I searched Cole’s face for a hint of Clancy’s influence, pushing down the bubble of fear in my chest. His eyes were sharp, not glassy, and there wasn’t that blank quality to him. In fact, he was smirking.
“Isn’t there a way to knock him out?” I murmured. It would be safer. For all of us.
“Only by force, and I’d rather not run the risk of accidentally giving him a traumatic brain injury.” Then, louder, he added, “He’ll be riding in the trunk. Tied up, gagged, helpless. Just the way I like him.”
Clancy’s head snapped in our direction. And if I didn’t know him as well as I did, I could have sworn there was an edge of desperation to his voice. “Oh, there’s no need for any of that...”
“You’re not riding in the backseat,” Cole said. “It’s too risky. What if someone sees you, or you try to escape?”
Clancy scoffed. “And separate myself from the Project Snowfall research before I can get rid of it?”
Cole shot me a look, tongue caught between his teeth as he grinned. An unexpected bonus of showing it to the Greens—Clancy had no idea we’d taken the precaution of backing the research up, so to speak.
“Ah, now that does sound reasonable, doesn’t it, Gem?”
I pulled him farther into the hallway, shutting the door behind us. “Maybe taking him with us is a bad idea. If he gets loose in the Ranch, he could ruin everything.” I clenched my hands at my sides, trying to work through the revulsion, the memory of how stupid I had been to ever think I’d had Clancy under my control.
Some people came into the world and never once looked up to see the lives around them—they were so focused on what they wanted, what they needed. No one else mattered to them. They disconnected from sympathy and pity and guilt. Some people came into the world as monsters. I understood that now.
“Hey,” Cole said quietly. “You think I don’t want to strangle the life right out of him, too?”
“He has more faces than a pair of dice,” I warned. “If something doesn’t benefit him directly he won’t play along. And if it threatens him—”
“He’s no match for you, Gem.”
“I wish that were the case.” I shook my head.
“Let’s focus on what he has to offer if we can get him in a place where he wants to work with us,” Cole said. “The intel, the insight into how his father thinks, even his value as a potential trade.”
“He’s too unpredictable.” Even if we turned him over to his father, there was still a good chance he could escape and cause even more havoc. Was it better that he came with us, if only so we could keep an eye on him?
“You keep forgetting that, in the end, we want the same thing he does,” Cole said, clearly fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “We all want his father out of office.”
“No,” I said, glancing back in at the figure kneeling on the floor. “He wants his father ruined. There’s a difference. The only question is if you’re willing to risk being part of the fallout when he figures out how to do it.”
I realized a second too late that re-securing Clancy’s hands with a zip tie meant having to feed him myself. He glared and spat at me like a cat furious at having its claws clipped. My skin crawled. All in all, a thoroughly unpleasant experience for everyone.
Liam greeted my return to the other room with a sympathetic look and a bag of potato chips, patting the ground next to him. Half of the room looked dazed by the excessively early hour; the other half was pacing in anxious circles. The wind had picked up outside, screaming as it whipped around the edges of the warehouse and passed through the cracks in the roof. It made for an eerily appropriate soundtrack to the morning.
“Okay, I’ll make this quick,” Cole began. “We’ll be splitting into teams and dividing ourselves between the three exit points. If the location you’re assigned is compromised in any way—soldiers present, shady-looking folks hanging around, anything—head to the next-closest.”
Just to the side of him, Sen wore a smug little smile as she surveyed the kids sitting on the floor. I almost smiled myself, a small thrill of control trickling through me. Good riddance, I thought.
“Once you have your assignment,” Cole continued, “check it against the map for your car locations and the routes listed next to them. Team A is me, Ruby, Liam, Vida, Nico, our guest, and what’s-his-face—the one in the prissy button-down.”
Liam threw his hands up in exasperation.
Chubs only shrugged. “Better than Grannie. And, for the record, Chubs.”
“Not Nico,” I cut in. He couldn’t be trusted to use his judgment around Clancy, and I couldn’t be trusted not to make him pay if he slipped again.
I saw Nico disappear from the edge of my vision, fading to the back of the group. Liam’s hand tightened around mine, but I refused to glance up and meet what I knew was a look of disappointment. He didn’t understand.
“Fine,” Cole said, “Nico, you’ll go with Team D.”
“Am I the guest?” I hadn’t realized Senator Cruz was in the room until she spoke up.
“You’re with Team C. Team A has our less-welcome guest.”
He must have informed her of Clancy’s presence, because her only response to that was a soft “Oh. I see.”
He ran through the details of each route the teams would be taking upstate. All involved sticking to surface streets, which added on hours and wasted gas, but ensured a safer trip. There was a single moment of silence after he finished speaking, as if everyone needed a moment to absorb his words.
Cole pointed at me. “Go grab him.”
“Once you have your group,” he continued as I exited the room, “go, get the hell out of here. Good luck and take care of each other. We’ll see you up north.”
Clancy struggled to his feet as I entered the room, his hands bound, his head still tucked inside the pillowcase. “We’re going now? What time is it?”
I pulled it off him for the moment. “Any sign of you messing with anyone—”
“—and I’m dead. God, you’re as annoying as my old nanny. I understand,” Clancy snapped. He turned around and nudged me with his bound hands. “This is going to be just as suspicious as the hood. If something happens, I might need to use my hands—”
“Nothing is going to happen,” I said, hooking my hand around his arm and drawing him out into the hallway, then back into the room to avoid being trampled, as the different teams ran to the building’s different exits.
“Ready?” Cole called to me from the window as I pulled Clancy into the room. Anabel Cruz was still standing there, huddled between the two agents that were responsible for her. At the sight of Clancy she froze. He smirked, taking her in from head to toe.
“Enough,” I said. “Leave her alone or I’ll push you out of the window.”
“I’d like to request that honor,” Liam said as he helped me up next. He glanced back toward Sen, and shot me a questioning look as the woman adjusted the straps of the backpack containing the cure research.
I put a reassuring hand on his arm, then turned back, gripping Clancy’s shoulder to steady him as he swung his leg up over the frame. His shoe caught on something and he went tumbling out of my hands, landing headfirst on the fire escape in a disgruntled heap.
“I see I’ll be afforded no dignity in this,” he growled as he straightened up, awkwardly trying to adjust his shirt with his hands bound.
I leaned over the steps, tracking Cole’s progress. He was already back on solid ground, a gun in his hands, surveying the nearby windows with a look of focused intensity I’d seen on Liam’s face so many times. The wind was tearing at his hair, making his jacket billow out around him. It blew me forward a step.
“As far as Stewarts are concerned, he’s probably the better choice. Handsome. The bad boy. Seems more your taste,” Clancy reasoned, following my gaze.
Clearly he didn’t understand my taste at all.
I didn’t let myself look back to check on Vida, Chubs, and Liam until we were down on the street too, our backs pressed to the building.
“Anything?” I asked Cole.
He shook his head. “All clear.”
We headed one block east to walk along the railroad tracks lining the Los Angeles River. Our exit was approximately thirteen blocks north, but those would be thirteen dark, silent, and tense blocks. Already, I felt a shiver of anxiety run down my spine as I looked back, but it was too dark to see the group of kids trailing behind us. Cole had warned them to wait ten minutes before following us through the exit, just on the off chance that something went wrong and they’d need the buffer of distance to run.
Nice for them.
I kept my gaze ahead and my grip on Clancy’s arm firm. His skin felt unbearably warm against my hand. The morning had the city in a chilly grip without the sun there to burn it away, but it was like none of it touched him. Like nothing could.