The Professor

by Alexandria Clarke

  Sure enough, not a minute later, the red pickup ambled down the dirt road before turning into the driveway. As Wes pulled up, determinedly avoiding eye contact with me through the windshield, I threw Natasha’s blanket off my shoulders and stomped down the porch steps.

  “What the hell, Wes?” I demanded as he hopped down from the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut. “Where have you been? I called you twenty times! You could’ve at least done the courtesy of picking up once to tell me that the Raptors hadn’t run you down with a semi-truck.”

  He pulled me into a tight hug and kissed the top of my head. “Missed you too, baby.”

  “Don’t give me that shit,” I said into his jacket, though I couldn’t help but sink into his arms. At least he was safe. “What the hell did you run off for?”

  He let go of me, circled around to the back of the truck, and opened the tailgate. “This.”

  Holden Hastings, his eyes wide and panicky, lay bound and gagged in the bed of the truck. When he saw me, he bucked back and forth, making quite a racket as his shoes thudded against the bed’s metal interior.

  “Oh, Christ,” I said, covering my eyes as Henry and Natasha joined us to see what all the commotion was about.

  As soon as Henry saw Holden, he seized Wes by the collar of his jacket and pinned him against the side of the truck. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Hey, let him go!” I grabbed Henry’s jean jacket and tried to drag him away from Wes, to no avail. “He’s still hurt.”

  “If he’s well enough to make terrible decisions, he’s well enough to face the consequences of them,” growled Henry, his fists still wrapped in Wes’s jacket. Wes raised his hands above his head.

  “Henry, let him be,” said Natasha, her voice tired.

  Henry released Wes, who straightened out his police jacket before replying. “I heard your entire conversation from upstairs. It sounded to me like no one had a plan.” He pointed to Natasha. “You destroyed the tapes.” His index finger moved to Henry. “You just want to sit around and wait. I was the only one who actually came up with an idea to do something about this.”

  “I had a damn plan, you fool!” roared Henry. He stepped into Wes’s personal space again, but Wes stood his ground, folding his arms across his chest and planting his feet in front of the tailgate as if to prevent Henry from getting any closer to Holden. “You may be a cop,” said Henry, “but you have no idea what the best plan of action is in a situation like this.”

  “Plan of action?” Wes scoffed. “This coming from the man that’s been sitting on the same case for twenty-five years?”

  “So you decided that the best idea was to go ahead and kidnap the dean’s son?”

  That caused Wes’s confidence to falter. He looked at me. “He’s the dean’s son?”

  “Yes,” I reluctantly confirmed.

  “So when this goes poorly—and it will go poorly,” promised Henry. “It will be even more complicated to resolve. Do you want to go to jail, Weston?”

  “I didn’t know who he was,” admitted Wes. “To be honest, I grabbed the first Raptor that I could get on his own.”

  “Nice job, genius,” said Henry.

  “All right, everyone settle down.” Natasha looked warily at Holden but kept her distance from the truck. “What’s done is done. Let’s deal with the problem at hand. Wes, what did you expect to do with, uh—”

  “Holden Hastings,” I supplied. I had spent so much time studying the various members of the Raptors that their names were burned into the back of my brain. Not to mention, not long ago, Holden had attempted to throw me off the balcony of my own apartment.

  “—with Mr. Hastings?” finished Natasha.

  “We need information,” said Wes in a matter-of-fact tone. “We need to figure out a way to take down the Raptors once and for all. We need a way into the clubhouse or some kind of inside scoop.”

  “We have one,” growled Henry.

  “Who?” demanded Wes. “You keep talking about your inside source but if they’re so effective, how is it that the Black Raptor Society is still holding court?”

  “My source’s identity is classified for a reason.”

  Wes fixed Henry with a penetrating stare. “Fine,” he said. “But even so, maybe Hastings here has further information for us. We could use him and your source to come up with a plan. At the very least, we could hold him for ransom in exchange for something we need.”

  “I work for the government, McAllen,” said Henry. “I can’t condone—”

  “And I’m a cop,” interrupted Wes. “The time for following protocol is long gone, Henry. I want Nicole safe. I’m doing this, whether you help us or not.”

  Suddenly, Henry took me by the arm and led me back toward the house, keeping us moving until we were out of earshot of Wes and Natasha.

  “Nicole, this isn’t what we agreed on,” he said, keeping one eye on Wes over the top of my head. Wes had leapt into the bed of the truck and was now attempting to shimmy Holden toward the edge of the tailgate. “All I needed from you was to get the truth about Catherine Flynn out of Natasha. I wasn’t counting on having to deal with your hot-headed boyfriend’s poorly planned schemes.”

  “We agreed to help each other out,” I said with a nod. “But I never promised to blindly follow your lead.”

  “And what about Natasha? Hm? Don’t think I didn’t see that little heart-to-heart you two were having out on the porch. Did you even bother to ask her about Catherine, or do you also prefer a more direct, violent approach such as kidnapping?”

  I glared at Henry. “Don’t demote me to the Raptors’ level. I asked Natasha about Catherine. She closed up. In case you haven’t noticed, she’s not very forthcoming about her past. What do you suggest I do?”

  “Get close to her,” ordered Henry. “She’s your mother, for Pete’s sake. Figure it out.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I replied curtly. “But in the meantime, we have a more pressing situation on our hands. Holden is bound to be a wealth of information for us. Are you really going to let Wes handle that on his own?”

  For a very long minute, Henry and I simply stared at each other. A crashing thunk and a muffled yell echoed back to us from the pickup truck, bringing our silent battle to an end, and Henry walked back to the pickup truck. With Holden wedged between his boots, Wes looked down at Henry expectantly.

  “All right, then,” said Henry, grabbing hold of Holden’s bound feet. “Are you going to help me drag this kid into the barn or what?”

  With a reckless grin, Wes replied, “Let’s do it.”

  30

  As I watched Henry and Wes haul Holden out of the bed of the pickup truck, I couldn’t help but wonder how we had stooped so low. In all of the chaos, I’d never questioned my own set of values. Sure, when the Raptors had taken Wes, I had crossed some lines, but smoking out an office building and teaming up with one of the Raptors’ own didn’t seem half as bad compared to the actual act of kidnapping. Henry was right. We had officially sunken to another level. Maybe Natasha had had the right idea all those years ago. Maybe running away and letting the Raptors ruin someone else’s life was the only way to ever escape their influence.

  Holden struggled against Henry and Wes, his yells of protest muffled behind the piece of duct tape across his mouth.

  “Keep yelling, buddy,” said Henry, tightening his grip around Holden’s boots. “No one’s going to hear you out here.

  Wes lifted Holden from beneath his armpits, and together with Henry, they marched him across the yard toward the small barn behind the farmhouse. Natasha and I followed along behind them, and I slid open the barn door so that they could slip inside without hindrance.

  The barn was cold, but the frigid temperature didn’t do much to dilute the strong smell of manure and horse hair. As Henry and Wes deposited Holden on a pile of hay, a speckled mare stuck her head out over the top of her stable door and blew air through her lips. Spittle sprayed down on Holden’s hea
d, and he threw a disgusted look upward at the horse.

  “Good girl,” said Henry, patting the mare’s nose.

  I planted my hands on my hips and stared down at Holden. “So what exactly is this supposed to accomplish? Now that we’ve rivaled the Raptors in the fine art of kidnapping.”

  “An eye for an eye,” replied Wes. He looked at Holden with a twisted scowl. “Although I never threatened to kill him, so we’re not quite square.”

  “And we’re never going to be,” I insisted. My stomach churned at the look of disgust on Wes’s face. I took his hand, leading him away from Holden, Natasha, and Henry so that I could speak to him privately. “Babe, are you all right?”

  “As all right as I can be under the circumstances. Why?”

  “I just… I’ve never seen this side of you before,” I admitted. I massaged his cold fingers between my own warm palms. “You seem so angry.”

  “Angry?” He reached up, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear before cradling my cheek in his hand. “Nicole, that is an understatement. I’m livid that these people have worked so hard to hurt you and your family. We can’t wait around for the Raptors to lose interest in us. Even if they did, they would find someone else to terrorize. Holden is the weak link. If we can get him to talk, we can figure out the best way to tear down the Raptors from the inside.”

  “And what makes you think he’s going to tell you anything useful or true?” I asked. I glanced over my shoulder. Henry was patting down Holden, extracting a cell phone and a wallet from Holden’s jacket. Natasha watched anxiously, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as though she was trying to prevent herself from sprinting out of the barn as quickly as possible. I turned back to Wes. “Furthermore, when we’re finished with him, how do we get him back home without being arrested? The Raptors have a lot more connections than we do. You should’ve have known that before you went out on a limb to kidnap him.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For right now, all I want to do is figure out a way to keep you safe.”

  “And you think Holden’s going to give that to you?”

  “Let’s find out.” He kissed the top of my head and returned to Henry. “All right, Danvers. Or Altman. Whatever the hell your name is.”

  “Henry, please.”

  “Henry, then. What’s the best course of action in your opinion?”

  I wandered over to Natasha, who was keeping her distance from the three men. Unconsciously, it seemed, she slipped her hand into mine. I gave it a reassuring squeeze, for her benefit and for mine.

  “We can possibly make this work,” Henry began in that gruff voice of his. “The Raptors have a clubhouse under the Waverly library, remember?”

  “Vividly,” I said stonily.

  “All too well,” said Wes at the same time.

  “I’m thinking that’s the best place to gather evidence to extort the society,” said Henry. “Originally, my inside source was going to set me up with an opportunity to get in, but it hasn’t presented itself yet. I’ll reluctantly admit that this speeds the process along a little bit.”

  “Hold on a second,” interrupted Natasha, speaking for the first time since we had all agreed to keep Holden hostage. “Not only do you want to go back to the Waverly area, where every dirty cop is probably on high alert for Wes and Nicole right now, but you want to infiltrate the Raptors’ headquarters?”

  “If we want dirt on the Raptors and Catherine Flynn, this is how we do it,” said Henry.

  “There has to be another way.”

  “My dear, I’m open to any and all suggestions.”

  Natasha’s lips parted as though she had something else to say. We waited, but a moment later, she closed her mouth and shook her head.

  “This is our only option then,” I chimed in. Admittedly, the Raptors’ clubhouse held too many sour memories for me. The first time I had found my way down there, I’d stumbled across the dead body of my favorite professor. The last time I was there, it was because the Raptors had drugged and kidnapped me. But the fact remained that the clubhouse contained too much evidence of the Raptors’ misdeeds for us to ignore it. “Face it, Natasha. When you got rid of those tapes of Flynn hazing younger Raptors—the reason for which remains a mystery, might I add—you ruined a chance for us. We need something else to prove the society exists. For starters, I’m thinking the BRS charter.”

  Holden’s eyes widened at my mention of the charter. Henry noted Holden’s reaction with a satisfied nod.

  “What’s this charter?” he asked.

  “It has the society’s creed in it,” I reported. The last sentences of the Raptors’ original promises still haunted me. “‘That which is given to one brother is given to all brothers. That which is not given to our brothers, we must seize by force.’ Isn’t that right, Holden?”

  Holden spat what I could only assume was some kind of dirty epithet through the duct tape. He certainly wasn’t pleased.

  “I don’t understand how that would help us,” said Henry. “What’s so special about this charter?”

  “Because it has the signature of every Raptor there ever was,” interjected Natasha. “It’s part of the initiation. Once you’ve been deemed fit to join, they have you sign the charter.”

  “Everything the Raptors have ever done has been recorded,” I explained further. “I’ve looked through the Raptors’ library. Every time they’ve moved money illegally, or obtained a new painting, or messed with a non-Raptor’s life, they wrote it down. There are literally thousands of written records down there. If we retrieved even a handful of them, the entire society would be at our beck and call.”

  “Aren’t written records a little archaic?” asked Wes. He kicked Holden’s boots. The younger man pulled his knees up into his chest.

  “Too risky for them to keep all that illegal information backed up on any kind of hard drive,” said Henry. “Even the heaviest security systems are hackable.”

  “Flynn has BRS files in her office as well, if she hasn’t gotten rid of them already,” I added. “I’ll bet she has though.”

  “How would you know?” asked Natasha.

  I shrugged nonchalantly. “I did a little digging earlier on in the semester. When I started to suspect that Flynn had something to do with O’Connor’s disappearance, I broke into her office. Sure enough, that’s how I ended up finding my way into the clubhouse.”

  “You broke in—?”

  “Enough,” said Wes, cutting off what was sure to be some kind of motherly scolding on Natasha’s part. “We know what we want to retrieve. The question is: what’s the best way to get into the clubhouse without the Raptors knowing?”

  “You kidnapped the kid for a reason, didn’t you?” asked Henry drily.

  “Good point.” Wes knelt down next to Holden, took hold of one corner of the duct tape across Holden’s mouth, and ripped it off.

  “Ow! Shit, you asshole! The fuck’s wrong with you?”

  Henry raised an eyebrow. “For a student of such supposed intelligence, his vocabulary isn’t exactly astounding, is it?”

  “Fuck you,” said Holden, and he spit a wad of phlegm toward Henry’s shoes.

  Henry easily sidestepped the projectile then took Wes’s place next to Holden. “Listen here, kiddo. We’re not playing games. Just tell us how to get into the clubhouse unnoticed. When are the Raptors least likely to gather in the library? Is there a way to draw them out?”

  “Go straight to hell,” said Holden.

  The sudden click of a gun safety sliding out of place resonated through the barn. Natasha, Henry, and Holden froze at the sound. I revolved on the spot, only to see Wes leveling his Glock at Holden.

  “Wes! Are you crazy?” I demanded.

  He ignored me, keeping his gaze locked in place over the top of the gun. “You want to try that again, champ?”

  Holden shuffled back against the stable door, as far away from Wes as possible. “You won’t shoot me,” he said, his voice quave
ring.

  Wes advanced. Natasha, Henry, and I parted like the Red Sea, too stunned by Wes’s scare tactics to react. He sat down next to Holden, so closely that his shoulder was flush with the younger boy’s, and aimed at Holden’s left foot. “How sure of that are you, Holden?”

  Holden shook with terror. “You crazy motherfucker.”

  Wes’s grip tightened on the gun, and his finger came to rest on the trigger.

  “Fine, fine!” yelled Holden. “There’s almost always a Raptor in the clubhouse now. Ever since Costello broke in, we’ve been on high alert. Usually, one or two Raptors stay overnight to keep watch.”

  “And what about Flynn?” asked Wes.

  “She’s not in the clubhouse as much as you might think,” said Holden breathily. “She still has to maintain her image for the university. And she’s been busy planning Lauren’s dad’s funeral.”

  I swallowed the lump that immediately rose in my throat at this information. “Orson Lockwood is dead?”

  “Yeah. Heart attack.”

  “Oh, that’s bullshit. We saw the Raptors run him over in one of those massive SUVs.” I said. My heart ached for Lauren. I wonder if she knew the truth. “Where’s Lauren—?”

  “We can’t worry about the Lockwoods right now,” interrupted Wes. I glared at him. His single-mindedness was starting to get on my nerves. He tapped Holden’s leg with his Glock. “How do we get in, Holden?”

  “Your best bet is to cause a diversion in the library late at night,” growled Holden. He leaned away from Wes, trying to put as much distance between them as possible despite the restraints around his hands and feet. “Something that will force the Raptors out of the clubhouse. Then you can sneak in. I wouldn’t go in through the library though. It’s too obvious.”

  “What other options do we have?”

  “There are secret passages,” I answered for Holden. “I know of at least one.”

  “There are four,” clarified Holden, keeping an eye on Wes’s gun. “One into the clubhouse’s record room, one into the dining room, one in the main hall, and one in the art room. I would recommend the one that leads into the record room since it’s the easiest one to use, but the entrance is in the basement of Lauren’s dormitory. Flynn has Lauren watched around the clock. If you even set foot near her dorm building, they’re sure to spot you.”