The Girl in the Wall

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

  Our attack has started.

  CHAPTER 30

  Ariel

  The scene in the game room is sheer pandemonium. A crowd clusters around the bathroom but just as we get there Aisha flies out and someone slams the door behind her. Ravi is right there with a folding chair that he wedges under the door knob, effectively locking it from the outside. A loud cheer arises from my classmates and I hear pounding on the door.

  The agents in the room are up and trying to get their guns but Cassidy’s group is ready, mostly attacking from behind with heavy objects, like bookends, though I see a stiletto heel raised high. I did well choosing the weapons. More agents are coming in but Franz gives a signal to a group of four students who are waiting by the doorways and as soon as the agents walk in they are sprayed in the face, then tackled to the floor in that moment of weakness. Some agents make it through and a group led by Ella is there to meet them.

  The room is a cloud of hair products and scuffling sounds and yelling. It’s funny, no one has even noticed I’m here. They’re all too focused on the task at hand. I see Ravi wrestling with an agent who towers over him and they both go down. Ella is backed into a corner by two agents but Lulu comes behind them with a can of shaving cream and her aim is true. The agents are blinded by the cream and Lulu and Ella run. I grin. That was just what I was thinking when I put the shaving cream in the stash of weapons.

  Then I hear it, the first shot, followed by screams. In the far corner of the room, near the stage that was set up for Hudson’s concert, an agent has a gun and someone goes down. Instinctively I start over, to see if there’s anything I can do to help but Hudson grabs my arm.

  “We need to start clearing the escape route,” he yells to me over the chaos of the room.

  He’s right, that’s the most important thing to do right now.

  We start for the doorway to the living room, Sera is with us, but in front of us is an agent pulling out his gun. I’m closest so I waste no time rushing over to kick him in the back of the knee, hard. The solidity of his flesh hurts my foot so much I cry out but he’s the one in real pain, going down in a crumple. I wrestle his gun out of his hands, not sure I can actually do anything with it. I could see myself accidently shooting one of my classmates. But better for me to have it than him.

  I turn around and come face to face with Cassidy who is staring at me, eyes wide like she’s seeing a ghost. I stiffen, ready for her to yell at me, but instead she just raises an eyebrow muttering something about a weapons source.

  “Your makeup is a mess,” she tells me.

  I laugh but then more shots ring out across the room, followed by shrieks and someone’s gut-wrenching wail.

  “I’ve got that,” Cassidy says, taking the gun out of my hands with a practiced manner. She lifts the gun comfortably. “Looks like all those hours at the shooting range are about to pay off,” she says, closing one eye and taking aim at an agent who has his own gun raised.

  “Shoot to maim, not kill,” Hudson says.

  “I’m making sure no one can shoot back,” Cassidy snaps as Franz charges an agent with a letter opener a few feet away.

  She fires and sure enough the agent, who was hit in the shoulder of his shooting arm, goes down hard.

  “Grab his gun!” Cassidy yells to Ravi and Ella who are standing closest to the fallen agent.

  “You’re a good shot,” Hudson tells Cassidy.

  “I know,” she says, taking aim at another armed agent. “Go clear the escape route already.”

  Hudson, Sera, and I head for the door. The air is still thick with hair products but it’s underlined with the smoky salt of gunpowder and the metallic smell I can now identify as blood. An agent runs into the room and Carson, the star linebacker, charges him, a large picture frame held high, which he smashes over the agent’s head. I jump back to avoid being hit by debris.

  “Nice one,” I tell him.

  He does a double take when he sees me, then grins. “Yeah, I’ve never been big on art.”

  I catch up with Hudson and Sera who are at the doorway to the living room, which appears empty. Of course it makes sense that any agents would have come in here by now. The challenge will be getting to the front door.

  I can’t help glancing back toward the doorway near the staircase but there is no sign of Nico. I wonder how they are faring upstairs but there’s no time to dwell on it, not now.

  “Okay, Hudson and I will clear the way,” I say over the sound of more gunfire. “Sera, make sure none of the agents sneak up behind us and then start getting everyone to follow.”

  She nods, wincing at the sound of a nearby bullet.

  “Let’s go,” Hudson says.

  We head into the living room and he goes straight to the fireplace and grabs a poker for each of us.

  “These look like medieval weapons,” I say, liking the heft of mine in my hands. This could really do damage.

  More shots come from the living room and we head to the doorway, then look out into the foyer. Behind us I hear people coming out of the living room, following Sera.

  “It looks good,” Hudson says, but just then two agents run down the big staircase.

  We duck back in, hiding on either side of the wide doorway.

  “You ready?” Hudson asks.

  Dumb question and I just roll my eyes. I’ve been itching to take some of these people down since the second this whole thing started. I lift my poker and when the first agent comes through I bring it sailing down, right across his belly.

  He gasps and I realize he is a she. She clutches her middle and falls on the floor, tripping the agent coming in behind her.

  “Come on!” Hudson shouts to everyone, shoving the agents aside and racing for the front door.

  I hear shouting from the stairs and see two agents racing down, followed by two more with their ski masks off, and my heart leaps in my chest because one of them is Nico. The first agent has a gun and lifts it, but Cassidy takes him out with one shot. That girl is good. The second agent pauses, giving just enough time for Nico’s friend to whack him on the head with a heavy crystal vase. He goes down in a heap.

  Everyone is now rushing to get to the front door and my eyes are watering from the hair products and gunpowder that have formed a misty cloud in the air. People are shouting, agents are trying to pull people back, but someone, probably Hudson, wrenches the front door open and people begin to pour outside. I see Sera catch up with Hudson and they duck out into the early morning light together.

  But I wait for Nico and feel delicious tingles when his eyes find me and his whole face lights up.

  “You’re okay,” he says, coming over and resting one of his callused hands gently on my cheek. And in the midst of the shooting and yelling and smoky air the bubbles are fizzing away inside me, exquisite and sweet.

  “You are too,” I say stupidly.

  He suddenly looks up and I turn to see three agents running toward us.

  “Shut the door!” one of them shouts.

  Franz comes up behind them armed with a golf club but as soon as he hits one of them, the other two turn on him.

  Nico and I race over and Ella comes from the other direction. I smack down one of the guys with my poker but the other one has his gun out and Nico grabs his arm just as he shoots. The first bullet flies away harmlessly but the second hits Ella right between the eyes.

  I think her death is instant because her eyes don’t even close. She just sinks down as blood spews from the hole in her head.

  Franz’s hands cover his mouth as he steps back in horror. Nico has managed to wrestle the agent to the ground and I stamp on his wrist with all my strength, then grab his gun when he shrieks and lets go of it. I’d shoot his head off if I knew how.

  Nico sees my face and stands up quickly, taking the gun from me.

  “Kill him,” I say hoarsely, not even sure if Nico knows anything about guns. But then the way he clicks the safety into place and settles it under his arm tells me that he knows
exactly how to shoot to kill. “What are you waiting for?” I ask, a hysterical edge to my voice.

  Ella is bleeding all over my shoes and the iron smell of it is clogging my throat.

  “Revenge doesn’t change anything,” he says. “Believe me, I know.”

  “That’s bull,” I say, but I allow him to take my arm and to lead me and a stricken Franz to the front door. We look out onto the endless grassy expanse of my front yard and stop short.

  Despair slithers up from my belly to my chest as I take in the scene of agents lined up in the driveway, shooting my classmates like they are fish in a barrel. My classmates are yelling, hiding, trying to stem blood flowing from the ones that are wounded. And those are the lucky ones. I can’t bear to look at the bodies lying on the grass, unmoving.

  We made it this far but this is obviously the end of the road. There’s no way we’re going to get past these guys. It’s over.

  So I do the only thing I can in what are probably the last few minutes of my life. I take Nico’s face in my hands and I kiss him.

  CHAPTER 31

  Sera

  Hudson and I are the first ones out of the house and when we see all the agents in the yard, so many more than we had realized, we stop. But people are swarming, pushing out around us so we move forward with the momentum.

  “We have to do something, create some kind of distraction,” Hudson says to me over the din.

  He’s right but it’s hard to think, especially since I’ve been trying to shut my mind off this whole time. I am haunted by the feeling of the knife going into The Assassin, his scream as he fell, the blood pouring out of the wound, the wound that I made. I know I have to do something, just like I know Cassidy has to be shooting agents and my other classmates have to be taking them down any way they can; that’s what us against them means. But I just can’t stomach how horrible it feels to hurt another person.

  “What about the garage?” Hudson asks, looking toward the big white structure next to the house.

  I do what I can to shove all thoughts of The Assassin to a dark corner of my mind. The garage is a great idea. And even better, there’s no one to hurt there.

  “This way,” I tell Hudson, as the surprised outdoor agents start pulling out their guns.

  No one notices as we race along the short stone path to the garage, probably because it’s mostly blocked off from the front yard by weeping willow trees. The garage is locked but this code I know, or at least I knew, so I cross my fingers and press in five numbers. There is a click and the side door opens and we walk in. For a moment we are in darkness and then I flick on the light.

  “Awesome,” Hudson breathes as he looks over the ten-car garage. It is cleaner than many homes, with slick white walls, the smooth floor glistening with shiny black paint, and a large silver metal shelving unit filled with car parts and fluids. The big lights overhead create an almost museum effect casting a bright glow over Mr. Barett’s one leisure activity: seven gleaming sports cars.

  Hudson walks carefully, as though on hallowed ground as he approaches the first one, resting his hand gently on the hood. “No way, this can’t be an actual 1963 Porsche 911.”

  I can’t believe he’s having a boy moment now. “So we could hang out here and drool over these cars or use them to help us escape,” I say, folding my arms across my chest.

  Hudson looks back at me, appropriately sheepish. “Right, sorry,” he says. Then he frowns. “I’m not sure we can just drive one of these out of here. They’d shoot out the tires before we got ten feet down the driveway.”

  “Yeah,” I say, having already thought of that. “I think we’d be best off using them as a distraction, like driving them into the agents.”

  “Makes sense,” he says. “If we could find bricks or something to put some pressure on the gas pedals we could get them all going nuts out there. That would probably be most effective.”

  Shots ring out outside and the ticking clock weighs heavily on me. I look around the garage for bricks but then see something else.

  “What about these bottles of oil?” I ask.

  “Let’s give it a try.”

  His voice is taut and I know the shots have effected him the same way. I toss him a bottle and he gets into one of the cars, ducking out of sight to fit the bottle on the gas pedal. “It’s not going to work,” he says after a minute.

  I hear screaming outside and I am starting to feel desperate. “Mr. Barett always left keys in the ignitions because the garage was locked. Can we just start them and push them out?” I ask. “It’s on a hill so they could coast down. And we could drive the last two.”

  “Perfect,” he says, starting the engine of one car. “Let’s get three of them started, then open the door and push them out one after the other.”

  He starts up two other cars while I wait at the garage door opener. When he gives me a signal I press the button and the huge metal door slides up.

  I rush over to Hudson and we push the first car. Needless to say it’s really heavy and we are both heaving, my back aching, before we finally get it to start moving. But once it’s in motion, it picks up speed on the hill and starts down the drive, toward what appears to be a line of agents shooting people. I see bodies on the ground and smell the gunpowder mixed with the crisp fall air, but I don’t look to see who is down. We have more cars to get out there.

  “This is brilliant,” Ravi says, coming in the door of the garage, his face streaked with dried blood that must have come from someone else because he appears fine. He runs over and helps us push the second car. It’s easier with three of us.

  We hear less shooting now and when we get this car out the door I see that the agents are running or looking around trying to figure out what’s going on, no longer just mowing down my classmates.

  We rush back and get the next three cars moving. Two agents try to stop us but now my classmates are onto our plan and the agents are stopped with golf clubs and fire pokers before they reach us. A few people, including Franz, whose eyes are glassy and distant in a way that unsettles me, come in to help.

  “Let’s drive these last two,” Ravi says, already settling into the driver’s seat of the Porsche 911.

  Franz lights up at this and jumps into the second car. He revs the engine and a moment later peels out of the garage, steering straight for a group of agents who all scatter. Ravi follows, less manic than Franz who is clearly trying to actually kill agents.

  Hudson and I are just outside the main doorway of the garage, looking out at a changed scene. The cars have done their work. The agents are no longer a unified firing squad. Some still have their guns raised and are shooting but most of my classmates are either behind porch pillars or trees, out of range. The first five cars have already disappeared out of sight but Ravi and Franz are still wreaking havoc.

  “We did it,” I say, turning to Hudson.

  And that’s when I’m hit.

  CHAPTER 32

  Ariel

  It’s pretty much the best kiss of my life. Nico’s lips are like velvet, his hands feather-soft on my face as he cradles it gently, like I am something precious. I have delicious shivers from head to toe and everything else slips away, the gunshots, the shouts, the chaos. It’s just Nico’s body pressed against mine.

  And then a round of cheering goes up, so loud it can’t be ignored. Nico and I break apart and I look around, my heart still pounding, and see my dad’s black Ferrari FXX cruising slowly down the driveway, sans driver. It picks up speed as it goes and the agents who were standing there are now racing out of the way of the car.

  Before they can regroup, another car, my dad’s red Lamborghini Murcielago, is making its way down the drive.

  “Sera,” I say, not realizing I spoke out loud until Nico laughs.

  “That was a really good idea,” he says. “Let’s get out of here and get help.”

  He’s right, we need to go now while the cars are causing chaos and the agents are distracted. If we can get to the end of
the driveway and wave down a car, or run to one of my neighbor’s homes, we can call the police and finally, finally end this.

  The only problem is there are still agents with guns and they are still shooting at us.

  I turn to Nico who is holding the gun he got off the agent who killed Ella. “Maybe we should… ”

  He suddenly looks behind me, his eyes wide. He grabs me, throwing me down on the porch so hard I gasp. My knees and hands are raw and I look up in time to see the agent not ten feet away, his gun leveled, the bullet in the air. The bullet meant for me.

  It hits Nico somewhere in his torso and he goes down hard, his body folded in half. His blood pools over my hands and knees at an alarming rate. I reach for him, feel that he is still warm, still alive. And then behind me I hear the gun cock a second time, this time for me.

  I lunge forward, grabbing the gun that Nico dropped, the bullet whizzing over my head. My hands are sticky with blood but I manage to unlock the safety on the second try, remembering what Nico did to set it in the first place. Then I turn around and start shooting, not to take out but to kill.

  CHAPTER 33

  Sera

  I am dying. I have to be because pain this bad can’t mean anything else. There is a whooshing sound in my ears and my head feels like it’s filled with cotton.

  But instead of seeing a light or whatever happens when you die, I am being pulled behind a tree near the garage and Hudson is gently setting me down, then taking off his shirt.

  I guess this could be heaven.

  But then he starts to wrap the shirt around my shoulder, making me screech in pain.

  “Hang in there, it’s just a flesh wound,” he says, tightening the shirt around my bleeding shoulder. To be honest it’s not even that much blood but still, the pain is near blinding.

  “How can you say only?” I manage to choke out.

  “I’ve been there,” he says. “When I was ten I was out hunting with my dad and my brother Tommy and I got grazed by a bullet, deeper than this actually. I was fine.”