THE LONG GAME (28 page)

On the other end of the phone line, Priya answered my question with silence.

I slid slowly down the door until I was sitting on the floor, my legs pulled to my chest. “What will they do to me?”

I’d tried not to ask myself that question. I’d tried not thinking about Ivy’s relief that I was home safe, or Adam’s request that nothing bad happen to me ever again.

“If they get what
they want?” Priya said, taking her time replying to my question. “They will do nothing to you. They will let you go.”

And if they only get part of what they want? If they realize the program Ivy plans to give them is a fake? If the kingmaker can’t arrange for the $20 million transfer? If the secretary of state isn’t inclined to pull any strings to secure the release of Senza Nome operatives abroad?

“You do not have to do this, Tess.”

I got the feeling that saying those words had cost Priya more than I could fathom.

“They asked
you
to bring me,” I said.

If Priya didn’t do what they asked of her, Vivvie would be the one to pay the price. I couldn’t let that happen, no matter the icy chill that seeped into my skin at the thought of going back in.

“Women like this Clarissa Perkins,” Priya
said softly, “they excel at knowing where the tiniest pressure can create the most pain.”

Vivvie was Priya’s weak spot—and one of mine.

“I take it that Ivy is not aware—”

“She wouldn’t let me out of her sight if she was,” I said. I was Ivy’s weak spot. I always had been. “I’d find myself knocked unconscious and on a plane to Aruba before I got within five miles of the school.”

Ivy had thought,
when she’d agreed to let her parents raise me, that lying to me was necessary. She’d thought it was the right thing to do.

I wondered now if that lie had hurt her, the way letting her believe that I was safe and that I was staying hurt me. If I went
back in and never walked out of Hardwicke alive, she’d know that I’d chosen to go. She’d know that I had lied to her, and that I’d chosen to leave.

I’m sorry, Ivy. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you.

I wished, for the first time, that I
could
be the daughter she wanted. The one she deserved.

A knock on the door jarred me from that thought.

“Just a second,” I called.

Priya must have heard both the knock and my response because she saved me the trouble of ending the call. “I’ll be in touch.”

The line went dead. I took two seconds
to try to wipe the remnants of our conversation from my face, and then I opened the door to find Bodie standing on the other side. I took the serious expression on his devil-may-care face.

“There’s news,” I said.

Bodie snorted, the way he always did when I jumped to a conclusion and found myself on solid ground. “Yeah, kitten, there’s news.”

I thought about Ivy and what she was trying to do—what
I
needed
her to do. “Good news or bad news?”

“Depends on who you ask,” Bodie told me. “I just got a call from Ivy, who got a call from Georgia Nolan.”

The First Lady.
My brain took that piece of information and scrambled to fit it into the whole.

Bodie saved me the effort. “President Nolan just woke up.”

CHAPTER 58

Three minutes. In three minutes, someone dies.

President Nolan waking up was good news. It was also bad news because President Nolan didn’t have a daughter at Hardwicke. He had no personal incentive to negotiate with Senza Nome, especially given that the terrorist whose release they were demanding had targeted his son—and was carrying what the president believed to be his grandchild.

Two minutes.

I hadn’t heard from Priya since she’d hung up the phone. In contrast, I had heard from Ivy, who’d told me she had a plan.

I stared at the clock on my phone, willing the phone to ring, willing someone to tell me that the situation was under control.

One minute.

The time stared back at me, a brutal reminder of the promise I’d been made.
Every hour on the hour, I will put a gun to
one of your classmates’ heads. And, Tess? I’ll enjoy pulling the trigger.

The phone rang. I answered it. “Priya?”

“No.” Mrs. Perkins turned my stomach with a single word.

I had to convince her we needed more time. I had to do something. “The president woke up—” I started to say.

“All the more reason to move quickly,” the terrorist replied. “Once Nolan’s doctor has ruled him physically and
mentally fit to return to office, the game’s rules change—and not in your favor.”

Not in your favor, either
, I thought.

“I’m waiting,” I said, rushing the words out so she wouldn’t interrupt me again. “I did everything you asked. Ivy, Keyes, Priya Bharani—everyone is doing what you asked.”

“And I appreciate that,” Mrs. Perkins replied, an odd undertone to her voice, a hum of energy that hit
me like fingernails on a chalkboard. “But it’s important,” she continued, “for you to realize that I am the kind of person who keeps my word.”

No.
I couldn’t seem to push the word out of my mouth. When I finally managed to, there was no one on the other end to hear it.

She hung up.

My grip tightened around the phone as I slammed it and my hand into the wall.

My time was up.

I closed my eyes.
They burned beneath the lids. I forced a breath into and out of my lungs, shaking with the effort.

The phone buzzed in my hand.

With tortuous effort, I forced my wrist to turn, forced my eyes to open and stare at the screen. My whole body pounding, each breath scalding my lungs, I opened the text message I’d received.

A video.

My mouth and throat and lips went dry. I could feel my heart beating
in the tips of my fingers as my shaking hand hit the
play
button.

“Let me go!”

Two pairs of hands forced a struggling boy to his knees. The last time I’d seen him, Matt Benning had exuded a quiet power.
Careful. Restrained. Protective.

There was no one to protect Matt now.

“I’ll do whatever you say,” he promised on-screen, his naturally low voice rising to a pitch that was painful to hear.

“Say hello to Tess.” The instruction came from off-screen. The voice was female. The two pairs of hands holding Matt in place were male.

“Hello, Tess.”

He was ugly-crying. Part of him thought that if he did as they asked, they might let him go. Another part of him knew better.

“Tell her to help you,” Mrs. Perkins instructed off-screen.

Matt’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He stopped
struggling against the hold of the guards, going deathly still. “Help me.”

His voice was lower now. He sounded like the boy I’d talked to at the party, the one who kept his head down.

“Say it again,” Mrs. Perkins said, stepping into frame. She knelt next to Matt and pressed the barrel of her gun to his head.

Matt began struggling wildly against the hands that held him in place, jerking against
their grip as if there were an electrical current running through his body. “Help me! Tess—”

The second he said my name, Mrs. Perkins pulled the trigger. The gun went off. The guards held Matt’s body a moment longer, then let go. I watched as it fell to the floor.

Not Matt. Not anymore.

Mrs. Perkins addressed the camera. “You have one hour.”

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.

Twenty-six minutes.

“I need to talk to Daniela alone,” I repeated. I had to trust that Ivy would come through. She would secure Daniela’s release. She had to. And before that happened, before Daniela walked out of this room, I had to deliver the terrorists’ message.

And one of my own.

“Let the girl deliver her message,”
Daniela told Priya. “She won’t come to any harm by my hand.”

Priya showed no signs whatsoever of moving.

I gave her a look. “She’s
really
pregnant,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I can take her.”

Priya snorted. “I am fairly certain you cannot.”

Nonetheless, after tossing another assessing gaze in Daniela’s direction, Priya turned to leave, telling us she’d be right outside. Clearly, Daniela was
meant to take those words as a threat.

I waited until the door closed behind Priya before I considered what I was getting ready to say—and whether or not it was worth saying it at all. “Walker Nolan is not the president’s son.”

In all likelihood, that statement—and all the ones that followed—would mean nothing to Daniela. In all likelihood, what I had to say would have no effect on her at all.

“Georgia Nolan had an affair,” I continued, “with a man named William Keyes.”

It didn’t matter that this probably wouldn’t work. I had to take the chance that the interrogators were right, that Walker Nolan meant something to the woman in front of me.

“This is the message you were asked to deliver?” Daniela raised an eyebrow to aristocratic heights.

“No,” I said. “That’s not the message. I’m
not telling you this for them. I’m telling you for me. Walker doesn’t know. The president doesn’t know.”

“But you know?” There was a clear note of challenge in Daniela’s voice.

“My father died before I was born. His name was Tommy Keyes.” I took another step forward. “He was Walker’s brother.”

Daniela said nothing. I took one step forward, then another. After a long moment, I turned and lowered
myself onto the bench next to her. She tracked my movements, hyperaware. On the bench beside her, I stared straight ahead at the wall that Daniela had probably been staring at for days.