It was a gamble. No way around it. But he couldn’t admit that to Kook. He couldn’t admit that to anyone. He had to be strong. There was no way they’d follow if he showed how weak he was. He’d dragged them into this. It had been his plan.
You got them this far.
Against all the odds, he’d gotten them this far.
So now he was just going to have to get them out at the other end. He was going to step up, just the way his uncle had stepped up when the Nevada state investigators came down and wanted him to testify. Uncle Ty had made sure his gang was safe, even if the cops were going to throw the book at him, and Moses was going to do the same. I’m going to get them through.
“Just got to have faith,” Moses murmured.
Kook snorted. “That sounds a lot like ‘belief’ to me.”
Moses didn’t answer the barb. It sounded a lot like belief to him, too. And it scared the hell out of him.
Can I trust you, Alix Banks?
He wanted to.
Don’t trust. Test.
And yet, despite himself, he desperately wanted to trust her. He wanted to believe in her, and it scared him more than all his enemies combined.
23
ALIX’S HOUSE WAS MOBBED WITH people. Haverport PD and FBI cars clogged the drive, along with a half dozen of the low-slung armored SUVs that Williams & Crowe favored. An entire ants’ nest of activity, all frantically trying to find her.
As Alix walked up the steps, she felt more and more like she wanted to turn the other direction and flee. Cynthia and Adam had dropped her off a few blocks away, but as she made her way home, her pace slowed. Each step became more hesitant as she anticipated the storm she was about to face.
She braced herself, took a breath, and opened the door.
The startled shouts began before she was even halfway inside. People were looking up, surprised. Mom and Jonah and Dad, all looking shocked.
“Alix!” Dad’s face broke wide with relief. He lunged for her with a glad cry and sob, and bundled her into his arms. Alix let herself sag against him and found herself crying as well, relieved that he didn’t hate her for running off. Desperately grateful that she was home, and then Mom and Jonah were there, too, babbling and crying and hugging, and they were all together again. All of them together, and all of them safe. Alix wished she could stay inside their embrace forever.
Of course, Jonah broke the mood. He smacked her upside the head and said, “I’m the one who’s supposed to do the running away!”
Alix would have smacked him back if he hadn’t been crying as he said it.
Once everything had calmed down, people started asking her questions. Dad assured the police that they didn’t need to file any other missing person’s report, but Williams & Crowe stayed, and from their looks, she suspected they wouldn’t be going away.
The interrogation started in earnest, beginning with Mom’s haranguing her about ditching Lisa.
“You can’t just run off and do things like this!”
Dad laid a quelling hand on Mom’s arm. “It’s all right. I think we can save the lecture for another time.”
“What were you thinking?” Mom pressed. “You can’t just run off with your friends to party! What are you wearing?”
“Leigh,” Dad said. “It’s all right.” His eyes were serious. “I think Alix already knows the lesson.”
Alix smiled gratefully at him.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened,” he said.
“I was—”
Alix started to say, I was kidnapped. Cynthia was a plant. There are a bunch of kids who want to destroy you.
She stopped short. It sounded insane. The second she tried to say the words, it made her feel like she was some kind of hysterical conspiracy theorist.
Alix felt in her pocket. The USB stick they’d given her was still there.
It was real. It was all real.
“I was—”
Kidnapped by a Stepford Student?
She remembered Cynthia. The girl who had pretended to be her friend but who had also stood up for her against all the rest of them when she’d been trapped in Moses’s cage. She thought of the stories they’d told her. Their crazy, lunatic theories. Their ridiculous claims.
The man in front of her was supposed to be evil. Every day, Dad helped companies kill people, if 2.0 was to be believed.
It didn’t make any sense. Even saying any of it made her feel like she was crazy. The USB key burned in her hand.
She found she couldn’t say anything at all. She couldn’t tell them about the kidnapping. She couldn’t… “Dad?”
He saw her distress. “Is there something you need to talk about? Did something happen?”
“Can we talk in private?”
“In private?” Jonah complained. “But I want to see her get busted!”
“No one’s getting busted,” Dad said.
“She isn’t?” Mom asked, surprised.
They exchanged one of their parental talk-about-it-later-not-in-front-of-the-kids looks, and Mom subsided. Alix wondered who would win out in the end and how bad her grounding would be.
“Please, Dad. I just want to talk in private.”
He smiled gently. “Let’s go into my office.”
As they entered, Alix caught a glimpse of his laptop, sitting open on his desk. She felt guilty just seeing it. All it would take was a little misdirection. She could plug in the little USB stick and walk away, and forget about it. Moses and his crew could do whatever they did.
Dad was looking at her, puzzled. “Are you all right?”
Alix felt ill again. All the things Moses and Cynthia and everyone had been saying came rushing back. All the accusations. All the companies.
He’s your dad.
Alix pulled the USB stick out of her pocket and offered it to him. She couldn’t meet his eyes.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a USB….” She trailed off.
Never mind. It’s nothing. Just a funny thing I got at a rave. Kind of embarrassing, actually. Can I have it back?
“I think it’s a virus.”
It felt as if a dam were breaking. Suddenly she could breathe. “I think it’s a virus. I didn’t run away. I was kidnapped. It was 2.0. You’re right. They were trying to come after me. They were coming after us. And they said horrible things about you, and I didn’t want to believe them, but they sounded so real…”
The words kept pouring out of her. More and more, a river of all the fears and worries she had been keeping back while she’d been trapped. She could feel tears welling up. And before she knew it, she was crying again as she told him everything, purging all her guilt for doubting him, all her horror and fear, all her powerlessness.
Dad pulled her close as she kept talking, and for the first time since the kidnapping, she felt safe.
A little while later, he called Lisa into the room, and she had Alix go over everything again, slower, with details that she took down in a notebook. She questioned Alix seriously and without comment.
When Alix apologized for being an idiot, Lisa just shook her head and said that she knew what it was like to be seventeen, and Alix had felt a gush of relief at the forgiveness.
“You mean these are all kids?” Lisa asked, finally. She looked shocked.
“Yeah. I mean, they’re my age. High school, you know? Except for the little one, Tank. He’s younger. He’s like twelve or thirteen, I think.”