I get the pin out just as I hear the click of the lock on the other side of the door, then the slide of a dead bolt (dead bolt, glad I didn’t try to kick in the doorknob). Rush or play dead? Rush or play dead?
I hide the hinge pin in my fist and scramble backward into the corner. They’ll be most ready, most wary when they open the door. I’ll have another chance. I curl into a ball, hug my bare legs to my chest. I’m glad I was crying, it will add to the look.
I stare up with my big, innocent eyes (they don’t know about my hands; my eyes are my best liars). The door opens.
It’s the girl, the one with brown hair whose car I stole. And behind her the man with the stubble. Cole. So much for feigning helplessness. I stand, keeping my hands fisted. They both walk into the room; neither has weapons. That was smart of them. Too bad. Cole has a slight limp (I wonder where my knife went; I liked that knife).
“Hello, Sofia.” The girl has a soft voice. It’s kind and cautious, but she’s still looking at me in a strange way, not the way she should. She should be scared or angry. She has—what? A sense of wonder? Compassion? And still that recognition.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I say. “I kind of had a lot to drink last night.” I take a step forward, let myself wobble as much as I should.
“Please stay where you are.” Cole’s voice is no-nonsense, and he…Hmmm. I don’t feel any threat coming off him, not like before. He’s not dangerous to me right now. Interesting. In fact, the only thing I’m worried about right now is Annie.
“Okay.” I lean back against the wall, narrow my eyes at both of them. “I don’t have very much time. Why am I here? Where is James?”
“We left James on the street.” Cole sees the shift in my expression and quickly adds, “Alive.”
So they weren’t after James. It was about me.
“We found you because of James,” the woman says. “We linked him to the school and have been tracking him for a while. So when I saw him at the club and recognized you, we finally had the break we needed.” She pauses, frowns. “You’re very hard to see.”
Well, that’s wonderful. She’s a Seer. I should have known. “It’s a talent.”
“What are you? We know you’re with Keane’s school. And that you don’t want to be. We know about your sister—”
“You know nothing about my sister,” I snarl.
She continues on, softer. “We know that you were both taken five years ago. But in your case we don’t know why. I’ve seen you. A few times. Just flashes, just enough to know you’re important without knowing why. What do you do?”
“You mean am I a Seer or a Reader or a Feeler? They’d be the eyes, ears, and soul of an operation? I guess you could say I’m the hands.”
I spring forward, grab the woman, spin her around between Cole and me, the pin out of my hand and pressed against her neck. (Can’t tap tap tap my hand—I don’t want to add another tap but I will; if it saves Annie, I will.) “It’s not sharp but I can push it in, all the way. She’ll bleed to death.”
“It’s okay,” she says. She sounds remarkably calm. I kind of like her, actually. Cole raises his hands and backs a step away.
I angle us toward the door, keeping her body between Cole and me, always between us. “I don’t want to hurt you. But my sister needs me. If I don’t get back there, they’ll hurt her. So we’re going to go now.”
“You’re safe here.” She is a remarkable liar. Her pulse isn’t even fast. She’s not panicking. I realize with a start she isn’t lying, or at least she doesn’t think she is. “I promise. And I’m watching for Annie. I’ll know if she’s in trouble. I would never risk her.”
“She’s not yours to risk. She’s my responsibility.” I back us through the door, fast, look both ways down the hall. It’s clear. Blank. Fluorescent lights’ monotonous hum the only sound. Right, I should go right. “Where are we? Are we still in Chicago?”
“No, we’re in St. Louis.”
I swear. That’ll take longer. But as soon as I get out, I can call James and tell him (he knows, he has to know that I didn’t do this, it wasn’t my idea) and I’ll email Adam and get back and Annie will be safe and I have no plans at all until something works to give us a way out.
“Sofia,” she says as we walk, body to body, around a corner. There’s a door with one of those small brown signs indicating it’s a stairway. This place looks like an old office building, but no one is here. “I want to help you.”
“Generally I prefer my help not to come in the form of being attacked, knocked out, and thrown in the back of a van.”
She laughs. Why is she laughing? She’s crazy. “You’ll have to excuse our caution. After our last encounter with you, we thought it best to talk in a controlled environment.”
(Control, control, control. Control got Clarice killed.)
(Control didn’t get Clarice killed. I killed Clarice.)
“How’s that working out for you?” I say. I look behind my shoulder again—Cole isn’t following us, that’s bad, I’d know where he was if he were following us. Then the door to the stairwell opens and I pull back against the wall, press the pin against her neck.
And Adam—big smile, gray eyes, soft fingers, gentle Adam, safe and hiding in Chicago Adam—walks out into the hall.