She snorted. “If this is the process, they have a lot to work on. It sucks.”
“I’m sorry you were taken. I’ll do everything I can to get you free.”
She grabbed his hand. “What if I don’t want to leave you?”
He froze with a look of hopefulness so endearing, but it nearly broke her heart when he said, “But you can’t stay here. You have to see your family again and be a singer. ” His stare met the carpet. “I have an idea. Follow along, okay?” He was whispering so quietly, she had to strain to hear him.
She trusted him enough to rise and hold his hand while he led her to the door. He called through it, “We’re done in here. You can let us out now.”
They both listened to the murmur of voices and finally the door to her makeshift jail cracked open. Peter wrapped an arm around her shoulders and slapped on a grin for the people facing them as they exited. “She agreed. Allison is going to be my match.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but Peter squeezed her arm hard, then was pulled away to be grabbed by an older man who looked enough like him that she guessed it was his dad. She was pulled into the arms of a woman who was kissing her cheek and welcoming her onto the campus. God, they must be his parents. Totally the opposite of her parents who wouldn’t be full of smiles and hugs if she announced she was getting married at eighteen. They’d want the name of the boy who knocked her up.
Did these people really expect that she’d be all smiles and happy about being kidnapped? She was eighteen, for crying out loud. She wanted to be out dancing at night. Not knitting booties for enhanced babies.
However, she hid her true feelings well enough for everyone to be fooled. She kept the fake smile plastered on her face as Peter led her to a brick three-story building. It was kind of like an apartment building, except everyone they passed was male and looked very military. “Peter,” she said, as he opened the door to the building for her and gestured that she should enter ahead of him. He’d said he had a plan, and she wanted to hear it. Now.
“Hang on,” he said in a low voice. “We’re nearly at my room. We can talk there.” It nettled, but she managed to keep her mouth shut as they walked down a long hallway that kind of reminded her of the dorm rooms on the campus where her parents taught.
Peter stopped at a door on the right and turned the knob without unlocking it. She entered and looked around curiously. It was exactly like a college dorm room except it was absent any of the personal touches that college students liked to add, like lava lamps or posters of Han Solo.
“Is this your room?” she asked.
He nodded and sat on the narrow bed. She bypassed a tall dresser, the other furniture in the room, and sat next to him on the bed. “Spill it, Peter. What’s your grand plan?”
“I had to let them think you accepted me or I don’t know what they would’ve done. I didn’t see them dropping you back off at your house with a friendly wave. You now know too much about the Program.”
“Would they have killed me?” She fisted her hand into the dark navy wool blanket under her thighs.
“No,” he said immediately. “Well, probably not. But I don’t think they would’ve let you return to your old life.”
“And you will? How? Now they know me, Peter. Won’t they come after me again?”
“I think they would, which is why I’m taking you to New York. It was your dream anyway, and now you’re ahead of schedule. Manhattan is big. You’ll have to lay low.”
Her heart drummed, but she couldn’t find words yet. Everything was moving too quickly, including his next question.
“Were you going be a singer under your real name?”
She shook her head. “No. I planned on my stage name being, Allie Peete.”
He smiled, and her heart lurched that he would do this for her. At the same time, her heart was breaking that she had to choose between the man she loved and the life she wanted to live. Staying here, even with Peter, was no kind of life. It would be a prison. She’d come to resent him if she stayed.
“When do we have to leave?” she asked, hoping he’d say right now, because the longer they stayed together, the harder it would be to part.
“Tomorrow morning.”
“That long?” She feared if they waited, she was going to break and accept what Peter’s bosses were offering. Every second with Peter was precious, and as the clock counted down their remaining time, she knew she could reset the clock by staying.
He nodded. “I’m going to tell them I’m going to sneak into your house while your parents are at work to get your clothes and other personal items. They won’t see anything out of the ordinary with that request.”
“What will I be doing?”
“You’re going to be hiding in the trunk of the car,” he said matter-of-factly, which was the opposite of how her stomach took the news that she’d be hiding in a dark trunk.
“Why can’t I sit in the car with you?”
“Me they’ll let leave. You’re still a wild card. I’m not sure they’ll let me off campus easily, but I’ve been coming and going frequently in the last month.”