I wasn’t sure my mother’s condition qualified as unhurt, but that was neither here nor there at the moment.
“If they hate the humans and had the capacity to change their situation, they would have already. So there must be some limit to what they can do with their orders, boundaries that they know they cannot cross,” Ariane said.
It was a good point, but I had to wonder how in the hell this Laughlin guy managed to keep them walking such a fine line. There must be something big hanging over their heads. “Yeah, but you have no idea what their standing orders are in regard to you,” I said.
For the first time, she hesitated. “I’m kind of banking on the fact that nobody’s ever thought a meeting would occur outside the trials.”
My mouth fell open. “You’re kidding.”
She shook her head.
So, this truly was a desperate, go-all-in-and-gamble-with-your-life moment. Well, shit.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “But what’s your plan if—”
But before I could finish, two black SUVs with heavily tinted windows pulled past us and wound their way to the covered drop-off area.
Ariane sat up in her seat, her hands clutching at the armrest so tightly that her knuckles blanched.
Of course. They would have an entourage. Ariane had been forced to blend in and be average, but these hybrids seemed to be doing the exact opposite. This school, their freedom (albeit limited) to come and go from their home at the facility, their look-at-me arrival on campus.
Assuming this was actually them and not some washed-up rock star’s offspring.
I leaned forward to watch, barely breathing.
They, whoever they were, exited on the opposite side of the vehicle. I could see the motion, the SUV swaying slightly as its occupants climbed out.
“There,” I pointed, my heart thundering in my chest. It wasn’t much, a brief glimpse of the same white-blond hair Ariane possessed, as the first SUV pulled away and the second moved into its place, but it was enough.
Ariane nodded. “It’s them.”
We were both scrambling to release our seat belts when the second SUV pulled away, revealing two big, black-clad security guys tagging along after the presumed hybrids. I couldn’t really see them with the guards in the way, just flashes of that pale hair here and there. But watching how the other students scrambled out of the way and then stared after them removed any doubt I might have had.
“Crap.” Ariane bit her lip. “What are the odds that they’re just escorting them to the door?”
“Uh, guarding them from all the perils that could spring up in that extra ten feet or so?” I asked. “Doubtful.”
Which meant the guards were going into school with them, possibly even into their classes, an idea that was almost immediately confirmed when the guards disappeared inside the school seconds later, following their charges.
Ariane slumped in her seat.
“At least we know we’re in the right place,” I offered.
“Yes, but if their security protocol is the same after school, we won’t have a chance to speak with them then either. And the longer this takes, the more likely it is that word will spread that I’ve escaped. Laughlin might then start looking for me.…”
And whatever orders his hybrids might or might not be under now would change, probably to decidedly more specific ones when it came to Ariane. And we’d be back to no plan, no hope.
She was quiet, but I could sense the wheels turning in her brain.
I closed my eyes and sighed. “You want to go in, don’t you?” It was the only logical conclusion. And after the last few days with her, I was finally starting to get a grasp on how she thought.
“I’ll go by myself,” she said. “It’s safer for you to stay out here.”
I felt a quick pinch of frustration. “No, I said I was in. So I’m in. But…” I gestured to the students wearing the Ralph-Lauren-on-crack collection. “We don’t exactly blend in.” Preppy was one thing. These people looked as if they were seconds away from sailing away on a private yacht or playing polo. Or both.
“No, we don’t.” She frowned. “Not yet, anyway.”
Oh, I bet I was going to regret this. “What does that mean?” I asked warily.
She smiled. “How do you feel about khakis?” she asked.
I groaned. She was going to dress us up like pod people, and I bet that would include one of those stupid ties. I hated anything pressed against my neck. “Better than I do about plaid skirts?” I offered grudgingly.
“Good. Then we need to find a place to do a little shopping.”
And here I thought confronting potentially homicidal hybrids was going to be the worst part of my day.
11
Ariane
DR. DAVID LAUGHLIN WAS A handsome man with a cruel mouth.
I’d learned to study faces early on in the lab at GTX. So often the larger expressions didn’t match the thoughts and feelings I heard. That was confusing at first, a dissonance that was hard to manage until I learned which to rely on. People could make their faces say anything with enough practice, I discovered, but they rarely bothered with their thoughts.
Still, even the most skilled deceivers often gave themselves away with the tiniest hints of their true nature. A curled lip. Eyes narrowed ever so fractionally. Shaking their heads no even as their mouths said, “Yes.”
In the photos I’d found, Laughlin was smiling, but his lips were tight and narrow across his too-white teeth, like a predator signaling an impending attack.
He wasn’t particularly camera shy, either. A single Google search on our newly purchased disposable phone had provided dozens of pages of results. Articles, yes, about the man himself and his company, Laughlin Integrated Enterprises, but also pictures of Dr. Laughlin attending various events. He seemed to have some social standing in the Chicago area. There were multiple photos of him at black-tie and red-carpet events. The opening of a new play. A party at the Lyric Opera house. Shaking hands with the new mayor.
All with that thin, bloodless grin.
Zane emerged from the dressing room, tugging unhappily at the tie knotted loosely around his neck. He stopped dead when he saw me waiting.
“You’re ready.” He sounded surprised.
“Yes.” I glanced down at myself. Had I missed something? Blue skirt, white blouse (with a white T-shirt underneath to make sure my tattoo didn’t show through), patterned scarf, navy ballet flats. I looked just like the girl on the Linwood Academy Web site. Well, to the best of my ability to replicate.
After our stop at Best Buy for the disposable phone with Internet access—I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it until I didn’t have it anymore—I’d found a department store that carried a section of items intended for school uniforms. They didn’t have the Linwood crests—those apparently came from the school—but everything else was basically what we’d seen this morning. Well, a cheaper version, I was guessing.
“I just…I thought you’d want to shop more,” Zane said with a frown.
“Here?” I raised my eyebrows. “Their denim selection is kind of pathetic.”
He stared at me. “What?”
I shook my head. Of course he had no knowledge of my “hobby,” the result of which was the impressive jeans collection I’d been forced to leave behind at my house. Not that it really mattered. Except it did, in the sense that it was part of who I was, part of who’d I chosen to be, and there were so few of those pieces, I really hated to lose any of them.
“Never mind,” I said.
“Hey, nice scarf.” He tugged at it lightly. “You look like an accountant.”
I thought about that and then gave him the finger, much to the displeasure of the eagle-eyed store employee watching us.