21

T wo days later, Daniel and I were ensconced on the couch, sipping hot chocolate and munching on the last of Jessie’s oatcakes. Apparently the council families kept an extensive selection of books on old world politics in their libraries and it was required study for the heirs. Daniel knew a lot more than any of us, including Roman, and he wasn’t afraid to challenge my point of view.

“The original council made the right call,” he was telling me. “The world was in a state of chaos. Old world politics provided for this as well. They could declare a State of Emergency, and during that period, the electoral process was suspended.”

I raised a skeptical brow. “You’re suggesting we’ve been in a state of chaos for 95 years?”

“If you asked my father, he’d say yes, we still are.”

“And would you agree?”

Daniel bit down on his cookie and chewed while he considered his response. “The world is still chaotic, but Capra is a closed system by design. We’re insulated from the chaos. The council did actually install a conservative version of the electoral system.”

“Positions on the council are elected in theory, but in reality they’re elected.”

Daniel gave a slow nod. “They’re elected by the sitting council. That’s the way of fathers, to pass their legacy down to their sons. The system is flawed. I argued that with my father many times, that new positions should be elected from a wider field.”

“Is that what you would have done, when your turn came to pass on the position?”

“I’d like to think I would have tried,” he said. “I guess now we’ll never know.”

The crunch of tires rolling on dirt came from outside.

“Roman?” Daniel said with a frown.

“He’s early.” I jumped up to peep out the window. My blood ran cold.

“It’s not Roman,” I whispered hoarsely. “It’s a silver saloon. Do you know anyone who drives a silver saloon?”

Daniel leaped off the couch to join me.

At that exact moment, the car pulled up right below our porch and the front passenger door opened before the car had come to a complete stop. Jessie hopped out and a sigh of relief sagged my shoulders.

The driver’s door opened and Lisa stepped out, and I went stiff again.

“Why would she bring Lisa here?” Daniel hissed.

“She wouldn’t.” As bad as this looked, as much as I was freaking out, I knew Jessie wouldn’t be this careless without a good reason.

Jessie had already bounded up the steps. She was hammering on the door while Lisa strode around the car with her usual cool grace in knee-high boots, black denim and a tan overcoat.

“Go hide in your room,” I issued to Daniel as I moved to open up for them.

Instead of listening, Daniel beat me to the door and unlatched it.

Jessie all but fell over the threshold, her eyes enormous and searching for me. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know if there was time, and she had a car. I didn’t know what to do.”

I shouldered Daniel aside and grabbed Jessie by the arm, tugging her inside. I was tempted to slam the door on Lisa, but that wouldn’t help. She knew we were here. “What is it?”

“Lisa said—”

“The Sisterhood has caught whiff of your little letter campaign, that’s what,” Lisa supplied, stepping inside, her nose twitching as she glanced around the cabin. Her gaze landed on Daniel. “Well, hello there.”

“Lisa.” He folded his arms, scowling at all of us. “What the hell?”

She looked at me. “Who’s bright idea was it to hide out in the nature reserve? Anyone with half a brain cell would know this is the first place they’d search for a fugitive.”

My jaw tightened. “Mine.”

“Of course it was.” She rolled her ice blue eyes. “Well, we have to go. Now. You can’t stay here.”

“They’re searching for you,” Jessie said urgently.

My heart kicked violently. “Geneva knows we’re here?”

“For some reason, Geneva thinks you’re holed up in The Smoke and are somehow managing to slip your letters over the wall,” Lisa said. “But she’s not taking any chances. She’s not raising the alarm yet, doesn’t want a public outcry, but she’s ordered the Guard to be vigilant and tasked a search team to sweep the Nature Reserve.”

“When?” asked Daniel.

Lisa’s gaze swerved to him. “Half an hour ago, so the team’s probably here already. We would have been here sooner, but Jessie was playing coy.”

“I thought it was a trap,” Jessie muttered.

It could still be. I looked at Daniel. “What do we do?”

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Lisa sighed. “I’m not the big bad wolf. But we have to go now.”

“Go where?”

She shrugged. “Anywhere but here, trust me.”

Did we have any other option?

“Pack your things,” I said to Daniel. “If Geneva isn’t sure we’re still in Capra, I don’t want to leave anything behind to change her mind.”

Lisa slapped her palms together. “Chop-chop.”

Jessie stormed around her and started clearing the table. “Do you have a bag or something to dump this into?”

“In the kitchen.” I gave Daniel a shove to get him moving and I darted into my bedroom. My heart pounded, every nerve in my body pinched tight, but I couldn’t panic—I refused to panic.

In all honesty, I was more worried about Lisa than the manhunt. I wanted to trust her, but she was Sisterhood through and through. Like I’d once been. For all I knew, she was the search team, on a sanctioned mission, and we were walking—no, running right into her hands.

But I didn’t know.

I didn’t know .

So I went through my room like a whirlwind, shoving as much as I could into my overnight bag and bundling the rest up in the quilt. Lisa came through to help me carry, and we dumped it into the trunk of her car.

Between the four of us, we cleared the cabin out. There wasn’t space in the trunk for my bicycle, so I pushed it a short way into the trees. If anyone did stumble across it, they wouldn’t necessarily connect it to me.

Lisa and Jessie sat up front and I jumped into the rear with Daniel.

The car shot forward then jerked to an abrupt stop as Lisa cursed and hit the brakes. Gears grinded and then, with a few more stutters and abrupt jerks, we were reversing.

“Do you even know how to drive?” I muttered.

“I’ve been teaching myself.” Her gaze met mine in the rearview mirror with a devilish glint. “This is my second lesson.”

Jessie turned around in her seat to look at me. “She’s fine once she’s warmed up a bit.”

“You know I can drive, right?” Daniel offered.

“You both need to keep your heads down.” Lisa concentrated on changing gears to forward drive before she continued. “I’d rather not be seen with Capra’s ‘most wanted’ in the back of my car, if you don’t mind.”

We slunk low, although I made sure I could still peer through the window. I wanted to see where she was taking us. “Where are we going?”

“I’m taking suggestions,” she quipped.

“Parklands.” Daniel looked at me. “You said the council homes are standing empty. Think about it. They won’t believe we’d dare hide out in our own back garden. That’s the last place they’ll look.”

That made sense. Then again, hiding out in the nature reserve had made sense to me.

I remembered, “The Otter place has been repurposed,” and then I bit down on my back teeth to stop them from shattering. We were traveling at speed and hitting every bump in the road.

“What about the place Brenda and I are— were building?” Daniel said. “Construction ran over schedule and the roof hasn’t been laid yet. It’s not in a state to be repurposed.”

“What about the builders?” I asked. “Won’t they be on site?”

“We lost our slot with the roofers because of the delay,” Daniel replied. “The new date they gave us was in January.”

Lisa flapped a hand at us, thankfully keeping her eyes on the road. “That’s not a bad idea.”

“Watch out!” Jessie yelped.

At the same time, Lisa slammed the brakes. She must have jerked the wheel as well. The car practically reared and went skidding on the dirt gravel. My knees rammed the seat in front of me. My neck snapped and my forehead hit something hard and bounced and everyone screamed.

Except for Lisa, maybe.

When the car came to a sliding halt, she glanced around at us. “Everyone okay?”

I glared at her.

Daniel put a hand on my arm. “You okay?”

I curled a hand around the back of my neck and rolled out the giant crick. “I’m alive.”

“There’s a guard,” Jessie whispered.

“Of course there’s a guard,” Lisa retorted. “I’m not that bad of a driver. He came out of nowhere.”

The breath whooshed out of me. And my head was throbbing from where I’d banged it. And why the hell had I ever trusted Lisa? She’d practically driven us straight into a guard.

Daniel inched forward to peer between the seats.

“Stay down,” Lisa pushed through her teeth. “Seriously? Everyone, just stay calm.”

“He’s just standing there,” Daniel said, slumping out of sight again. “Why doesn’t he move off the damned road?”

“I’ll deal with him.” Lisa opened her door, stepped out, and closed the door.

I rolled down my window so I could hear what was going on outside.

“Are you crazy?” she blasted the guard. “You came out of nowhere. I almost ran you over.”

“What are you doing out here?” I heard a male voice respond in a deep, even keel, not catering to her outrage.

“He’s looking at us,” Jessie squeaked. “Oh God, he’s trying to step around her.”

“I’m teaching myself to drive,” Lisa said. “The roads are quiet here. Or at least, they were quiet, until you jumped out of the trees and into the road right in front of me.”

“You can’t be here,” he said. “The nature reserve is off limits.”

“Since when?”

“Well, it’s not official yet.”

“Then how was I supposed to know?”

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave, miss—”

“With pleasure.”

“—as soon as I’ve checked your vehicle.”

My stomach dropped.

Daniel moved. “I’ve got to do something.”

I gripped his arm in a death vice. “Do what?”

“I don’t know.” His voice was low, urgent, a scowl digging between his eyes. “Jump him, I suppose.”

“He’ll have a Taser.” Visions of what Roman had looked like after a round with the guards swarmed me. Roman…

“Wait. Wait!” I scooted back, looking for my purse. I’d put in on the seat beside me. “Where’s my purse?”

Daniel shifted and contorted himself and I spotted it in the foot well by his feet and I stretched across to grab it, heart pounding, mouth suddenly dry. I’d been wrong about Lisa. She wasn’t working for Geneva. Which meant she was in as much trouble as the rest of us. How many more lives could I carry on my conscience?

“I still have the tranquilizer gun Roman gave me,” I said to Daniel, clumsily ripping my purse open with fat fingers. I pulled out the gun, dropped it onto my lap and fumbled with the slim case to extract a dart. “I’ll take care of the guard. I used this on the night nurse. I know what I’m doing.”

“Excuse me,” Lisa was saying. Panic had crept into her voice, which meant it wasn’t looking good. “You’re not searching my car. What do you expect to find?”

“It’s procedure.”

“The council doesn’t make the rules anymore,” she stamped out. “You don’t have the right to stop and search me just because I’m a woman.”

“It’s not that—”

“Do you know who my mother is?”

“Yes, and she would expect me to make sure you’re safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“There could be a criminal running around in the park.”

“And you think he somehow snuck into my car?” Lisa exclaimed. “If there’s an unsavory character about, then you’re the only one placing me in danger, keeping me standing out here in the open, when I would already have been safely back in town.”

“Um, guys?” Jessie whispered. “If you’re going to do something, now would be a good time. She can’t block him. He’s coming around and, oh—” she broke off in a swallowed gulp.

“I’ve got this.” Daniel snatched the gun from my lap and plucked the dart from my fingers.

Within a heartbeat, he’d loaded the dart. Okay, so clearly he also knew what he was doing.

“Stay here.” He opened his door and climbed out and I immediately bounced up to peer over the back of Jessie’s seat.

The guard reeled back at the sight of Daniel, then pulled himself together. One hand went for his Taser and the other hand went to the iComm clipped at his belt.

“Don’t even think about it,” Daniel barked out, advancing one slow step at a time, his arm stretched taut with the gun aimed, his finger on the trigger.

“I’m not doing anything,” the guard said carefully.

It was a lie. He was looking Daniel in the eye, but that hand was still unclipping the iComm and—

“No!” I screamed, slamming my way out of the car and charging around the hood. The guard’s gaze snapped to me, his hand momentarily frozen at his belt, and then he slapped at his neck and his eyes widened in shock. Daniel had used the distraction to fire the dart, a direct hit just below the man’s ear.

My knees wobbled with relief.

The guard’s legs buckled out from under him, then the rest of him collapsed in slow motion. It actually looked kind of funny, but then he was sprawled on the ground, unconscious, and I realized we hadn’t solved anything.

“We can’t just leave him here,” I said. “They’ll find him and know something’s up.”

“We can’t just leave him anywhere .” Lisa nudged the man’s thigh with the toe of her boot. “He’s seen us. As long as he’s alive, he’s a threat.”

Daniel stood where he was, his arm slack at his side, the gun dangling from his fingertips. “What are you suggesting?”

I stared at her in horror. “We are not killing him.”

She rolled her eyes from Daniel to me. “I’m not suggesting anything, I’m just stating facts.”

Jessie was out of the car, stumbling toward us. “Is he dead?”

“Unconscious.” I turned to her, and noticed the sun striking off the windshield. The reflecting glare made it impossible to see inside the car from this angle. “Jessie, he didn’t see you. You should go. Get out of here, before anyone else comes along.”

“And leave you in this mess?” Her chin nudged high with a pained expression. “Not happening.”

I didn’t need to have this argument now. The guard would be out for at least an hour. I turned back to our immediate problem. “We’ll have to take him with us.”

“And then what?” Lisa demanded.

“I don’t know!” My voice pitched. I pulled it back. “We’ll figure it out, but he’s probably not out here alone. The longer we stand here…”

I didn’t need to finish that.

We couldn’t put the body in the trunk—how was that even a sentence in my head?—because it was full to the brim with everything we’d cleared from the cabin. With all four of us grabbing a part of the guard, we managed to haul him off the ground and into the car, propped up between Daniel and me in the back.