M and Cal both slithered out of the suits and kicked them aside. It was like climbing out of quicksand. They had been so tight that M could still feel the suit coiling around her even when it was off.
Then, awkwardly, the slack sleeves folded over and the legs slid across the ground until both empty suits lifted themselves up. Bandit trained his magblast on them, but one of the suits shot first, freezing him in place. Then the other suit took aim at M, who braced for what came next.
“Get down!” screamed Jules from behind them. M, Cal, and Zara all dropped to the roof as Jules flicked two knives at the suits, puncturing both magblast arms and trapping them against the nearby wall. The suits struggled to get free, but Jules pulled two more knives and struck the other arms. The empty suits were splayed out, helpless.
“I told you I could get it back,” said Jules. “Now blast those creepy things to kingdom come.”
Bandit obliged, firing a furious hit. One minute the suits were lumps of cloth, the next they were pulverized into dust that caught on the wind and blew away.
“You saved us,” said M.
“Maybe you saved me this time,” admitted Bandit. “This was the opportunity I’ve been waiting for, but you made it possible.”
“And now?” M let the question dangle in front of Bandit.
He sighed heavily. “I’ve kept my promise to your father. You are alive. But now you should keep your distance, M. Go back to your life and have the childhood he would have wanted you to have.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“This isn’t the moment where I realize the error of my ways,” he admitted. “I’m too old to change, or rather, I don’t want to change. I’m a criminal. I’m a teacher. Those are both powerful callings. The Lawless School may have been destroyed, but schools can always be rebuilt. I’m sorry if you thought this would end differently.”
Above them a stealth plane hovered without making a sound. Ropes came down and Bandit hooked them up to Foley’s chamber.
Zara stepped forward and said, “Bandit, wait. I’m coming with you.”
“Zara, no, please. Stay with me,” M begged. “You can live with me and my mom. We can give you a normal life. Well, as normal a life as we can make after all of this. It’s a chance for something beyond a life of crime.”
“Thank you, M,” said Zara as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m not cut from a normal cloth, though. You and I both know that. I’m staying with Foley and leaving with Bandit.”
M nodded. “You know this means someone will have to stop you.”
“Someone, yes,” said Bandit. “But I do love a worthy opponent. Farewell, Freeman, Fence, and Byrd. Until we meet again.”
Bandit handed Zara another rope and she stepped into the bottom loop. Then they all lifted into the night, Zara, Bandit, and Foley, and disappeared.
New footsteps raced toward them. It was M’s mother, who swept her up in the strongest hug she had ever felt in her life. “You’re safe, you’re safe, you’re safe,” she repeated between kisses to the top of M’s head. Then M’s mother began to sob. “I thought I’d, I’d …”
“I’m okay, Mom,” said M. “Remember, we’re Freemans. Safe, smart, and special. Nothing can change that. Not even the end of the world.”
“Is it over?” her mother asked. “Is it finally finished?”
“Yes,” said M. “And no. It’s not over. It’s different.” She paused and looked at her friends around her and the dark sky, which suddenly felt so far away. “It’s better.”
Sunlight broke through the slit in the curtain at just the right angle to cut a path straight down the middle of M’s bed and directly into her eyes. She groaned and rolled over, pulling the covers tighter around her. She’d been meaning to fix that curtain for a while now, to show it who was the boss. But she never did. There were worse things than being woken up by the morning sun.
Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp.
Like her alarm, which for some reason she had decided to switch from the standard bell chimes to a bird audio file. “Go back to the nest, you little devils,” said M as she reached for her phone to hit snooze. Unfortunately, she batted it off the side table and it skidded under her bed. “You win, world. I’m up.”
M slid onto her soft-carpeted floor and reached under her bed to silence the phone. She used the desk to pull herself up and gave a sideways look at the bright-teal-and-burnt-orange chevron drapes. “If you weren’t so cute, I’d snip you into paper dolls.”
She made her bed with its silver sparkle duvet that was lighter than air. When she flipped it up, the blanket looked like a jellyfish softly landing all around her mattress. M loved doing this every morning and was surprised at the simple thrills a clean room could give her.
She looked in her full-length mirror. The bruises were almost gone on her arms. Survival class yesterday had threatened to knock the wind out of her sails. Photos still framed the mirror, tacked and taped around the edge. All of her best friends stared back at her: Jules, Merlyn, Devon, Evel, Ben, Vivian, and Cal. So did her father, M Freeman, and so did Jones. And lastly, there was a blank piece of paper with only one letter written on it: Z.
M shuffled downstairs like a zombie. “What is that smell, Mom? Don’t tell me you tried to cook.”
Her mother had thrown out the kitchen table as soon as they moved into the house in Harmon and commandeered the space as her new art studio. Apparently the lighting from the bay window was to die for. Michelangelo should have been so lucky.
“I did, M,” answered her mother, whose hands were covered not with flour or sugar but pastels. “You should be proud! I made toast.”
“Toast?” repeated M.
“With butter!” Her mother handed M a plate with one mangled piece of toast. It had been mashed down to within an inch of its life, though sharp peaks of cold butter still raised high above it.
“Thanks, Mom,” said M. She took a bite and heard the audible crunch of burnt bread. “I think you’re getting the hang of this whole chef thing. Just warn me when you’re moving on to casseroles.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” her mother said as she went back to her easel and continued work on her new piece. Over the past year, her mother’s art had really come into focus. It was odd at first because M had only known her mother to be a copy artist or restorer. But apparently, her mother was much, much more. She even had her own gallery opening in a few weeks of all original works.
As M ventured a second bite, the side door opened behind her. “I’ve got the newspapers!” cheered Jules.
“And I’ve got the latest details from Sercy,” said Merlyn as he joined them inside.
“Hmmm, all I brought were some biscuits and bagels,” said Cal.
M tossed her plate, uneaten toast and all, into the sink. “My hero!” She dove into the bag, grabbed a biscuit, and pulled it apart. Steam rose in the air and the room filled with doughy-scented goodness. She handed one half to Cal, who smiled, then took a huge bite.
Cal’s father brought up the rear and shut the door behind him. He held two coffees and offered one to M’s mom. “That piece is really coming together.”
“All right, everybody,” said M. “Let’s get to work.” She unfolded a copy of El Pais, a newspaper from Spain, and began to skim through every article.
“There’s a postal stamp auction at Christie’s in New York coming up,” said Merlyn.
“Nah, not their style,” replied M as she flipped to the next page.
“Oh, I’ve got one,” said Jules. “A tech startup is joining a private space firm to launch a satellite to beam selfies to a galaxy called EGS-zs8-1. It’s more than thirteen billion light-years away.”
“Catchy name,” admitted M. “And clearly the best place to send all of Earth’s selfies. Plus it’s got all the calling cards of being just weird enough. Have Sercy look into it.”
M had almost closed El Pais when she noticed a small piece about one of Pablo Picasso’s most famous works of art, Gu
ernica. “Wait, guys, listen to this: A giant robotic machine that took tens of thousands of microscopic shots of Picasso’s antiwar masterpiece has gone missing from a museum in Spain. It has lenses so strong that it can find air bubbles and scratches that were previously undetectable. One scan showed so much depth that you could actually see Picasso’s mistakes, which still exist under the artwork.”
The room fell silent.
“That’s the one,” Cal agreed. “No doubt.”
M breathed deeply and steadied herself. It had been a year since Bandit and Zara saved her life … possibly even the entire universe. A complete year of total silence.
But the Lawless School couldn’t stay quiet forever.
Thank you, reader, for making your way through the Lawless School, the Fulbright Academy, and beyond. It takes dedication to finish a trilogy, and I appreciate you sticking with this story to the very end—unless for some reason you’ve just now flipped to the back of the book to start with the acknowledgements. That’s just weird. What kind of a person does that? I mean, besides you, the person who did it. You know who you are.
Thank you, Scholastic, for giving M’s story life. Thank you, Nick, for working with me, believing in this trilogy, and pushing it further along whenever M ran into walls, plot holes, and things that go bump in the night. Thank you, also, to David for giving me a chance.
Phil Falco designed all these nifty covers and made me swear that I’ll eventually watch the Battlestar Galactica reboot.
Thanks to Brooke Shearouse, my excellent publicity contact, and thanks to Annie McDonnell for proofreading each of these books. They needed it!
Thank you to Josh and Tracey Adams for being the agents who made these books into actual, real books and not just voices in my own head.
Thank you, also, to my uncle, Rick Salane. He won’t finish this trilogy, but his spirit is in every word.
I have to thank my Mom and Dad, not because it’s mandatory, but because they actually deserve a never-ending supply of accolades, kudos, and applause for teaching me how to dream.
Thanks and congrats to my brother, Matt, and his wife, Ashley, for being in love.
To my Lawless daughter, Wren, thanks for being yourself.
To my Fulbright son, Dez, thanks for being yourself.
And to Adrienne, thanks for joining me on this adventure and letting me be a part of yours.
Jeffrey Salane grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, but moved north to study in Massachusetts and New York City. After spending many years playing in several bands, he now works as an editor and writer. He lives with his wife and kids in Brooklyn, New York. The author can prove his innocence at www.jeffreysalane.com.
Copyright © 2016 by Jeffrey Salane
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, May 2016
Cover art © 2016 by Nancy Stahl
Cover design by Phil Falco
e-ISBN 978-0-545-88571-3
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
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