The Girl Who Dared to Endure (The Girl Who Dared #6)

He was right. Even if they weren’t here for us, they’d soon notice the general state of disarray I’d left the office in when I was searching for anything we could use against Sadie. As soon as they did, they’d investigate, and it wouldn’t take them long to find us. I needed more information on where they were before I could figure out what to do next. Focusing on the door, I considered it for a moment. I couldn’t hear anything going on out there, and now that we weren’t in the office, we had no way of monitoring their location. Running had lost us that advantage, and I felt stupid for having done it in the first place, but it was too late to take that back now. I had to deal with the situation in front of me.

That meant knowing if they were here for us, or if this was an unfortunate coincidence. If it was the latter, then we had the element of surprise and could capitalize on it. If it was the former, then it made things worlds more complicated. They’d be ready with weapons, prepared for a fight, and had us outnumbered two to one. We had guns—instruments of destruction that no one else in the Tower had access to—and Leo could more than hold his own in a fight, but they still had more people than we did, and that could make all the difference.

And if they were prepared for us—or any intruder, really—then that might mean they were being monitored. If any one of them managed to send out a message to Sadie or anyone else about what we were doing or who we were, then all of our planning would result in nothing, and we would be caught and executed. Either by the legacies or by the council.

I couldn’t let that happen. So if they were here for us, or even if they saw us, we would have to stop them immediately. Not a single one could escape, or we risked the legacies learning what we had done, and who we had stolen.

But I didn’t mind that conclusion, because I didn’t want them to escape. Especially not Baldy, their leader. He had information we needed, like who was running everything, who was helping them, and what they were planning to do. Those were answers I craved more than anything, as they would lead to the person responsible for the deaths of too many people, including my mother. It would stop the attack on Scipio and give us time to recover the remaining fragments so we could repair him. It would finally allow us to take the Tower in the direction that the founder, Lionel Scipio, had intended.

“Can you crack the door open just a little bit?” I whispered to Leo, deciding I needed to hear what they were doing. Before I could even come up with a plan, I had to know why they were here, and where they were.

Leo nodded and moved over to the door, and I followed, holding open the bag I had so he could get at the tools inside. He turned and started working, and it took him a few agonizing seconds to pry the cover from the door control that activated the motor. I watched impatiently as he disconnected a few wires from some of the glowing crystals and then dragged the tips of them together, experimenting. On combination number three, something sparked, and the door lifted up a few inches from the floor.

A male voice that I recognized as Baldy’s wafted through, but it was too muddled to discern what he was saying. I hesitated, and then slid down onto the ground. I hated making myself even the slightest bit visible, in case they were just around the bend, but I had to know what was going on. I glanced under the door first, to make sure there were no shoes waiting on the other side or in the vicinity, and then pressed my ear to the gap. Holding my breath to keep from making any noise, I strained to hear what he was saying. Even my heartbeat seemed too loud in my ears, but I closed my eyes and focused.

“—down, I’m here,” he said, his voice growing louder in my ears. “We got slowed at a checkpoint because Sadie couldn’t make it, but it’s fine. All we have to do is grab it, and we’ll be on our way. It’s a little weird though. Alara isn’t responding to me.”

He paused, and I waited for someone to respond while puzzling over what he was talking about. Who was Alara? Why would he be expecting her to respond?

Then I realized that Alara was probably the name of Sadie’s virtual assistant. Rose had knocked it out when we sent her in after Jasper, which was the only thing that had made this mission possible. If Sadie’s assistant had been online, it would’ve killed us before we even got past the first room, with or without Sadie’s net.

But back to the important thing: it was clear that Baldy was transmitting to someone over the net, and from his words, it sounded like he was here by coincidence. And to pick something up. If we were lucky, that something would be in one of the other rooms before the office, and they would get it and go without questioning things too much.

If we weren’t lucky, there was still a chance. If we could make it to the office before they did, grab the hard drives with our AI friends, and start the reset process, then they would be caught in the chaos of the automated systems removing the furniture and bringing the walls down. Having it happen when they were there would certainly lend credence to the idea that it was a glitch. But that was even riskier, because we were planning to leave using an escape hatch, and if we didn’t make it in time, or got injured by the furniture as it rushed by overhead, there was a chance Baldy and the others would see us and know what was happening.

I’d do it—and give up my chance at taking them out—but only if we could do it safely.

I kept listening, and heard: “No, I’m not sure what’s going on. That bitch Champion registered some sort of complaint that Sadie had to attend to.” There was a pause, and I found myself wondering who was at the other end. Accomplice, or someone in charge? “No, I don’t know the details. She authorized me to come up here and get it anyway, so calm down. It’s just a small deviation, not a complete disaster. I’ll get it down to you in a few minutes.”

Oh, this was good—very good. As long as whatever they had to get was in another room and not the office, we would be fine. We could just wait here for them to get what they came for and leave, and then be on our way.

As soon as I thought it, though, I realized I was about thirty-two shades of wrong. Of course they were going into Sadie’s office—the only thing they’d be here for was something computer-related, as she was the head of the IT Department, and the office was the only place where electronics and files were kept. If they noticed the mess on the desk or the three hard drives that had been slaved together and attached to the terminal, they would start to suspect something was wrong and investigate.

Once again, I found myself considering making a run for the office and trying to initiate the reset before they got there. Their voices sounded far enough away, and if Leo and I could just get there, get Jasper and Rose and the stuff we had planned to steal, then start the process…

But if we were spotted while he was still on a net call with someone… If he managed to get word out that the Champion of the Knights was in the head of IT’s quarters illegally… It was so very risky, and I hovered on the edge of the decision. If he ended the call soon, then it might be worth a try.

My hand tightened on my gun, the urge to tell Leo to open the door and get ready to move nearly overpowering as their footsteps thundered closer—still heading toward us, and toward the office, and making me reconsider the plan again. If we made a run for the office, and they caught us in the halls before we could make it there, chances were they could knock us off our feet using a burst of pressurized air from their pulse shields. If that were to happen, we’d lose control over the situation very quickly. Going into the halls to try to reach the office before them was too desperate and too risky. I had to think of something else. Maybe coming up from behind them and shooting them in the back. Maybe—

I opened my eyes as I realized that Baldy hadn’t said anything for a long time. He must’ve ended his conversation with whoever was on the net. On the one hand, that was good for us; now that he wasn’t transmitting, we could do something about him. On the other, it meant I had missed my opportunity to try to make it to the office before them.