Vagabonds

Chapter Seventeen: Oops

"Tori, talk to me," Eliza pleaded.

But just like the night before, Tori refused to meet Eliza's gaze, moving around their tiny dorm room as if nothing had changed. As if it was any old morning.

As if she hadn't seen a giant blue-green wing slipping out of their window.

Eliza watched helplessly as Tori pulled her hair into a ponytail and began to paint on her mascara.

"It's not what you think. It's —"

Tori grabbed her bag and made to leave the room. Desperate, Eliza lunged forward, grabbing the other girl's arm.

"Okay, fine, we both have secrets here. But if you don't tell anyone about last night, I won't tell anyone about your brother."

Tori curled her lip in that imperious smirk that made her at once beautiful and ugly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tori said, yanking her arm out of Eliza's grip and stalking into the hallway. "And don't threaten me."

Eliza followed.

"This is a two-way street, Tori," she whispered, swinging her own bag over her shoulder and ignoring the scandalized looks from the other students at her untamed hair, untucked shirt, mismatched knee-high socks. It didn't matter, the school would be talking about her anyways. She had more important things to worry about.

Tori shoved open the front door and Eliza squinted in the sudden light.

"I don't know why you don't want people to know about him," Eliza said, making Tori freeze. There were people around. Popular boys and girls hungry for new gossip. If they heard Eliza, if they put the puzzle pieces together...

"Leave me alone," Tori hissed. "You're a freak and your boyfriend is a freak and I don't want anything to do with it."

"Then swear to me you won't say anything."

Tori opened her mouth, but at that moment three shadows fell over them. Eliza blinked, eyes still adjusting.

It was Amile, flanked by two new privates. Tori's brother was nowhere to be seen.

"Ms. Mason, if we could have a word?"

Eliza froze.

When she was five, her parents had taken them to a ski resort in Maine. There had been a pond outside their cabin, frozen and sparkling and so alluring to Eliza that she'd dragged Katie out for an impromptu midnight ice-skating session while Mom and Dad slept. But when they'd reached the middle, Eliza had heard a reverberating crack. She'd watched, petrified, as the spidery, sinister threads of broken ice whipped toward them under the dusting of snow. Eliza had been so scared she couldn't move, but Katie — always the one with more sense — had grabbed her arm and dragged her to shore, sprinting even as the surface of the pond started to fracture beneath them. They barely made it to the shallows when the surface finally failed, but luckily emerged with only wet feet and the chilling knowledge that the night could have ended very differently.

Now, in the bright October sunshine eleven years later, Eliza felt that same cracking. That same feeling of dread rushing toward her beneath the deceptive cover of the real world.

"Not now, I have to get to class," Eliza said, trying to push past. But from the corner of her eye, she caught Tori's lips curling into an ominous smirk. The girl's blonde head tilted up, offering her most innocent smile to the two soldiers.

"I'm sure Eliza's just exhausted," Tori said, voice dripping with malice. "After all, she had such a strange guy over last night."

Time slowed. Eliza spun to Tori, met her eyes.

"You vindictive —"

"Detain her."

Those two words, spoken with such cold calm, cleaved through Eliza's shock.

She ran.

The men made to grab her, but Eliza twisted out of their grasp. She leapt onto the railing, propelled herself off it and into the garden. Greenery crumpled beneath her sneakers. Shocked gasps rose like mushroom clouds behind her. She barely noticed. Her arms pumped as she sprinted around the corner of the dorm, followed by the heavy thuds of booted feet. She didn't dare look back, didn't dare check how close the soldiers were behind her.

One thought pulsed above all others.

She had to warn Aquila.

Tori didn't seem at all motivated to keep what she'd seen to herself. And now Eliza had to reach him, tell him to stay hidden. It wasn't safe for the brothers to be out, not now, not with Amile and her soldiers circling like vultures.

Eliza needed to reach Ian Eckelson's estate and soon.

But Tori's bike was still in town, probably stolen by now, and her own...

Joe's truck!

Veering sharply and vaulting another railing, Eliza crashed through a cluster of outraged students, sprinting for the front doors.

Please be there, please be there.

But she needn't have worried. Joe was as reliable as Meru's ability to spread gossip, standing on the steps as he had every morning for the past month and a half. He grinned automatically when he saw her, but his smile faded as he took in her flushed cheeks, pumping arms, the way her sneakers dug into the grass and sent it flying.

"Eliza, what the —"

"Where... are your truck... keys?" Her voice was ragged, barely audible over her rasping breath.

"What?"

"Your truck, Joe! I need you to drive me somewhere!"

Joe stepped back.

"But it's homeroom, and we have an exam..."

Eliza chanced a look over her shoulder and was horrified to see the two soldiers emerging from around the dorm, crashing toward her. She spun back, panting as she leaned in toward her best friend, guilt and fear pulling tight around her lungs.

"Listen to me, Joe, you were right. Something is going on and it's weirder than you can imagine. I'll tell you everything, I promise, but right now we need to get in your truck and leave, okay? Trust me on this."

Joe's eyes flickered between Eliza and the two men shouldering their way through the morning rush of students. Eliza held her breath, not sure how far Joe's loyalty could be stretched. He was a good friend, but was he willing to break the law for her? Ignore army orders? Go against the government's will?

"Come on," Joe said, grabbing her hand and yanking her through the doors.