It was one word. No. But I couldn’t say it. So I hesitated.
He didn’t. He pulled the trigger.
I heard a click and then the snap and suddenly I was on my knees and Dr. Tarsus was where I had just been standing, a dart sticking out of her left shoulder.
“Esperanza!” I heard Dean Atwater gasp. He stared at the gun in his hands then at her, his mouth hanging open.
“Rory,” Dr. Tarsus said calmly. “I need you to listen to me.” My head swiveled toward her. She grabbed hold of the dart with her opposite hand and yanked it out. “I am allergic to gelatin, the main component of the suspension serum used in this dart. It’s only a matter of time before my throat will start to close up.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but—”
“What she’s planning,” the dean said coldly, spinning the chamber of his gun to load another dart, “is less than irrelevant right now.” He’d regained his composure, the shock and dismay of the previous moment gone from his face. Behind him, something moved in the shadows. Someone. He had a black ski mask covering his face and our syringe in his hand. My breath hitched in my throat when I realized it was North. How did he find me?
“Rory,” I heard Tarsus say. “I don’t have much time.”
Something inside me gave way. “You’re a monster!” I screamed at the dean, getting to my feet. The old man laughed.
“And you’re a foolish little girl,” he said, pointing his gun at my neck. “Just like your—”
North grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. Dean Atwater screamed and I heard a bone snap. Gritting his teeth like an animal, North drove the needle so deep into the dean’s neck, I thought the entire syringe might disappear into his skin. I heard footsteps then Rudd burst back into the room. It took him a few seconds to piece together what had happened. A few seconds too long. There was a crack and then a groan and then his body was crumpling forward to the ground.
Hershey stood behind him with an unlit torch, her eyes wild and reckless, black streaks of mascara like war paint on her face.
“Asshole,” she spat, and let the torch fall.
He was still breathing, but Rudd was out cold. She kicked him angrily with her boot.
“Hershey!” I cried, rushing toward her. “Are you okay?”
“I am now. What’s happening to him?” She was glaring at the dean, who North had pinned on the ground. The old man was blinking rapidly, trying to stay awake.
“He’s falling asleep,” I told her.
“You’re letting him live?”
“We can’t kill him, Hersh.”
Hershey crossed her arms. “Why not?”
“Because,” North said, getting to his feet. “If we kill him, he wins.”
Hershey’s eyes flicked to Dr. Tarsus, who was kneeling at Dean Atwater’s ankles, untying the laces of his navy oxfords. “What about her? Why is she still conscious?”
“She’s on our side,” I said. “She’s always been on our side. I’ll explain when we get out of here.” When. Thirty seconds ago it was if.
I knelt by Dr. Tarsus. She was wrapping a shoelace tightly around the dean’s ankles. “Your EpiPen. Where is it?” I asked.
She laid her palm on my cheek and smiled. The skin around her eyes had started to swell. “I used it last night.”
Tears rushed to my eyes. She’d used it on me.
“There’s no time for that now,” she commanded, grabbing the dean’s wrists and pulling them behind his back. His dry, papery flesh slid like snakeskin as she pushed up his sleeves. “We have work to do.”
I hurried over to where Rudd lay. North had him on his stomach already and was wrapping up his ankles. He handed me a shoelace, and I went to work on his wrists. Rudd moaned a little as I pulled the rope tight, cutting into his skin, drawing blood.
“God, I’m glad you’re okay,” North said breathlessly.
“How’d you find me?”
“Your necklace,” he said, nodding at the dove. “I put a tracking device inside it. And a camera.” He managed a smile. “I didn’t want you doing anything crazy without my knowing about it.” My limbs were limp with gratitude. For him, for Dr. Tarsus, for the inexplicable fact that I was still okay. “So did you bring Hershey in with you?”
“No, she—”
“I followed Kyle in,” Hershey said softly. The bravado of the previous moment was gone. She was staring at Rudd’s motionless body, tears welling up in her eyes, which were no longer hateful and fearless but sad. She looked so young standing there. Like a lost child. I stood and pulled her into my arms.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I’d been using his skeleton key,” she said miserably. “While he was asleep. That’s how I got you all that stuff. I thought all the faculty had them. I didn’t know he—” Her voice broke. “He caught me with it this morning, and I told him the truth—that we were trying to take down the assholes that had your mom killed. I thought he could help us. I thought—” Her tears spilled over. “He called the psych ward on me, Rory. He said he was getting me a cab, but I saw him dial the number—the same one they gave us the first day of school.” She pulled away from me and swatted angrily at her eyes. “I’m such an idiot. He told me he loved me. And I believed him.”
“Are we doing this?” Dr. Tarsus called. She was wheezing a little now and clutching her right arm like it hurt. Without waiting for a response, she stepped out of her suede pumps and headed toward the darkness of the tunnel.
“Doing what?” Hershey asked.
“The less you know the better,” I told her. “You should go back the way you came. Wait for us at North’s apartment.” I expected her to argue with me, or to demand details, but she just nodded. North handed her his key ring.
“Be careful,” she whispered, her lip trembling a little.
“We’ll be back in a couple of hours,” I assured her as North went for one of the torches. I prayed that I was right.
34
DR. TARSUS DIED ABOUT TEN YARDS from the Gnosis data center. Her arm had quickly swollen to twice its size and we could tell it hurt, a lot, but she didn’t complain about it once, not even when her skin started to turn blue. When she started coughing, I started crying. I knew it wasn’t fair that I should be crying when she was the one dying, but it literally felt like my heart was breaking apart in my chest. I hadn’t let the thought fully register, but when I’d listened to the audio recording she’d given me, I’d had this sense that maybe, in some messed-up way, she could become the mother figure I’d never had. Yes, I’d hated her almost the entire time I’d known her, but everything she’d done, she’d done for me. I was no expert on motherhood, but that seemed like the essence of it to me.
We’d just come around the last curve of the spiral when she fell against the wall. She looked at North first. “I’m not going to make it there,” she said. Her words were labored, but her tone was matter-of-fact. “You’ll have to use a recording. I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s worth a try.” She eased herself down the wall until she was sitting, knock-kneed like a little girl. I knelt beside her and took her hand as North fumbled for his iPhone.
She turned to me and smiled. “Your mom would be so proud of you, Aurora.” She spoke slowly, her chest heaving from the effort. “Just promise me— Promise me that when you leave, you won’t ever look back.”
“I love you” came out instead of “I promise.” Laying her hand on my knee, she managed a weak smile.
“I love you too.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” North said gently, his thumb hovering over the record button. His voice sounded funny, as if his throat were as knotted as mine. Dr. Tarsus nodded. North hit record.