I can’t just get up and leave, Alex said.It’ll look suspicious.
“But he only brought one joint,” I said to Tag. “Hasn’t he finished it yet?”
Plus, Alex added,I really should dismantle this bomb. We can’t have these guys wandering around. I need to convince them to go back to Mack.
Then Manik decided to join the conversation.
Wait, those are seriously my guys?!
Don’t worry, we’re taking care of it, I wrote when Tag didn’t. He seemed to have switched to a separate conversation with Alex.Stay on the fire escape.
Zoe then privately texted me:WTF is going on?
What’s your twenty?I replied.Any chance you can meet us?
Because the next clue’s hiding place…well, I imagined it was another reason Tag had tapped Zoe. There was a reason my mom had nicknamed her “Wonder Woman.” She was heroic.
Sneaking out my window now!she wrote.Where am I heading?
The ropes course, I wrote, my legs wobbling at the thought. Heights—oh, how I hated them.Meet us at the ropes course.
TWELVE
Tag and I didn’t talk much while we navigated the woods, both of us mourning the loss of Alex. What was his plan? “He’ll catch up to us,” I told Tag as some way of comfort. “He knows where we’re going…” I paused. “And where we’re headed after that?”
“Yeah,” Tag said quietly. “He knows the entire route.”
“Zoe’s on her way,” I added. “We’ll have her.”
That made him chuckle. “Phew, because weneedher.”
I smiled. “That’s an understatement.”
Our trail would soon spill out of the woods into a large clearing, which was one of my least favorite places on campus: the ropes course. My mom and I rarely disagreed on things, but our “likes” did not align when it came to Ames’s ropes course. She loved climbing the various apparatuses and was the faculty ropes course instructor, while my knees buckled at the thought of a heavy-duty harness. I’d only climbed the rock wall once, during freshmen orientation. “Come on, Lily, keep going!” I remembered one of the student RCIs cheering, but after I’drung the bell at its peak and clambered downward, I said I needed to go to the bathroom.
But instead, I made a detour to the back side of the storage shelter and collapsed in the shade. My legs were still wobbling.Deep breaths, I’d told myself.In through the nose, out through the mouth—
“Oh, nice,” someone said. “Is this the designated hiding place?”
My heart lurched. The boy had scared me.
“If we’re afraid of heights?” he tried again.
All I could do was nod, and he took that as the go-ahead to join me. I noticed he wasn’t much taller, skinny with thick brown hair and gray-green eyes. “I’m Tag,” he said.
“Like the game?” I replied.
He smiled, revealing a set of silver braces. “It’s short for Taggart,” he explained. The tips of his ears pinkened. “But yeah, Tag like the worldwide recess phenomenon.”
I laughed. “Well, I’m Lily, but ironically I’m allergic to the flower…”
This is where we met, I thought once the footpath ended and we were dumped out into the dark meadow.This is where Tag and I first met.
My heart twisted, wishing and wondering if he was thinking the same thing.
The moon was bright enough to highlight the ropes course’s five climbing apparatuses. They looked like they soaredall the way to the stars. I morbidly imagined myself falling to my death from one of them.
But that was why we had Zoe! She and her family went rock climbing out west every year. Even in the dark, Ames’s ropes course would be a piece of cake.
