“Edmund?”
“Got away… Shot me and ran. There’s another exit back there. He’s gone by now.”
Dredyn checks the passage Edmund fled through, weapon raised, before he returns, shaking his head. “He could be anywhere on campus by now.”
I try for a bitter laugh but it comes out as a cough. “We got one out of three. That’s… that’s not good enough.”
“It’s what we’ve got,” Dredyn says flatly. “James’s dead—one seat vacant. That’s more than anyone’s managed before.”
“But two leaders still live. That’s two-thirds of the power structure still intact.” The tunnel spins again.
“We’re alive. That’s the win right now. Survival first. Revenge later,”Jasper signs while working on my shoulder with a field dressing he produced from his duffel.“That’ll hold until we get to the rally point, but you need a hospital.”
“Can’t go to a hospital. Gunshot wound means police reports.”
“Then we find someone off-books. You’re not bleeding out on my watch.”
“How romantic.”
“Shut up and lean on me.”
I do, putting my good arm over Jasper’s shoulders while Dredyn retrieves my weapon. We move back through the tunnels.
“Almost there. Just a little further,”Jasper signs.
We make it through the PTO house and back onto the street.
The OCK house is still burning in the distance, smaller now, the roof collapsed, but still lighting up the sky.
“We did it. We actually fucking… tried,” I say, voice slurred from blood loss and exhaustion.
“We killed James. That’s not nothing,” Dredyn says.
“It’s not enough.”
“It’s what we’ve got. Now we run—live to fight another day.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
MARA
The clock on the dashboard reads 9:47 p.m.
They’ve been gone for forty-seven minutes.
Forty-seven minutes since Dredyn’s voice came through the comm.“Breaching now.”
Forty-seven minutes since the line went silent.
I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of the escape vehicle, door open, one foot on the pavement. Ready to run. Ready to drive. Ready to do whatever needs doing.
Except wait.
I’m terrible at waiting.
Rook leans against the hood. “They’re fine. No news is good news.”
“No news is terrifying.” I check my phone for the hundredth time. Nothing. No texts, no calls, just the police scanner app Rook installed, crackling with chatter.
