“I can’t afford college. I already told you that.”
“There are tons of scholarships out there,” he says firmly. “Need-based grants too. Take the SATs, and I guarantee you’ll score through the roof. You need to bring your grades up, though. Colleges need to know you’ll put the work in.”
I don’t want to flush my future. I also don’t want to waste my time. We both know my options are limited.
“The chances of anything panning out for me are pretty small.”
He drops his glasses onto his desk and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Stone. Damnit. Just see the tutor.”
Sensing weakness, I head for the door. But he pushes up from his desk and follows me out of his classroom.
“Stone. Library. Now,” he barks, pointing in the opposite direction I’m walking.
Fuck.
I pivot and follow him down the hallway as slowly as I can manage. One push through the library doors, though, and my feet won’t take me any farther.
“Tristan. This is Isabel.”
I don’t recognize the girl next to him. Little diamonds in her ears. Her hands tucked into her designer jeans. Eyes like a summer storm.
“You’re here until four thirty. Got it?”
I don’t answer him. I take a few steps closer and drop my book on the table with a thud that makes her jump.
She smiles nervously when Brucher leaves. “Hi.”
I give her another once-over. She’s definitely not from here.
“Where’d they bring you in from?”
She hesitates. “Alexandria.”
Probably a prep-school brat using this time to beef up her résumé for college applications. The irony.
She drums her fingertips on the table, and then points to the book between us. “You’re reading Chaucer?”
“Supposed to be.”
She smiles a little. “It can take a little effort to get into. Not everyone’s favorite.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to need to read Middle English ever again, so I’m not sure I need to start now.”
Slowly she pulls at the loose-leaf paper that’s wedged in the middle of the massive tome the school lent me.
I catch her hand, stopping her. “It’s not done.”
“I can help,” she says quietly. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“I don’t need your help.”
Her cheeks flush as she pulls out of my grasp and tucks her soft brown hair behind her ear. “Listen, I don’t know why you’re being like this.”
“Pretty simple. I don’t want to be here.”
Five minutes ago that would have been true. Now it’s a half lie, because being in her presence is prickling my interest, even if I don’t care about being brought up to speed on the subject matter at hand.
Only then do I realize we’re mere inches apart. This close to her, the little signals that go off when I’m attracted to someone are firing. Too bad I have no intention of following through with this tutoring bullshit.
She looks down at the library carpet under our feet. “Fine. But we’re here now. So we should just make the most of it.”
“How about we both save some time and you can let my English teacher know I’m all set with the tutoring. I can read and write just fine.”
“Then why are you failing English?” She cocks her head, challenge flaring in her eyes.
I’m not stupid. I just don’t care. But I care that she’s judging me. I’m more than meets the eye. But next to her, maybe I’m not.
“Why do you care?”
“Because I’m your tutor.”
“No. You’re not.”
I take my book, walk around her, and leave the way I came in. I get to my locker, cussing Brucher and this life that never seems to give me a break. Pretending like college is even a possibility is just one more excuse for someone to screw me.
I hear her swift steps. The air moves behind me as she walks past. A surge of attraction slides through me as I watch her move down the hall until she’s a silhouette against the afternoon sky pouring in through the double doors.
I grab what I need to finish up my homework at home and slam my locker shut. The walk to the door is a reckoning. If I don’t see this through, Brucher’s going to be back on me tomorrow about it. I can already hear him. I can bring my grades up on my own, but he’s not going to make it easy on me now.
I step outside and head down the street a few feet. Then I see her. She’s in the bus stall by herself, a book in her lap.
I slow in front of her. “You bussed in?”
She looks up and nods.
“That’s a long ride.”
“Kind of a waste, I guess.” She looks back down at her book.
I won’t let her ignore me, so I take the seat next to her.
“What are you reading?”
She closes the book and stuffs it away in her bag before I can catch the cover. She looks over her shoulder at me. “I didn’t come here to talk about that.”
She’s going to keep on about the tutoring. I survey the sparse traffic up and down the street.
“When’s the bus come?”
She looks at her watch. “Fifteen minutes, I think.”
“Okay, how about I give you fifteen minutes to convince me why I should waste your time and mine with The Friar’s Tale.”
A smile plays at her lips. I’m wishing I had an excuse to accidentally touch her again.
“Sometimes we hide our truth between the lines,” she says softly. “It’s not always about plucking out the obvious answers from the text. Everything Brucher is making you read is more about deciphering what the author isn’t saying by looking more deeply at what he does. The truth is hidden in the poetry.”
Something darkens her gaze, something a little wise and a little sad. I want to know what it is. I want to know her truth, but if I have any chance of that, I have to go deeper.
“Okay.”
She frowns a little. “Okay?”
“Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Isabel
“Come on, Red. Let’s get this over with.” Townsend’s voice floats through the door opening.
I hear a shuffle and then an odd groan from Tristan. Something’s wrong. With Bones out of the house, I get bold and creep closer to the door. I peek around until I can catch a glimpse of the two men. Tristan’s propped against the wall, his long legs stretched out. His chin rests against his chest as if he’s asleep.
Then Townsend slaps him, jarring him awake.
“Where’s Isabel?” His words are raspy and slow.
“She’s fine, all right?” Townsend says almost reassuringly.
Tristan’s eyes are glassy. He looks drunk. He couldn’t be, though. Townsend’s done something with him. Anxiety swirls through me.
Townsend’s crouched beside him. “Where’s Jay?”
Tristan frowns. “She left her tracker at the house.”
The other man laughs. “Yeah? I figured that one out.”
“It’s in my pocket. Found it after.”
Townsend’s smile fades. He fishes into Tristan’s pocket and retrieves something so small I can’t see it well from this vantage. A tracker? Was someone tracking Jay this whole time? If so, why wouldn’t they have followed her to Crow first? Why now, when she was safe at Halo?
“You said someone took her. Was it you?”
“No. This bitch, Martine.”
Townsend can’t seem to hide his intrigue. “Tell me about Martine.”
“She’s a friend of… I don’t know. She takes care of people, I guess. I don’t trust her, though.”
“And where would she have taken Jay?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t fight it. I watched the tapes.”
Townsend traps his lower lip between his teeth and rises abruptly. He paces a tight circle around the floor. I duck back behind the door so he doesn’t notice my eavesdropping.
“They were supposed to keep her saf
e. I promised I’d keep her safe,” Tristan mumbles. “It’s my fault.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Halo. We were going to keep her off the radar. The Company’ll kill her.”
Hesitantly, I peek around again.
Townsend bends toward Tristan and shouts angrily. “Why would you care so fucking much, Red? You started all this shit. You should have killed the girl. Now everything is fucked, thanks to you.”
“Jay wanted out too.”
Townsend pauses. “Excuse me?”
There’s a long silence. I scarcely breathe. Jay wanted out of the Company? Did she tell that to Tristan last night when they were alone together? Even if she did, I don’t trust that she’d tell him the truth. She’s too cunning. If she left Halo willingly with Martine, she had her own motivations, and we have no way of knowing what they were.
God, if she’d just waited a little longer, maybe all of this could have been prevented. Townsend could have taken her, and we could have gone our own ways. But maybe it could never be that simple.
“Who could possibly want this life?” Tristan finally says.
“Are you trying to tell me Jay let herself get kidnapped so you could hide her away and make a better life for her?” Townsend makes the prospect sound as ridiculous as it is.
“I don’t know her game.”
“Fuck me,” Townsend mutters, his aggravation apparent. “You’d better hope I find this Martine woman, or you’re a dead man. Where’d she take her? Do you have any idea?”
“Could be anywhere. Tons of properties. You can check the files. That’s what I was doing when you showed up.”
I shift back on the mattress when Townsend pivots toward me. The door swings open again, and his figure passes over the threshold. His countenance is less friendly. He’s got a gun in his hand, and I have the strong sense his patience has been tested.
He looks down at me. “Who’s Martine?”
I swallow hard and jolt back farther when he lifts the gun at me.
“Now is the time to talk, love, or I’ll finish the job Red should have and we’ll be one step closer to fixing this fuckin’ mess he’s made.”
I suck in a shaky breath. “Martine Benoit. I don’t know her very well. She owns the house.”
“Why take Jay there?”
“They took me in when I needed a safe place to stay. We were hoping they’d keep Jay too.”
“How did you find out about it?”
My lip trembles. He flinches and lunges toward me so he’s on one knee and the muzzle of the gun is pressed to my forehead.
“My mom,” I say in a shaky voice. “She’s friends with my mom. It wasn’t safe for me in DC anymore. The Company killed my friend, and my mom sent me to Martine’s to start over.”
He stares at me, his eyes a little wild, baring his teeth. If this is coming from concern for Jay, I have to find it in me to relate.
“I swear to you, we brought Jay to Halo to protect her. Martine would never hurt her. She’s not the killing type. She took her away from the house to get information from her about the Company.”
He seems to relax some. “She’ll never get her to talk.”
Probably not. Jay’s too smart. She’ll only give Martine what she needs to.
He gets up, looking less fierce but still agitated. This time when he leaves, he slams the door securely shut and I hear the lock turn. Panic flies through me. I crawl to the door, hesitant to test it but unable to hold back. Sure enough, when I try to turn the knob, it doesn’t budge. Shit. That means I can’t get to Tristan and he can’t get to me. Not in his current state.
I press my ear to the door and listen, dread swimming in my veins at what I may hear. Please don’t hurt him…
I hear boots on the floor, like pacing. Then Townsend’s voice.
“Find out what you can about Martine Benoit and report back. She might be close. Check records. Bribe whoever you need to. Fuckin’ find her. We’re running out of time.”
Then nothing for a long time but more pacing. Then the pacing stops, and I feel like I can’t breathe. I press my palms to the door, feeling helpless. Tristan is in there at the mercy of Townsend. Tristan wouldn’t approve of me getting brave right now, but he’s also not in his right mind, and one of us needs to be thinking about how to keep us alive.
Dawn is peeking through the edges of a couple of the boarded-up windows, and the lightbulb above is casting plenty of light on the porch now. I move as quietly as I can toward the pile. Most of what I see is trash I’d rather not touch. Toys, window screens, insulation. I’m not going to be able to defend myself with plastic toys, so I carefully push through it as far as I can without disturbing the pile.
Finding nothing, I try not to cry out of pure frustration. I look up at the furniture stacked nearly to the ceiling. A rotten lounger and a wooden chair with graying wood that matches the ones inside the otherwise empty house. One spindle hangs loose. I stand to see it’s split lengthwise, leaving one end fairly sharp. Hell, it’s better than nothing.
I lean in and pull it loose from the leg without much trouble, except it’s far too long to hide in my clothes. But I can’t split it without making noise I don’t want to make.
Hearing the faint sound of laughter, I freeze. I hurry to tuck the spindle under the edge of the mattress and wait to identify the noise. It’s not coming from inside. No, it’s from outside, and it’s not that far away. Young voices.
All the windows are boarded up. I can’t see anything outside these four walls. So I turn off the light and look around to identify all the places where the early morning light comes through the rotting walls. Opposite the pile of all the trash is a sliver of light between the floorboard and the wood siding. I go to it soundlessly and tug very slowly on the board, a more challenging task with my wrists bound together. But with a little effort I manage to free a length of siding. I have to almost lie on the floor to see out.
A little girl is playing in the empty lot behind the house. It’s overgrown with grass, but I can see other houses just beyond. She’s close enough that I could get her attention if I yelled. But I can’t make a sound. I start to tremble with the possibility of getting us out of here, away from these mad men. Then we’ll run. We’ll run and hide, and they’ll never find us. I don’t care what we have to do. God, I’ll never run toward trouble again if we get out of this alive. With this resolution in my heart, I loosen another board. It makes a slight squeak when I wrench it off the last nail.
I glance back at the door, my heart pounding wildly.
I wait. I try to breathe. I pray they didn’t hear me.
TRISTAN
I open my eyes halfway. Head is throbbing. Mouth is dry. It takes a minute for the room to stop moving. Townsend is on the chair in the corner, arms crossed, head back. His mouth hangs open as he snores silently.
I need to get out of here. I try to move, but my restraints don’t let me. Tight ropes around my wrists and ankles. No hope of getting free yet.
Isabel.
She’s safe, all right…
Townsend’s freckled face launches into mine. I almost knock myself over trying to get away from it. I blink hard and look back to the chair. He’s still there, unmoving save the occasional swallow. Jesus Christ. Whatever he’s given me has me tripping hard. I just need to come down from it. I can’t stop these visions. Everything’s blending together. Reality and flashes of memory and the nightmares I’m already too familiar with. Just need it to stop.
I bring my hands up to rub my eyes, but when I do, a swirl of colors assaults me.
“This will only hurt a little.” Townsend’s voice is calm in my ear.
I look up. The house is gone, replaced by four metallic walls. An industrial light illuminating all of me and some of his face. I’m under a white sheet folded at my waist. My body is a patchwork of bandages and bruises.
“What happened?”
Townsend rolls up by my side on a doctor’s stool. “You got in a pretty b
ad scrape. On the upside, you fared better than just about everyone else. Good thing too. It’s going to save your life.”
My head is too foggy to make sense of what he’s saying. I don’t know this place. Where was I last? I’m not supposed to be here…
I look around again, hoping I’ll catch on to something that will give me a clue. The room is bare besides the two of us and Townsend’s black bag laid out over a rolling metal tray. The light glints on the vials and metal tools inside.
Only then do I notice my arms locked down tight beside me with bed straps. Why are they holding me down? Why is Townsend here? He’s flicking the barrel of the syringe with his nail. Then he guides it expertly into a pulsing blue vein in the crook of my arm.
A flash of panic. He’s not a doctor. I don’t want any more of this shit…
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t look up as he withdraws the needle of the emptied syringe from my arm and holds the entry spot firmly with a patch of gauze. Finally he meets my eyes with a smile that makes my stomach roil.
“Going to make this complicated situation a little simpler, mate.”
A door slams. My eyes fly open. The guy with the big neck has returned, a bulging plastic bag in each hand. He looks down at Townsend, who’s blinked awake.
“You going to stand there forever, Bones?”
“There’s no table.”
Townsend rubs his neck and stands stiffly. “Improvise, mate. Eat your fill, and bring the rest back to the girl.” He motions for him to give him one of the bags and looks over at me. “You must be getting thirsty by now.”
I am. I’m bone dry. Not hungry but more thirsty than I can ever remember being. My vision is fuzzy around the edges. How long can this high last?
Townsend takes a water out of the bag and throws it at me. I catch it to my chest, where it lands with a thud.
Isabel’s mischievous smirk taunts me as she saunters the last few steps across the café. I unscrew the cap and take a swig of the cool water she just tossed at me.
The Red Ledger, Book 5 Page 4