They might be able to take the knife from me, but not before I did some serious damage to myself.
“Am I bluffing?” I asked the female agent.
She took in my posture, the expression on my face. “No.”
My gut said that they wanted to send me in. They wanted to buy themselves time.
I just had to give them an excuse.
When Priya, Daniela Nicolae, and I walked through the gates of Hardwicke, I could just barely make out the silhouettes of the snipers on the roof. Behind us, the SWAT team and the FBI stood in a formidable line.
One wrong move, and it was all over.
Step after step after step, we walked away from the safety of the outside world and toward the main campus—toward the armed men and Mrs. Perkins and the bodies already littering the Hardwicke halls.
We’d made it two-thirds of the way there when Daniela spoke. “You can lower the knife.”
My arm had held the blade in position long enough that for a second, it didn’t want to move.
Closer to the front doors of Hardwicke. Closer.
My hand shaking, I managed to lower the blade to my side.
“Drop it,” Priya told me, her voice guttural and low, as we approached the main building. I followed her gaze and saw the red dot on my chest.
The snipers.
I dropped the knife. It clattered to the pavement. For an elongated moment, the sound echoed all around us. The world was still. Calm.
And then Daniela Nicolae bent to pick up the knife.
Dove. Madrid—
Within a heartbeat, Daniela was holding Priya from behind, the knife at her throat. Daniela turned to face the SWAT team, to face the world.
“My name is Daniela Nicolae,” she shouted, her voice high and clear. “And the time for waiting is over.”
The blade slid over Priya’s throat. One second, Vivvie’s aunt was standing beside me, and the next, Daniela pushed her body aside and made a grab for me. She held the blade to my throat.
“Breathe,” Daniela murmured into the back of my head, using my body as a shield as she backed away from the SWAT team’s raised weapons, away from Priya, sprawled out on the ground.
The dove has always wanted to fly to Madrid.
I did as Daniela Nicolae instructed. I forced air into my lungs and I forced it out. But all I could see, in the world in front of me and in my mind, was blood.
CHAPTER 62
I’d known the plan. That was what I told myself as Daniela jerked me through the front doors of Hardwicke. I’d known that for us to do what needed to be done, the terrorists had to watch Daniela do as she’d been told.
They had to watch her kill Vivvie’s aunt.
“Ms. Kendrick,” Mrs. Perkins greeted me as we stepped inside the building. “So nice to see you again.”
An armed man slammed me against the wall. My face pressed flat, my heart thudding in my chest, I tried to ignore the hands on my body, checking me for weapons, lingering a second too long.
“She’s clear,” the man said, stepping back. I turned slowly to face them. Opposite me, Mrs. Perkins plucked the knife from Daniela’s hand. “I’ll take this,” she said.
The blade was still smeared with red, still dripping.
Mrs. Perkins let the knife dangle from her fingertips as she led us down the hallway and up the stairs. One of the guards pressed the tip of his automatic weapon against the small of my back.
When we stepped out into the third-floor hallway, I saw a trio of bodies lined up against the wall. The headmaster, two students.
“This isn’t who we are,” Daniela said, her voice low, her eyes on the bodies.
Mrs. Perkins opened the door to the third-floor computer lab. “It’s who you are,” she told Daniela lightly. “It’s all you’ll ever be in the eyes of the world, thanks to your wonderful little performance out front.”
That was the point, I thought. Like the kingmaker, Mrs. Perkins played the long game. This was strategy. A carefully laid plan.
She’s not treating Daniela like a traitor. She’s treating her like competition.
“Now,” Mrs. Perkins said, turning her attention back to me. “Let us see how our little fixer did, shall we?”
Anxiety and adrenaline shot through my body. Ignoring it as best I could, I scanned the occupants of the room. Dr. Clark was sitting in front of a computer. Including the guards who’d escorted us up here, there were a total of four. And standing in between two of them was Henry.
Don’t look at him. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t feel his stare on your skin.
I focused on Mrs. Perkins and Dr. Clark instead.
“Money transfer came through,” Dr. Clark told Mrs. Perkins. “Twenty million, untraceable.”
I let out a shallow breath. William Keyes was a man of his word.
“Congratulations, gentlemen,” Mrs. Perkins said to the guards. “You’ll be getting paid.”
Mercenaries. My chest tightened. Guns for hire. That had been my hope. I couldn’t afford to show any visible reaction to the confirmation I’d just received.