by Spencer Baum
“Go ahead,” Daciana said. “Grab the handle and try to open it.”
Brian grabbed the handle on the door and pulled. The door made a thunking sound in response, and remained shut.
“Too bad for you, Seventeen,” Daciana said.
As Brian left the stage, Daciana went back to the globe to grab another Ping-Pong ball.
*****
Jill was just as puzzled as everyone else. How were they supposed to guess the combination to a safe?
With four dials, each one going from one to ninety-nine, the odds against a correct guess were astronomical. There had to be some game to it. Some trick for them to figure out.
But what was it?
After Brian failed to guess the combination, Daciana selected number ten from her hopper, which brought Isabel to the stage. Like Brian, she tried to use some mash-up of her lucky number to get the safe open. Like Brian, she failed.
Fourteen was the next number, and Wesley Johnson went onstage. He tried using his lucky number for all four dials. He failed.
Jill tapped twice on her left earring.
“We’re here,” Alvin said.
“I need to speak to Nicky,” Jill whispered. “Can you ask her if she has any ideas about how this game works? Tell me what she says.”
*****
Nicky had already figured it out by the time Alvin’s voice rang in her ear. She walked to the edge of the foyer and faced the wall when she relayed the message to Alvin.
“Tell Jill to look at the posters hanging from the ceiling,” she said. “The colors match the gemstones on the safe.”
*****
Torrie Dunwald had just failed on her guess when Alvin delivered the message to Jill.
The instant he mentioned the posters of the girls wearing black Jill understood. The posters were the one piece of décor that was out of place in the spectacular foyer. They were the one and only clue to solving this game.
She resisted the urge to look up. Everyone else had their eyes glued to the stage. If someone saw Jill gazing at the ceiling, they might figure out the game just as she had.
Everyone at the party had been given a number. There were four girls wearing black and four dials on the safe. This wasn’t a guessing game. This game was about getting the girls wearing black to talk.
And the best time to make that happen was right now, before any of them understood how the game worked.
“Excuse me,” Jill whispered to Ryan, then stepped away from him, moving diagonally through the crowd until she reached Samantha.
“What’s your number?” she whispered.
Samantha turned to her. “I’m sorry. What’s that?”
“Your lucky number. The one that would call you to the stage.”
Samantha looked uncomfortable to be whispering at a time when the rest of the hall was so quiet. Jill leaned in closer.
“I might be able to win this game for you if you tell me your number,” she whispered into Samantha’s ear.
Samantha nodded her head once, then hunched close to Jill.
“Ninety-eight,” she whispered.
“Thanks,” said Jill.
Samantha’s poster had a white border around it. She was the diamond. The first dial on the safe. Ninety-eight.
Nicky’s poster had a red border. She was the ruby. Jill tapped her earring twice to call Alvin again. He would tell her Nicky’s number and they’d have the first two dials on the safe figured out.
“Fifty-two,” Daciana called out.
Jill was listening for Alvin to speak, and barely heard Daciana call the number. She kept walking towards Ryan.
“Fifty-two?” Daciana said. “Are you out there?”
Jill stopped walking. She remembered the way Sergio looked at her when he caught her in the hallway. She could see his lips saying the number, the number she had promised him she would commit to memory.
She turned around. “I’m fifty-two,” she said. Then she approached the stage.
*****
Now that Nicky understood the game, she understood that it was terrible luck that Jill got called up so early.
Jill was on Nicky’s team, and at root, that’s what this game was about. Who is on your team? How many people in the class will give the money to you if they get the safe open? The more people who want you to win, the better the odds that the person who does get the safe open gives the money to you.
That was the strategic part of the game. But there was also a heavy element of luck. Daciana was choosing numbers at random. Eight students would get a guess tonight. Eight more next week and every week thereafter until the safe was open, or everyone had guessed and all had failed.
Nicky was thinking through the semester ahead. There were twelve weeks between tonight and prom. Twelve times eight…ninety-six guesses, but there were more than ninety-six students. Were some people not going to guess?
The girls wearing black. Yes, that had to be part of the game too. The math made sense when you removed the four girls wearing black from the equation. Our numbers open the safe, everyone else’s numbers give them a guess at opening it.
And with every student called to the stage, there was one fewer number from the available pool. They needed to keep track. Whose numbers had been called already tonight? Brian was first. His number was 17. Then Isabel. She was 10. Wesley. What was his number again? She didn’t remember, but it didn’t matter. The microphones in her earrings were recording everything that was happening here tonight. They would make a list. They would use process of elimination to narrow down the numbers in the combination. Every time Daciana called someone to the stage, they would know another number that wasn’t part of the combination.
We can’t just wait for the numbers to be called, she realized. We need to ask the others what their numbers are. Jill had probably figured that out already. Yes, Nicky had seen her moving about, whispering to people.
People like Samantha.
What horrible luck that Jill got called to the stage before she had time to figure out more numbers in the room! Now it would be up to Ryan.
Ryan and anyone else they could recruit to give the money to Nicky.
She watched as Jill went onto the stage. There was nothing Jill could do but guess.
*****
Jill knew the first dial on the safe should be turned to Samantha’s number. Ninety-eight. She also knew she had no chance of guessing the other three numbers.
Not wanting to provide any clues to the other students, she turned the first dial to fifty-two, and picked three random numbers for the others. She failed to open the safe.
Michaela Bynes, Gene Dotson, and Louis Garcia were called up after Jill. They too failed to open the safe. Daciana announced that they would gather again in a week and eight more students would be given a chance.
The party ended just before dawn. Jill and Ryan walked out together. The valet drove Ryan’s Lamborghini to the front entrance and they crawled into the awkward front seats. When the doors were shut, Jill said, “Should we talk about what happened in there tonight?”
She meant the kiss. She wanted to know if Ryan felt the same way she did when they kissed, like the two of them weren’t putting on an act anymore, at least not in that moment.
“Of course we’re talking about what happened in there!” Ryan said. “Our whole plan is up in the air now! We had everything in place and now Daciana has screwed it all up. The whole contest is about this safe now.”
“Ryan, can we worry about the contest some other time?”
“Some other time? There’s no time to worry about anything else! In order for Nicky to win, we’ll have to figure out how to get that safe open. There must be a trick to it, some game we aren’t seeing.”
His hands weren’t anywhere near hers. He didn’t seem remotely interested in continuing what they started at the party that night.
She slouched back in her chair.
“Nicky and I have already figured out the game,” she said.
&nbs
p; “You have?”
Jill explained to Ryan how she knew that each dial on the safe corresponded to one of the girls wearing black, how the colors on the posters matched the gemstones on the safe. She told him how she’d already made Samantha spill her number, and that the game now was to figure out Kim and Mary’s numbers before the rest of the class understood how the game worked.
“But what if they don’t talk?” Ryan said. “What if we make it to the end of the semester and they haven’t told anyone?”
“They will tell their number to people who are loyal to them once they’ve figured out how the game works,” she said.
A look of understanding came over Ryan’s face. “Yes, because everyone’s getting called up to guess one at a time and…but what if they haven’t figured out the game yet?”
“Samantha hasn’t,” said Jill. “That’s how I got her to give me her number.”
“So this is an important time,” Ryan said. “These first few days at school. People might be willing to talk. We need to get everyone to spill their numbers for us before they understand what they’re doing.”
“Yes, that would be the way to go about it,” Jill said, shaking her head. She felt so foolish, having allowed herself to think that her kiss with Ryan meant anything. For a short time tonight, a very short time, she had indulged in a fantasy that she and Ryan were…
They arrived at her house.
“I’ll call you tomorrow so we can talk strategy,” Ryan said.
Jill turned to him. If she wasn’t so tired, she might have started yelling at him. She might have ripped into him with everything she’d ever wanted to say since the day he dumped her in the back seat of a car during freshman year.
But she didn’t have any energy for that.
“Good night, Ryan,” she said.
He looked at her like a lost puppy, like he couldn’t begin to comprehend why she didn’t share his passion for opening the safe and winning the contest.
She pulled down on the door of the Lamborghini to close it, then she walked up the driveway to her house, alone.
Chapter 21
Before she went to bed that night, Jill read a text from Alvin.
Now that we have access to Daciana’s machine, we’re running a full scan. Give us until tomorrow morning before you log in and have a look. Great work tonight. You should be proud.
At least some people in the Network understood the value of her work. There was no doubt in Jill’s mind that controlling Daciana’s computer was far more important than winning Coronation. Why couldn’t Ryan see that?
Perhaps she was expecting too much of him. He was new to all of this and in over his head. It wasn’t fair to expect him to behave like a seasoned agent, or to even understand all the emotions he was going through now that he was actively rebelling against the clan. I won’t be mad at him about the kiss. I won’t be angry that one minute he acted like I was everything in the world to him, and the next he didn’t even know I was there.
A moment of release, that’s all it was, for both of them. Two people with chemistry and a history who lost control of themselves in a moment of raw emotion. Don’t try to make it into something that it wasn’t, Jill Wentworth.
She put her head on the pillow and closed her eyes, aware that she was a mixed-up jumble of emotions who couldn’t think straight.
I miss him.
I am an agent of the Network.
I’ve missed him a lot for the past three years.
I want to kiss him again.
In the last three months I’ve become one of the most important agents in the entire resistance.
I want to kiss him again right now.
I hacked Daciana’s computer and will figure out how to empty all of the clan’s bank accounts.
I wish Ryan was in bed beside me.
Now that I’ve hacked Daciana’s computer I have the potential to hurt the clan in a way no one has ever hurt them before.
The kiss meant nothing to him. All he wanted to talk about afterwards was Coronation.
That night she dreamed she was on a cruise ship. She was walking along an upper deck by herself. It was nighttime but the sun would be up soon. She heard the sounds of passionate love-making coming from a nearby cabin. She peered into a circular window and saw Zack and that girl from the café, writhing around naked in bed. Jill started banging on the window with her fists, screaming, Stop it! This isn’t you, Zack! This isn’t who you are! The girl, Lana, yes, that was her name—Lana heard Jill, and with her legs still wrapped around Zack’s back, she looked up and grinned. Jill ran away from the window, up to the starboard side, and into the captain’s quarters, where she found Ryan steering the ship. She hugged him and started crying. I’m so confused, she said. I’m not, he told her. You’re not? Ryan shook his head, and for a second, Jill thought he meant he wasn’t confused about his feelings for her, and she felt relieved. She leaned in to kiss him, but before her lips got there he said, We just need to get Kim and Mary’s numbers and we can win this for Nicky. No, I’m not confused at all. Then he turned the steering wheel hard to the left. The engine roared with anger at the move. The boat moaned as it turned. More than moaned. Rattled. Something was terribly wrong and Jill knew it was only a matter of time before the boat sunk. We can’t go this way, she said. We have to go east. The sun is coming up soon. She pushed Ryan out of the way and turned the boat back on course. In the distance, the sun was beginning to rise. I don’t want to go this way, Ryan said. It isn’t your choice, said Jill. I’m in charge of this mission now. The boat rattled again. Even though Jill had righted their course, Ryan’s diversion had caused irreparable damage, and the engine was sputtering in angry bursts. It was a race now. Get to the sun before the rattling engine tears the boat apart. I’ve been working for the Network since freshman year and I know what I’m doing, she said to Ryan. He wasn’t paying her any mind. Samantha’s number is 98, he said. We need Kim and Mary’s numbers. Jill shook her head. You don’t get it, she snapped. This boat is coming apart! Why do you have to be so stubborn? Do you want to get us all killed? Still muttering about Kim and Mary’s numbers, Ryan walked away, leaving Jill alone to steer the ship where it needed to go. She closed her eyes and felt the warmth of the sunlight on her eyelids. We’ll get there, she told herself. I don’t care if I have to do it myself. I will get Ryan and Zack and Nicky and everyone else on this boat to safety.
She awoke with the sun shining brightly in her bedroom, and her phone rattling around on the nightstand. She picked it up to find that she had received eighty texts in the past hour. Karmela, Samantha, Mattie, and Jenny wanted to talk about what happened at the party last night. In a roundabout text conversation, they had decided everyone was going to meet at Café Europa this afternoon. Ryan had been texting too. He sent a message to Jill and Nicky that said, I’ve created a list of everyone’s names and numbers based on what we know so far. I’m emailing it to you guys now.
There were messages from Alvin, from Eve, from Helena—there was even a message from an unknown number. Jill took a second to read that one.
Ms. Wentworth. We at HQ are very impressed with your recent work and would like to arrange a meeting with you in person. Eve has volunteered to facilitate a face to face. When can you make time to come to Richmond?
Headquarters. This message had come from one of the strategists. Only the most respected agents in the world received face-to-face meetings with the strategists.
“Took them long enough to notice me,” she said quietly.
How fast could she get to Richmond? She went to her computer desk and mapped it out on the web. The trip was a little under three hours by car. If she left now she could be there by lunchtime.
She went downstairs and grabbed her car keys from a hook on the living room wall. Her head was down when she opened the front door. She almost ran right into the person standing on the stoop.
“Jill? Oh my God, I was just about to…”
The girl standing on Jill’s d
oorstep was like a ghost, so completely unexpected Jill jumped back in surprise when she saw her.
“I was just about to ring your doorbell,” the girl said.
The person on her doorstep was a blonde bombshell with a deep tan and a southern lilt to her speech. She was someone who shouldn’t have been there. Someone who was supposed to be thousands of miles away.
“Annika, what the hell are you doing here?”
Chapter 22
“I think I’ve made a terrible mistake,” Annika said.
Jill didn’t know what surprised her more. The fact that Annika Fleming was on her doorstep, or that she was such a mess. Never once in all the time she knew her had Jill seen Annika look less than 100% put together. But this girl on the porch was a wreck. Her clothes were dirty and wrinkled. Her hair was in tangles. She didn’t have any makeup on. She smelled like she had gone the better part of a week since her last shower.
“Can I come in?” Annika asked, nervously.
The question was a wake-up call to Jill. She had been so shocked to see Annika standing here she hadn’t thought about how dangerous it was for her to be out in the open.
Or anywhere near DC at all.
Jill looked over Annika’s shoulders.
“How did you get here?” she snapped.
“By cab,” Annika said quietly.
Jill scanned the street in front of her house.
“Where is it? Where is the cab? Cabs can be tracked, Annika. It wasn’t safe!”
“Relax. I had the cab drop me on the other side of your neighborhood, and I walked through the woods. I haven’t forgotten everything you taught me. Can I please come in now?”
“Yes, come in,” Jill said. “We’ll go to my room. We have to hurry. My parents are home.”
They moved quickly up the stairs and into Jill’s bedroom. Jill shut the door behind them.
“Annika, you can’t be here.”