After I’d done what they’d sent me out here to do, if I wanted my friends and classmates to live, I had to do one last thing.

I had to go back.

CHAPTER 56

Two hours and twenty-two minutes.

Ivy had gone to talk to the vice president. Adam had gotten an appointment with the secretary of state to see what wheels she could grease with respect to the release of foreign prisoners. Bodie was working on Ivy’s files. And I was waiting—for the kingmaker to make good on his word, for the next stage of the plan to go into effect.

The doorbell rang. Bodie answered it with a gun.

“I come in peace!” Asher announced on the front porch. “Your friendly neighborhood rogue, recently suspected of murder!”

Bodie lowered the gun.

“Tess,” he yelled, “you have company.”

As I came to stand face-to-face with Asher, I didn’t question the fact that in the midst of a terrorist attack, he was making jokes. Humor was Asher’s first, best, and last line of defense against the world.

I met his eyes, and that defense crumbled. Even Asher couldn’t manage a smile now.

“Emilia saved me,” I told him. I was aware, on some level, that my face was wet, but it took me longer to realize that I was crying. I told Emilia’s twin about the way she’d walked out into the line of fire, her head held high.

“It would take more than mere terrorists,” Asher said, “to keep my sister down.” He choked slightly on the words but kept talking. “I think we both know she’s probably composing a college essay about the whole experience in her head as we speak.”

I nodded, the edges of my lips pulling up. Nodding hurt. Smiling hurt. Thinking about Emilia hurt.

“Henry is probably lecturing someone,” Asher continued. “And Vivvie is winning them all over with her best sad-puppy-dog eyes.”

Vivvie is facedown on a floor somewhere. Henry might be the one holding the gun.

“I’m sorry,” Asher blurted out. “I know it wasn’t . . . I know you’re not . . .” I’d never heard Asher at a loss for words. “I should have been there,” he said finally.

If he hadn’t been suspended . . .

If he’d been in school today . . .

If, if, if . . . It was a thought pattern I knew all too well.

If I’d told Henry the truth about his grandfather’s death, if he’d heard it from me, instead of from Dr. Clark . . .

If I hadn’t upset Vivvie, if she hadn’t run, if I’d had her with me . . .

If I’d been the one to turn myself in, instead of Emilia . . .

“I have to go back,” I told Asher, my voice as lifeless as I felt inside. “Either I go back in with everything they asked for, or they start shooting students.”

His face pale, Asher turned his back on me. He bowed his head. I waited for him to say something, but instead, when he did turn around, it was to launch himself at me. He hugged me, as fiercely as Ivy had.

“If you get yourself killed,” he whispered, “you’ll never get to see the interpretive dance I plan to create based on this experience.”

Asher was crying. He was crying and joking and dying inside—and I knew, in that moment, that I couldn’t tell him the full truth of what had happened back at the school.

I couldn’t tell him about Henry.

I hadn’t told the FBI. I hadn’t told Ivy. I wouldn’t tell Asher. If I spoke the words out loud, that would make them true. If I said Henry was with the terrorists, there was no going back.

His hands on mine. His lips on mine. That subtle half smile.

I knew, deep down, that there was already no going back. Not ever. Not for me.

“What can I do?” Asher asked. I recognized the helpless tone in his voice. Telling him that I had to hand myself back over to the terrorists hadn’t been fair of me. Expecting him to sit here and do nothing—that wasn’t fair either.

“Actually,” I said, “there is one thing.”

“Anything.” Asher spoke without emphasis, without frills.

I glanced down at my watch.

Two hours and fourteen minutes.

“I need you to deliver a message for me,” I said, “to Vivvie’s aunt.”

CHAPTER 57

“I take it Ivy doesn’t know what you’re playing at here.” That was how Priya Bharani greeted me an hour later when I picked up her call. She’d placed it from a blocked number, most likely a burner phone.

“You got my message,” I replied, lowering my voice and shutting the door to my room. If Bodie knew what I was planning—if he told Adam or Ivy what I was planning—they’d never let me go through with it.