.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly. Then he shakes his head. “I’ve said that a lot tonight.”
“I guess a lot has happened,” I say, trying to sound flippant but not even coming close.
Nico rubs his fingers down my cheek so gently it makes the fizzing bubbles go wild. “It has.”
I step away before I do something stupid, something I will later regret. “I think John Avery is behind it.” The words come out all choked, like my throat is constricting. I still can’t believe John is behind this.
Nico’s mouth presses into a line. “You know, that makes sense. I have seen him tonight, and his assistant, and they did not look scared like everyone else.”
Right, Owen was here. That should have tipped me off.
“I guess they think they have nothing to fear,” I say ruefully.
Nico grins at me. “So they think. They don’t know that the lioness of God is onto them.”
Somehow the really cheesy meaning of my name does not sound cheesy when he says it. And I remember what his name means, victory of the people. I realize it fits him. “There’s a lot they don’t know,” I say.
I can’t tear my eyes away from him, with his hair that sticks up straight, his rough features, his thick fingers able to create such beauty with the flowers he grows.
His brow wrinkles. “Wait, what will you do when the fighting starts?”
“I’ll go downstairs,” I say, having already thought it through. “I thought I’d jump out of the fireplace right after they start, just to give the agents something else they aren’t expecting.”
Nico nods. “It’s a good idea.” He glances at the clock. “I should go now.”
“Wait.” There’s one part of my plan I haven’t told him and don’t intend to. But I need him to do something for me. “Can you hold onto this?” I reach into my pocket for the phone and hand it to him. “I took a picture of something that might help implicate John Avery as the person behind this whole thing. Can you keep it safe for me?”
He does not reach for it but instead just looks at me steadily. “You plan to confront John?” he asks after a moment.
So much for not telling him the other part of my plan. “I have to. But I’m not sure how it will go and if anything happens to me, I just want to know you have this and you’ll give it to the police.”
Now he reaches out his hand, but instead of taking the phone, he wraps his fingers around mine and the bubbles fizz up.
We hear voices in the hall and we both freeze.
“So where did she go if she wasn’t in the bathroom?” an agent is saying as they come closer.
Nico stuffs the phone in his pocket and waves me toward the grate but I stay where I am, waiting to hear the response, my body suddenly going cold.
“No one knows,” the other agent, a woman, replies. “But we checked every inch of that bathroom and she was gone. Then like fifteen minutes later she came out the door.”
My whole body is ice.
“That’s not really…” The voices fade as they turn the corner.
“What are you waiting for?” Nico whispers urgently. “They could come back. You must go.”
“Sera,” I manage to croak through my frozen lips. “They have Sera.”
Nico’s face suddenly looks like he has aged twenty years in the half-second it takes him to process what I’ve said. “You’re sure?”
I nod.
“I will go see if there’s anything I can do.”
But I am already heading for the grate. It is my fault she was caught and I am going to be the one to fix this.
CHAPTER 27
Sera
The agents hustle me through the door of a small sitting room in Mr. Barett’s office suite, which I am surprised to see is empty, save for a couple chairs and an empty desk. They shove me down in a high-backed armchair that is unpleasantly firm. Then they just stand there, like they’re waiting for something. I am wondering if I should say something or if that would just make things worse. Since I don’t have anything to say, I decide to stay quiet despite the fact that the silence is starting to feel noxious every time I breathe it in.
Then the door opens and The Assassin strides in. My heart lurches painfully in my chest. How could I have felt like the silence was a bad thing? I’d do anything to keep it longer.
“So it seems you have some secrets you’d like to share with us,” The Assassin says.
My limbs feel tingly but in an awful way, like bugs are crawling on me. This is going to be the part where they threaten me, maybe even hurt me, to get me to tell them what I know. Whenever Ariel and I watched movies with torture scenes we’d talk about how we’d never give up our friends, even if we were being sliced up with machetes. But secretly I always wondered if I’d spill everything the second the machete came out of its sheath and now I realize I’m going to get the chance to find out.
“Not really, sir,” I say, hoping manners help.
He smacks me across the face, hard. My neck snaps back and my cheek is on fire. I gasp and raise my hand to my injured face. I had no idea that being slapped hurt so much.
“Let’s try that again,” The Assassin says, his hand raised in case I’m too stupid to know what he’ll do if he doesn’t like my answer.
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” a familiar voice says.
At first I can’t see him because my chair is facing away but he comes and stands in front of me, his salt and pepper hair perfectly combed as always, his suit neat despite the tension of the moment. But that is all that is the same about John Avery. His face, usually a mask of pleasant acquiescence, is sharp, his eyes cold as he looks me over.
“We don’t need to get rough with Sera,” he tells The Assassin. “She’ll respond just fine to a reasonable conversation.”
I so don’t like the sound of that. Back in the tunnel I was feeling calm and accepting of things but now I feel like I am about to crawl out of my skin. My need to be out of this room and away from these people is a howl rising up inside me.
“Sera, I know you haven’t been close to your classmates lately,” John says, leaning back comfortably on the edge of the desk behind him. “But I feel certain you would not want to watch while we sliced off their fingers and cut their throats an inch at a time until they bled to death in front of you.”
I think I am going to throw up. I can’t believe this is John talking, the man who ordered pizza for us on sleepovers and stepped in for Ariel’s dad at the last parent/student dinner we had. This man is not that genial father figure, this man is a psychopath.
“And I believe you have become friends with the singer,” John says. “We can arrange for him to be first. Perhaps in his case it is his tongue we will cut out first.”
I am choking on the bile that has risen in my throat, my body convulsing with each shattering cough. Through my teary eyes I see John nod, pleased with my reaction.
“There’s something you’d like to tell us, isn’t there,” he says gently.
What can I do? How do I choose whose death warrant to sign? And how will I live with myself after I’ve chosen? Though that probably won’t be a problem for long. John has revealed himself to me, there is no way I am walking out of this room alive.
“So tell us,” John says, leaning down so his face is close to mine, his sour breath hot on my cheek. “How did you get out of the bathroom?”
I ha
ve to tell him something and in the tiny part of my brain that has managed to stay rational I realize that it comes down to numbers and odds. Maybe Ariel can still find a way to escape or maybe they won’t find her right away and the attack will happen downstairs and she can join in. Or maybe the police will come. Ariel will have a shot, albeit a long shot, and that is better than the chances of all my classmates if they are led up here, tortured, and executed. So I clear my throat, which is raw and burning from the acidic bile.
“There are tunnels in the walls.”
“What?” John asks, his eyes narrowing.
“It’s from the Underground Railroad or something,” I explain, my voice high and unfamiliar in my ears. “There are these tunnels inside the walls.”
“How do you get into them?” he asks, looking at me closely to see if I am making the whole thing up.
“The metal grates, like the one in the fireplace in the living room,” I say. Each word hurts. “They have little latches on them.”
John considers this for a moment, then nods and smoothes his tie, like he has just completed a satisfying business transaction. “That would explain how she’s managed to hide from us this long. And she is still there?”
It’s too hard to answer that one so I just nod my head once.
“Let’s go get her,” John says to The Assassin and the other agents behind me.
He casts one last, reptilian smile at me. “Don’t worry, we’ll be back. And in case you wondered, there is nothing that can be used as a weapon in this room. We made sure of that before our first guest came.”
He means Marc and the bile is back in the soft tissue of my throat, scalding and sharp.
Then they are gone, the door locked behind them. I sink down in the chair and let the tears come. I am a quivering pathetic mess. I sold out my best friend before they even got the machete out of the sheath. Yes, it was an impossible choice but there had to be something else I could have done. Or I should have at least dragged it out longer, given the police more time to get here, or stalled until after the attack started downstairs. Instead I caved in seconds because I was scared. Am scared. The thought of The Assassin’s return has me in a blind panic. I don’t want to be hurt and I don’t want to die. I’m like a trapped animal, with nothing to defend me, nothing I can do to save myself. My stomach heaves in a final kind of way. I make it to the garbage can in time for the gush of puke that empties every last bit of my stomach contents out. Then I sit back in the chair, spent.
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