by Jody Klaire
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want to be tied to a chair?” Renee had taken quite a beating to her face. Dried blood trailed down the gash on her cheek. She was still alive so she hadn’t told them anything. It showed her courage.
“No,” she muttered. “I don’t get it. She’s supposed to be an ally.”
Ursula cocked her head. “Are we following your weird friend’s theory again?” Renee had explained about Lilia. To her, it sounded like the woman needed committing. Ursula knelt down and cut the ties binding Renee’s feet. “Let’s get you out of here before Hartmann comes back.”
“Her temper is vile,” Renee muttered, then groaned as she stumbled to her feet. “Good thing I always stuck enough sedative in her drink not to have to find out much about her.”
Ursula raised her eyebrow. Hard to believe. “Ever?”
Renee put her hands on her hips. “I’m an agent, not a prostitute.”
“I was going on her reputation,” Ursula said, helping Renee over to the rope. They’d need to work fast. Her little distraction would only keep Hartmann busy for a while.
“And she likes her reputation.” Renee shrugged. “I got the ego thing quickly.”
“Wie bitte?”
Renee sighed. “Hypnosis techniques. With the sedative and some manipulation, she believes what I want her to.”
“I can see it’s working out for you.” Ursula helped Renee up and climbed up after her.
“It does in that regard. How do you think I got away with it for so long?” Renee groaned as she hauled herself up through the gap.
It sounded far too risky for Ursula. “Either way, I’d say it’s time to forget your crazy mission.”
“It isn’t crazy. Lilia doesn’t get the whole picture,” Renee mumbled as Ursula dropped down beside her in the adjoining room.
Lilia wasn’t a full deck of cards. “Wie gehts?”
Renee rubbed her shoulder and sighed. “Like I’ve been beaten. How do we get out?”
High rise apartment, private security riddled throughout, and alarms everywhere. Easy. Ursula pointed to the window. “Da drüben.”
“Where over there?”
Ursula motioned to the harness. Renee groaned but put it on. Ursula didn’t bother with them but she doubted Renee made a habit of zip-lining between buildings.
“Remind me to poke Lilia when I see her,” Renee muttered. “She needs glasses for her third eye.”
Ursula opened up the window, laughing at the venom. She could see that Renee felt a twinge of failure. That wouldn’t do. She attached the clips and secured them. “What did Lilia say again?”
She wasn’t interested but Renee’s tight smile said she was nervous and hurting more than she was letting on. Talking would calm her.
“Um . . . that I would find my greatest ally in her heart or out of her heart or something to do with hearts.” She sighed. “The ally would hold great jewels and friendship. That she would be a part of me.”
Ursula moved them away from the building and Renee clung to her as they whizzed along the line. Far below was the buzzing city. A cloudy evening, damp conditions. Headlights misted with drizzle.
It made stopping harder than normal. Renee yelped as her shoulder smacked into the wall. They climbed in through the window and Ursula unclipped the rope.
“Shoulder okay?”
Renee grunted. “It’s back in now if that’s what you mean.”
Ursula used the device on her belt to detach both clips and reel in the zip line. She knew Renee was watching her as she stowed her things in the rucksack and threw it onto her back.
“Lilia was right,” she said, leading a hobbling Renee up to the roof. Her helicopter was there, fuelled and waiting.
“I don’t think so.” Renee glanced at the chopper and back to her. “I thought you only did fixed wing?”
“No,” she said as she stowed the pack and climbed inside. “I didn’t say anything. I prefer fixed wing.”
Renee bit her lip as she looked down at the building they’d escaped from. The term hornets’ nest didn’t give it justice. “So how do you think Lilia was right?”
“I know she was right.” Ursula flashed her best winning smile, sliding on her aviators, and guiding them up into the air. “I was in her room when you met me. The picture I climbed out of was titled, ‘The heart of a woman.’ I had a lovely big jewel in my hand too.” She smiled at the memory of the glee on Huber’s face when he saw it.
Yeah, it had been worth a month off. A month hounded by Renee, but still.
“The friendship thing . . . Being part of you?” Ursula shrugged. “I guess I can live with it.”
The winning smile on Renee’s face had been worth it. The buzz of helping had been worth it. Being a good guy could be fun too. In fact, it was addictive.
Ursula hauled herself up and dropped down soundlessly behind Jessie. She was too busy setting up her rifle. High powered. Capable of hitting a target over a mile away in experienced hands. In the wrong hands, it didn’t bear thinking about.
“You know, wind burn isn’t a good look.”
Jessie turned. Ursula snatched the rifle off her and leaned it against the wall.
Easier than she’d thought.
“How did you know?” Jessie looked down. “How?”
“Let’s forget me and get to why you were about to gun down a load of people.”
“What?” Jessie shook her head. “No . . . not people . . . never people.”
Ursula tapped the gun.
“Not people,” Jessie blurted again. She looked green and breathless. Ursula spotted the inhaler on the floor next to a rucksack and handed it to her. Jessie took the pump and pointed to the main building.
“The weather vane. Those men are looking for people to take away. Useful people. If I hit it, they hear it. They will take me. They won’t take Miroslav then.”
The term elite sniper came to mind. This kid was not one of those. The rifle was bigger than her. “You think hitting a weather vane will stop them paying attention to Miroslav?”
Jessie nodded. “Now I’ve burned my notes, Kevin won’t be able to pretend anymore and they’ll look for the real genius. They’d know it’s Miroslav. It won’t be hard to find him, he’s too honest.”
So she was willing to put herself in his place to save him. Now why did that sound familiar? “Jessie, if you fire a rifle, they won’t be looking at roof decorations, they’ll be too busy shooting at you.”
Jessie frowned. A dumb genius, wonderful. “Kevin is meeting them. He is lying. He’ll get taken away.”
“Kevin will have more issues than going missing if they realize he’s a fraud.”
Jessie sighed. “He is clever. He’s just not as burdened as Miroslav or me.” She shrugged, her wiry brown hair dancing in the wind. “If he was, he wouldn’t be so happy about it.”
Now she sounded like Aeron. “Let’s get you off the tower and back before someone takes it out on Samson.”
“They wouldn’t.” She had a defensive glare that rivaled Renee’s.
The Aeron effect.
“They would. She cares about you. Don’t hurt her by talking about any of this.”
Jessie nodded and Ursula broke down the rifle, stowed it in the rucksack, and slung it onto her back. She wasn’t leaving it up there. Only she had ever completed the challenge in climbing to the top before Jessie but it didn’t matter. It was better to be cautious.
Ursula used her suckers to steady herself and attached a rope to Jessie so that the kid had some safety. “I’ll give you something, not many people can figure out how to get up here.”
Jessie clambered down over the edge of the tower. “There’s a balcony. Perfect for anchoring to . . . when you reach it.”
They made careful progress down the back of the tower that was hidden from view. The guards and staff wouldn’t look up without a reason. It was impossible to climb, so why would they? Impossible for most but Jessie was more nimble than she looked. Aeron’s workout regime was paying
off. “Ever thought about being a thief?”
Jessie fixed her with a look of disgust.
“Oh, you are happy firing rifles and hacking doors but you have issues with stealing.” Ursula pulled the second rope attached to the rucksack, secured herself to the wall, and pulled out her phone to call off the alert.
She slipped her phone back in her pouch and caught up with Jessie. “Why did you collect all the door codes anyway?”
“I was working out a way for us to escape . . . Miroslav and I.” She sighed. “I wanted to take Kevin.”
“Did Kevin tell them?”
Jessie shook her head. “No, I didn’t tell him anything. He just thought they were equations.”
Ursula stopped for a moment. “You were lucky you weren’t caught.”
“It was more than just codes. I was working on hacking the staff computers.” Jessie bit her lip. “If Kevin tries to follow what I was doing . . . If he figures it out . . . I don’t want him hurt.”
“Why would he follow if he just thinks they are equations?”
Jessie hung her head, oblivious to the fact they hung from a great height. “Deputy Principal Jäger found out because I tried to send for help from his computer.”
“To?”
Jessie started to climb down again. Her eyes darting back and forth as she thought. “The director of child protection for the academies. His name was—”
“Huber,” Ursula said, trying to hide her sigh. Which is why he knew there was a budding locksmith in Caprock. “Are there any other notes?”
Jessie glanced at her as she climbed. Her face was red with the effort. “Kevin copied some. He doesn’t know what they mean. They’re code.”
“Leave it to me.” Ursula gave her a charming smile. “Kevin won’t realize it’s gone.”
Jessie didn’t look convinced but no one ever did. She had no idea just quite how inventive Ursula could be when acquiring things.
Chapter 23
ONE WORD THAT strikes fear into the hearts of students everywhere . . . midterms. I thought the mental institution during a full moon was something else, but boy, had I been in for a shock.
Teenage hormones, exam pressure, and the extra spiciness that a place like Caprock threw in made them all crazy. So crazy that fights broke out at random, kids hobbled around with injuries. It was strange to watch them all. The silent march they did between classes. How much they telegraphed their disputes, their worries, their terror just through body movements. The look in their eyes was more telling. You could see who was thriving, who was breaking, and who had an inbuilt drive for survival.
And survival it was. Frei hadn’t pulled any punches when I’d asked her over dinner one night.
“Why are the kids so worried? I don’t get it. So they fail an exam or two.” I stabbed at my food. I’d been bombarded with hysterics and drama all week. I didn’t know what was going on with my group.
“The rumors start at this point. Jones and Sawyer will be instigating it.” Frei was as unmoved as always.
“Rumors?”
Frei looked up from her food. “What happens to the ones who fail. The stories get wilder. You’ve seen the way the whispers work, how damaging they are.”
I had. In Oppidum I’d felt the full brunt. “But it’s just lies, right?” I pushed my food around my plate. It was bothering me. I wanted to be able to tell my group it was nonsense.
Frei finished up her dinner and put her plate in the sink. I grabbed her arm as she passed by.
“It is all lies . . . right?”
She sighed. “No.”
No? I gripped her tighter with the panic. “What happens to them?”
Frei removed my hand from her arm and squeezed it. Her eyes were gentle. She knew I cared for the students. I couldn’t hide it. “They are deemed to have no value and are sold.”
That made no sense.
“What?”
“Sold to people who will use them for whatever use they can find.” Frei’s voice held a sadness that could only come from witnessing such a thing. “Any use.”
The idea shook me. I tried to hide it but I started to pay more attention to the way the students interacted with each other. Helpless to do anything but look on. Helpless but in making sure my group passed. It was all I could do.
The closer the midterms got, the more the atmosphere changed. That stillness filled the air. That hanging. That collective holding of breath as summer storms rolled through.
My group broke up into social clicks. Jessie and Miroslav always together. The other girls huddled close to one another or wide apart, depending on where they were in their friend-to-foe cycle. Jed and his boys strutted along with arrogance but I didn’t miss a couple of well-placed shoves when someone came too close to Jessie, the girls, or Miroslav.
Something in Jed had started to change. It was for the better. They would need him.
The gold group took a lot of hits. They were being targeted with the full anger of teenage rage. Most of the time it was by the kids in Jones’s and Sawyer’s groups. The influence of the teachers was starting to tell.
It was like they had joined forces and were hunting the others. A pecking order in place, a need for the lowest to prove themselves and that rage was growing inside them. To survive they wanted to get rid of any competition. The ringleaders would then turn on the ones beneath them. I could see it. I’d seen it inside. I had no idea how I could stop it escalating.
Frei’s group stayed away from everyone else and each other. There was a sense of unease that filled me when I watched them. I caught Frei watching each of them as if making mental notes. She watched all the students with a look in her eyes I couldn’t understand. Maybe memories of when she was here as a student. Whatever it was, it seemed laced with longing and regret.
I felt lucky not to have my burdens in full. I couldn’t imagine wandering around in a haze of angst, terror. I wouldn’t have coped with feeling the weight of teenage crushes, the panic to fit in, and that creeping sense of fear. I often caught myself looking for that cloud. Looking for the trailing suckers that fed off the victims below.
Here in Caprock, there was no escape. They never left the academy. Those who had families never went home. It was prison in all but name. The guards in huts posted around were meant to be security. I hadn’t missed the rifle lockers. I hadn’t missed the quick flick of a hand when a student got too close. They were sharks circling as if they wanted to pick off any weak ones.
Jäger scared even them.
At his height, he towered over most of the students but the way they scattered when he was near gave me goose bumps. I’d seen him drag a boy by the scruff up to his office once or twice but they’d always returned.
They didn’t re-offend.
It made me thankful I had Frei to protect me. Living with her hadn’t been the tense, awkward experience I was expecting. She made everything so easy. She’d started teaching me how to cook and she was a more patient teacher when folks weren’t watching.
I found it something to look forward to. I’d go back to the villa after classes and we’d have dinner. Frei would work while I read my way through the library.
We always did so in silence, so each night, I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time. It was routine. I was in a prison environment and that made me feel more in control.
Renee had always said I was institutionalized.
I hoped that control fed through to my group as I wandered over to the gym. It was assessment day. Harrison and a couple of visitors would be monitoring. Frei had told me the evening before that Huber would be one of them.
I’d had three months to get my group buff and it was starting to show. Miroslav had worked real hard and looked like a different guy. A lot of the girls had noticed too, which made me roll my eyes at the giggling from the corner.
“Listen up,” I said, hoping to cut the conversation I didn’t want to hear. “You know the drill today. It ain’t gonna be easy to impress but it’s impor
tant that you do.”
One of the gigglers, Leigh-Anne, raised her hand, long nails on show.
“Shoot.”
“Why?” She asked.
I folded my arms at her. She was a tricky one at the best of times. She had a tendency not to take her medication so I had to watch her. She could fit at any time. “Why what?”
“Why do we have to impress?”
How did I get out of this one?
“Simple,” I said it like I knew. “It makes me look good.”
That brought a chuckle of appreciation. They did that a lot. I waited for it to calm as it was laced with an edge of hysteria.
“The other thing is that I think you’re worth something.” There went my mean facade. “Everyone in this place treats you real bad. I seen it and I was like you were once.” I held onto my arms, hoping I could cover the splurge of truth. “It took me a long time to figure out I was okay with being different.”
All eyes were fixed on me, opened and focused. I felt the need to help them. If any failed, they’d be taken off someplace and sold. I didn’t what none of them suffering that.
“Being you ain’t ever gonna be easy. The folks out there won’t ever get you. What I want them to know is that different can be better.”
Their gazes grew more intense and I smiled.
“So make me look good, sure, but most of all make yourselves feel it.”
Jed stuck his hand up. He was a pain in the butt but he was growing on me. “You read that on a cereal box?”
The class joker. Titters and whispers rippled through the group.
“You want to run the track, twice, before we start?”
He dropped his hand with a deep scowl on his face. The kind only teenagers could perfect.
“Didn’t think so.”
Harrison tottered in and I turned, feeling the group’s eyes on me and my own nerves rattle around inside me. Harrison was flanked by two men. One was bald. His gray shirt strained over his biceps. He had pock marks on his cheeks, deep inset eyes with a greedy glint in them.
The other guy was sinewy. His gray hair wavy but styled, white at the temples. He wore a light gray suit and a sharp white shirt underneath. His low brow shaded piercing blue eyes. Everything about him was sharp.
