17

17

Maddie, Edan, and I flew to Lubbock the next day. Maddie solved the problem of being too young to rent a car by just buying a giant van, which was ridiculous, but also pretty good problem solving. Being rich seemed like it made everything so much easier.

“What are you going to do with it when we’re done?” Edan asked as we walked out of the salesman’s office.

“Donate it to charity, probably. I’m sure someone could use it.” She caught the amused looks on our faces. “Oh, come on. It’s used! It was a steal.” She squinted through the sun at the beige van. “Also, it’s really ugly.”

“Grayson said once that the two of you would be personally responsible for draining the St. John fortune, and I’m beginning to think he’s right,” Edan said.

“Oh, he’s totally right.” Maddie opened the driver’s door. “Future generations of St. Johns are shit out of luck.”

---

Our boxes full of weapons packs were waiting for us at the hotel. Maddie had shipped them, since we figured the TSA would not appreciate us bringing machetes and axes on the plane.

Edan took the boxes up to our rooms, and I went with Maddie back to the airport to pick up the rest of the team.

“Have you told Laurence you’ll be in Dallas later this week?” she asked as she pulled onto the highway.

I looked out the window at the flat earth. You could see for a long way here. “Not yet.”

“Are you going to?”

“Y . . . yes? I mean, yes. I am. Going to do that.” I tried to smile at her.

She glanced at me and cocked a judgmental eyebrow.

“It’s just awkward, when we talk,” I said. “I’ve been putting it off.”

“You know who you could talk to about that?”

“Maddie, please give it a rest with the therapist thing.”

“Never gonna happen.”

She was quiet for a moment, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. “Are you OK with going to Dallas next? I wasn’t thinking when I booked our tickets that this might not be a good idea for you.”

“Why?” I asked. “Just because my parents are there?”

“Yeah. It just occurred to me that maybe it could be kind of upsetting for you? Or even dangerous? What if your parents realize you’re there and report it to police? Your permission slip was forged, and you’re not eighteen for another four months. What if the police pick you up?”

“They’re not going to do that,” I said, even though my chest had tightened, just a little. “Laurence said they weren’t going to make a big deal out of the permission slip, remember?” He’d told me he talked to them about it not long after I posted that video. Mom had made noises about trying to get me home, and he’d really let them have it. Told Mom and Dad he’d tell the police everything if they tried to do something.

“Right,” she said. “That’s true. But if you feel weird about it all, you’re welcome to go back to New York. Or go ahead to Germany, if you wanted.”

“Actually, we should talk about Germany.”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “Why are you being weird about Germany?”

“Because we’re not ready.”

“We will get ready.”

“How long do you plan to take before you put teams on the street in Berlin?”

“I think we can get the more experienced teams out within a few days of arriving.”

I stared at her.

“What?” Her voice rose a little. “You are part of a more experienced team. You don’t think you’re ready to be out fighting scrabs again?”

“Not without excellent teams backing me, up, no. You’re rushing into this without thinking. I have some ideas about changes we could make, but we would need time—”

“We need to get the teams off the ground again before we start talking about changes.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. We have a better chance of success if we make some changes, then recruit and start again.”

“And just leave everyone to die in the meantime?” she snapped.

I reeled back, surprised by her sharp tone. “There are other people fighting scrabs. Rushing in and getting all of us killed isn’t going to help anything.”

“Don’t be dramatic. Our team is a well-oiled machine, and so are several of the others. Even if we have to start small, it’ll be fine.”

I made an exasperated noise. “Why won’t you ever listen to me about this? You won’t even hear one of my ideas—”

“I listen to you!”

“No, you don’t. You don’t want to talk about changing things even a little bit. It’s like you’ve decided my ideas are stupid before you’ve even heard them.”

“Fine, tell me your ideas.” The words came out clipped and angry.

I crossed my arms over my chest. My heart was pounding, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I was angry or upset or scared. I wasn’t scared of Maddie, but I wasn’t sure if my body knew that.

She turned into the airport and moved into the arrivals lane.

“Never mind,” I said. “You’re right, it was probably stupid anyway.”

“I never said it was—”

“Just forget it.” I pointed to the team, standing together with their luggage in the pickup area. “There they are.”

Her eyebrows drew together, but she didn’t argue as she pulled up to the curb. I hopped out as soon as she stopped, grateful that we couldn’t continue the conversation.

Priya rushed up to hug me first, and then the rest of the team followed. We helped them pile their luggage in back, and then I quickly climbed into one of the rear seats, far away from Maddie.

“So, what are we doing first?” Patrick asked as Maddie pulled onto the road. He was sitting up front in the passenger’s seat.

“We have a pretty long list of possibilities,” Maddie said. “I’ll send it to you guys when we get back to the hotel. I think the best option is for us to just start at the top, because we honestly don’t have any leads except that the facility is somewhere in the city.”

“And who is it that got you this information?” Noah asked.

“She’s someone from Maddie and Julian’s circle in New York, and she asked that we don’t spread her name around,” I said. “She asked her brother to get it out of Julian.”

“And Julian is probably aware that we know, so we should move quickly,” Maddie said. “I thought we’d split up into teams of two, and I’ll drop you guys off at a possible location. You’ll check it out—discreetly—and then, if you think we can rule it out, you’ll move on to another one. Sound good?”

We all nodded.

“Good,” Maddie said. “We start first thing tomorrow.”

I caught Maddie’s eye in the rearview mirror. I quickly turned to look out the window.

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. Part of me wished I hadn’t said anything. But a bigger part of me knew I was right, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t say something and people got hurt. I just hoped that I hadn’t ended my friendship with Maddie in the process.