“Agreed,” I nod. The man who attacked me was Colin Morris, and Professor Fitzgerald told me they’d caught his sister Claudia earlier that day. “Do you think he was with his sister when she killed Juan?” I hadn’t known Juan that well, he was in the Warrior’s division but he was a good guy, fair, and reasonable.
“She’s more than a bit flighty,” the professor says sourly, “I suspect Colin did the dirty work, which makes me approve of you even more for disabling him so handily.”
“It wasn’t that handily,” I groan as I sit up, pressing the bandage against my stomach, “but thank you. Does that mean I get an A in your class?”
“No.”
“Oh. I was just joking…”
“You received an A in my class when you outed the Chechnyans,” she said softly, icy blue eyes gleaming. “Afterextensivequestioning, Mr. Madomadov and Mr. Varayev were quite helpful. Though we are about to run out of places to store prisoners.”
It’s hard to know how to answer that, so I just smile weakly. “First world problems.”
She chuckles lightly. “Let’s get you some pain medication and on your way back.”
After an ugly little scuffle in the dining hall with that asshole Baptiste Fournier picking on one of the newcomers, our group decides to take our meals to go and end up in Tatiana and Mariya’s suite. “There’s something so comforting about being here with you all,” I said, picking at my gnocchi. “Everything around us is so insane, but here in this room, it feels safe.”
“Agreed,” Tatiana gives me a hug which presses her knee against my bandaged stomach but I appreciate it all the same. She raises her can of Red Bull. “We have each other. To friends forever!”
“Friends forever!” We all chorus.
Please, don’t let it be any of them,I think,not them.
Chapter Twenty-Five
In which Willow is just happy Mala’s lady garden is getting watered.
Mala…
The next day…
It’s late afternoon and I am beginning to feel like one of the mushrooms growing down in these tunnels.
Cormac pulled me from my Spy duties - where I had been helping Willow with another round of cleaning and prepping guns - by claiming he needed an extra hand. Professor Fitzgerald waved me off without a word and when Willow eyed the two of us, I could swear a giant lightbulb appeared over her head.
“Youbitch.He’sLondonCormac, isn’t he? How did I not figure this out? He’s been here the whole time and you never spilled? Oh, you owe me so much information tonight! Everything! I was just happy your lady garden was getting watered and you never tell me thathewas your sexy as fuck gardener?”
“Will you shut up!” I hiss, “I know I owe you an explanation but please, hush!”
“You. Owe. Me.” She jabbed my chest with a hard, pointy finger to emphasize the seriousness of my lack of sharing.
“Ow, okay! But not a word you little honey badger, please!”
She mimed zipping her lips shut and I trotted to catch up with Cormac. “What’s going on?”
“Finn has discovered that these bastards have been tapping into the surveillance video with an outside scrambler. They’ve been halting and looping footage to cover their people moving through the tunnels,” he says. I can feel the fury radiating off him.
“Is there any way to retrieve any of the scrambled footage?”
“We can’t wait,” he says grimly. “I’ve got three other teams going through the tunnels. We’re going to clear them all and lock them down, aside from two key tunnels we use for security personnel.”
“What a nightmare. Oh, my god. Do you think they’ve booby-trapped any of the tunnels?” I feel nauseated. “Imagine how easy it would be.”
“Exactly. We’ll be wearing bodycams and we’re on a new system the hacker can’t penetrate, it switches frequency every sixty seconds.” We stop outside the hidden exit by the Barrens. “I’m still quite impressed with your discovery of this tunnel, my clever fox.” He straps the equipment on and we turn on our lights.
Clearing the tunnel is even spookier than I was braced for. With the ominous bulging in the ceilings and the smell of rot and decay, the old tunnels are terrifying. We’re almost out of the second one when Cormac sees it.
“Ah, fuck.”
