The video cut off. I dropped my phone. It clattered to the floor, and I stood there, frozen in place, anchored by dead-weight limbs that wouldn’t move.
Help me.
My stomach lurched, and I lunged for my trash can.
Help me. Tess—
I threw up, and I kept throwing up until there was nothing left, my entire body racked with spastic shudders that wouldn’t stop. Beside me on the floor, my phone rang.
It rang again.
Pick it up. My brain managed to form the words. Pick it up. They’ll want to know you watched it. If you don’t pick it up, they’ll—
Somehow, my hand made its way to the phone. Somehow, I answered. “You monster.”
“Tess.” On some level, I recognized that the voice on the other end of the line wasn’t Mrs. Perkins, but the words kept pouring out of my mouth.
“I’ll kill you,” I said, my voice as hollow as my stomach. “I will find a way, and I will—”
“Tess,” Priya said again sharply.
Help me. Tess—
My body shuddered, but there was nothing left to throw up. I didn’t sob. “We have to move,” I told Priya.
Fifty-nine minutes. Fifty-eight. The countdown had started again.
“When I told you that you didn’t have to do this, I meant it.” Priya’s words barely even penetrated my brain.
“We’ve been through this,” I said. “I do, and I am, and you are wasting time that we do not have.”
There was a pause, saturated with the questions Vivvie’s aunt was asking herself—Could she do this? Could she allow me to do this?
“I’m outside.” Priya’s words answered the question for both of us. “If you can get out of the house without anyone noticing, I can get you in to see Daniela.”
I pushed myself to my feet. I hung up the phone and dragged the back of my hand roughly over my mouth.
It was too late for Matt—but not for every other student held captive in my school.
Help me.
I would. If I had to die trying, so be it.
CHAPTER 59
I didn’t know how Priya had located the facility where Daniela Nicolae was being kept. I didn’t know what kind of favors she’d had to call in or who she’d had to kill—possibly literally—to get us in. All I knew was that we’d somehow successfully navigated both fingerprint and retinal scans, and the armed guards outside the door stepped aside when we arrived.
Inside the cell, a small woman sat with a hand resting protectively on her protruding stomach. Her dark hair was limp and lifeless, framing her face like a shadow.
Without moving her head, she shifted her eyes up toward Priya. “You, I expected,” she said, her voice rough from lack of use. “But I will admit to being surprised about the girl.”
Daniela Nicolae, the woman who’d infiltrated Walker Nolan’s life in the most intimate ways imaginable, didn’t move to get up from the bench on which she sat. She didn’t flinch when Priya took a step toward her.
“Your people have seized control of the Hardwicke School.”
Daniela’s head snapped back, as if Priya’s words had hit her with physical force.
“They’ve given us an ultimatum,” Priya continued. “Either we hand you over to them, or they start shooting students.”
They’ve already started, I thought, unable to stop myself from remembering Matt’s face in those last seconds.
Daniela’s left hand joined her right on her stomach. There was meaning woven into that gesture: she had a child to think about, too.
Whether that helps us or hurts us . . .
I needed to find out. “Could you give us a minute?” I asked Priya.
Vivvie’s aunt and the terrorist both turned the full force of their powerful stares on me.
“I was told I had to talk to Daniela alone,” I said.
With each second of silence that followed, I became more aware of the fact that I wasn’t supposed to be here. No matter what strings Priya had pulled, all it took was the wrong person discovering our presence, and I might find myself in a facility exactly like this one.
Twenty-seven minutes. We didn’t have time for complications, and we didn’t have the luxury of getting caught.
“You can’t get me out of here, can you?” Daniela pulled her gaze from my face and resumed studying Priya. “If you could, we’d already be on the move.”
Vivvie’s aunt returned the stare. “You aren’t leaving here without an executive order.” Priya’s tone gave no hint to the pressure we were under, but my mind went to what would happen if that executive order didn’t come through.