I’d known the plan. That was what I told myself as Daniela jerked me through the front doors of Hardwicke. I’d known that for us to do what needed to be done, the terrorists had to watch Daniela do as she’d been told.
They had to watch her kill Vivvie’s aunt.
“Ms. Kendrick,” Mrs. Perkins greeted me as we stepped inside the building. “So nice to see you again.”
An armed man slammed me against the wall. My face pressed flat, my heart thudding in my chest, I tried to ignore the hands on my body, checking me for weapons, lingering a second too long.
“She’s clear,” the man said, stepping back. I turned slowly to face them. Opposite me, Mrs. Perkins plucked the knife from Daniela’s hand. “I’ll take this,” she said.
The blade was still smeared with red, still dripping.
Mrs. Perkins let the knife dangle from her fingertips as she led us down the hallway and up the stairs. One of the guards pressed the tip of his automatic weapon against the small of my back.
When we stepped out into the third-floor hallway, I saw a trio of bodies lined up against the wall. The headmaster, two students.
“This isn’t who we are,” Daniela said, her voice low, her eyes on the bodies.
Mrs. Perkins opened the door to the third-floor computer lab. “It’s who you are,” she told Daniela lightly. “It’s all you’ll ever be in the eyes of the world, thanks to your wonderful little performance out front.”
That was the point, I thought. Like the kingmaker, Mrs. Perkins played the long game. This was strategy. A carefully laid plan.
She’s not treating Daniela like a traitor. She’s treating her like competition.
“Now,” Mrs. Perkins said, turning her attention back to me. “Let us see how our little fixer did, shall we?”
Anxiety and adrenaline shot through my body. Ignoring it as best I could, I scanned the occupants of the room. Dr. Clark was sitting in front of a computer. Including the guards who’d escorted us up here, there were a total of four. And standing in between two of them was Henry.
Don’t look at him. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t feel his stare on your skin.
I focused on Mrs. Perkins and Dr. Clark instead.
“Money transfer came through,” Dr. Clark told Mrs. Perkins. “Twenty million, untraceable.”
I let out a shallow breath. William Keyes was a man of his word.
“Congratulations, gentlemen,” Mrs. Perkins said to the guards. “You’ll be getting paid.”
Mercenaries. My chest tightened. Guns for hire. That had been my hope. I couldn’t afford to show any visible reaction to the confirmation I’d just received.
“And what of Ivy Kendrick?” Mrs. Perkins asked me. “Did DC’s most notorious fixer step up to the plate?”
“She got your prisoner released,” I replied, glancing toward Daniela. “Didn’t she?”
Mrs. Perkins made a tsk sound under her breath. “There’s no need to take a confrontational tone, Tess. We’re all friends here.” She stepped forward and trailed the flat of the knife blade along my neck. “Now tell me, did Ivy happen to send us anything else?”
I nodded, as much as I could with a knife at my throat.
“Delightful,” Mrs. Perkins declared, stepping back. On the other side of the room, Henry stared at her, his jaw clamped closed.
I won’t let anything happen to you, he’d said roughly, his body less than a millimeter from mine.
“I believe you’re looking for this,” Daniela said, holding up the USB drive she’d taken from Priya. There wasn’t an ounce of tension in her voice—nothing but the barest hint of challenge.
She’s not afraid of them, I realized. They haven’t lifted a hand against her.
There was a plan. Daniela and I had a plan—but the reason I’d put my life in her hands, Priya’s life in her hands, was that I’d thought that our goals were aligned.
I’d thought she—and her child—were in danger.
Mrs. Perkins took the drive from Daniela and handed it to Dr. Clark. My former teacher plugged it in. A sequence of numbers and programming code appeared on the screen.
“It has to be decrypted,” Daniela spoke up on my behalf, leaning back against a nearby table as she did. “Would you expect anything less?”
She’s on my side. She is. She knows the plan. She’ll stick to it.
“For your sake, Tess,” Mrs. Perkins said, her gaze lingering on my face, “let us hope it’s decrypted quickly.”
The sound of my own breathing was deafening in my ears, but somehow, I heard it—a light, high-pitched whistle.
Daniela eased herself off the table. The moment Mrs. Perkins attention was drawn to Daniela, I bolted.
Out the door, into the hall.
I made it two feet, maybe three, and then I was slammed into a wall. I heard a crack. My jaw. My teeth bit into my tongue.
One of the guards grabbed me roughly, my arms held so tightly behind my back that my shoulder threatened to dislocate. My eyes teared up. My vision blurred. I blinked.
Mrs. Perkins stepped out into the hall. She took her time and traded her knife for a gun.
My eyes found their way to Henry’s. For a second, I let myself pretend that none of this had happened. That it was just Henry and me. That he was the boy I’d known, the person I’d thought he could be.
“Stop, Kendrick. Please.”
I saw him say the words as much as I heard them.
Stop fighting. Stop taking chances. Stop.
I couldn’t. I had to keep Mrs. Perkins looking at me. I had to keep her attention on me for just a few more seconds.
“The program won’t work,” I said. “Ivy would never give you what you wanted. If she gave you anything, it’s a fraction of what she has.”
Mrs. Perkins raised her gun. “Thank you for your honesty, Tess.”
A second before she pulled the trigger, Henry threw himself forward. His body slammed into mine, curved around mine, shielding it, protecting it.
Protecting me.
I heard the gun go off. I felt Henry’s body lurch forward with the impact.
No. I thought the word, and I screamed it. And all around me, the world exploded into chaos.
I sank to the ground with Henry. Shot, just like John Thomas. Bleeding, just like John Thomas.
Not Henry.
Traitor—betrayer—friend—
Please, not Henry.
His blood was on my hands. My fingers frantically searched for a bullet hole, combing his back, the weight of his body in my arms.
“Up!” one of the guards yelled at me. “Get up!”
“Or,” a voice said behind him, “you could put your weapon down.”
Priya Bharani pressed a gun to the back of his head.
The plan is working, I thought dully. We’d taken our chances that the snipers’ attention would be on the FBI and securing the perimeter, not on the “body” killed within ten feet of the Hardwicke door. Priya was a trained operative. She could move quickly and silently. The plan is working. This was the plan. I should have felt a rush of victory. Relief.
I felt numb.
The guard lowered his weapon. Holding Henry, his blood thick on my fingers, I tried to stop the bleeding and took in the sight beyond us.
Mrs. Perkins was on the ground. There was a tiny, perfect bullet hole in the side of her head. Priya’s handiwork, thanks to my distraction. Daniela had taken out one of the guards. She currently held another at gunpoint.
That just left one guard, and Dr. Clark.
The sole remaining guard trained his gun on the dead woman who’d appeared in front of him. He wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating Priya twice.
“Before you pull the trigger,” Daniela told him lightly, “you might consider the fact that by now, that twenty million dollars has been transferred again—into one of my accounts.” She smiled. “Were you hoping to get paid for this job?”
“You—” Dr. Clark couldn’t get out more than a single word. She looked from Daniela to Priya.
“It was our understanding,” Priya told Dr. Clark, “that what your colleague wanted was a very public show. So we gave you one.”
The knife sliding across Priya’s neck. The way she’d crumpled to the ground. The blood pooling around her wasn’t hers. The blood on the knife wasn’t hers.
It wasn’t even blood.
I’d been told such sleight of hand wasn’t hard, when the act was to be observed from a distance. I’d been told that people paid attention to threats, not bodies.
I’d known the plan. I’d come up with the plan. And still, it shocked me to see Priya standing there. She’d played her part well.
The blood.
The blood on the pavement hadn’t been Priya’s—but the blood on my hands was Henry’s.
“Can you get us out of here?” the mercenary asked Daniela, his gun still trained on Vivvie’s aunt.
“I have an exit strategy.” Daniela’s lips curved up slightly. “It will require some . . . sacrifices,” she said. “Are all the men here loyal to you?”
Are you loyal to all the men here? That was what Daniela was really asking.
The mercenary stared at her for a moment. “No.”
“Well, then,” Daniela said, “perhaps what I’ll need from you won’t be so much of a sacrifice after all.”
There was a beat of silence and then the mercenary lowered his gun. “I believe I speak for the men on my team,” he told her, “when I say that we would like to be paid.”
“Congratulations.” Daniela lowered her own weapon, her eyes alight. “You now officially work for me.”