“She was screaming,” I said, unable to keep the memory from coming to life on my tongue. “I saw them knock her unconscious, but they weren’t trying to hurt her. They needed her intact.”
They need her to get to you.
“They won’t need her much longer,” the vice president said, the words getting caught in his throat.
I realized, then, why he was here.
He turned to Priya. “I never saw you,” he said gruffly.
“Nor we you,” Priya returned. She started walking again at that same brisk pace. After a moment, I followed.
He’s here for Daniela, I thought. The same as us.
The difference was, the vice president—the acting president—had the authority to let her go.
Priya and I made it to the surface. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised to see Ivy waiting outside. Adam stood slightly behind her.
They were very surprised to see me.
“What—” Ivy started to say, but then she changed her mind. Instead of asking me what I was doing here, she turned on Priya, the look on her face promising dire consequences.
“She had a message,” Priya told Ivy. “For the prisoner. I assure you—”
“I assure you,” Adam countered, stepping forward, “that you do not want to finish that sentence.”
Adam and Ivy hadn’t been happy when Priya had used me to send a message to them. And now that she’d brought me to see a known terrorist? Put me in a room with that terrorist?
This wasn’t going to be pretty.
“She didn’t have a choice about bringing me,” I said, trying to get Adam and Ivy to focus on me. “Just like I didn’t have a choice about coming.”
They have Vivvie.
I willed Ivy to remember that, willed Adam to ask himself what lengths he and Ivy would have gone to if the terrorists had still held me.
“Get Tess out of here,” Ivy told Adam, clipping the words.
“Is it done?” I asked, stepping back and away from them before Adam could reach for me. “Daniela? The files? The foreign prisoners?”
Everything else Senza Nome asked for—is it done?
Ivy held up a USB drive. “My files,” she said.
Or at least, the version she was giving Senza Nome.
Ivy inclined her head slightly. “It’s done.”
The door opened behind us. All four of us whirled in the direction of the sound. Daniela Nicolae stepped out into the evening air, her hands cuffed in front of her body, an armed guard on either side.
“President Nolan will be sworn back in within the hour,” one of the guards told Ivy. “You need to move.”
Priya was the one who heeded that instruction, stepping forward to take the USB drive from Ivy. “I’ve received an ultimatum of my own,” she said, her voice steady. “I have to be the one to deliver their demands. I go in.”
“You won’t come out,” Ivy told Priya. The resulting silence indicated Priya’s acceptance of Ivy’s words, both as truth and as inevitable.
Stone-faced, Ivy nodded to the guards. They transferred Daniela Nicolae to Priya’s custody. Seconds later, the guards were gone.
They were never here. Vice President Hayden was never here. This exchange never happened.
“Come on, Tess,” Adam said, stepping up beside me.
I swallowed. “I can’t.”
Ivy understood before Adam did. She always thought three steps ahead. “No,” she said fiercely. “Tessie. Theresa. No—”
There was a blur of movement, and Ivy crumpled. Adam caught her just before she hit the pavement. Priya stood over them. She’d knocked Ivy out, and now she had a gun in her hand.
“I am sorry,” she told Adam. “Truly. But Tess comes with me.”
Adam lowered Ivy’s prone form to the ground. He stood. Priya fired a warning shot to one side.
“Tess.” Adam addressed me, ignoring Priya, ignoring her gun. “Come to me.”
My throat tightened. “I can’t.”
Adam saw now what Ivy had seen instantly: Priya wasn’t taking me against my will. He saw in my face that I’d known all along that it would come to this.
“I’m sorry,” I told Adam. “If there was a way . . .” My words came at an uneven pace, my breathing ragged. “I wish there were a way, Adam, but I can’t just step back and let people die. Tell Ivy—”
“Tess—”
I spoke over his objection. “Tell Ivy that I forgive her. For leaving me in Montana, for lying to me—for everything. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her that I had to do this, okay? Tell her . . .”