“Like I said back in the manor, even if you knew where it was, you probably wouldn’t be able to get to it anyway.”
“Fair enough,” he said with a sigh, and I knew the hardened, exasperated Knox had returned, burying the vulnerability so deep inside him I doubted he even remembered it existed.
I settled back and gazed out the window as we drove toward D.C. We weren’t far—an hour at the most—and part of me was eager to see my home again. I hadn’t grown up in Somerset or anywhere near it; I’d grown up in the Heights, the poorest part of D.C. But the city was still my home.
“Is that your go-to plan?” I said after a minute. “Faking a death?”
He glanced over at me, his gaze lingering for longer than it should have, considering how fast he was driving. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean—that’s what you did for Lila. You helped her fake her death. You faked Benjy’s death. I’m never going to be able to fully believe you’re dead, you know. Part of me will always be absolutely positive you’ve faked your own.”
“Oh? And who says I’m dying before you?”
I shrugged. “You’re the one who left our security detail behind.”
“True,” he allowed with a smirk. “Maybe you’ve got a point after all.”
When D.C. finally came into view, the knot in my stomach grew into full-on nausea. It was one thing to sneak into an office to steal a file or overhear a crucial conversation. It was another thing entirely to walk in right under our allies’ noses, knowing full well we were keeping secrets that could win or lose the war.
Driving through the streets and seeing the gradual shift from poverty-stricken and hungry to rich and well fed was even more striking now that I’d spent so much time in Elsewhere. Knox and I were both silent as we took it all in, and at last he pulled up to the side of the street in one of the most affluent areas of D.C., only blocks from Somerset.
“Here.” He handed me a black knit hat and sunglasses. “It isn’t the best disguise, but we only need to get into that alleyway.”
“Your face is just as familiar as mine is,” I pointed out as I put them on. He shrugged.
“I’ll pull my hood up. We’ll be fine.”
That was about as ominous as he could get, but the entrance into the tunnel that led underneath Somerset wasn’t far. Fifty feet at the most, buried in the alleyway behind a rusted door no self-respecting V or VI would have ever touched. As far as I knew, there were no cameras in the alleyway—there couldn’t possibly be, not when that tunnel had gone undiscovered for so long.
We piled out of the car into a misting rain, and when he offered me his elbow, I took it. This wasn’t entirely unlike the first time we’d wandered the city together, shortly after a bombing had put the Hart family into lockdown. Rather than behave, we’d snuck out for a night at a club—or at least that was what I’d thought. Instead, Knox had tried to negotiate a weapons acquisition, and that had been the first time I’d noticed there was much more tohim than the facade of a spoiled Minister’s son he showed the world.
We made it to the door without incident. Knox pulled the rusting handle, and I could sense his relief when it opened to reveal a dark descending stairway. “Ladies first.”
“You just want me to take the bullet for you,” I said, but I ducked inside anyway. I remembered exactly how many steps it took to reach the bottom, and I counted in my head as Knox pulled the door shut, leaving us in complete darkness.
“Someone took the flashlight,” he said, his heavy footsteps following mine.
“We don’t need it. It’s a straight shot.” Once we reached Somerset, there would be enough ambient light for us to make it through to Knox’s old suite, where a trapdoor opened up into his closet. In the meantime, I ran my hand along the dirt wall, smooth from I didn’t know how many years of use. Someone had built this tunnel at some point, but until Knox had revealed it to me, he and Lila had been the only two living people to know about it. Not so much anymore.
“I can’t believe they left this unguarded,” I said a few hundred feet later. It was eerie, walking through pitch blackness, not knowing for sure where it would end. Against my better judgment, I reached back and grabbed the first part of Knox I could find: his sleeve.
“We’ll find out once we reach Somerset,” he muttered, prying my grip from his jacket and taking my hand instead. His skin was warm and rough, and despite the tension in his voice, he wrapped his fingers around mine gently. “Ifthey’re smart, they’ll have guards stationed at that entrance, and they’ll know we’re coming. If the Shields tried to infiltrate this way, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“Why would you want to shoot fish in a barrel?” I said. “That metaphor makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” he argued. “It’s not about why you’d do it. It’s about how easy it would be if you did—”