Prettyboy Must Die

by Kimberly Reid

  “Oh, should I shut up? Am I keeping you from concentrating on the hackery?”

  Just then, we’re interrupted by the PA system alert, followed by the voice of Pavlo Marchuk.

  “Prettyboy, I’m tired of these games. I have something you want. If you ever want to see her again—alive, that is—you will be in main office within five minutes. Otherwise, you will only want her in your dreams. Or should I say, nightmares?

  “Five minutes, Prettyboy.”

  Marchuk just did my risk assessment for me. I shove my phone into my pocket and go for the emergency door.

  CHAPTER 18

  Out on the roof, from the vantage point of the door, there is no one up here but us. All I see is freedom, miles of mountains and blue sky, but no way to reach it.

  “What are you doing?” Bunker shouts over the screeching of the emergency alarm.

  I pull the mostly full pack of cigarettes from my pocket and stick it between the door and the jamb. “Keeping us from being locked out.”

  “No, I mean, shouldn’t you be going to the office? Now you have proof—not only that Katie isn’t the hacker, but that the bad guys have her.”

  “That isn’t proof she isn’t one of them.” I’ve learned it’s better—easier—to expect the worst than to be sucker punched by it. “For all I know, Marchuk’s announcement is a trap and he doesn’t really have her.”

  “If it was my girl, I wouldn’t take that chance.”

  When Bunker was going on about his romance a minute ago, I was too busy trying to hack Katie’s phone line to really hear what he was saying, but now his words come together like a Rubik’s cube.

  “Your girl. You said she smells like flowers. Let me guess—roses and honeysuckle?”

  “Um, I have no idea. But I guess she might. Those are flowers.”

  “You said she asked questions about me. What kind of questions?”

  “Basic stuff. But she was just trying to start a conversation, using you to get to me for a change.”

  “It isn’t Katie!” I say that way too loudly, but I can’t help myself. It isn’t Katie.

  “I tried to tell you.”

  I’m so relieved, but I don’t have the heart to tell Bunker this time’s no different; this girl was like the others, using him to get to me.

  “So shouldn’t you be rescuing her instead of hanging out on the roof?”

  I look at my watch. “I still have four minutes. Your mermaid—does she have crazy-long, flaming-red fingernails?”

  “So you know her!” Bunker says, smiling so big I almost hate to break it to him. “The nails are hot, right?”

  “What they are is a great disguise. No one expects talons like that on someone who spends most of her waking hours on a keyboard.” Then I recall the suggestion she mouthed to me as we stood in the fire drill line. “I should have known that girl wasn’t a freshman.”

  “What are you talking about?” Bunker asks.

  “Don’t you see it?”

  “See what?”

  “The girl you’re dreaming will be your future baby mama is the same one who started the whole ‘prettyboy’ thing on Twitter—an attempt to throw me off my game, I think. A successful attempt, obviously.”

  Bunker just stares at me blankly.

  “You know what that makes her, right?”

  I can tell from his expression that Bunker’s finally starting to get it. The guy is usually a brainiac, but like Koval said, accents can make even the smartest man stupid sometimes, even when they’re fake, and especially when they come with a pretty face and mermaid hair. More like Medusa hair than a mermaid’s, now that I know who she really is.

  “No way,” he says, incredulous. “You said it was Katie.”

  “Oh, so now you believe it could be Katie?”

  “I do when you’re suggesting the love of my life is a terrorist hacker.”

  “Well, if she’s somewhere up here with a satellite phone and an internet connection, she’ll prove me right,” I say, moving toward the four huge HVAC units, the only place on the roof to hide.

  As we approach, I check my watch—just over three minutes left on the clock—and the pockets of my borrowed cargo pants for a potential weapon. Blondie may be the size of a pixie, but she may be as well-trained as I am.

  Bunker watches me release the safety on the blade of the folding knife I found and asks, “Are you crazy? What if you’re wrong?”

  “Trust me. I’m not.”

  Sure enough, there she is, sitting on a milk crate behind the first HVAC unit we check, still wearing my Clark Kent glasses and smiling like she still thinks this is all one big game. Bunker, on the other hand, looks like he’s about to be sick. She waves at him as though she has no clue she’s just ripped out his heart and stomped all over it.

  “Hey there, Bunker,” she says with an English accent.

  Bunker says nothing.

  “Let me see your hands,” I yell at her.

  “I’m not armed. Marchuk would never allow that. He’d worry I’d come after him.”

  “Why would you do that if you’re working for him?” I ask.

  “Only against my will.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” I ask as I grab the computer off her lap.

  “I don’t care what you believe. It’s the truth. He forced me to manage the school’s security system so he could grab you. It was only supposed to be about you—no lockdown, no one else in danger—just take you out of your chemistry class and go. But you weren’t there. If anyone’s to blame for the mess it’s become, it’s you.”

  “Maybe she’s right.” When Bunker finally speaks, I don’t like what he has to say, especially when I only have two and a half minutes to reach Katie. “Maybe we should listen—”

  “I don’t have time to listen,” I say, handing the knife to Bunker. “Stand up.”

  I’m surprised when she does as I order, but unlike Bunk, I’m not trusting her they-made-me-do-it story, especially since her accent has slowly morphed into a mix of BBC and something I can’t pinpoint, maybe Eastern European. I skip the formality of asking her permission before I pat her down, looking for weapons.

  “Where’s your phone?” I ask after finding no weapons on her.

  “What phone?”

  “I know you’ve got a satellite phone up here somewhere.”

  The minute I step back from her, she reaches down the front of her shirt—the one place I was too much of a gentleman to check—pulls out the smallest sat phone I’ve ever seen, and throws it over my head, a good fifty feet behind me, and off the roof. I hear the tiny splash it makes when it hits the koi pond in the courtyard. Okay, seventy feet.

  “Oh, you meant that phone.”

  Wow. She’s a pretty decent hacker who actually does look like Hollywood’s version of a mermaid and has an arm like an MLB pitcher. I can see why Bunker might lose his damn mind after only two conversations with her—if she wasn’t a terrorist bent on seeing me dead.

  “Sorry, but if Marchuk found out I gave you access to the outside world, he’d kill me,” she says. “You’ll have to get us out of this without my help.”

  “There is no ‘us’ here. You’re one of the bad guys. We aren’t. Right, Bunk?”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “Bunk?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you going to be okay?” I ask, not sure I’ll believe his answer either way. But I don’t have a choice. Katie needs me. “Blondie here needs to be contained, but I have to get down to the office. Like, stat.”

  “You really do. You’re under two minutes now, and Marchuk’s threats are never idle. I should know.” The way she says that last line and looks at me with pleading eyes is probably meant to convince us she’s a victim in all this, but I’m not buying it.

  I’m not so sure about Bunker.

  He finally wakes from the dead and says, “Yes, I can handle it. But not with this. I don’t want that.”

  I take the knife but trade him th
e small canister of pepper spray I found in one of my pockets. Bunker waves it off.

  “Look at her, Peter. She’s barely five feet and weighs, like, ninety pounds.”

  “But you can’t—”

  “Let my guard down, I know. I figured you out, didn’t I?”

  “You’re sure, Bunk?” I ask, hoping he is, because now that I know Katie isn’t the hacker, she’s back to being the first girl I ever really cared about. I’m now under ninety seconds.

  “Yeah, man. I got this. You go help Katie.”

  “No fireworks and ice cream, right? And definitely no mermaids.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Blondie asks.

  “No mermaids,” Bunker says, taking the pepper spray to prove he means it.

  I don’t quite believe he’s “got this,” but I have to leave him with the hacker. Katie is waiting for me.

  When I reach the office, so out of breath my chest hurts, Officer Andrews is holding Katie by one arm, or more like holding her up. Her beautiful face is already bruised and swollen, her bottom lip cut and bleeding, no doubt from the fist Marchuk landed on it. He’s sitting at Jonesy’s desk, feet propped up on it, looking like he rules the world.

  “Here is Prettyboy, with only seven seconds to spare. You cut it close. Perhaps Marchuk was wrong and you don’t care for girl as much as I was told.”

  I want so much to feel my hands around his neck that I have to keep myself from charging into the room before I’ve assessed every threat it holds.

  “What kind of man hits a defenseless woman? Your father would be so proud. If he were still alive, I mean.” I know those are fighting words, but I want nothing more right now than to reunite him with Marchuk Sr.

  “So, girl is important to you. Good. You will make less trouble for us this way, I am certain.”

  “Let her go, Marchuk. No more games. If you’ve come for me, I’m right here.”

  “Like most seventeen-year-old children, you are under impression world revolves around you. How is it you work for CIA? Why do they let boy do man’s work? This would never happen in Ukraine’s SBU.”

  “I got your boy right here,” I say, clicking open the knife Bunker refused to take.

  “Don’t. She’s got me,” Katie says. Whimpers, more like, which nearly makes me lose my shit.

  But I don’t. Andrews’s holster is empty and I can guess what she’s jabbing into Katie’s back. The only reason Katie’s in this office is because she means something to me.

  I throw the knife onto the desk.

  Marchuk takes the blade and holds it on me while Andrews ties me to a chair. Ugh. Wherever he’s been hiding out all this time, he still hasn’t stopped eating borscht three meals a day, or discovered antiperspirant.

  “Don’t worry, little one.”

  He walks up close to Katie and strokes the side of her face he hasn’t turned an ugly shade of purple. She looks so afraid it’s damn near killing me.

  “Such pretty girl. Pavlo appreciates that you agree not to fight. Pavlo will take good care of you, at least until he does not need you.”

  If thoughts could kill, he’d be so very dead right now. I search his eyes for any bit of his father in them. Marchuk Sr. was a bad person who did bad things, but he still had some humanity in him—I know that better than anyone. In his son, I see the same facial features, same brown hair and eyes, same complexion—dark, considering he’s a white Slavic dude. But any humanity? There is none. It’s like looking into the eyes of the man who would have killed me if not for Bunker.

  Marchuk is going to kill me, even if he takes his sweet time doing it. And then he’s going to kill Katie, but not before doing something awful to her first. On instinct I jump up, lifting the heavy office chair with me, but Andrews has my arms bound tight. I guess Marchuk is worried I have Bruce Banner–like rage because he hauls off and lands a right cross that feels like a sledgehammer against my face.

  I actually see stars before the chair and I fall back to earth.

  CHAPTER 19

  When I come to, only Katie and I are in the office. She’s sitting on the edge of a desk, watching me while dabbing her eyes with a tissue. It makes me wanna-kill-him angry at Marchuk all over again.

  “How long was I out? Where are they?”

  “A couple of minutes. They’re in Dodson’s office, plotting something, I suppose.” She tosses the tissue in the wastebasket before wagging three fingers in my face. “How many?”

  “Six.”

  I thought the situation could use a little levity, but I guess not because Katie looks worried. I try to smile, but it hurts like hell.

  “Three. I see three fingers.”

  “You bugger,” she says, but I can tell she’s more relieved than mad.

  “They left you unsecured? Why didn’t you run?”

  “Run where?” she asks, amazingly composed considering she must have been bawling a minute ago. Her eyes are red and her lashes are still wet. “The school is locked down. That will only anger him.”

  The door to Dodson’s office clicks open. I let my head drop to my chest as though I’m still passed out. A moment passes before I hear the door click shut again.

  “All clear,” Katie says after a few seconds. “Andrews was just checking whether you were still unconscious. Or maybe she’s concerned you’re dead.”

  “Don’t worry. They can’t take me out that easily.”

  Katie takes a seat at the registrar’s desk, picks up a mirror she finds there, and checks out her face before looking over at mine. “I’m just glad she was the one who worked me over instead of Marchuk. For your information, this is what happened the last time I tried to run.”

  “I’m here now,” I say in my best it’s-all-under-control voice. “I’m going to get you out of this.”

  “Oh, really? I’m not the one mildly concussed and tied to a chair right now.”

  She has a point. And I also notice for the first time that she’s not in Carlisle’s uniform. Except for the shoes, she’s wearing the same gear I am: black long-sleeved t-shirt, black cargo pants.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” I ask.

  “Oh, this old thing? I took them off a bad guy. He didn’t need them anymore and in these situations, they’re far more comfortable than a skirt and blazer.”

  Now it’s Katie’s turn to bring some comic relief. I know she’s trying to put on a brave front for me, but I still wish I knew why Marchuk made her dress like that. Given that last comment of his before he knocked me out, maybe I don’t want to know. Dude is clearly a freak.

  “Why are you?” she asks.

  “Why am I what?”

  “Why are you dressed like that? I assume it has something to do with that little spectacle you made on the PA a while ago.”

  Odds are good we’re going to die no matter how badass I’m pretending to be for Katie’s sake. I want her to know Jake Morrow before that happens. So I’m about to answer with the truth, but before I can, Marchuk and Andrews come out of Dodson’s office.

  “You are in land of living again,” Marchuk says to me.

  “And you’re here, in the land of the free. How is that possible?”

  Marchuk ignores my question. “Enjoy living while you can. It won’t be for much longer.”

  Katie sniffles, and when I look over at her, she’s crying again. She must be so scared, going from dry-eyed to waterworks in under ten seconds.

  “Do not worry, little one. You will have bit more time. My promise to you.” He smiles all nasty before barking an order. “Now move other chair over there, next to boyfriend, and have seat. Andrews, go check on office staff in auditorium.”

  Katie drags her chair next to mine and takes a seat, but Andrews doesn’t move, only says, “They’re locked down. They aren’t going anywhere.”

  “And they are tied up too, but I still want you to make sure all is well. People working in school must be smart. People escape. I should know.”

  “Maybe we should get Koval
to handle that.”

  “Koval is busy keeping other men in line. And making sure hundreds of soft targets stay where they should be. And also making sure package is secure until other package arrives safely. So, no, I do not want Koval to do all these jobs and your job, too. I want you to do what I tell you to do.”

  I’m making mental notes of Marchuk’s cryptic talk of “packages” in case I live long enough to decipher them, but I’m also preparing for him to explode. If he does, it would be the right time to strike, if I can figure out how to do that without the use of my hands or feet. Unfortunately for her, Andrews doesn’t seem to notice Marchuk’s about to go ballistic on her.

  “But don’t you need me here to—”

  “What—help with boy tied to chair? Or with sweet girl?”

  “But this kid, isn’t he some kind of agent?” Andrews says, which makes Katie turn to me and ask, You’re a what? with her eyebrows. At least, that’s what I think she’s saying. Eyebrows are hard to read.

  He slams his fist on the nearest desk, shattering the thick glass that was meant to protect the wood beneath it. Okay, Junior is really strong.

  “I think Marchuk can handle situation. Do as instructed.”

  “Yes, sir,” Andrews says.

  “But first, if team two is even three seconds late with next check-in, please kill them. No, wait. We can’t afford to lose two men. We already have one who has not reported in. Only kill one of them. To make point.”

  “Which one?”

  Marchuk throws his hands in the air and looks at Andrews as though she asked him for the answer to world peace. “Does not matter which one. Just do it.”

  I assume team two is still tied up and unconscious in Ms. Flagler’s bio lab, which means Duncan’s a sitting duck. The digital clock on the wall facing me reads 01:44:17. I don’t know how I’m possibly going to get Duncan out of this jam in forty-three seconds, but I have to try.

  “Team two is probably on a smoke break,” I say, before Andrews can leave the office. “One of them is a chain-smoker.”

  “How do you know this? Team two says you were not in classroom when they arrived. But perhaps you returned and made sure they would not be able to check in. It would explain your clothes.”