“Casey?” I say, and she grunts at me but keeps moving. “What are you hoping is on the hard drives? Could it be the shadow-database?”
There’s a long moment where I think she won’t answer me, but then she does. “No,” she says. “It’s not nearly big enough. If there is a shadow-database that June managed to set up and hide somewhere, it’s got to be bigger than this, to store all that data. But maybe … maybe this is some of the data she copied. Or maybe this will show us the way to get back inside,” she says, still moving across the room.
“So you just mentioned that the hard drive is seventeen years old, and that’s a problem. Don’t you think security has changed over the course of seventeen years? Don’t you think June would’ve known that?”
She stops pacing. “Maybe they left themselves some sort of password access. Maybe they do have everything mirroring to a second device somewhere. The point is, nobody knows. The point is, she left something. June didn’t do it alone. She had Liam. And you have me. I’m as good as Dominic, I promise.” Then she pauses. “I’m better, I think.”
“I think so, too,” I say.
The locker room door flies open, and we both jump. “Cameras off. Computer lab unlocked.” Cameron bows.
“You’re so cocky it pains me,” Casey says. “Also, you’re the best.”
“Remember that next time you’re trying to pull the big-sister act, okay?” She rolls her eyes. “Turn left out of the cafeteria, go to the end of the hall, turn right.” She starts to move. “And Casey? Nothing stupid.”
“Ha,” she says. And Cameron laughs, too. Because we all know, this thing they’ve already done? They can’t possibly do anything stupider.
And then we’re alone in this big empty room that echoes. Cameron clears his throat. “How’s the side?” he asks, his gaze just over my hip.
It stings. “It’s fine,” I say.
He’s looking at my shirt. At the spot where he stitched me up. At the other spot, lower and to the left, where the bullet grazed my skin. But then his gaze moves to my eyes, and there’s a danger to his honesty—now it’s reflected in his eyes. I read his look. I’ve never seen it before—never directed at me, anyway. But I understand it completely, and I can’t move forward.
I should show him. It’s what I would do—what I would’ve done—yesterday, or a few hours ago, even. But something very sudden has shifted. Something I don’t know what to do with. “Let me see,” he says. I’m searching for that girl who pulled her shirt over her head so he could take out the tracker. I’m searching for the girl who took a shower with him on the other side of the distorted glass. And I’m searching for the girl who doesn’t understand the need to keep things hidden like that. But all I can think of are the words he has said to me, and there’s a feeling in the pit of my stomach like the churning ocean, like the horizon shifting.
I lift my shirt, but only a little, and only on the left side. He comes closer and kneels beside me, examining the mark. His hand is on my stomach, and I can’t breathe. His fingers trace the edge of the mark, and I don’t know what to do, other than to continue not breathing. “Yeah, it’s just gonna sting. I’ll see if I can find some antibiotic cream around. Let me check the stitches. Make sure there’s no sign of infection.”
He starts lifting my shirt higher, his knuckles trailing inside, and I push him away. “I want Casey to do it,” I say.
He freezes and drops my shirt. “I’m sorry. Okay.” He cringes and looks down. “I’m sorry,” he says again.
I’m cringing, too, and not doing a very good job of masking it. “No, it’s fine. Don’t apologize.” I try to backpedal, because he hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s me, it’s the situation. It’s him too close and the words he’s said and the way he looks at me. It’s a wave of nerves where there should be none. I’ve had Dominic in my room, and I knew what to say, how to say it. I kissed him, even, but the only nerves I felt then were for the weapon in my hand I was about to use. “You didn’t do anything, I just …”
“Okay,” he says. “We’re fine.” And I think that maybe he doesn’t understand why I acted like that. He clears his throat and stands up. Backs away. He runs his hand through his hair, turns to say something to me. Stops himself. No, I was wrong, he understands.
“I’m going to see if Casey needs help,” he says, staring at the locker room door. “Do you want to come?”
“You go,” I say. “I want a shower. I want to put on a ridiculous uniform.”
He smiles, and my heart stops. “Okay,” he says, and then he leaves me. He leaves, and I am frozen. He didn’t even pause, didn’t ask me not to leave, didn’t warn me or threaten me. He just left me, with an open window, alone. He left me, with the cameras off and at least twenty different exit possibilities. He left me, trusting me to be here when he returns.
I walk to the showers. And after I’m clean, I find the stash of uniforms, and I change into a softball uniform—long shorts, short-sleeved, soft shirt, a hat I tuck my hair through, creating a ponytail. I’m barefoot, and I stay that way. No need for more blisters.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror—how common I look. This is the life I didn’t have. The girl with no past, with the normal life, going through high school.
I think of Casey and Cameron somewhere far away in the building. I check the gym office, and I see Casey’s blood on the carpet. I take my time scrubbing it out. I look up at the open window and check the floor for any pieces of glass left behind, but it appears that someone has already cleared them up.
I wipe down the computer and anything else I have touched with another shirt, like Cameron has taught me.
And after, I go to find them.
Chapter 17
I remember cameron’s directions—left out of the cafeteria, right at the end of the hall. School is not how I pictured, or maybe it’s different when it’s completely empty. It’s more like how I imagine an empty jail, or some asylum, and everything about me echoes still. Lockers line the walls, and the wooden classroom doors are shut and closed off. There’s a window in the center of each door, and the classrooms beyond look sterile and dusty. I can hear my own breathing, my own heartbeat. There’s no one watching me. No one following my signal from a tracker. No one balancing me on a tightrope. I don’t hear Cameron or Casey. I don’t hear anything. I move faster, anxious to not be alone anymore.
I see them through the window of the door, which they’ve kept closed. But it’s the only classroom with a light on right now. Casey’s hands fly across the keyboard, and she pauses to adjust the cables she has running from the hard drives, in some sort of maze, to the computer. Cameron sits at the desk beside her, leaning forward with his head resting in his hand, his eyes skimming his own computer screen.
It’s so silent, I’m scared to break it.
I raise my finger and tap gently on the glass. They both still jump, startled to see me there. I raise my hand, and their faces relax. Casey tilts her head to the side and grins. I know what I look like—someone unlike myself. Casey waves me in.
She looks at Cameron as I enter the room. “You left her just wandering the school?”
“No, I was taking a shower. Now I’m done taking a shower,” I say.
I see his eyes flick over me quickly and go back to his computer. He keeps his gaze fixed on the screen. I walk behind Cameron and look over his shoulder as Casey goes back to her work. He’s reading articles about me. About us. “What do they say?” I ask.
He closes the article before I have a chance to read further. “They can say anything they want. You know that, right?”
“I know that.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“I know.” God, what must they be saying about me?