She frowned. “What?”
I nodded rapidly, my certainty growing. “Justine wears stuff like that all the time. It’s like part of her ‘pay no attention to me’ disguise or something, I don’t know. But my mom never does, never did.” That may have changed a little once she’d left, but I kind of thought it might be too much of a coincidence that she’d choose to wear something like that for an interview of this magnitude. “And…I think Justine was wearing it earlier.”
Ariane tilted her head to the side, her expression distant, searching her memory. But she’d been so preoccupied during that meeting, I wasn’t sure she’d remember. I did, but I’d had weeks of interactions with Justine, in which she’d dressed very similarly.
I saw it the moment the scene fell into place in her brain. She stiffened, her hands balling into fists, and bright color flooding her cheeks. “Damn it,” she muttered.
“Okay, but what does it mean?” I demanded.
“Justine set us up is what it means,” she said, her expression grim. “You called your mom from her phone. But after we bolted and Justine couldn’t catch us, she was stuck.” Her mouth curved in a bitter smile. “When she couldn’t find us easily enough, she decided to drive us out instead.”
“You sound almost like you admire what she did,” I said, troubled.
“It’s clever.” She shook her head. “She used your mother to orchestrate all of this without revealing her own role in it. Which explains how Mara got the media to respond so quickly,” she added more to herself than to me. “She might have already had something in the works, talking to a reporter or whatever, but a story backed by an ‘anonymous’ government source is going to go a lot further than just that of a disgruntled ex-employee.”
“Wait, so you’re saying Justine putting my mom on the news and exposing us was her way of trying to bring us in?” I asked.
Ariane nodded.
“Didn’t she know what they would do?” I asked in disbelief. “That the Committee would hit the panic button?”
“Probably,” Ariane said flatly, then she shrugged. “Maybe. She might not have realized how touchy they’d be, but then again, she might also have been counting on it. She wanted to force our hand.”
“Even if that got us killed?” I asked incredulously.
“Nothing more effective to prove you’re the better option than to take away all the others,” she said. “Play her way, or die in the street. A remarkably powerful message.”
“And the sweatshirt, that’s her signature,” I said, slowly putting the pieces together. “She wanted us to see it and know she was behind this.” I stared at Ariane. “That’s insane.”
“No, it’s manipulative, brazen, and kind of genius,” she said. “She was counting on us being as good as Jacobs and the others claimed in order to stay out of harm’s way.”
Fat lot of good Adam’s skills had done him. About the same mine would have done me. Which made sense, because the only person Justine was really interested in was Ariane. If I happened to survive as well, then, bonus. Jesus.
“If we weren’t good enough to stay alive long enough to hear her message, then we likely wouldn’t have been sufficient to meet their needs.” She shrugged. “Or, that’s probably what she’ll say in her report, anyway.”
Cold, efficient, and daring—all of which matched everything I knew about Justine.
Ariane shook her head. “It doesn’t change anything, though.”
An idea flashed at the back of my brain. “Does that mean if we could get to her, she’d be willing to protect us?” Protect Ariane was really what I meant. And that was something Justine would have had to consider before yanking the curtains back on this particular sideshow.
After all, it wouldn’t do Justine any good to have manipulated Ariane to her side if she couldn’t keep her safe and, therefore, useful.
Ariane eyed me warily. “It doesn’t matter. Getting out of here without being caught by whoever’s hunting us—”
“But if we could,” I persisted.
“Then, yeah, maybe,” she said reluctantly. “But it would mean throwing ourselves on her mercy. We’d be under her thumb forever.”
“But alive. We would be alive.” I hit that word extra hard. Not just me. I wasn’t looking for half measures; I wanted a solution that would get us both out.
Ariane’s shoulders sagged, her face sad and etched with weariness. “You don’t understand,” she said. “Any leverage I might have had by being a needed resource is gone if I can’t live outside their protection. I would have to do whatever they asked of me, and with that kind of absolute power, it’s only a matter of time before corruption sets in.”