You’re supposed to be my friend. My best friend. The words she’d said to me before she’d bolted haunted me. I trusted you when I didn’t trust anyone.
I forced myself to open my eyes. Vivvie was bound and terrified. She was being held at gunpoint—and there was nothing I could do about it.
They’re going to find us, I thought, the realization washing over me, coating my body like oil. They’re going to find Henry. They’re going to find me.
“We have to do something.” I managed, somehow, to form the words. “They have Vivvie. They have Emilia.”
Henry’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “There is nothing we can do.” His words were as hard-won as mine. “I wish there were. I wish,” he repeated roughly, “that we could end this, but I see no way of making that happen and too many ways that we could make things worse.”
What are you saying, Henry?
He responded like I’d said the words out loud. “I am saying that the best way of protecting Vivvie—and ourselves—might be to join her.”
“What?” I said sharply. If I’d been capable of speaking in anything other than a whisper, my voice would have risen.
Henry grabbed my shoulders, turning my body square to his. “We would be safer down in the classroom with Vivvie,” he said. “You would be safer down there.”
In all the time I’d known him, I’d never seen Henry Marquette on the verge of tears, but I could hear them in his voice. I could see the sheen of despair in his gaze. Always steady. Always in control.
“You heard their list of demands,” Henry told me, running his thumbs along the edges of my collarbone in a motion so gentle I wondered if he was even conscious of it. “They want something from Ivy. They won’t hurt you.”
Henry wanted me safe. I recognized the impulse. I recognized that whatever anger he’d felt toward me an hour ago dulled in the face of his need to see me taken care of now.
I understood because I wanted him safe, too.
My free hand made its way to his wrist. I held on to him, holding on to me.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe we would be less likely to get caught in the crossfire if we turned ourselves in.” I could feel his pulse. I could feel the heat from his body. “But the chances of getting accidentally shot only matter until they start shooting us on purpose.”
Mrs. Perkins had taped the headmaster talking about cooperation. The terrorists were making demands. I knew better than most what could—and would—happen when demands like that weren’t met.
They’ll line us up, one by one. They would start with the low-value targets, the disposable ones. They might carve pieces off the rest of us for show.
A sound below sent a jolt of adrenaline straight to my heart. I processed the fact that there were armed men in the stairway below an instant before Henry pressed me back against the wall, his body covering mine. Shielding mine.
It happened too fast for me to counter. I stood, frozen. This is it. No more running. No more maybes.
A floor below us, the footsteps stopped.
A door opened.
A door closed.
Henry’s breath was warm on my face, his lips no more than a millimeter from mine.
The second floor. The guards went to the second floor. On the third, we were safe—for now.
Henry eased back, a millimeter or less between my body and his.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said roughly.
“Even though I’m a liar?” I hadn’t planned on saying those words. I hadn’t intended to ask for absolution. I wasn’t sure I deserved it.
“We’re all liars sometimes, Kendrick,” Henry said.
I surged upward, pushing off from the wall and closing the space between my lips and his. For a split second, he stiffened, and then his hands dug into my hair, and he was kissing me back.
I would have pegged Henry Marquette for a gentlemanly kisser—restrained, a little too proper, a little too controlled.
I would have been wrong.
Henry Marquette kissed the way I fought—fiercely. No fears. No hesitations. No regrets. Just Henry and me and a hunger I’d never recognized in either one of us. For this.
For us.
I broke away first, my lips lingering near his for a second or two. Breathing raggedly, I forced myself to get it together. We didn’t have time for this.
“We can’t turn ourselves in, and we can’t stay here.” I took a step back and turned my attention back to the tablet in my hand. I didn’t look at Henry, couldn’t look at him. Instead, I scrolled through the video feeds. “I was going to try to get to the security offices, to see if there was a way of getting a message out.”