The Girl in the Wall (8 page)

“It means victory of the people.”

I snort, then see he’s looking wounded again. “Oh, that’s really cool.” I don’t sound that sincere but he lets it pass.

“Yeah, it definitely inspires me,” he says. “My mom said she chose it because the first time she held me she knew she wanted more for me, not just a life farming or slaving away making minimum wage, but doing something meaningful that helped people.” His smile is tinged with sadness that somehow has me talking before I think.

“My mom named me Ariel because it means lioness of God,” I say. “She wanted me to be strong.”

My mom was weak, both physically and mentally, and I think she hoped I’d manage the world a little better than she did in her short life.

“That’s really powerful,” Nico says solemnly.

Why am I telling him stuff like this? I never even think about my mom, let alone talk about her. “It’s not like it means anything. I mean, here you are working a minimum wage job and helping hold a group of high school students hostage so someone can get rich off my dad’s company. Not exactly a victory for the people.”

His whole body seems to fold in. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“You said that before.” I am finally feeling well enough to stand up, though my stomach feels lined with acid.

“The people trying to get money from your dad’s company found out about us before they came and tried to recruit us to help,” he says, leaning back against the pink bathroom wall. He looks out of place in his fatigues. “Most people agreed to help for the money. But those of us who refused at first—they had other incentives for us.”

I don’t think I want to know anymore.

“My dad is here illegally,” he says. “He works for a family in Greenwich and if he gets reported to immigration, he’ll be deported. I could go home to El Salvador but he can’t. He was too outspoken in his politics and he made enemies in the government. If he goes home he will be killed.”

He says it simply but the hollowness in his voice tells me how much he has thought about this, how trapped he feels.

“I had no choice but to agree,” he says. “But I figured I’d do what my dad did back home and work from the inside to see if I could make a difference.”

“So helping me is a difference?” I thought his motive was a crush on me but a political motive is even better—more conviction. I take a moment to drink some water, my hands cupped under the faucet. It tastes divine.

“It’s a starting point,” he says. “What they’re doing is wrong and I want to help stop it.”

“Great,” I say.

“So you will help?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Obviously.” Anything that stops this early will help Abby. In fact I realize now is the time to tell him about Abby.

He shakes his head before I can speak. “I don’t mean just to save yourself. I mean, will you help to stop this, to save everyone if you can, even if it means making sacrifices?”

“Yes.” I’m surprised that it stings to learn that he thinks I’m a spoiled brat who would leave everyone to die if she could save her own skin doing it, but whatever. I’m not telling him about Abby.

“There are a few of us on the inside,” he says, suddenly sounding professional. “I think it’s better if you don’t know who they are. But we can help.”

“Can you get a phone?” I ask. That would be the easiest and quickest way to end this.

But Nico shakes his head. “All phones are locked away in the office. None of us has access.”

“That sucks,” I say, thinking how much a phone could have helped.

“But there are still things we can do. And we need to see which of the hostages will help.”

“That makes sense.”

“Who do you trust?” he asks simply.

“Sera.”

Wait, did I really just say the name of the biggest backstabber of all time? But as I think about it, I realize it’s true. I know everyone downstairs pretty well. And there’s only one person I am certain would do everything she could to stop anyone else from being hurt.

“I’m not sure we can stop the killing at midnight,” Nico says, running a hand through his short black hair. “But—”

“Wait, what killing?”

His eyes are filled with sadness. “I wasn’t thinking,” he says softly. “You wouldn’t know. They are looking for you, the agents.”

I nod, suddenly feel the acid again, burning into my stomach lining.

“They have threatened your classmates. If you are not found by midnight, one of them will be shot.”

Somehow he knows what this information will do to me because his arms are reaching for me before my legs even give out. He lowers me slowly, gently to the floor. Maybe he doesn’t just think I’m a spoiled brat.

I look at the clock. It’s 11:03. Less than an hour until someone dies.

I lean my head back and close my eyes. How can I keep hiding?

“I need to turn myself in,” I say. I feel the wave gathering power at my feet, ready to sweep me off. “I can’t let someone die because of me.”

“You can’t turn yourself in,” he says.

“Why not?” I ask, turning to look at him. His eyes are light brown, like honey in the sun. “How can I put my life over theirs, say my life matters more, that I deserve to live while one of them dies?”

The words burst out of me because in my heart I don’t believe I do. There are some pretty good people down there, people who want to be like Nico, make the world better and stuff. Ella wants to be a doctor and work for Doctors Without Borders—she even interned in their New York office this summer. Mike wants to be a diplomat and Cassidy wants to be an attorney who prosecutes people who hurt children, something she will be amazing at. And what goals do I have? Not any really.

“That’s not what it’s about,” Nico says. His features are broad, his eyes deep set and his face round. I thought he was plain-looking but in this moment I see a beauty in his face. “You’re a distraction for the agents. That’s what we need, distractions. Because that’s when things slip by them and they make mistakes. Those moments are our only real opportunities to do something.”

“So I need to stay alive to be a distraction?” I ask.

He smiles and his face shines. “You’re a lot more than that, but yes, for now we need you to be a distraction.”

He reaches over and smoothes a lock of hair out of my face. It’s a moment when another guy would lean in and kiss me but I can see now that that is not Nico’s intention, in fact I don’t think it ever would be. He doesn’t have a crush on me at all. He just likes me as a person. And that has me feeling weak in the knees the way a crush never does. Because it means he doesn’t see me as something he can own or use. He just sees me, Ariel.

“Abby’s coming here tomorrow,” I blurt out.

His face falls, he totally gets it. “What time?”

“Noon.”

He nods, thinking. “Then we have to get this taken care of before noon.”

I could hug him, though obviously I won’t. “That would be great,” I say instead.

He smiles. “Abby has a real green thumb.”

I suddenly remember that sometimes my little sister hangs out in the garden with Nico “helping” him plant things. I never thought a lot about it but it is awfully nice of him to let her play when he is trying to get work done.

We hear footsteps in the hall and we both scramble to our feet.

“Quickly,” he breathes, and I sprint to the fireplace.

Once I am in he sets the grate behind me. “I will go to Sera,” he whispers. “To see if she will help.”

And then he is gone.

After The Assassin stalks out a few people start crying. Ella appears on the verge of collapse and Mike is hugging her, patting her back. A couple of agents stand in the doorway of the hall that leads to the kitchen and two sit on the sofas, guns casually resting on their laps.

I look at the clock above the fireplace. It’s 11:03. We have fifty-seven minutes before—I put my head down on my knees, unable to complete the thought.

“Are you okay?” Hudson asks, and I feel his hand rest gently on my back. “I mean, obviously not but you know what I mean.”

He thinks I am upset about the fact that one of us will die at midnight. Which I am, of course. But it’s so much more. I know where Ariel is. If they haven’t found her yet there’s only one place she could be and that’s the tunnels. But how could I tell them that? Yet if I don’t, someone, possibly me, will be shot. I feel like my head is going to split open.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

I don’t want to tell him. It’s enough that I’ve burdened him with the phone when I barely even know the guy. Though on the other hand, I’m not sure I can handle it alone. I sit up, as always careful to keep my arm with the phone turned in.

“You’re scaring me.” Hudson is looking at my face closely and he rests his hands on top of mine. For whatever it’s worth, in this moment he really does know me.

I take a deep breath and glance around to make sure no agents are nearby. “I know where Ariel is.”

Hudson gives out a low whistle and sits back. “Okay,” he says slowly. “That’s a lot of information to have.”

“Too much. I feel like I have to choose between Ariel or one of the hostages, maybe even me, and I just can’t decide because—”

Hudson pats my hand softly and I realize I am talking a mile a minute and my face is heating up.

I take another deep breath. “If I tell them where she is, who knows what they’ll do to her,” I say it a bit more calmly, but then I am shocked when tears prick my eyes. “But if I say nothing, I’ve killed someone else.”

“Not true. You’re not killing anyone. The people with the guns are doing that.”

“I know, but—”

He raises a hand to cut me off. “I know what you mean. But you can’t think about it like that because it’s not what’s actually happening. They’re going to kill someone at midnight and you have no say in that. All you have is some information, nothing more. All the choices are theirs. They might say they’d only take Ariel, or only shoot one of us, but they have all the power. They can kill anyone at anytime and whatever you say or don’t say won’t change that.”

He’s right and thinking about it this way is both better and worse. But the question is still there. “So do I tell them or not?”

I want him to make this choice for me, to take it out of my hands, though I know him well enough now to know he won’t.

“What do you think?” he asks.

I take a moment to picture what would happen if I tell them where Ariel is. Agents would crawl into the tunnels, the walls would echo with their footsteps as they hunted Ariel. She would hear them, try to run, to hide, but there would be no escape. She would be trapped and they would find her. And then what would they do with her, now that her dad, the only one who could get the company money—at least as far as I know—is dead? I don’t want to know the answer to that question.

Ariel was the one who stayed up with me all night long the night I was seven and our cat Snickerdoodle got killed by a neighbor’s dog. She called me twenty times a day during the two-week period when my mom left my dad, and then called me every Tuesday for six months after so I could make fun of all the stuff that happened in our family therapy sessions. Yeah, she hates me and has made me miserable for the past nine months and four days. But I can’t do this to her. I just can’t.

“I’m not turning her in.” There is space in my chest as I say the words, an opening. I made the right choice. And then I realize something else. “But I can’t just sit around waiting for them to execute someone. Or just playing with this stupid phone all night, hoping I get lucky with it.”

Hudson nods. “We need to do a little brush-busting.”

“What?”

“It’s a hunting term for when the animal sees you and ruins your shot before you can take it.”

I wrinkle my nose. “You hunt? That’s so mean.”

He gives me a withering stare. “We hunt for meat. And we use a lot more of the animal than you do when you pick up a steak at the grocery store.”

I think about it for a moment. “Okay, you’ve shamed me with my meat from the supermarket,” I say. “I’m with you. Let’s do a little brush-busting.”

He laughs. “It sounds really funny when you say it.” The look in his eyes makes my pulse dance for the tiniest second.

“So what do we do?” I ask, getting down to business.

That look doesn’t mean anything. This is a guy who dates lingerie models and movie stars. He is not flirting with a flat-chested high school kid whose most interesting life experience involved painting sets for the high school play. And there are way more important things to be thinking about.

Hudson runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up in that way I like. I look away.

“I don’t know,” he says. He looks around to make sure no agents have come near us but they are still just in the doorways, keeping watch but too far away to hear what we’re saying. “I guess that’s the million-dollar question. And we don’t have much time to figure it out. Is there some way we could use the tunnels?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I mean, I guess if there was something we could get from another section of the house to help us, but I can’t think of anything except computers and without Internet…”

“No gun collection, huh?” he asks in a voice that indicates he knows the answer.

I roll my eyes. “Plus the house is crawling with agents looking for Ariel. If—”

I stop suddenly. An agent is coming toward us. The phone. I press my arm into my stomach so that no trace of the phone shows. My heart is thumping hard in my chest and I reach for Hudson’s hand without even thinking. He grabs my fingers tight and moves so he is sitting up straight. I sit up too, gulping shallow breaths.

The agent stops right in front of us, sits on the sofa with his back to the room, then slowly lifts his ski mask. For a second I’m just confused and then I realize I know him.

“Nico?” I ask in disbelief.

“Ssh,” he says, quickly pulling the mask back over his face. “I need you to get a plate of food and bring it to the east staircase in exactly ten minutes,” he says quietly. Then he stands up.

“I don’t understand,” I say. If he wants food he can just get it.

“You will,” he says, and then he walks away, leaving us both staring after him.