The Long Game

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  I wondered now if that lie had hurt her, the way letting her believe that I was safe and that I was staying hurt me. If I went back in and never walked out of Hardwicke alive, she’d know that I’d chosen to go. She’d know that I had lied to her, and that I’d chosen to leave.

  I’m sorry, Ivy. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you.

  I wished, for the first time, that I could be the daughter she wanted. The one she deserved.

  A knock on the door jarred me from that thought.

  “Just a second,” I called.

  Priya must have heard both the knock and my response because she saved me the trouble of ending the call. “I’ll be in touch.”

  The line went dead. I took two seconds to try to wipe the remnants of our conversation from my face, and then I opened the door to find Bodie standing on the other side. I took the serious expression on his devil-may-care face.

  “There’s news,” I said.

  Bodie snorted, the way he always did when I jumped to a conclusion and found myself on solid ground. “Yeah, kitten, there’s news.”

  I thought about Ivy and what she was trying to do—what I needed her to do. “Good news or bad news?”

  “Depends on who you ask,” Bodie told me. “I just got a call from Ivy, who got a call from Georgia Nolan.”

  The First Lady. My brain took that piece of information and scrambled to fit it into the whole.

  Bodie saved me the effort. “President Nolan just woke up.”

  CHAPTER 58

  Three minutes. In three minutes, someone dies.

  President Nolan waking up was good news. It was also bad news because President Nolan didn’t have a daughter at Hardwicke. He had no personal incentive to negotiate with Senza Nome, especially given that the terrorist whose release they were demanding had targeted his son—and was carrying what the president believed to be his grandchild.

  Two minutes.

  I hadn’t heard from Priya since she’d hung up the phone. In contrast, I had heard from Ivy, who’d told me she had a plan.

  I stared at the clock on my phone, willing the phone to ring, willing someone to tell me that the situation was under control.

  One minute.

  The time stared back at me, a brutal reminder of the promise I’d been made. Every hour on the hour, I will put a gun to one of your classmates’ heads. And, Tess? I’ll enjoy pulling the trigger.

  The phone rang. I answered it. “Priya?”

  “No.” Mrs. Perkins turned my stomach with a single word.

  I had to convince her we needed more time. I had to do something. “The president woke up—” I started to say.

  “All the more reason to move quickly,” the terrorist replied. “Once Nolan’s doctor has ruled him physically and mentally fit to return to office, the game’s rules change—and not in your favor.”

  Not in your favor, either, I thought.

  “I’m waiting,” I said, rushing the words out so she wouldn’t interrupt me again. “I did everything you asked. Ivy, Keyes, Priya Bharani—everyone is doing what you asked.”

  “And I appreciate that,” Mrs. Perkins replied, an odd undertone to her voice, a hum of energy that hit me like fingernails on a chalkboard. “But it’s important,” she continued, “for you to realize that I am the kind of person who keeps my word.”

  No. I couldn’t seem to push the word out of my mouth. When I finally managed to, there was no one on the other end to hear it.

  She hung up.

  My grip tightened around the phone as I slammed it and my hand into the wall.

  My time was up.

  I closed my eyes. They burned beneath the lids. I forced a breath into and out of my lungs, shaking with the effort.

  The phone buzzed in my hand.

  With tortuous effort, I forced my wrist to turn, forced my eyes to open and stare at the screen. My whole body pounding, each breath scalding my lungs, I opened the text message I’d received.

  A video.

  My mouth and throat and lips went dry. I could feel my heart beating in the tips of my fingers as my shaking hand hit the play button.

  “Let me go!”

  Two pairs of hands forced a struggling boy to his knees. The last time I’d seen him, Matt Benning had exuded a quiet power. Careful. Restrained. Protective.

  There was no one to protect Matt now.

  “I’ll do whatever you say,” he promised on-screen, his naturally low voice rising to a pitch that was painful to hear.

  “Say hello to Tess.” The instruction came from off-screen. The voice was female. The two pairs of hands holding Matt in place were male.

  “Hello, Tess.”

  He was ugly-crying. Part of him thought that if he did as they asked, they might let him go. Another part of him knew better.

  “Tell her to help you,” Mrs. Perkins instructed off-screen.

  Matt’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He stopped struggling against the hold of the guards, going deathly still. “Help me.”

  His voice was lower now. He sounded like the boy I’d talked to at the party, the one who kept his head down.

  “Say it again,” Mrs. Perkins said, stepping into frame. She knelt next to Matt and pressed the barrel of her gun to his head.

  Matt began struggling wildly against the hands that held him in place, jerking against their grip as if there were an electrical current running through his body. “Help me! Tess—”

  The second he said my name, Mrs. Perkins pulled the trigger. The gun went off. The guards held Matt’s body a moment longer, then let go. I watched as it fell to the floor.

  Not Matt. Not anymore.

  Mrs. Perkins addressed the camera. “You have one hour.”

  The video cut off. I dropped my phone. It clattered to the floor, and I stood there, frozen in place, anchored by dead-weight limbs that wouldn’t move.

  Help me.

  My stomach lurched, and I lunged for my trash can.

  Help me. Tess—

  I threw up, and I kept throwing up until there was nothing left, my entire body racked with spastic shudders that wouldn’t stop. Beside me on the floor, my phone rang.

  It rang again.

  Pick it up. My brain managed to form the words. Pick it up. They’ll want to know you watched it. If you don’t pick it up, they’ll—

  Somehow, my hand made its way to the phone. Somehow, I answered. “You monster.”

  “Tess.” On some level, I recognized that the voice on the other end of the line wasn’t Mrs. Perkins, but the words kept pouring out of my mouth.

  “I’ll kill you,” I said, my voice as hollow as my stomach. “I will find a way, and I will—”

  “Tess,” Priya said again sharply.

  Help me. Tess—

  My body shuddered, but there was nothing left to throw up. I didn’t sob. “We have to move,” I told Priya.

  Fifty-nine minutes. Fifty-eight. The countdown had started again.

  “When I told you that you didn’t have to do this, I meant it.” Priya’s words barely even penetrated my brain.

  “We’ve been through this,” I said. “I do, and I am, and you are wasting time that we do not have.”

  There was a pause, saturated with the questions Vivvie’s aunt was asking herself—Could she do this? Could she allow me to do this?

  “I’m outside.” Priya’s words answered the question for both of us. “If you can get out of the house without anyone noticing, I can get you in to see Daniela.”

  I pushed myself to my feet. I hung up the phone and dragged the back of my hand roughly over my mouth.

  It was too late for Matt—but not for every other student held captive in my school.

  Help me.

  I would. If I had to die trying, so be it.

  CHAPTER 59

  I didn’t know how Priya had located the facility where Daniela Nicolae was being kept. I didn’t know what kind of favors she’d had to call in or who she’d had to kill—possibly li
terally—to get us in. All I knew was that we’d somehow successfully navigated both fingerprint and retinal scans, and the armed guards outside the door stepped aside when we arrived.

  Inside the cell, a small woman sat with a hand resting protectively on her protruding stomach. Her dark hair was limp and lifeless, framing her face like a shadow.

  Without moving her head, she shifted her eyes up toward Priya. “You, I expected,” she said, her voice rough from lack of use. “But I will admit to being surprised about the girl.”

  Daniela Nicolae, the woman who’d infiltrated Walker Nolan’s life in the most intimate ways imaginable, didn’t move to get up from the bench on which she sat. She didn’t flinch when Priya took a step toward her.

  “Your people have seized control of the Hardwicke School.”

  Daniela’s head snapped back, as if Priya’s words had hit her with physical force.

  “They’ve given us an ultimatum,” Priya continued. “Either we hand you over to them, or they start shooting students.”

  They’ve already started, I thought, unable to stop myself from remembering Matt’s face in those last seconds.

  Daniela’s left hand joined her right on her stomach. There was meaning woven into that gesture: she had a child to think about, too.

  Whether that helps us or hurts us . . .

  I needed to find out. “Could you give us a minute?” I asked Priya.

  Vivvie’s aunt and the terrorist both turned the full force of their powerful stares on me.

  “I was told I had to talk to Daniela alone,” I said.

  With each second of silence that followed, I became more aware of the fact that I wasn’t supposed to be here. No matter what strings Priya had pulled, all it took was the wrong person discovering our presence, and I might find myself in a facility exactly like this one.

  Twenty-seven minutes. We didn’t have time for complications, and we didn’t have the luxury of getting caught.

  “You can’t get me out of here, can you?” Daniela pulled her gaze from my face and resumed studying Priya. “If you could, we’d already be on the move.”

  Vivvie’s aunt returned the stare. “You aren’t leaving here without an executive order.” Priya’s tone gave no hint to the pressure we were under, but my mind went to what would happen if that executive order didn’t come through.

  Twenty-six minutes.

  “I need to talk to Daniela alone,” I repeated. I had to trust that Ivy would come through. She would secure Daniela’s release. She had to. And before that happened, before Daniela walked out of this room, I had to deliver the terrorists’ message.

  And one of my own.

  “Let the girl deliver her message,” Daniela told Priya. “She won’t come to any harm by my hand.”

  Priya showed no signs whatsoever of moving.

  I gave her a look. “She’s really pregnant,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I can take her.”

  Priya snorted. “I am fairly certain you cannot.”

  Nonetheless, after tossing another assessing gaze in Daniela’s direction, Priya turned to leave, telling us she’d be right outside. Clearly, Daniela was meant to take those words as a threat.

  I waited until the door closed behind Priya before I considered what I was getting ready to say—and whether or not it was worth saying it at all. “Walker Nolan is not the president’s son.”

  In all likelihood, that statement—and all the ones that followed—would mean nothing to Daniela. In all likelihood, what I had to say would have no effect on her at all.

  “Georgia Nolan had an affair,” I continued, “with a man named William Keyes.”

  It didn’t matter that this probably wouldn’t work. I had to take the chance that the interrogators were right, that Walker Nolan meant something to the woman in front of me.

  “This is the message you were asked to deliver?” Daniela raised an eyebrow to aristocratic heights.

  “No,” I said. “That’s not the message. I’m not telling you this for them. I’m telling you for me. Walker doesn’t know. The president doesn’t know.”

  “But you know?” There was a clear note of challenge in Daniela’s voice.

  “My father died before I was born. His name was Tommy Keyes.” I took another step forward. “He was Walker’s brother.”

  Daniela said nothing. I took one step forward, then another. After a long moment, I turned and lowered myself onto the bench next to her. She tracked my movements, hyperaware. On the bench beside her, I stared straight ahead at the wall that Daniela had probably been staring at for days.

  “Why tell me this?” Daniela asked finally, breaking the heavy silence that had fallen between us. “What could you possibly expect to gain?”

  I didn’t turn to look at her. “My name is Tess.”

  She hadn’t asked. She probably didn’t want to know.

  “My mother’s name is Ivy. She doesn’t have any siblings. And Adam, Walker’s other brother, he doesn’t have any kids.”

  I didn’t stumble over referring to Ivy as my mother. There was too much at stake.

  “Your daughter,” I said, bringing my hand slowly to Daniela’s stomach. “We share the same blood.”

  We’re family.

  I willed her to see it that way, to see me that way, if only for the most fleeting of moments.

  “And if you are telling the truth, if you and my daughter share blood, what does that make me?” Daniela asked.

  A terrorist. A criminal.

  “Someone who wants to protect her daughter,” I said, my quiet voice cutting through the air like a knife. “And hopefully, someone capable of believing that I might want that, too.”

  Daniela stared at my hand on her stomach. She kept staring until I removed it.

  I wanted her to trust me. I wanted her to at least try to convince me that I could trust her, too.

  Nineteen minutes.

  I knew in the pit of my stomach that we weren’t going to make it back to Hardwicke before the hour was up. I knew what would happen when we didn’t.

  Stop, I told myself. I had to believe that Ivy would come through, that Daniela would be released. And if I believed that, if I could make myself believe that, then I needed to know what we would be walking into once Ivy had secured Daniela’s release.

  For that, I needed someone who knew how Senza Nome operated. I needed Daniela on my side, not theirs.

  “You said that you had a message for me.” Daniela’s voice was even, without emphasis. I had no idea if she believed what I’d told her about Walker’s parentage, or if she cared. I had no idea if she saw even a hint of him when she looked at me. “It would be in your best interest,” Daniela continued in that same deadly, even tone, “to deliver that message.”

  What if the interrogators were wrong? I thought, unable to block out the hint of fear slithering its way up my spine. What if Daniela hasn’t been emotionally compromised? What if she’s one of them in every sense of the word?

  What if they have no intention of silencing her at all?

  For the first time, I truly processed the fact that the woman sitting beside me was Senza Nome. Like Mrs. Perkins. Like Dr. Clark.

  “You want the message?” I said. “‘The dove has always wanted to fly to Madrid.’”

  I saw the moment the words landed for the woman.

  The dove has always wanted to fly to Madrid. What did that mean? What could that possibly mean?

  Beside me, Daniela climbed to her feet. I stayed sitting, tracking her movement. She turned back to face me, and I returned her stare.

  “You are quiet,” Daniela said finally, after a full minute had stretched by with us in silence.

  I shrugged, my leg muscles tense, ready to propel me to my feet the second it became necessary. “I told you everything I came here to say.”

  The woman opposite me smiled slightly. I didn’t know whether to be warmed by the expression—or chilled.

  “If I asked you to,” Daniela said, a slight, lilti
ng accent creeping into her voice, “would you tell me what else my people asked you to do? Their other demands—the things that were not a part of their message for me.”

  I wasn’t sure if this was a test or a trick or even just a request—but I was here, and she was asking. If things went as planned, Priya would be delivering both of us through the gates of Hardwicke. Honesty was a chance I had to take.

  “They want you, and they want Priya, and they want me.” That was just the start of their demands. In as few words as possible, I communicated the rest. Daniela listened in utter silence, one hand creeping to the small of her back, her eyes sharp as she digested my words.

  “May I ask who issued your orders?” Daniela inquired once I’d finished.

  I told her about Mrs. Perkins.

  I told her about the armed men in the halls.

  I showed her the video Mrs. Perkins had sent me. I didn’t watch it. I couldn’t. But even when I turned my head away, I wasn’t able to block out the sounds. I closed my eyes. I pressed back against the strobe-like images that battered against the halls of my memory.

  Help me!

  I bowed my head, my arms curving around my torso.

  Daniela let the video play to the end. When she looked up, her eyes were dry, but I could see a glint of emotion lurking in their depths.

  Guilt? Sorrow? Rage?

  “Why you?” Daniela asked me, her voice still even, still controlled as she paced to the far corner of the room. “Why let you go? Why send you these videos? Why send you here?”

  I gave her the only answer I had, the only one I’d been given. “I’m a resourceful girl, related to some very powerful people.”

  Daniela looked at me and into me, like I was a clock, and she was a clock maker preparing to take it apart. “You care.”

  I do. For some reason, I couldn’t admit that out loud.

  “Walker cares.” Daniela turned her head to one side, allowing her matted hair to fall into her face. “He’s always cared too much.”

  About you, I thought. You mean that he cared too much about you.

  This was the moment—the one I’d been waiting for, the only one I was going to get.

  “I’ll die to protect the people I love,” I said. I let my gaze fall down to her stomach and let a question form on my lips. “Will you?”