Before I could make my move, a figure ghosted into the room.
She was in black Lululemon leggings and a hoodie. Basically, my outfit, but nicer.
Take that, Haley.
A ski mask shrouded her features, but I didn’t need to see her to know who she was. The Fire Alarm.
“We don’t have much time,” she whispered urgently. “You need to run out of the first set of doors at the north entrance. You know which ones?”
I nodded. My mind was too occupied trying to process what was happening to give me the ability to speak. She slipped a pocketknife from her black boots and began sawing at the zip tie.
I was in the presence of another Red Court member. And not just any member. The Fire Alarm. Now that my brain had caught up with the moment, I began cataloging everything I could about her, which wasn’t much. She had a slim build. The raspy whisper didn’t give any clues on her voice. I needed more information.
“You got here fast.”
“Haley called me when you didn’t come out. I came right away to pull the plug on the security cameras. I was nearly done by the time you texted me.”
The zip tie gave way with a snap and my hand tingled from the rush of blood flowing to my deprived fingertips.
“Thank you,” I breathed out.
The Fire Alarm dismissed my gratitude with a wave of her hand. “We need to get out of here. Did they get a good look at your face?”
She glanced up at me and I caught a flash of familiar light brown—nearly amber—eyes before she stood and moved like a wraith to the door.
“Umm, maybe? I tried to keep my head down.”
“I’ll see what else I can do to smooth this over. The school doesn’t usually broadcast this sort of thing. The administration has taken enough heat the last few years. We’ve lost the service door for good, though.”
“I’m sorry.”
She ignored me and leaned her head out the door, looking in either direction before motioning for me to follow.
“Go,” she said quietly. “Run and keep running until you’re clear of the school.”
Without another word, I took off in a sprint toward the north doors. Halfway down the hall, I looked behind me to see a flash of movement disappear around the corner at the other end.
As I ran, the memory of the coffee shop the day after I joined the Red Court came racing back. The girl who was talking to Chase. Her eyes were the same unique shade of brown. It had to be her. Shauna. Her name surfaced from the long-term memory pool of things I didn’t need to access on the reg.
I got to the north doors and burst out into the night, gladly greeting the cold air. The night was a disaster, but it did have one redeeming factor. I had the name of another Red Court member.
CHAPTER 17
ONCE I CLEARED the parking lot and made it into the neighborhood across the street, I finally sucked in a full breath of air. My pulse was racing, but I felt...good. Like I’d accomplished something. By totally screwing something else up.
I checked the clock on my phone. The last twenty minutes seemed to have simultaneously passed in both a matter of seconds and over the course of hours. Shaking my head to clear the last of my anxiety, I walked quickly to my car. A figure stepped out from the shadows next to it and my heart seized with fear.
“Oh my God!” Haley exclaimed and bounded toward me. “What happened? I thought for sure you were busted. What were you thinking taking off like that?”
“I don’t know, but I was busted.”
She paled. “What?”
“I got caught by security. Pulled my fire alarm.”
The adrenaline that bolstered me through the last hour ebbed and exhaustion coiled around me like a heavy chain, weighing my shoulders down. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into my bed and sleep for days.
Haley studied her shoes. “Me, too. I thought we’d need an assist with the security cameras.”
“That was a good call. I’m glad one of us was thinking ahead.”
“What was she like? The Fire Alarm?”
“Kind of bossy. She was wearing—”
She held up her hands to stop me. “Never mind. It doesn’t do anyone any good to hear specifics about other members.”
A thought occurred to me. “She’s not the Queen of Hearts, is she?”
Do I know who the Queen of Hearts is?
“The Fire Alarm? No, she’s a specialist.”
“More special than us?”
“Yeah, what she just did for you, whatever it was she did, is all she does. She won’t take any assignments like us. She keeps tabs on the jobs we run and gets us out when we need it.”
“I can’t believe I called her on my first assignment. I’m a total failure.”
I did feel a little like a loser, but I was more interested in how much Haley was sharing than my loss of the Red Court’s only safety net. I mentally revised the total number of Red Court members from thirteen to fourteen. This was the most she’d ever divulged about the way the Red Court operated at one time. I’d been fed an appetizer and now I was hungry for the main course.
Leaning my back against the side of the car, I let out a shaky breath and purposefully swayed, but just a touch. Careful, Ember...
Haley joined me against the passenger door and studied my face. In the sickly glow of a nearby streetlight, I probably looked worse than I felt.
“You ok?”
When in doubt, stick close to the truth. “I think it’s all catching up with me. I thought I was going to get hauled off in a police car. Do you think we still need to be worried? Are they going to investigate this?”
“She’ll take care of it. She knows people in the right places to make this kind of thing go away.” She let the words settle between us, then brightened. “Come with me.”
* * *
Haley drove us in her car along a small road east of the school. The area where we lived east of Denver was recently developed, so there were wide-open fields and rolling hills only five minutes past Heller. Sometimes, it felt a bit like living at the edge of the world. Only it was Kansas on the other side of the void.
“Are you going to murder me and dump my body under a bridge?” I was kidding. Kind of. I didn’t come out this way often, but something about the lack of anything brought out my paranoid side.
“No, if I wanted you out of the picture, I’d hire us to do it.” Haley laughed a short, barking scoff. I thought she was kidding, too. Kind of.