I rolled my eyes.
My God, it was practically the Oliver Twist “Please, sir, I want some more” moment. The only thing missing was the perfect single tear from one of those dark, creepy eyes. They were manipulating in every way possible: threats, bribery, and now an attempted tug at the heartstrings. Like I said. Bullshit.
But I kept quiet until the door closed after him.
“It’s a trap,” I said flatly as soon as it clicked shut. “Please tell me you see that.” Bastards. Ariane had risked everything to find them, and they wanted to use her in a win–win for themselves.
“Not here,” she said, her voice taut with tension.
I gaped at her. Was she pissed at me for speaking up?
She kept her gaze fixed on the door. Was she expecting them to come back? Or afraid they would? I wasn’t sure. When another moment or two passed without incident, she nodded seemingly to herself. “We need to go. Now,” she said.
That I wholeheartedly agreed with. “Finally.” I grabbed my tie off the chair.
Ariane pulled open the door, leaning out slightly to confirm that the hybrids were gone before waving me forward to follow her.
We wended our way back through the hallway, hustling past closed classroom doors toward the main entrance without actually running. It seemed to take longer this time, even though we knew where were going. But maybe that was because we were the only ones in the hall, our isolation a spotlight shining down on us.
With every second that ticked away, the tension in me wound tighter. My shoulders ached with it. I kept expecting that angry shout of “Hey!” and the sound of rushing of footsteps in pursuit.
But the main doors came into view, glowing white with the brighter light outside, without so much as a whisper behind us, and the tight knot in my stomach started to ease.
We still had to get past the office, though. At our school, the door would have been shut to preserve the precious air-conditioning for the administration, reducing our chances of getting caught to someone looking up and out the window at the right time. But here, where AC flowed freely and abundantly to the whole building (as it should if everyone was supposed to wear those stupid blazers all the time), the door stood open.
One more reason to hate this place.
Ariane took the lead, moving swiftly past the door, her shoulders straight and head held high, giving off no air of sneaking around or fear of getting caught. Which probably was the best bet for passing unnoticed.
But, unfortunately, with the placement of the office so near the front doors of the school, the only place we could be going was outside. So if anyone was paying even the least amount of attention…
“Hey!” A startled female voice called as soon as we passed.
I cringed. I knew we couldn’t get that lucky.
But Ariane only glanced over her shoulder and with a twitch of her hand, the office door slammed shut. A muffled thud sounded as someone slammed into it, expecting the door to give. Oops.
“We need to hurry. I don’t want them to panic,” Ariane said quietly.
In other words, she didn’t want to hold the door shut for so long they started to freak and called the cops or the fire department or something. And yet we needed to be gone before someone caught up with us.
She didn’t need to tell me twice. I broke into a run and pushed through the doors out onto the concrete driveway, breathing deeply of the fresh air and the smell of new asphalt. Ariane was a step behind me.
We cleared the covered drop-off area, passing through the weird pillar/statue guys, and headed into the parking lot. The sudden heat against my skin was a relief. I hadn’t realized until this exact second how unsure I’d been that we’d make it out.
The van was where we’d left it. Thank God. Not like I’d expected otherwise, but these days I’d learned not to take the normal function of the universe as I knew it for granted. There was always something, usually pretty messed up, going on just outside your realm of knowledge.
Just as I was berating Mark Tucker for not springing for automatic locks on the van to save us those precious extra seconds, Ari lifted her hand toward the van, and I heard the doors unlock. Guess a fancy key fob wasn’t necessary with Ariane around. That was handy. Especially with the security guard and a couple teacher types who’d just shoved through the front doors of the school after us.
I got in, slammed my door, and cranked the engine.
We peeled out of the parking space, leaving, I hoped, ugly tracks across several of the bright yellow lines. It wasn’t so much the school that I had a problem with but the privilege it represented—Ford and the others fit in here perfectly, making demands they had no right to make.
“In the future, if someone makes an offer that we don’t intend to participate in, can we agree not to announce that in front of them, when they can still call for backup?” Ariane asked tightly, her hand locked on the grab bar above her window as I jerked the wheel around, our tires squealing. “Their guards probably have direct contact with Laughlin, and I think we can agree that’s a complication we don’t need.”
Something tight in my chest eased. That’s what she was angry about. “Sure. Yeah. No problem.”
She nodded, her expression distant.
“So, what now? Where to?” I asked. Lacking any specific directions, I’d just started in the direction from which we’d come, back toward my mom’s house.
When Ariane didn’t respond, a tiny seed of doubt began to grow in my gut. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. “I’ve been thinking about it,” I said, a little too loudly, as if that would stop her, blockade her thoughts and her words. “Chicago is a major news city. They’ve got what, at least two or three TV stations here. I know you didn’t want to go public alone, but you wouldn’t be. I mean, I would be there. And if we went to more than one, that might improve our odds.”
She was too quiet.
“What?” I asked with a growing sense of dread.
“I think it’s worth talking to Mara to confirm their story,” she said eventually. “Find out what she knows.”
Her words struck like a series of heavy blows. “I…You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“Having more information can only help us,” she said.
“Only if you intend to do something about it!”
She looked at me, her expression unreadable. “You do know this is what I was made for: deception, infiltration, recovery.”
I fought to keep a handle on my temper. “It’s a setup.” An elaborate one maybe, but a setup just the same.
“You can’t know that,” she said simply.
I gaped at her. “How can you—”
“If their goal was simply to eliminate me, there are much easier ways. They could have called their guards down on us. Or report us to Laughlin.”
“How do you know they didn’t?” I demanded.
“Because we got out of there without the guards chasing after us,” she said. “Plus, it’s only reasonable that Ford would want to test my motivations in some way. They don’t know whom to trust. I could have easily been sent to spy on them, setting them up to take—”
I shook my head, my jaw tight. “Okay, fine. Let’s say that you’re right. Maybe they’re telling the truth. Maybe she just wants to see if you can do it. Which I think is complete crap, but whatever. My point is, they’re using you. They’ve got nothing to lose. If it works, great. If not, then they have one less competitor. You’re the one taking all the risks. How is that fair?”
“Because I’m the one asking them for a favor,” she said. “Isn’t that how the system usually works?”
I gritted my teeth. I hated the way she could turn everything into a logical argument. Wasn’t there anything to be said for a gut feeling, any value on instinct? Mine was screaming that they were trouble. I didn’t trust them at all, let alone in a sketchy situation like the one they wanted Ariane to enter.