The Masked Truth (21 page)

“All right. Just hold on. We’ll—”

He starts to rise, but she whispers, “No.” Then she licks her lips, her tongue rasping over dry skin. “Nothing you can do.”

“No, we can—”

“Max. No. I …” Her eyes close as if it’s a struggle to talk. “I can’t feel anything. Can’t get up. Just find Riley.”

“I did. She’s safe. I—”

“Good. Get her out. Get both of you out. That’s your job.”

“But—”

“Don’t tell her I’m alive. If you do, she’ll come back for me.”

“I can’t—”

“Someone has to get out. That’s what she said. She’s right. That’s the goal. The only goal. Make something up. Tell her a story. You’re smart. You’ll figure it out.”

“But you—”

“I’ll keep playing dead. I fooled
you
, right?”

He says nothing. He can’t. He’s looking at her, arms and legs every which way, and that’s how she fell, and maybe she’s just staying like that in case Gray comes back, so he doesn’t realize she’s moved, but Max suspects that’s not the answer.

I can’t feel anything. Can’t get up
.

He looks at the blood on her back. At the hole in the middle of her shirt.

Shot through the back. Barely holding on. Will she make it? She hasn’t said she will, hasn’t given any reassurances, because she can’t, because chances are …

Don’t think of that. Just don’t
.

How can he leave her here? How can he tell Riley she’s dead when she isn’t?

Make something up. Tell her a story. You’re smart. You’ll figure it out
.

He doesn’t want to figure it out. He wants to fix this. Help her. Leaving is wrong. So bloody wrong.

Except it’s not. It’s the right thing to do, for him and for Riley, like they did with Lorenzo, and it shouldn’t come to that—

How the hell has it come to that? Can he still be human if he does it?

And what is the alternative? No,
really
. What is the alternative? Brienne can’t move. He could drag her into a nearby room … probably hurt her worse and leave a blood trail that will tell Gray not only where she is but that she’s alive. That he needs to shoot her in the head. Like Aimee.

Max sucks in breath.

“Max,” she whispers. “Please. The longer you wait …”

“I know. I’m sorry.”
I’m so sorry
. “I’m going. We’ll get out. I have a plan. We’ll get you help.”

“Good lad,” she says, in an accent that’s probably supposed to be English.

She manages a quarter smile, and he returns it. He starts to get to his feet, then he bends over and says, “Riley said you wanted to be brave. You are.”

A real smile now. “I know.”

Max comes back, and he doesn’t say a word. He just shakes his head. I hug him, and when he hugs me back, it’s fierce and so tight it steals my breath, as if he’s holding on before I slip away like the others.

He whispers, “I’m sorry, Riley,” and his breath hitches, and I hug him again. Then we separate and I say, “I have an idea,” and he nods, a little distracted, still thinking about Brienne, and I’m glad I didn’t see her like that, because I’m not sure I could have gone on if I did.

See, Brienne. Not so brave after all. Just really good at faking it
.

“Predator is right over there,” I say, pointing. “Just around the corner.”

“What?” He spins to the door. “I wouldn’t have put you in here if I’d known—”

“Which is why I didn’t tell you. I’m fine. I have this.” I lift the gun. “And I haven’t heard a peep. Either he’s dead or he’s close to it. Did you see blood in the hall?”

His fair skin pales.

I hurry on. “Sorry. I know. Brienne. But—”

“No, just hers. He’s still in there, then.”

“With a cell phone.”

“Right.” He snaps his fingers. “Yes, yes, yes. Brilliant. Let’s go get that, shall we?”

To get to Predator’s resting place, we have to pass the hall where Brienne lies. Max gets up beside me then, and when my head turns that way, he prods me forward and blocks my view with “Don’t, Riley,” and he’s right, of course. It feels cowardly not to look, but I don’t. I keep going to Predator’s room. The door is open, and when we draw close enough, I can see Predator’s foot. He’s exactly how we left him when we ran.

Did Gray not even come back to check him? Just called or radioed and, when he got no response, carried on? Hurt or dead, either way his partner was useless. No need to check.

I don’t search for the phone right away, as tempting as that is. Max doesn’t let me. He waves for me to wait and aim the gun. Then he prods Predator with his foot. A light kick. A harder one. A grunt of satisfaction when the bastard doesn’t move. He searches for the cell phone while I cover him.

“Bloody hell,” Max whispers as his pocket pat-down comes up empty.

Yes, Gray did come back. To get the damned cell phone. We do a more thorough search; but still find nothing.

I remember Predator’s gun and ask Max, but he says Gray took it from Brienne. I remember everyone who’s been shot with that gun. Murdered with that gun. Everyone dead. Everyone gone. No survivors except us. Well, and Sandy, who got out before—

“Sandy,” I whisper.

“Hmm?”

“He’s the one who let Sandy go. That means he had the keys.”

“Yes!”

Max drops beside me, and we start patting Predator’s pockets. He pulls out the keys, grinning, and I give him a thumbs-up and a return grin and—

Predator rolls over. The sudden move knocks Max back, and I’m swinging the gun up, but Predator’s too fast. He’s been playing dead and waiting for exactly the right moment, and when his hand comes up, I see the flash of metal. A knife. It’s coming straight for me, and I try to scramble back, but he stabs me.

The blade goes in. I gasp. Max is on him. He grabs Predator by the hair and yanks him back. Predator slashes at Max. I swing the gun again, and it hits Predator on the side of the head, harder than I would have imagined. There’s a crack, and I don’t care what that crack means, only that it stops him mid-slash, and he crumples.

I hold the gun on Predator as Max makes sure he’s unconscious. Then he sees the blood on my shirt. His eyes widen, and he fumbles to get over Predator’s body, but I pull away, saying, “It’s just a nick.”

“Let me—”

“I’m fine. Just the tip went in.” I point at the blade on the floor, and it is indeed only the tip bloodied, but more than that went in—it just wiped clean coming out. Max nods, chin bobbing as he stares at that blade as if reassuring himself.

“I’m fine,” I say again. Which is not true. Not true at all. “We have the key.”

“Yes. Right.”

“Max?”

His head shoots up.

“Can you focus?”

A sharp shake of his head as he rubs his face. “Sorry, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. We have a gun and a knife and the key. We just need to get to the front door.”

He blinks and turns to the door. “Yes.” He looks at me again. “But you—”

“Right as rain.”

He makes a face, but it’s a Max-face, a little bit eye-rolling, sliding back to himself as the shock passes.

“Can we get out of here now?” I say. “It’s after eleven, and I have a midnight curfew.”

He smiles, shaking his head, and then says, “Then let’s get you home, Cinderella.”

I’m hurt. Really hurt. I try to figure out where the blade went, recall my basic anatomy lessons, but you know the problem with being a high school senior? All my biology labs have been on frogs and fetal pigs, and that’s not nearly as helpful as one might imagine.

The pain comes with every breath. It’s not a ripping, tearing, oh-God-I’m-dying pain, but it tells me that the blade nicked my lung and maybe more, because it’s definitely not a tickling pain either.

I follow Max so he won’t see me wincing with every breath. When he does glance back and catch me, I make a face and give an annoyed wave at my leg instead. That works. My leg is going to hurt, but there’s no way it’s a life-threatening injury.

Is the stab wound life-threatening? I have no idea, but it doesn’t matter, because we’re fifty paces from the front door, and as soon as we throw it open, there will be an ambulance waiting. An ambulance and Mom and maybe even Sloane, if she’s decided this is worth giving up her Friday night plans for.

I chuckle at that, and Max glances back, but my smile reassures him and he returns it and shoots me a thumbs-up, and I mouth, “Right as rain,” and he smiles and as soon as he turns away I exhale and let myself wince.

I have one of Brienne’s socks under my shirt, and I’m holding it pressed to the spot. It stanches the bleeding. It helps that I’m wearing a navy blue shirt—in the dimly lit hall, it’s easy to miss the fact that my shirt is now blood-soaked.

We’re almost there. We’ve slowed, because we don’t know where Gray is. Either we’re too far away to hear his footfalls or he’s finally wised up and taken off his boots.

The front hall is just ahead. Max shoots me back a reassuring grin, catching me off guard, and I fake a stumble, as if that explains my grimace. He still pulls up short, alarmed, but I whisper, “Stubbed my toe. Just what we need, huh?” and he nods, not quite looking convinced, before glancing forward to reassure himself we’re close. We are. So damned close that when he peers around the final corner I expect Gray to leap out. I expect him to leap from every door we pass. He doesn’t.

We reach the front, and Max takes the keys, holding them tight and silent with one hand while plucking out key after key to try in the lock.

First one? No. Second? No. The third goes in and Max exhales a sigh of relief. Then he turns it and—

Nothing. He keeps turning, faster now, and yanking, and I lean in and whisper, “Back door,” and he shakes his head and says, “We need to get you out this one. It’ll work. I can—”

“No,” I say. “I mean that the key is for the back door. That’s why it fits but won’t turn.”

“Right. Right.”

He inhales, calming himself. Then he tries the next key. It doesn’t fit. The fifth one does, and the knob turns, and Max shudders then as he exhales. I reach over and squeeze his arm, and whisper, “We did it,” and he turns to me, and his smile—that smile—his whole face lights up and he reaches
out, hands to my face. Then his gaze drops to my shirt, though, because at that distance he can’t fail to see the blood. I can
smell
the blood.

“That’s not a scratch, Riley. What the—?”

“Max?” I point at the door. “Paramedics.”

“Right. Yes. Of course.”

He turns to open the door, but I touch his arm again and say, “Once that door opens … I don’t want us to go our own ways. I’d like to talk.”

He looks over sharply, and my cheeks heat because I know that sounds lame, so I wave for him to open the door. He shakes his head and steps back with a little bow, motioning for me to do the honors. My heart is hammering and it feels like Christmas morning, me bouncing at the top of the steps with Sloane, her acting so calm and “whatever,” like Max is now, but when I look into her eyes I can see the excited kid there, and I see that now in Max’s.

When I reach for the knob, he leans over and whispers, “I’ll be here, Riley. To talk. Whenever you need it.”

I smile and pull open the door and then throw up my hands, braced for the light and the shouts and—

Darkness and silence.

I’ve opened the door into an empty front parking lot.

Which isn’t possible. Not possible at all.

I walk out. Behind me, Max whispers, “No. No, no, no.” I keep walking, because there must be people out here. A whole SWAT unit and a hostage negotiator and probably half the cops in town. Plus our families. Our families and the media and gawking strangers, lured in by the siren’s call of the chaos.

But there are no flashing lights. No police officers. No family members. No reporters. No onlookers. An empty, dark and silent parking lot.

Then Max whispers, “Riley!” and he runs for me. He
grabs my arm just as I see a figure walking around the corner of the building. A figure with a lowered gun.

Max yanks me back inside.

Go back in?
No
. I want to wrench the door open and run outside. I don’t. I let Max tug me toward the nearest room. He opens the door and pulls me inside, and when the door closes, it’s dark again until he turns on his watch light.

He motions me to the wall behind the door, and we crouch there in silence. Then, after a moment, he says, his voice barely above a whisper, “Tell me it’s real, Riley.”

“What?”

He shifts, turning to face me, and his pupils are dilated, the fear in his face worse than any I’ve seen so far, and my heart starts to thump.

“Max?” I say.

“It’s not real, is it? It can’t be. No one out there? I’m imagining it. I’m hallucinating.”

“What?”

“Tell me it’s real or tell me it’s not.” He shakes his head sharply. “Bloody hell, does that even make any sense? How can you tell me it’s real or not real if you’re part of it? If you never came into that room after Aaron died? If Brienne’s not …” He sucks in breath. “Or maybe she is. But maybe you didn’t get stabbed, which is good. But then we didn’t find the keys, either. Of course we didn’t find the keys. Bugger it, that was too easy. Much too easy, and I knew that, which is why I imagined you got stabbed, because it can’t be too easy. The good with the bad. That’s how a proper story goes. We found the keys, which is good. But you got stabbed, which is bad. It wasn’t too deep, which is good. But then there was no one outside—”

“Max? You’re scaring me.”

“I know, I know.” He rubs his fingers over his closed eyelids. “I don’t want to. Can’t. Need to keep it together.
Don’t want you to think I’m … But I am, right? I am, and there’s no denying it. No pretending I’m not. Just another boy, for a while. A boy with a girl. Lovely fantasy, but it doesn’t last. Can’t last. Isn’t real.”

“Max?” My pulse races, and I’m trying not to freak out. That’s what he’s doing. Freaking out. I need to pull him back.

He goes still, his fingers against his eyelids. I open my mouth to tell him to relax, just relax, we’re almost out, but his eyes fly open and he says, “Tell me a secret.”