by Debra Driza
“The five current grant students . . . plus Sarah,” I said.
His mouth widened into a surprised oh. His expression was a slide show of emotions. Wonder and fear. Pity. Sorrow.
On that last one, the hard line of his mouth softened, and I saw a hint of the Hunter he used to be. A glimmer of concern, of shared pain. But before I could even process those thoughts, he retreated to his touch-me-not posture.
Meanwhile, the data spun a never-ending circle.
Claude Parsons: Active account.
Ben LaCosta: Active account.
J. D. Rothschild: Active account.
Hannah Peckles: Active account.
Sharon Alexander: Active account.
The final one had a special note by her name:
Sarah Lusk: Account inactivated.
I swallowed a lump full of emotional sludge—regret, sorrow, excitement, and fear. “Sarah’s account’s inactive.”
The security system was mocking me with a euphemism. Inactive. So much kinder than the reality of dead.
No other students had access; no faculty I could see, except for Dean Parsons. But there were some guest accounts that weren’t specified.
Hunter brushed his hair away from his eyes. “What now?” he said.
“We need to get closer. I want to see if I can sense anything else inside there. Barring that, there’s the old-fashioned way to snoop—peeking through windows.”
After performing a quick scan to assure me no one was paying attention, I stood, and Hunter followed suit. This was the riskiest part of our venture. The closer we got to the building, the harder it would be to disguise our intent if someone saw us.
We’d just have to ensure that didn’t happen.
As we headed over, my thoughts ran wild. At some point before her hasty departure, Sarah had been inside that building. We couldn’t know what that meant until we saw whatever the structure concealed.
We approached from the south side. As much as I wanted to head straight for the main entrance, we’d be safer inspecting the rear first.
I yanked Hunter’s hand, hurrying until the stone facade hid us from view of anyone who might decide to make an early retreat from the game. Four stately trees towered in a row to our left, forming a makeshift path. Along the back of the building, the windows had been more than boarded over. They were also covered with sheet metal. The door had met the same fate. Dead ends.
“Someone certainly went to a lot of trouble,” Hunter said. We made a right turn when the building ended.
It was dim over here—not much light from the main campus paths reached this far. But the closer we got to the front, the more illuminated we would be.
As we neared the edge, I performed one final scan. No one within one hundred feet. I still felt uneasy, though, and I realized with a pang that some of my anxiety came from Hunter’s presence. Doing a mission with someone who thought you might go serial killer at any moment didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Hard to believe that only weeks ago, we had been a team.
Another planter lined the front of the building, so we edged along it. The hedges were tall, rising almost to my shoulders. Large windows rose behind them, but from this angle, they were completely blacked out.
“Let’s get a closer look.”
I slipped between a gap in the hedges, the tiny branches grabbing at my shirt. Hunter turned sideways to push his way through behind me.
I still couldn’t see a thing through the windows. I peered more closely at the glass, my nose only inches away, frowning. Something about the glass seemed unusual. In fact, I wasn’t even sure it was glass at all.
I followed the window until I reached the elevated platform that housed the front door. A KEEP OUT: AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY sign hung there, while a small sign next to it read MONITORED BY SECURITY. The door itself I recognized as a metal monstrosity camouflaged to look like old wood. Difficult to open, unless you defeated the security system that kept it sealed.
I told Hunter. “Looks like our only way in is through hacking the system.”
Another quick scan alerted me that someone was eighty feet away now, but they weren’t heading any closer. I turned back to the door, allowing the data to stream into my head so I could probe and prod it into submission.
I summoned one of the usernames for a test run.
Sharon Alexander: Grant access.
In the instant I waited, I hoped for something as simple as a password. I should have known better.
A red line streamed from the video camera over the front door, aiming directly at whoever stood below.
Initiate retinal scan.
I slumped. Unlocking the door? No problem. So long as we had a grant student’s eyeball handy.
“What is it?” Hunter whispered.
I turned to share the bad news, only to discover worse news. In the short time I’d been focused on the camera, the person had continued in our direction.
Human threat detected: 50 ft.
Maybe it was just someone heading back to the dorms. One quick glance dissuaded me of that notion. The man was hard to see because of the flashlight he wielded like a weapon, but one thing was for sure. He was heading right for us.
“Duck,” I whispered, dropping below the top of the hedge and pulling Hunter down with me.
“No one’s allowed over there!” a deep voice boomed from the path.
Human threat approaching: 30 ft.
“He’s coming,” I whispered, meeting Hunter’s wide eyes in the dim light, my pulse nothing more than a frantic flutter in my neck. Wide-eyed, we crouched behind the hedge, face-to-face, our noses so close that his breath feathered across my face.
20 ft.
If we were caught now, we were dead meat. The dean would find out, and that would be the end of our plan. At best, he’d ban us from campus. At worst—well, if he was involved with Holland, then who knew what the worst might be?
One voice in my head urged me to run. In the dark, with a head start . . . I had a good shot of escaping. But Hunter could never keep up. I’d left him once before, and I couldn’t abandon him to danger a second time, regardless of how he treated me.
We could pretend that someone dared us. Or that we’d just been taking a walk, and I’d dropped my iPod somewhere. Something, anything, so long as it was remotely plausible. I was an android; I could pull this off. Maybe—
Hunter’s yank on my arm interrupted my mental chatter. He fell back, one hand catching his fall, landing on his butt and pulling me onto his lap.
“Wha—?”
“Boyfriend,” he mouthed. The reference barely had time to register—Daniel’s idea, right—when his arms hauled me up against his chest and his mouth covered mine.
At first, I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure I could. I felt stunned, almost Taser-level stunned. My eyes widened and my hands braced on his shoulders.
As I sat there, torn between fear and surprise, I reminded myself that this wasn’t a real kiss. It was our cover story. A stolen tryst near a deserted building.
As cover went, it was way better than any of my ideas. It just might work.
Human threat: 10 ft.
But only if we convinced whoever was about to catch us.
I pulled him closer until his body heat combined with mine. My fingers slid through his hair. If this guy was going to buy our story, we had to put on a show. I felt the shock of my actions shudder through Hunter and I closed my eyes. His heart and my heart were unified in terror. The pressure of his mouth increased, and I waited. Both for the threat to arrive, and for all the old feelings to surface. At one time, I would have done anything to be in this position. To hold Hunter close and take refuge in the safety of his arms.
Except that now, any refuge seemed like a distant dream.
Which left the awkward realization that I was playacting with someone who, even if he ever forgave me, would never understand me.
Along with the equally awkward realization that I wished he was s
omeone else.
“Hey, you two. Out of there.”
Hunter waited a couple of seconds before pulling away, giving a brilliant performance as a boy caught off guard. He pushed to his feet, swiping a lock of hair from his face with a sheepish grin.
“Sorry, sir. We didn’t realize . . . just snuck away to . . . uh . . . you know . . .”
While Hunter stammered, I rose from my spot on the ground. Slowly, with the sense that here, in this planter, I was surrendering a dream for good.
I curled into Hunter’s chest in a pretense of shyness that was really all about not letting the guy see my face. I peeked through my fingers, so I could catch a glimpse of him. His uniform tagged him as someone other than faculty. A pair of gardening gloves dangled from the utility belt around his waist, and the blades of grass clinging to his work boots made my shoulders relax with relief. Not the dean or a teacher. A landscaper.
“Sorry,” I said, with feigned embarrassment.
The man pursed his lips, hands on his hips. He did a quick survey of our surroundings—less the building and more the foliage. “You’d better not have busted any of those branches. . . .” he threatened.
I pushed subtly on Hunter’s chest, hoping he got my message. Retreat.
He backed away, one step, then two. “We didn’t, I swear. We were careful. Just wanted a place to be alone, you know what I mean?”
“I should really alert campus security, let them deal with you,” he said. Hunter and I both froze, my hands turning to ice. No. Please, don’t do that, I urged silently.
“. . . but I remember what it was like, back when I was in high school. The good old days. But find a room next time, or I will call security. Now scoot.”
“Thank you and we will.” Hunter whirled and retraced our path. I felt the man watching us as we left, so I was careful to stay on Hunter’s far side, keeping my face in the shadows.
“Quick thinking back there,” I said, when we were finally out of earshot.
“Thanks.” His gaze lingered on me for a few seconds before he focused on the path ahead.
We arrived at the spot where we’d left Lucas, behind the bleachers and near the giant tree.
The sight of him helped calm the aftershocks still thump-thump-thumping through my heart. I needed his perspective on what I’d found.
Just then, Montford scored another goal. The bleachers erupted in a mass of jumping, screaming bodies. On the field, the players zipped past and high-fived one another.
“We’re back,” I said, when the noise dwindled to just barely deafening. As soon as he saw me, Lucas smiled, and I answered with an even bigger grin of my own.
Hunter remained a few feet away, eyeing us in moody silence.
“That sounds slightly terrifying,” Lucas said, when I told him how close we’d come to getting caught. “How did you throw him off?”
“I . . . um . . .”
“She kissed me. That seemed to convince him we were just sneaking off to have some fun,” Hunter announced.
“Oh,” Lucas said. His smile wavered. “That sounds like . . . quick thinking.”
“I must have really sold it, too, because the guy bought it hook, line, and sinker.” This time, there was no mistaking the barb in Hunter’s voice.
I was about to tell my faux boyfriend to stuff it, but Lucas got there first. “I’m sure he did,” he said evenly. “Only an oblivious ass wouldn’t see what an amazing girl you were with.”
Flustered, I gave Lucas the rundown while we waited for the others. “Something isn’t right about that building,” I told him. “But I need some time to figure out how to get past the retinal scan, and I don’t even know when we’re coming back.” Then I took a deep breath and blurted out, “Next time, you’re posing as my boyfriend.”
I caught a hint of pink in Lucas’s cheeks, and a smile in his eyes, but he let the subject drop.
And then Daniel approached with Abby and Samuel. He rubbed his hands together and shared the good news he’d heard from the dean. “Saddle up, kids. You’re going to Montford classes in the morning.”
FIFTEEN
Four pairs of eyes inspected us as we stood in the administration building.
The dean had greeted us briefly, then handed us off to the student welcome committee, which were the two boys and two girls staring us down.
I didn’t recognize the first girl. The dean had called her Celeste, but she quickly corrected that to Celia. Her glasses were pink and square, dominating an elfin face. Her light brown hair was pulled back into a pristine ponytail, and the collar of her green polo shirt looked freshly ironed.
I did recognize the second girl, with the jittery, hazel gaze: Hannah Peckles. Her smile was friendly but distracted; her thin fingers had stubby, ragged nails. Most importantly—she was one of our grant students.
J. D. Rothschild was the third greeter. When he joined Hannah, the skin on the back of my neck prickled. Was this another stroke of luck? Or something more sinister?
I mean, all of a sudden we were welcome to stay here for a few days. “Get the feel of the place,” the dean had said. It seemed almost too easy. Was there some reason the dean had accommodated us? Was there something he knew?
The fourth greeter was a student named John, but he was so engrossed in some game on his smartphone that he didn’t seem to notice us.
Two out of four. What were the odds of getting two grant kids by pure chance, in the pool of hundreds, to show us around? I didn’t need an android brain to know the odds were slim.
We would be following these kids to all their classes and staying in their rooms overnight.
“When your time here is over,” the dean told us, “we’re sure you’ll never want to leave the Montford campus again.” Maybe he meant that to sound welcoming, I thought. To me, though, it sounded almost like a threat.
“Follow me,” J.D. said. “First stop, the cafeteria.” He led us down the hall while casting a sideways glance at John. Then he began tapping buttons on his own smartphone, too. I fell into step just behind the boys, all the better to conduct a clandestine body scan.
Vitals all normal, though both blood pressure and heart rate were in the bottom range. No internal injuries that I could detect.
The only noteworthy item on Hannah was this:
2-in. scar, upper abdominal region.
Consistent with emergency spleen surgery.
I shifted my focus to J.D.
3-in. scar, lateral side of right thigh.
2 metal pins, right femur.
Consistent with femur fracture.
I filed that information away, just in case. Maybe both of them were accident prone.
“Dude, no, don’t steal my contraband—go get your own,” John said, scowling at his phone and then at J.D. His dark hair looked freshly washed, still damp from the shower, and his brown polo hung loose and short on his gawky frame, as though he’d had a recent growth spurt.
J.D. didn’t even try to hide his cat-got-the-canary smile as he stuffed his phone into his pocket.
“What are you guys playing?” Samuel asked.
“Treasure Walk. Hannah’s latest geek game,” John said.
“You created that game?” I asked, peering over John’s shoulder. The pirate ship and treasure graphics were surprisingly good. We already knew that Hannah had been developing successful games and apps for years, but now we were undercover. We couldn’t let these kids know that we’d done any research.
Hannah blinked, as if she hadn’t heard the question.
“She asked if you made the game, space case,” J.D. said.
Hannah’s cheeks turned pink. “Oh. Yeah. I started it over the summer.” She coughed and cleared her throat. “If you’re interested, I can show you more. You’ll be staying with me.”
I was rooming with a Watson Grant kid? A great opportunity, sure, but also another coincidence.
The ponytail girl, Celia, glanced sidelong at Abby. “And you’ll be staying with me,” she said
. Not that she sounded happy about it. She regarded Abby’s outstretched hand like it was a snake.
I was overwhelmed by a feeling of déjà vu, which disappeared as rapidly as it’d come on. Had I met her before, as Sarah?
“Don’t mind Celia, she’s a germophobe,” J.D. offered breezily, head still bent over his phone. Hunter was staying with him—they could bond over soccer. And Samuel was staying with John.
Hannah yawned and mumbled to no one in particular, “Sorry. Late night.”
We reached the cafeteria, where they had us stow our bags against the wall so we could eat. Located in the building connected to the dorms, the tables were already starting to fill with early arrivers.
Unlike in Clearwater, the tables and chairs were set up in clusters, like conversation groups, some with straight-backed chairs, others with upholstered chairs and throw pillows. A massive stone fireplace dominated the far left wall. The food counters were broken down by type, though most of them were closed at the moment—a pizza place, a sandwich-and-burger shop, frozen yogurt. A coffee stand with muffins and pastries was already attracting a small line, and another line started to form at the Eggs and More station, where I could see omelets being expertly flipped.
The rest of the grant kids were missing. The cafeteria was bustling now. Why hadn’t any of them appeared?
I nibbled on the edge of my toast, wanting to look as casual as possible. “It’s nice of you all to share your rooms with us for the week,” I said. “Did you draw the short sticks or something?”
J.D. snorted. “Pretty much. If you have any kind of scholarship or grant, Dean Parsons requires you to be on his ‘welcome committee.’ Lame, but at least we earn homework exemptions the week before finals. When I met Hank, at least, I was happy about it for once. Last time, they assigned me this kid who could only talk about Doctor Who and the paradoxes of time travel. If I’d had a time machine, I would have sent him to a parallel universe.”
“I like Doctor Who,” John said, shrugging off J.D.’s groan.
Just then, Hannah’s jaw contorted with another wide yawn. “Sorry.”
The third yawn in such a short time span drew my attention to her face.