“I know what the space usually governs, but Romeo and I were talking,” Fola said, glancing over at her brother perpendicular to her. “And I think we figured out a way to save Henry.”
Unsurprisingly, this piqued all of their interests.
The unsolvable Henry Equation had been the thing that had kept them allup at night. Thinking of him alone in that prison cell, suffering fora crime he did not commit, while they wasted their privileged lives away.
Nothing about it seemed fair. And while life wasn’t fair, they all thought it ought to be for once.
Bilal looked over at Octavius. “It’s funny you say that. Tavi and I were also discussing a potential way to get Henry out.”
Fola nodded. “You guys say your idea first.”
Octavius sat up and cleared his throat. “Well, a prison break, obviously. Now, before you start going off about logistics, here’s how it would work: We look at the prison database for when they expect deliveries. We coordinate with those expected delivery dates and times. Bilal will pull up in an inconspicuous white van, and I will go inside dressed as a delivery guy. Before any of this happens though, we will get a message sent discreetly to Henry, letting him know which time he should come to the courtyard in the prison. From there, he will sneak away without anyone noticing. I know that the prison guards check the vans to make sure no prisoners are inside, and so Henry would hide under the van, clinging to the exhaust. We’d drive away to an alleyway nearby with no CCTV where Henry can hop out and get into the car comfortably. We’d then take him to a plastic surgeon who will give him likethemost unrecognizable face, and he’d change his name and come and live with us forever.”
“First of all, that isnotwhat we discussed,” Bilal said.
“I added flourishes. Your plan was lacking and had several plot holes.”
“And yours doesn’t?” Bilal snapped.
“No fighting, guys,” Perdita said. “Asinterestingas that plan sounds, it doesn’t feel—”
“Possible?” Fola said, unimpressed.
“I was going to say that it doesn’t feel like a plan that ends all that nicely for Henry. I mean, for one, I’m sure Henry really likes having his face, and two, I think Henry has dreams other than living here. I know I do,” Perdita said.
“What’s your plan, then?” Bilal asked, looking between Romeo and Fola.
“I think Romeo should tell it. He came up with the best parts,” Fola said.
They all turned to Romeo, who nervously began: “It starts with Henry dying.”
Many days after that night in the attic, they began the process of executing Romeo and Fola’s plan.
The plan was far from perfect, especially as it probably meant they would never see Henry Xu again. But it was unfortunately the only plan they had.
And as Romeo had declared, it began with Henry Xu’s death.
It had occurred to Romeo Button one night, while eating a tub of salted caramel ice cream in his bedroom and watching old crime movies, that both the problem and the solution for a lot of these crimes was simply money. A lot of criminals did not have money, and so they did bad things to get it. A lot of the innocents had no money, and so had no way to get the best people to prove that they were innocent. The justice system was just like that—the people with the most money could do almost anything they wanted.
Even the impossible.
That’s what led him to a very obvious conclusion: Money was what was needed to help Henry, and they had plenty of it.
Apparently, prisons are run by very corrupt people—who would have thought? When you have money, and you have a lot of it, you can pay very important people to do very impossible things.
Such as faking a prisoner’s death and death certificate.
Henry Xu dying was the easiest part of the equation.
The hard part was what came next. They needed a way to ensure Henry was safe, and had to arrange for him to travel undetected out of the country. They could not use any of the registered Button jets, nor could they get Henry to any public airports.
This is where Octavius’s unfortunate dating history came in handy.
“I sent a message to Prince Alfonso to ask for the use of his private jet. Please temper your expectations, he hates me and probably won’t even reply,” Octavius had said.
It seemed Prince Alfonso did not hate Octavius much at all, seeing as hereplied to the request for the discreet use of his private jet with a thumbs-up emoji.
“Well… color me surprised,” Octavius had muttered.
