The Long Game (The Fixer #2)(73)

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 literally—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.