The Masked Truth(7)

“Come out, come out,” Max calls. “Or don’t. Actually, let’s go with that. Don’t come out. You’re hopelessly lost, having failed to adequately mark the trail with breadcrumbs. That way, we both have an excuse not to go back and listen to Mr. Highgate, who is, shockingly, still regaling his captive audience with all the problems he doesn’t have.”

Oh God, go away, Max. Please, please, please go away. You don’t deserve this. No one does. Just walk down another hall and let this guy take me and do whatever—

A wave of lightheadedness washes over me.

And do whatever.

Kill me.

He’s going to kill me.

I don’t care. Can’t care. Can’t escape. Just go, Max. Please, please—

Max steps around the corner and sees me in the shadows, my expression hidden.

“Bloody hell,” he says. “You can’t play a proper game at all. Go hide, please, so I can spend the next hour seeking and—”

The man pushes me, and we both move into the light. Max stops. He stands there, frozen, like I was, except my shock lasted only a second or two. Max stares at us, and the look on his face … I’d say it’s terror, but not the kind you get from seeing someone holding a gun. It’s deeper than that. Raw and bone-chilling.

“It’s a mask, idiot,” the man says.

At least three seconds tick by. Then Max rubs his face, hard.

“Riley?” he says, uncertainty in his voice.

“Don’t move,” I say finally, my voice oddly steady, as if his terror swallows my own. “He’s got a gun to my head and—”

Max spits a curse, and I realize he hasn’t seen the gun. So what freaked him out? A guy in an alien mask?

Max breathes hard now, saying, “All right, all right.” Then, “It’s going to be fine, Riley. Just stay calm. It’ll be fine. I’ll—”

The man cuts him off with a snorted laugh. “Don’t even think of playing hero, kid. All you’ll do is get this girl killed. Which, by the way” —he lowers his voice to a mock whisper— “really doesn’t impress the ladies.”

“Don’t,” I say. “Please. Max doesn’t have anything to do with what happened. Let him go. It’s me you want.”

“Really? Is your daddy rich?”

Max snaps out of it, his sarcasm slingshotting back. “Her daddy is dead, you tosser. You’ve got the wrong girl.”

“Actually, we aren’t looking for a girl at all. We’re here for the son of Mr. Lewis Highgate, who is very rich indeed. As for this girlie, let’s hope her daddy left a nice insurance policy. One that will help his daughter buy her freedom.”

“F-freedom?” I say.

“I believe this is what you call a hostage situation. You two kiddies may not be the main prize, but you’ll make perfectly fine bonuses.” He prods me forward, gun still at my head. “Now, let’s go meet young Mr. Highgate, phone his daddy and get this party started.”





CHAPTER 3


Our captor leads us back to the therapy room. If he speaks on the walk, I don’t hear it. I just keep staring at him, thinking, This can’t be real. Then I notice Max doing the same, an even more intense stare, his eyes like laser beams trying to cut through the mask. No, trying to incinerate it.

He blinks hard and seems surprised when he glances over to see the man still there. Surprised and dismayed. That’s all—dismayed. Not panic, and maybe that’s because he’s decided this is all an act or a prank, but in a weird way his calm keeps me from dropping on the floor, hands over my head, breaking down, sobbing, “Not again, not again, not again.”

I can hear voices from the therapy room, raised in anger and panic and fear. I don’t hear words, though. It’s as if there’s cotton stuffed in my ears, a weird kind of deadening inside my head.

When we reach the room, there are two other men in masks, one from the Star Wars cantina scene, the other from Predator. They have everyone against the wall, faces to it, hands over their heads.

“Well, well, I see you boys started the party without me. Let me add the two final guests, then. Against the wall, kiddies. I’d tell you to assume the position, but I think you can figure that out.”

I try to walk over to Sandy and Brienne, but the guy in the gray X-Files mask grabs my shoulder and steers me to the end, between the only two kids whose names I don’t know—the boy who wouldn’t introduce himself and the girl who didn’t get a chance.

The girl is about my age, the guy maybe a year younger. When I meet his gaze, he turns away almost angrily, as if I were trying to get him in trouble. The girl whispers, “Maria,” and I turn her way. She has dark braids and dark skin, and she’s taken off her jacket and is wearing a Happy Bunny T-shirt that says Crazy on the Inside. I have to smile at that. I just do, even if it’s only a twitch of my lips. She catches my look and nods at Aimee and then waves a scolding finger, pantomiming that my counselor had not been nearly as amused by the shirt. Which is probably why it’d been covered by a jacket earlier.

Later, I’ll tell her I’m glad she wore that shirt, because for that one moment it made me forget that I was standing at a wall, hands over my head, waiting for armed captors to frisk me. And that moment’s break is all I need to push out of the corner inside my head, squelch the inward panic, and take a deep breath and say, “I can do this.”