I’m not sure she hears me. She says, almost as an afterthought, “I don’t have to listen to anybody anymore.” Something in her tone is off—triumphant, almost. When I look at her, she smiles. I wonder whether she’s thinking of anyone in particular.
There is the sound of a door opening and closing and the bark of a man’s voice. Hana’s whole face changes. She gets serious again in an instant. “Fred,” she says. She crosses quickly to the swinging doors behind me and pokes her head into the hall tentatively. Then she whirls around to face me, suddenly breathless.
“Come on,” she says. “Quick, while he’s in the study.”
“Come on where?” I say.
Hana looks momentarily irritated. “The back door leads onto the porch. From there you can cut through the garden and onto Dennett. That will take you back to Brighton. Quickly,” she adds. “If he sees you, he’ll kill you.”
I’m so shocked that for a moment I just stand there, gaping at her. “Why?” I say. “Why are you helping me?”
Hana smiles again, but her eyes stay cloudy and unreadable. “You said it yourself. I was your best friend.”
All at once, my energy returns. She’s going to let me go. Before she can change her mind, I move toward her. She presses her back against one of the swinging doors, keeping it open for me, poking her head into the hall every few seconds to make sure the coast is clear. Just as I’m about to scoot past her, I stop.
Jasmine and vanilla. She still wears it after all. She does smell the same.
“Hana,” I say. I’m standing so close to her, I can see the gold threaded through the blue of her eyes. I lick my lips. “There’s a bomb.”
She jerks back a fraction of an inch. “What?”
I don’t have time to regret what I’m saying. “Here. Somewhere in the house. Get out of here, okay? Get yourself out.” She’ll take Fred, too, and the explosion will be a failure, but I don’t care. I loved Hana once, and she is helping me now. I owe this to her.
Once again, her expression is unreadable. “How much time?” she asks abruptly.
I shake my head. “Ten, fifteen minutes tops.”
She nods to show that she has understood. I move past her, into the darkness of the hallway. She stays where she is, pressed against the swinging doors, rigid as a statue. She lifts her chin toward the back door.
Just as I’m placing a hand on a door handle, she calls to me in a whisper.
“I almost forgot.” She moves toward me, her dress rustling, and for a moment I am struck by the impression that she is a ghost. “Grace is in the Highlands. 31 Wynnewood Road. They’re living there now.”
I stare at her. Somewhere, deep inside this stranger, my best friend is buried. “Hana—” I start to say.
She cuts me off. “Don’t thank me,” she says in a low voice. “Just go.”
Impulsively, without thinking about what I am doing, I reach out and seize her hand. Two long pulses, two short ones. Our old signal.
Hana looks startled; then, slowly, her face relaxes. For just one second, she shines as though lit up by a torch from within. “I remember. . . .” she whispers.
A door slams somewhere. Hana wrenches away, looking suddenly afraid. She pivots me around and pushes me toward the door.
“Go,” she says, and I do. I don’t look back.
Hana
I have counted thirty-three seconds on the clock when Fred bursts into the kitchen, red-faced.
“Where is she?” His armpits are wet with sweat, and his hair—so carefully combed and gelled at the ceremony—is a mess.
I’m tempted to ask him who he means, but I know it will only infuriate him. “Escaped,” I say.
“What do you mean? Marcus told me—”
“She hit me,” I say. I hope that Lena left a mark when she slapped me. “I—I cracked my head on the wall. She ran.”
“Shit.” Fred rakes a hand through his hair, steps out into the hall, and bellows for the guards. Then he turns back to me. “Why the hell didn’t you let Marcus take care of it? Why were you alone with her in the first place?”
“I wanted information,” I say. “I thought she was more likely to give it to me alone.”
“Shit,” Fred says again. The more worked up he gets, strangely, the calmer I feel.
“What’s going on, Fred?”
He kicks a chair suddenly, sending it skittering across the kitchen. “Goddamn chaos, that’s what’s going on.” He can’t stop moving; he clenches his fist, and for a moment, I think he might go for me, just to have something to punch. “There must be a thousand people rioting. Some of them Invalids. Some of them just kids. Stupid, stupid. . . . If they knew—”
He breaks off as his guards come jogging down the hall.
“She let the girl get away,” Fred says, without giving them a chance to ask what’s wrong. The scorn in his voice is obvious.
“She hit me,” I repeat again.
I can feel Marcus staring at me. I deliberately avoid his eyes. He can’t possibly know that I let Lena escape. I gave no indication that I knew her; I was careful not to look at her in the car.
When Marcus’s eyes pass back to Fred, I allow myself to exhale.
“What do you want us to do?” Marcus asks.