Prettyboy Must Die

by Kimberly Reid

  He raises the gun and points it at my heart.

  This is it. He’s taking me out.

  Suddenly he just crumples to the floor as though his legs have been cut out from under him.

  Bunker has thrust the bottom end of the coat rack, fencing-style, into the back of the hostile’s knees. It incapacitates him just long enough for me to come back to this world and apply the choke hold I’d planned before he came this close to killing me.

  I admit I’m more than a little pissed-off about that, about what he almost took from me, so once again, this guy is very lucky Bunker’s here. No one has spent hours preparing Bunk for all the emotion and potential crazy that comes from seeing the life leave a man by your own hands, and it would probably scar him for life.

  It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for me to compress his carotid artery and jugular vein to the point where he’s out cold, but—thanks to Bunk—still breathing. Otherwise, I may have applied the hold a few seconds too long, and then he wouldn’t be.

  CHAPTER 16

  Bunker and I quickly strip the two hostiles of their clothes. The set I change into reeks of cigarettes and sweat, but I don’t have a choice. Being dressed like them will help us if we’re caught making our way to the roof. Or at least we hope so. Bunker is about eight inches shorter than the shortest of the two bad guys, and the clothes fit him that way. The shortest guy was pretty ripped, but on Bunker, his shirt is much too tight and his pants half a foot too long. If we run into the janitor, fooling him into thinking we’re his fellow bad guys may not prove as successful as we hope. At least we’ll be wearing their Kevlar vests, which explains why it felt like I hit metal when I slammed my baton into that second hostile’s chest.

  We’ve changed into full combat gear—everything but the masks—and are about to look for something to tie up our quarry with when we hear footsteps behind us, coming from the supply room and sounding way too heavy to belong to a guinea pig.

  “What the hell?”

  I turn around, prepared to fight yet another hostile, and for the first time since ever, I’m relieved to see Duncan. I think.

  “Jesus H. Christ—are those the terrorists?”

  “Technically arms dealers to terrorists, but yeah,” I confirm, but offer no more. Duncan seems to be a little in shock, not that I can blame him after the way he’s spent the last thirty minutes.

  Duncan stares at me like I’m a riddle to solve, then asks, “Who the hell are you?”

  “Clearly not who you thought I was,” I say as I circle the room, ripping the cords off every electrical appliance I can find and throwing them to Bunker.

  “Clearly.”

  “And who are you?” I ask, stopping long enough to watch his reaction.

  Duncan looks genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m asking if you’re friend or foe. Last I heard, you suspected I escaped the room just in time to save myself but not the rest of you.”

  “How do you even know about that?” Duncan asks as he starts giving himself a pat-down, probably looking for a bug. Despite the crazy that is happening all around us, watching The Douche have a near breakdown is fucking hilarious. Bunker is busy hog-tying one of the hostiles, but I can hear him snickering.

  “Like I said—I’m not your average Carlislian,” I say, trying hard not to laugh so I can mess with his mind just a little more. “So how’s that escape plan you were working on?”

  Duncan starts patting down his lower half and stops when he hits his pockets.

  “Here. You can have your five dollars back.”

  I start tying up the other hostile but not before snatching my money from him, because hey, the Company has me on a tight budget, and I’m hoping I’ll live another day to use that money.

  “Why are you here, Douche?” Bunker says, apparently feeling himself now that he’s been made my unofficial partner. Duncan doesn’t say a thing about it, either.

  “When they didn’t come back, I had to check it out,” Duncan explains.

  “That was either very stupid of you or very brave.”

  “Well, after sitting in class for the last half hour wondering whether we were going to die, somebody had to see if there was a chance to run.”

  I come this close to taking back my comment about him being possibly very stupid, and telling him how cool it was of him to take that chance, but I just can’t do it. He’s still Duncan. But maybe now I’ll stop thinking of him as The Douche, at least.

  “All this time I’ve been hassling you, this is what you could have done to me?” Duncan asks, looking around the room. “You took these guys out with … with what? I don’t suppose you’re packing heat at school.”

  “No one’s been ‘packing heat’ since the nineties,” Bunker says as he hog-ties Bad Guy #1 with an extra-long extension cord. “Even I know that. He did it mostly with his bare hands. And I helped.”

  I look at Bunk as if to say, Stop talking, but it probably doesn’t matter anymore. What little was left of my cover is long gone, thanks to my stalker making me an internet sensation. Besides, I can tell Duncan’s emotions when he found us were real. He can’t be the hacker, probably isn’t working with her, and he definitely isn’t a gorgeous British girl.

  “Look, Duncan, I don’t have time to explain. There are more of these guys on the loose and they’re hunting me down.”

  “But why? Who are you?”

  I stay quiet for a second as I secure the hands of Bad Guy #2 with a handcuff knot, thinking of how to explain.

  “Let’s just say I work for the government.”

  Duncan lets that sink in for a second. He looks astonished, or sick to his stomach, I’m not sure which. Then he says, “Are you saying you’re a—”

  “I’m saying I have to bounce. Now. The school is locked down, we can’t get out, but I may have a way to contact the outside and get us some help. But there are more where these two came from, at least four more, and when these guys can’t be raised on their radios, one of their friends will come to check. So we have to move.”

  “We? Does he ‘work for the government,’ too?” Duncan asks, nodding toward Bunker while making air quotes.

  “Yes,” I say, cutting Bunker off before he can explain himself. We don’t have time, and I’ve decided after he had my six with that coat rack, he deserves to be deputized.

  “I want to help,” Duncan says, shocking me for the second time today. “Let me come with you.”

  “You can help by keeping an eye on our captives. They should be out for thirty minutes to an hour, but you can make sure they stay that way,” I say, handing him my baton. “Use it if they come to.”

  “I can do that.” Duncan looks down at the hostiles before he notices the third man slumped against the wall. “Is that another one?”

  “No, that’s Maitland,” Bunker says.

  “World-Geo Maitland?” Duncan asks, going for a closer look. “Wow. He’s one of them?”

  “No. At least, I don’t think so. He was just collateral damage. Don’t worry. He’s still alive,” I say.

  Duncan half smiles and asks, “You’re sure?”

  Yeah, pretty much no one likes Maitland. For a guy who hasn’t been at the school a whole semester yet, he’s already made a ton of enemies.

  “Before you start watch on these guys, go back and let the chem lab know what’s up. Wait—is everyone okay in there?”

  “Sure. Physically, anyway. They’re holding up.”

  “Good. The main thing is to keep the rooms locked from the inside. As long as everyone stays in the rooms, they’ll be okay. And don’t trust anyone you don’t know,” I say, wincing as I think of Katie. “And be suspicious of people you do. The janitor and the groundskeeper—”

  “The ones who look like they spend the whole day at the gym?”

  “Right. They aren’t legit. Neither are the two who have Dodson, even though one of them is actually a cop.”

  “Yeah, I know about them,” Duncan
says. “We heard them on their radios. The real cop is Andrews, the fake cop is Marchuk, and there’s another one called Koval.”

  “Koval must be the janitor,” I say, the name sounding vaguely familiar. “Stupid of them to use their names over the radio, though.”

  “I think these two aren’t the brightest of the bunch. The one called Koval kept yelling at them every time they used his name. He must be in charge.”

  “Marchuk’s in charge, but Koval must be his second-in-command. Good looking out. That’s useful information,” I tell him, surprised to find saying something nice to Duncan isn’t as painful as I’d have thought. I guess being held hostage is a good way to make friends out of foes. And the way Duncan is cheesing, you’d think I was the agency director himself paying the compliment.

  “Speaking of staying informed,” Bunker says, reaching into his backpack. “In case things start going south in here…”

  Duncan looks as confused by Bunker’s ancient brick of a phone as I was. And how many of those does he carry around, anyway?

  Bunker tells Duncan, “It looks like a phone—”

  “Not really,” Duncan says.

  Bunker ignores Duncan’s assessment and continues, “But works like a walkie-talkie. You’ll be able to contact Peter and me with these.”

  Duncan takes the phone, looking doubtful.

  “Bunker, leave your hostile’s radio too, so Duncan will know if one of the others is coming.”

  Bunk and I put on the ski masks and head for the door.

  “Hey, Smith,” Duncan says.

  “What?”

  “How is this thing really going to go? What’s going to happen to us all?”

  I’m thinking this thing is going to go badly, but Duncan doesn’t really want to know that. He wants to believe we’ll all be safe in our beds tonight trying to forget this day ever happened.

  “These guys like to work below the radar. They’re taking a chance just being in this country. No way will they compromise themselves any more than they already have by hurting anyone but me.”

  Duncan doesn’t look convinced. “If you really believed that, if you truly think you are the only person they’d hurt, wouldn’t you just give yourself up so the rest of us can go free?”

  When I don’t answer, Duncan continues, “That’s okay, Smith. Dodson clearly doesn’t believe it, either. Since they’ve locked us all in here, looks like we’re in it with you. Do you really think you’ll get us out of this?”

  “Yes,” I say, hoping I sound more certain about it than I feel. I want to tell him that I’ll die trying, but I figure he doesn’t really need to know that extra detail. “Lock the door behind us.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The minute we step out of the room, I hear a faint but familiar tinkling sound coming from the other end of the hall, and I don’t even have to guess who it is. The janitor, aka Koval. That’s when I remember why his name seemed so familiar the first time I heard Duncan say it. He owned the voice I didn’t recognize back in Ukraine during the shootout, the voice that suggested Marchuk kill me then. I hand Bunker my backpack and whisper to him to run for the stairwell and wait for me. He hesitates for a second—I’m not sure whether he’s afraid for himself or for me, but I’m guessing both—then follows my command.

  Not only don’t I want Bunker to be the one caught, but there’s no way he’ll fool the hostiles that he’s one of them.

  I quickly pat down the pockets of my cargo pants, and find cigarettes along with a book of matches that looks just like the one I found jammed in the front door when this became the worst day ever. By the time Koval turns the corner, I’m leaning against the chem lab door, a lit cigarette in hand, and hoping in the thirty seconds it will take him to reach me that I’ll come up with a plan. He surprises me by stopping at the end of the hall.

  The radio on my shoulder squawks.

  “What the hell are you guys doing down there? You were supposed to check in five minutes ago.”

  He talks as though he’s from the Midwest, maybe. Anywhere, USA. Considering his Ukrainian name and that he works for Marchuk, I’m guessing he’s affecting the accent non-Americans go for when trying to speak our English. Which means the guy I’m impersonating is probably an actual American. A traitorous one.

  “Needed a break,” I say in my best New York accent, waving the cigarette in the air as proof. “Fucking kids getting on my nerves.”

  “What about Owens—did he need a break, too? Because he didn’t check in, either.”

  “He’s inside.”

  “That’s where you should be,” Koval says. It sounds more like a threat than an order.

  “Right. Just let me finish this one up.”

  Even from this distance, I hear him let out an exasperated sigh. “Check in every quarter hour. Don’t make me have to come down there next time. We can do the job with five just as well as we can do it with six,” he warns, before going back the way he came.

  I crush the cigarette under my foot and run for the stairs, hoping that from this far down the hall, the click of the stairwell door shutting sounds the same as the chem lab door.

  I find Bunker just inside the slightly cracked door, looking scared and pissing me off a little.

  “Oh man. You should have gone out for the drama club. I thought we were done for.”

  “We might have been. If Koval had come down the hall, he’d have noticed this door wasn’t fully closed.”

  Bunker looks confused. “I just wanted to hear what was going on, to make sure you were okay. It was barely open.”

  “Guys like that—like me—we’re trained to notice things most people don’t. What you think is just a little thing slightly out of place kicks us into threat-assessment mode. Depending on how threatened we feel, we neutralize the threat first, ask questions later.”

  I hate to call him out at a time like this, but if Bunker’s going to play operative, he has to do it right or he’ll get us both killed.

  “Got it, chief,” Bunker says without a hint of sarcasm, and I know that’s the last time I’ll need to teach that lesson. “So now what?”

  “I still need to contact my boss, so now we head for the roof,” I say, taking the steps two at a time. Surprisingly, Bunker is keeping up. “It has to be where the hacker is hiding out.”

  “You still think it’s Katie, huh?” Bunker asks, beginning to sound winded after running four flights.

  “I’ve run the data, Bunk. There’s no one else it could be.”

  Neither of us says anything the rest of the way upstairs. Bunker is out of breath, and I don’t want to discuss the possibility that the first girl I’ve ever really fallen for might be trying to kill me.

  When we reach the door to the roof, I start calculating the risks of opening the emergency exit, sounding the alarm, and luring out the three bad guys still inside the building. There’s always the possibility the hacker has locked this one down too, but I doubt it. It’s the only way back into the building, and in the event she needs to move quickly, the roll-down door would slow her escape by at least thirty seconds.

  “She could be using a satellite phone. Maybe I can use my phone to try hacking her internet connection and call my boss.”

  But first, I set the timer on my watch for eleven minutes.

  “What’s that about?”

  “Remember what the janitor said? If we don’t check in on the quarter hour, he’ll come looking for us. We caught a break being in the hall where we could hear him and his keychain.”

  “I can’t believe Dodson hired a terrorist,” Bunker says.

  “I’m sure she can’t either,” I say, “On the plus side, I confirmed the hostile count. Six. Koval’s the only one who can walk the halls without raising suspicion. Two are with Dodson and the office staff, unless Andrews is still on the prowl looking for me. I figure the groundskeeper was given outside duty in case someone managed to call the police. As long as he stays outside they’re down to three inside, now that we’ve ta
ken out the two in chem lab.”

  “Assuming Duncan can keep them that way.”

  “He’ll be fine. He’s got a ruthless streak.”

  “I hope you’re right. I don’t really want to die today.”

  “You aren’t going to die today,” I say, hoping it’s true.

  “Especially not after I finally found the girl of my dreams.”

  I look up from my phone and shake my head at him.

  “I’ve had a lot of dreams about girls, so I know. Dreams are all you have when you spend your first fifteen years underground without ever seeing a real live one.”

  “If she’s on a sat phone, I’m not having much luck tapping into it,” I say, though I suspect Bunker is so into telling me about his crush that he’s forgotten why we’re here.

  “She smells like flowers and has hair like Daryl Hannah in Splash.”

  “Like who in what?”

  “The movie?” he says, as though that explains everything.

  “Yeah, never heard of it.”

  “It’s one of my dad’s favorites. Daryl was my first crush. Anyway, my girl’s hair is blond and long and wavy. Kinda wild, like she’s spent the day on the beach, except without the tan.”

  No matter what I try, I can’t get into Katie’s sat connection.

  But trying to break into it makes me recall something about Maitland’s laptop when I first opened it back in the bio classroom. The last thing Maitland looked at was his fifth-period roster. He should have had sixth period open, not fifth, which ended before lunch. Now that I think about it, if he really did have connectivity, shouldn’t he have been trying to call for help, not studying his class list?

  “She’s nothing like Katie. I guess you and I have different tastes,” Bunker continues. “Well, not that different. Isn’t it funny how we both found girls with English accents? Though I’m not certain my girl is English. Maybe Scottish; she has a little brogue thing going. It’s adorable.”

  I’ve been so busy trying to crack Katie’s connection and wondering about Maitland’s part in any of this, I mostly tuned out Bunker as he went on and on about his crush, but this last thing gets my Spidey sense tingling.