SEVEN

Melissa and Liam were waiting to greet me the next morning.

Liam looked like he was sleeping standing up. Melissa was bouncing up and down on the backs of her heels, her book bag clasped in front of her chest. Fitz opened the door for me this time. Erik was still with me, just assigned to the car. Kash asked if I wanted a new guard. I knew I should say yes, but my gut was saying to wait and hold off, so that’s what I told him. He was fine with it, and now I had Fitz dodging me in the hallways. He was tall, too, but a bit lankier than Erik. He also had dark hair combed to the side, jeans, a hoodie to fit in, and a backpack like the other students’.

However, when he led first into the building, a few students were ahead of me, and he held the door open for all of them. Melissa’s eyes were glued to him. Hearts were forming in her head and I swear I could see red and pink glitter bursting out of the top of her skull.

She was in love. So in love that when I approached, her hand clamped onto my arm and she breathed out, her eyes huge. “Who is that dreamboat?”

Liam’s eyes opened—so he wasn’t sleeping, just stoned—and he looked around me, then grinned. “That’s Bailey’s security guard.”

Screech! Everything ground to a halt.

“Why would you say that?” That came out in a half whisper, half squeak from me, as Melissa’s eyes just got bigger, if that was possible.

She squealed, “Really?”

Another burst of bouncing from her.

My gaze was glued to Liam. “What makes you think that?”

Liam barely blinked, that half grin still plastered on his face. “Because the guy’s got a gun strapped to his hip. His shirt lifted up when he pulled his bag on him, and no guy has to pull their bag on them. You’re a student, graduate or undergrad. You throw that shit on like it’s a part of your skin. The bag’s not a part of his skin. He forgot to be chill, and his gun showed. Then you walked in and he got all alert-like before remembering his cover, and now he’s pretending he’s not listening to us, but he’s totally listening to us.” He lifted his chin up in a nod and raised a finger in the air, a half-cool salute to Fitz. “What’s up, dude?”

Fitz was trying to keep with his disguise, leaning back against the wall, a foot crossed over the other and his phone out in front of him. But he was waiting for me; his gaze was on me.

I debated …

Then Melissa breathed out, “You mean he heard me this entire time?”

I turned to Fitz. “The jig is up. They’re onto us.”

He sighed, straightening from the wall, and walked over to us. “Had a lot of eyes on me yesterday. Erik, too.”

“Erik.” Another breath whispered from Melissa. “He’s yummy, too.”

My eyes narrowed. This girl was boy crazy.

Liam’s grin just turned lazier, if that was possible. “Girl. We’re IT. Not a lot of newbies that look like your boys in here that haven’t already been around for the last few years, if you get my drift. They know me, and I’m the closest-looking dude like your dudes.”

I grimaced. “We’re first-year grad students.”

“We’re IT.” Liam said it like it made perfect sense.

Melissa was nodding, so maybe it did.

I growled, “I’m IT.”

“Yeah, and we all know about you.”

Again. Perfect sense from Liam, except I wasn’t getting his wavelength.

“It’s fine.” Fitz scanned the hallway before nodding to Melissa. “How’s it going?”

“Hi.” Her cheeks were pink.

Fitz thought it was cute.

Liam just kept grinning that half grin.

I was getting restless. I needed to be working codes, getting lost in that world. “I’m going to the lab.”

“Sweet.” Liam fell in step beside me, his hand holding his bag’s strap over one shoulder.

Melissa fell behind and we could hear her. “How long have you been a security guard? Did you go to school to be a guard? You look young. Have you had to shoot someone? Kill someone?”

The questions kept going, and I glanced back, but Fitz wasn’t paying her any attention. He had his finger to his ear and he was talking to Erik, or someone else, his eyes continuously scanning as we went. It didn’t seem to bother Melissa. She just kept talking.

When we neared the lab, Fitz touched my arm and passed me.

I’d already stopped, remembering the rules, but Fitz said anyway, “I go first.”

He did, and came out a second later, nodding to me. The room had been cleared.

Each of us took a seat behind a computer. I hadn’t gone to this class yesterday and there was a new professor to meet.

Melissa leaned over, gesturing to Fitz in the hallway. “Is he going to be out there the whole time?”

Liam leaned forward from my other side. “It’s his job. Why wouldn’t he?”

She frowned, her little forehead wrinkling. “Because what if something happens to her in here? How would he know?”

Both Liam and I looked around the classroom, but there was only the one door. No windows. Just brick walls, desks, and computers. And chairs.

“And where would the attack come from?”

She shrugged, turning back to her computer and letting her bag fall on the floor. “I don’t know. Maybe one of the other students.”

Liam snorted, mirroring her and facing forward. “Then we’re her guards and we got it. One shout and that motherfucker is barreling in here, gun drawn. Chaos everywhere. Panic. Screams. We don’t want that shit, so on the very low chance one of our own classmates tries to get her, we keep it tight. Okay?”

Melissa and I shared a look.

Neither of us knew what he was talking about, but I lifted up a shoulder. “I’ll be fine. He’ll still be out there when we’re done.”

Her head perked up and she grinned. “Nice.”

Hoda came into the room then, her eyes searching. Finding me. Narrowing. Then moving clear across the room. The other guys were either already seated or were coming in, and once the hour started, we all sat back and learned the fundamentals of information technology.

It was after class when Hoda came over. She avoided my gaze, only responding to Liam. A few of the other guys were with us, and apparently there was a special eating area for graduate students. It was still a café-style eating area, but it wasn’t as big as the undergraduate eating section.

I let Fitz know our destination.

He moved ahead of me, off to the side, but within arm’s reach.

Hoda kept glancing at him, but she was more discreet than Melissa.

Melissa was gawking. And that was when I first really felt surrounded by the typical IT geeks, because none of the guys—Liam was the exception—noticed. They were talking about the newest version of Logitech, which was scheduled to come out in a month. Some of the guys were speaking as if they’d already been using it for the last six months, and I tuned in, not because I fully believed them. They were saying they’d been given early review access and I knew that wasn’t true. Peter was on the board of Logitech, and the review access did not go to grad students from Hawking University. They went to established professionals in the field. So were these guys bluffing for some reason?

Something clicked back in place with me, and I couldn’t hold off a faint grin.

They were bluffing to impress the others.

I was walking among my people.

This was my world. I’d been the outcast, now a novice in my father’s world and Kash’s world, but in this world I was totally a warrior. A kick-ass warrior, to be more specific.

I was thinking this, feeling happy about this, when we walked up to the eating area and noticed the crowd. Or the guys did.

Hoda stopped first, frowning. “What?”

Liam stopped next. His half grin just diminished, so it was a quarter of a grin. He said nothing.

Melissa’s eyes never moved from Fitz. Had to give her respect for her devotion.

It was the others’ reactions that worried me.

“The fuck?”

“Is there a celebrity here today?”

I didn’t know the guys who asked that, but all were watching the crowd, and as we stood there, the crowd seemed to get bigger.

“Those aren’t students.” This was from Hoda. She took a step forward. “Those are reporters. I recognize a few bloggers.”

“Bloggers?” From one of the guys.

The crowd was moving, forming at one end of the court and slowly heading across in front of us. Among the heads moving around, I saw an official-looking older man walking in the middle. A middle-aged woman was with him, and I saw that Busich was with the group.

Someone high up was at Hawking, and it was then that I felt Fitz on my other side. His eyes were hard, focused on the crowd heading toward us. He spoke from the side of his mouth, quietly. “We need to go.”

“Why?”

Melissa jostled into me. “Is something going on?”

Fitz pressed a hand to my back, gently but also assertively, guiding me away from the crowd. I started to go with him when my phone rang.

Kash calling.

I put it to my ear. “Hey.”

“Where are you?”

Now I stopped, my body almost tipping over from how quick I put the brakes on. “Why?”

Kash’s voice was low, insistent, and I heard the urgency. My pulse spiked.

Suddenly, my phone was plucked out of my hands. Fitz spoke into it, his eyes hard and fixed over my shoulder to the crowd. “I’m getting her out of here.”

I heard Kash’s voice, but couldn’t hear what he was saying.

Fitz: “On it. We’re moving.”

His hand came back to my arm this time, and he began walking me forward, back toward the building we’d just left.

“Hey—hey! Where are you going?” That was Melissa yelling at us.

Fitz ignored her, giving me the phone and still pulling me to the computer building.

“What’s going on?” I asked Kash.

Looking back over my shoulder, I saw that the crowd stopped growing, but the not moving part. It was heading toward us, and I say “us” because Fitz and I were thirty yards away by now and that crowd seemed to be zeroing right in on our location. Melissa began trotting to keep up with us. Liam was transfixed by the crowd. Hoda was frowning back and forth, and the other guys were gone. They were either swallowed up by the crowd or had taken off somewhere else.

I’d been looking forward to eating, not going to lie.

Then Kash’s words cut through everything. “My grandfather is touring Hawking today.”

I felt rocked.

“What?”

“That’s him behind you. I want you gone and away from him now,” he clipped out, and I could hear sounds from his end.

“Where are you?”

“Coming to you.”

“What?”

I heard beeping, then silence on his end.

“Do what Fitz said. I’ll be there in ten.”

He ended the call.

I stared at the phone, turning to Fitz, who was super focused on dragging me out of there. We were weaving and dodging people, and it wasn’t just students. Personnel were coming out of the woodwork. Work badges on lanyards and ties were flying in the air as two people rushed past us. A frenzy was taking over. It was unsettling me, right after I just got settled.

A guy started to cross in front of us. Fitz caught his head in his palm, held him as we passed, then let him go.

The guy’s mouth dropped open, but we were far past him by the time he had regrouped enough to say anything.

“Bailey! Wait up.” Melissa had been caught in the crowd traffic. A group of sorority-looking girls was blocking her way and she couldn’t edge through them.

Fitz suddenly drew up short, cursing under his breath.

I saw why, a split second later, when we were face-to-face with Busich, the middle-aged woman, the older man, and Calhoun Bastian. How they got here before us, I had no clue, but there they were. As if they’d been waiting for me, standing in a semicircle. If Fitz and I stepped forward, we would’ve completed that circle.

A small clearing had formed around them, but I saw a couple of guards moving people backward.

Calhoun Bastian had been all over the local news, so this reaction wasn’t something shocking to me. What was shocking was that he was here, and I knew right then, as those dark eyes found mine, that he’d come for me.

I swallowed over a knot.

He smiled at me. “Hello, Bailey.”