WHEN I COME to, colors swim in front of my eyes and pain radiates from my shoulder, ribs, and head. Noise fades in and out. I crack my eyelids open a little farther and can just make out a patch of maroon fabric…a couch maybe?
I try to sit up, but I’m already sitting. I force myself to blink, and it takes me a moment to make sense of the shapes in my vision. I catch sight of my arms, which are bruised and cut up. My wrists are zip-tied to the arms of a wooden chair, and since I can’t move my feet, I assume my ankles are tied to the chair legs as well. If I struggle or move around, the ties slice into my skin.
Suddenly I’m inhaling something awful that’s reminiscent of ammonia, and the fog in my brain starts to clear. A man stands in front of me, waving a small glass vial under my nose. My chair is against a wall, and now I can make out a heavy desk to my right and a fireplace to my left.
I cough and turn my head away from the smell, fully awake.
The man corks the vial and slips it into his blazer pocket. I focus my eyes on him and it suddenly occurs to me where I am, who he is. Oh no.
Conner watches me curiously as the events of the night begin to come back to me: Aarya, Ash, Felix…
“Well, there you are,” Conner says, perfectly at ease.
“What did you do? Where’s Ash?” The fear in my voice is apparent and I’m sure he doesn’t miss it.
Conner smiles. “It’s amazing to me that you would worry about someone who was helping to kill you.” He makes a tsking sound, as though it’s all such a shame. “Just like her father,” he says under his breath, but I can tell it was meant for me to hear.
I freeze at the mention of my dad.
Conner gives me a knowing look. “And that’s another thing. You’re far too easy to read. It’s actually disappointing. One would think the Strategia in your blood would have manifested itself more, but alas.” He clasps his hands behind his back. “Yes, I know your father, November. And when I saw you, the exact image of your mother, I was expecting someone polished and poised. A true opponent. But you?” He laughs. “I’m not saying you’re not like them. After all, you’ve certainly managed to inherit their worst qualities.”
I hate the way he’s talking about my parents. He’s clearly trying to get a rise out of me.
“It makes you angry when I talk about your father?” Conner says in answer to my thoughts, and puffs out his chest. “Well, then I imagine you’re not going to enjoy our time together very much.”
My fists clench, making the zip ties dig uncomfortably into my skin.
“Now, November,” he says slowly. “Where is your father?”
I struggle against the restraints, pain be damned. “I don’t know,” I say, because it’s the truth.
I look at his desk on my right, but it’s too far away to get the knife Aarya said was hidden under it.
Conner sighs. “You may not know where he is at present, but you can tell me where you live.”
Suddenly it’s hard to breathe. If I give him my address in Pembrook, the people I love are in danger—Dad, Emily.
Conner smiles. “I see you understand the question now. Based on the assessment I gave you and your skill sets, I’d say your father has hidden you away in some sleepy town in the country that you don’t leave. Probably has a mundane job that never raised any flags. Near a forest—lots of light and trees.”
I cringe, remembering the yellow and green I chose on the color test my first day here—what else did I give away during my interview with him?
“Your aunt wasn’t easy to find, either, even in a small city,” he says casually, like he’s merely commenting on the weather. “But your father…he has managed to elude us for a very long time. Then again, our Family always was excellent at deception and disguises.”
My chest tightens at the mention of Aunt Jo and tears sting my eyes. “I’ll kill you!” I blurt out.
“Right. Right. That would be an excellent idea,” Conner says, and he has the same amused expression he wore when he thought he was catching me in a lie. “Now that you’ve said your piece, let’s get back to the question at hand.”
I’ve never wanted to hurt someone so much in my life. My skin is practically crawling with the need to strike out at him. But Conner isn’t the only one who can read people. The more pain he thinks he’s causing me, the happier he gets. So losing myself to anger is going to get me exactly nowhere. If there is one thing I’ve learned here, it’s that you can’t think your way out of a situation when you’re overrun by emotion. I take a calming breath. He doesn’t know where Dad is, I reassure myself. He doesn’t know about Pembrook.
“Silence? Is that your choice?” he asks.
I’m too far from the fireplace to burn these zip ties off. And even if I could somehow get over there, I would seriously burn myself before I could melt the ties.
Conner strokes his beard and paces in front of me, seemingly relaxed. “I knew when I offered you those two chairs during our first assessment that you didn’t like having your back to the door—you don’t like being vulnerable to the unknown. You prefer details, information. You gauge your surroundings and exits, like you’re doing here right now,” he says. “But you also didn’t want the chair that I was standing behind—you don’t like being pushed by other people or dominated in any way. So you made your own seat.”
I swallow. It reminds me of what Dad told me about thinking differently. He knew I would go up against other Strategia eventually—and the only real advantage he could give me was to not think like them, not fight like them.
I want you to think of unusual and creative solutions. And I want you to see the world in your own unique way. If you learn to hit a certain way in boxing or to jump a certain way in wushu, your brain will immediately default to them as an answer. I don’t want you to rely on the same answers every other person does. I want you to make up your own. If you learn how to approach a fight from an unexpected angle, you will become the weapon your opponent can’t predict.
“Again I will give you two choices,” Conner says, and watches me. “Only this time you will not have the simple luxury of choosing your own seat.”
“You know, it’s weird,” I say, stalling for time. “You tell me I’m a weak opponent, and yet you’ve failed three times to kill me. And yes, I figured out you were behind all of those attacks before you got me in this chair. So if I’m bad, you must really suck.”
Conner’s lip curls and he slaps me across the face. My head whips to the side and my ears ring, but I manage not to make a sound or show him that he’s hurting me. My mouth fills with blood and I spit it toward him.
“We have lots of time, November,” Conner says with a flash of annoyance. “How painful you make this is entirely up to you.”
Conner steps behind his desk and presses on a panel. Just like Aarya said, a door behind him swings open. He watches me as Felix limps into the room, dragging Ash.
My hands grip the chair arms so hard my fingernails gouge the wood.
Ash’s hands are tied behind his back and his ankles are bound. He’s bloodied and covered with scrapes and bruises, but he’s breathing. Felix dumps him on the stone floor about ten feet away from me.
Conner chuckles and the hair on my neck stands up. “It seems Ashai betrayed us both. But judging by the concern on your face, I’m a lot less forgiving of his betrayals than you are.”
Ash told me we needed to leave the trees. He told me he had a plan to fix things. But I wouldn’t listen. I insisted on arguing with him there. My stubbornness gave Felix the opportunity he needed to ambush him, and now…
I strain against the zip ties on my ankles, but there’s no give.
“Now, this is an easy choice,” Conner says, and one side of his mouth twitches upward—the microexpression of contempt that Brendan showed in deception class. He goes to his desk and pulls open a drawer. I watch
as he removes a false bottom and pulls out a small green glass bottle. Aarya’s warning. My stomach tightens nervously.
Conner returns to Ash’s limp body and takes the vial of smelling salts out of his blazer pocket. He removes the cork and waves the salts below Ash’s nose. Ash’s eyelids barely flutter.
“You’re going to have to choose a seat this time, November, with no option to make up your own,” Conner says. “The question is, are you going to watch Ashai writhe in pain, dying in slow agony? Or are you going to tell me where my brother is?” He says this last part slowly, making sure he has my full attention.
I can’t breathe and I can’t make sense of what he’s telling me. “Brother?” I choke on the word. “But. That can’t be true. I’m not…You’re not…No.”
Conner’s eyes brighten happily, like this is the moment he’s been waiting for.
“My dad doesn’t have a brother,” I say, willing it to not be true. I refuse to be related to this maniac.
For a split second Conner mirrors my confusion. “Oh, now this is just depressing.” He waves the smelling salts under Ash’s nose again and Ash’s eyes flutter slightly more than they did the first time.
Anger flashes across Conner’s face as he looks back to me. “Off he ran with that witch of a Bear after she murdered our uncle…in front of me, no less. And who do you think got blamed for not stopping her? Then he chooses her over his own brother, leaving me in the wake of destruction and ruining my reputation in our Family. And he has the nerve to pretend I don’t exist?” Conner’s voice is getting louder by the second. There’s something dangerous about the way he looks at me, like he’s seeing not me, but someone else.
Conner rises and kicks Ash in the stomach. I wince and want to yell at him to stop, but I know it will only make things worse. Ash coughs and Conner kicks him again, harder. Ash groans and opens his eyes.
I start talking fast, trying to bring the focus back to me. “No. Nothing. He didn’t mention you once. I mean, I don’t really blame him. I wouldn’t mention you, either.”
Conner hurls the vial of salts and it smashes against the wall next to me, spraying me with the pungent liquid and burning my cuts so badly that my eyes tear up. I look at the glass from the broken vial on the floor and Conner follows my line of sight. He nods at Felix.
Felix walks up to me but still won’t look me in the eyes. Nevertheless, his right arm twitches, and I brace myself as he punches me in the stomach. The impact is so hard that I gasp for breath.
“November?” Ash mumbles, and his eyes widen.
“Now,” Conner says in a calmer tone, and smooths his hair, like he didn’t just have a freak-out. “As I was saying before. Location or Ash?”
Ash looks from me to the glass bottle in Conner’s hand, and the realization of what’s happening shows on his face. “Don’t do it, November,” Ash says, and I can tell by his voice that he’s in pain. “Whatever you do, whatever he does to me, don’t tell him what he wants to know.”
Conner nods like this is all playing out beautifully. “Are you really going to let someone who cares about you so much die?”
I take in a ragged breath. “Ash…”
“No,” Ash says resolutely. “This was my fault. I screwed up, and he’s playing us both. Just look at him. It’s all over his—”
Conner kicks Ash again, and he coils in on himself in pain.
“It’s a simple choice,” Conner says as he uncorks the poison.
I open my mouth but no sound comes out. I’ll never be able to forgive myself if I let Ash die. But if I tell Conner about Pembrook, who’s to say they won’t find Dad or kill the people I love as revenge?
“I can’t hear you—” Conner starts, but stops abruptly because there’s a scratching sound that seems to be coming from the door.
Felix slaps his hand over my mouth and nose, making it impossible for me to scream.
“You breathe a word, and he dies,” Conner hisses. “Do you understand?”
I nod and Felix lets go of my mouth.
There’s another scratch, almost like a cat asking to be let in.
“Go handle it,” Conner says, and Felix makes his way to the door.
He opens it just a crack and peers out. “There’s no one out here,” he says in a confused voice, and closes the door again. But the second it clicks into place, there’s another scratch.
Felix opens the door a little wider and a hand reaches into the room, grabbing Felix by the collar and slamming his head into the side of the doorway. Conner’s eyes widen as Felix collapses on the floor.
Conner recorks the poison and moves quickly to his desk.
“Well now, y’all are havin’ a party and ya didn’t even invite me?” Aarya says in a terrible cowboy accent as she drops down from above the doorway. She leans against the open door as if she doesn’t have a care in the world.
Conner runs his hand under his desk.
“Looking for this?” Aarya asks, and twirls a knife in her hand.
Conner’s jaw tightens. “You don’t want to pick this fight, Aarya,” he says. “There are people in this school you don’t want to lose.”
Aarya nods. “You’re right. I don’t want to pick this fight.” She pulls back her arm, but instead of throwing the knife at Conner, she turns and throws it at me. I gasp as it lodges in the arm of the chair, close enough for me to slide the zip tie on my left wrist along its blade and snap it.
“But she does,” Aarya says.
Conner darts toward Ash. I grab the knife and quickly slice through the remaining restraints. I stand unsteadily, knife in hand, as Conner grabs Ash’s jaw, forcing his mouth open and letting the bottle hover over his lips.
“Think carefully, November,” Conner says. “You won’t get to make this choice again.”
I focus on Conner.
“Is it really worth it if you also kill Ashai in the process?” Conner says, like suddenly he’s a reasonable person.
“November, throw it,” Aarya says.
Don’t fight like them, November, fight like you.
I exhale and slowly drop the knife. It falls to the stone floor with the grip resting on the toe of my boot.
Aarya moves forward.
“Stop, Aarya,” I say with force, and she does.
Conner looks at me like I’m a complete idiot. “Maybe you were right. I have no idea how we could possibly be related.” He tips the poison into Ash’s mouth and squeezes a hand over his mouth and nose, forcing him to swallow.
“No!” I scream.
Ash coughs and gasps on the floor. Conner stands just as I slam my foot down on the broad side of the knife blade, flipping it into the air, where I snatch it by the handle and throw it so fast Conner doesn’t even have a chance to take a step toward me. It’s a clean shot and lodges deeply just below his shoulder.
His eyes widen and he takes one stumbling step. I run at him and dive for his knees, tackling him to the floor. His back hits the stone hard and he groans. Aarya is by my side in a second. She pins Conner down.
I grab the poison bottle from the floor near Ash, who looks like he’s in untold pain.
“Now you get to choose,” I say to Conner. “Live or die?” And I pour what’s left of the poison into his mouth.
I yank the knife out of his chest and he fights back a scream.
“Let go of him, Aarya,” I say, and she looks unsure but does it anyway.
Conner’s back arches and his eyes bulge. His shaking hands immediately go to his inside blazer pocket and he pulls out a vial.
He struggles to uncork it and brings it to his lips, taking an unsteady swig. I immediately snatch the vial from his grasp and watch him closely to make sure it’s the antidote and not more poison.
Slowly relief spreads across his face. Aarya’s eyes light up like this is the best game
she’s played in ages.
I run for Ash and kneel down next to him, carefully lifting his head. “Hold on. Just hold on, Ash. Don’t you dare die.” I pour the rest of the antidote into his mouth and he chokes.
The moment I’m sure he’s swallowed it, I move to his hands and feet, slicing the restraints. Aarya watches Conner as he desperately tries to stop the blood he’s losing from the knife wound.
“Holding a late-night assessment session, Dr. Conner?” says a familiar voice, and Aarya and I look up. Blackwood stands in the open doorway with two guards behind her, taking note of the entire scene. She steps over Felix’s passed-out body, but the guards don’t follow her in.
I’m not sure if I’m relieved to see her or if I hate her for showing up when it’s all over. Ash did say she would assume no responsibility for it one way or the other.
“I’ll take it from here, girls,” Blackwood says.
Ash pushes himself up into a sitting position, some of the pain gone from his eyes, but he looks totally spent. I try to help him stand, but he shakes his head and does it himself.
“Stubborn,” I say under my breath.
I stay next to him to make sure he doesn’t fall. He seems to be regaining his strength by the second, but he’s still wobbly.
“I’m going to take this with me,” Aarya says, and grabs Felix’s ankles.
“That depends,” Blackwood says. “Was he helping you or was he helping Conner?”
“Neither, really,” Aarya says, and for the first time ever, she looks vulnerable. “He stumbled into a situation he couldn’t handle and got knocked out like a dumb—” Aarya stops herself and coughs.
Blackwood turns to me.
I look at Ash. He was once on the wrong side of this, too. And it didn’t stop me from doing everything I could to save his life. He could easily have been in the position Felix is in right now.
I make eye contact with Aarya and nod. “It’s like Aarya says. He just got caught in the middle. Conner has a bad habit of blackmailing people.”
Killing November Page 33
