The screech of Victoria’s chair against the floor is loud in the silence. She pushes back from the table, stands and crosses to the doorway, turns back, pacing. Caleb looks at Bishop and me in turn, asking the question with his eyes: what’s she going to do? Bishop raises just his fingers from the table, telling Caleb to wait.
“How can you even ask that of me?” Victoria says. She’s not yelling, but her voice has the hard edge I used to hear when she talked to prisoners. “She was trying to get to the guns!”
“But she didn’t get to them. She was never going to. I gave my father the wrong code.”
Victoria’s eyebrows go up at the same time Bishop makes a startled noise in his throat. One more detail I never gave him. Sometimes all the secrets I’ve held feel like the layers of an onion; peel and peel and there is always one more waiting. “Regardless,” Victoria says, “her intention was to get the guns.”
“But she didn’t. She didn’t get them,” I repeat. “She doesn’t deserve to die for the attempt.”
“That’s the worst logic I’ve ever heard,” Victoria snaps. “So because we were able to stop her before she actually killed anyone, she gets a free pass?”
“No one’s saying she gets a free pass,” Bishop says. “We’ll get her out of here, but then she’ll be beyond the fence, just like us. Believe me, that’s not a free pass.”
Victoria shakes her head, a humorless smile on her lips. “And how’s that going to work? The three of you are going to be a happy family? You think Callie’s going to bounce your babies on her knee someday? Be a doting aunt?”
I’ve already thought about what happens after, and I know Callie can’t stay with us. It would never work. And she would never want to, anyway. “No,” I say. “Once we get her out, then we’ll go our own ways.” I stand up and cross to where Victoria is standing near the doorway. “I know you don’t like her. I know you don’t understand why I’m doing this.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
“But I also know you aren’t bloodthirsty, Victoria. You don’t really think her punishment fits the crime.”
Victoria closes her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose. “So what are you thinking? I let you in and you waltz out of there with her?”
Just the fact that she’s asking the question tells me she’s going to do it. But I keep my voice calm when I answer. “All you have to do is unlock the basement door. And tell me where to find a key to her cell. That’s it. We’ll get her out.”
Victoria opens her eyes, pins me with her gaze. “Without hurting anyone.”
I nod. “Okay. Without hurting anyone.”
“Ivy,” Bishop says, from his seat at the table, “we can’t promise that. We may—”
“I’m not doing it otherwise,” Victoria says. “I’m not putting other people’s lives on the line for Callie.”
I look back at Bishop. “All right,” he says. “We won’t kill anyone. That I can promise.”
Victoria blows out a breath. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“I’m doing it for you, Ivy. Not for her. I’m doing it because I feel like I let you down, when they put you out. I should have done more, tried harder to stop it.”
I’m already shaking my head before she’s done speaking. “That wasn’t your fault. It was my choice. I don’t blame you.”
Victoria’s smile is small and bittersweet. “I’ll unlock the door in an hour. Be ready. The cell key will be on the top of the doorway. She’s in the very first cell.”
My heart is starting to pound harder just listening to her words. By the time we get to the courthouse it will be raging in my chest. “Okay.”
“Once you get her out, you need to go, Ivy. Get out of Westfall. Fast.”
“I want to try to f
ind my father, too,” I say, “if I can. But I promise we won’t stay long. And we won’t get caught. No one will ever know you helped us.”
Victoria nods. “Okay then,” she says, voice brisk. “Let’s get this done.”
Before we left Victoria’s, she gave me a scarf to wrap around the lower part of my face. She also tried to convince Bishop and Caleb to leave the rifle and crossbow at her house, saying they made us too conspicuous, but they both refused. After living beyond the fence, going anywhere without a weapon makes us all feel naked. Better to take our chances being singled out because we have weapons than to go out on the streets unarmed.
Victoria leaves before we do, tells us to follow half an hour behind. While we’re waiting, anxious eyes on the clock on her kitchen wall, Caleb asks how far it is to the courthouse.