Security(68)

Tessa knew that, and she waited for her knight to come for her, and he did. And I’m glad. I’m nothing but glad and grateful. They’ll be here in seconds.

People will think I died after aiding Brian and Tessa. After those antics in the maze, they’ll say, He must have passed out from the strain. Tessa thinks this is true already. Brian doesn’t, but he’ll keep his theories to himself. The medical examiner won’t bother with a specific time of death. When Bowles and Larson check my pulse and find my neck warm and my body pliable, they’ll take the truth with them to their graves. They’ll erase the twentieth floor’s camera feed. They’ll say, His chair must have rolled.

No one else will guess I pushed my left cheek along the counter, back and down, away from the monitors. Thinking, not altogether flippantly, I’d better go get that pencil I dropped.

Bowles and Larson are showing the police the secret elevator. They use Larson’s controller. They goggle at the sight of Vivica.

I move another half inch, hurrying.

A policeman holds Bowles and Larson back. “We need to get the body out of—”

“You don’t understand. There’s no other access to the twentieth floor. We have to check if our team is alive up there.”

I move. Movement is life.

They move, past the second and third and fourth floor. I am nearing the edge. On the monitor, the sun winks over the mountains. It shines in my eye. The fountain is still on in the center of the maze, spraying at least ten feet high. Someone should turn that off, it’s a horrible waste of wat