The Long Game

“Don’t fight this,” Henry told me. His voice was quiet. I wished he didn’t sound like the boy I’d known. I wish I couldn’t see my Henry in his eyes as he continued. “Don’t fight me.”

Armed men bound my hands behind my back. They bound me to a chair, and Henry watched.

He knew that when I’d been kidnapped, I’d been bound. He knew that I couldn’t even see a roll of duct tape without flashing back, and he watched.

“Leave us,” Henry told the guards.

I thought of the armed man in the hallway, the way he’d looked at Henry as he said: You.

Not you as in now you get on the ground. You as in I know you. You as in what are you doing with this girl?

At Henry’s request, the guards left us. I stared at the boy I’d kissed less than an hour earlier. I forced myself to look at him, to take in every line of his face, features I’d memorized, features I knew—

“Kendrick.”

Full lips, wide jaw, piercingly clear eyes.

“Don’t call me that,” I told Henry. “Don’t call me anything.”

He lowered his voice. “I tried to get you out.”

Anger bubbled up inside me and came out as a strange, dry laugh. “You tried to get me out,” I repeated. “What about Vivvie? And Emilia?” I didn’t give him time to reply. “What about all those freshmen who think you hung the moon?”

Henry’s jaw clenched. “I never meant for any of this to happen. If you understood—”

Understood?

“These people killed John Thomas!” The words ripped their way out of my mouth. I hurt, just saying them. “Emilia accused Dr. Clark, and do you know what she said? She said that it wasn’t her idea. That she’s not the one who pulled the trigger. But she didn’t deny that Senza Nome was behind it.”

“I didn’t know.” Henry’s reply was guttural. I barely heard it. “About John Thomas, about his father. Until this weekend, I never even suspected—”

“I had John Thomas’s blood on my hands,” I choked out. “And you . . .”

He’d washed it off. He’d given me his shirt. He’d taken care of me.

“I didn’t know,” Henry repeated. “I swear it. No one was supposed to get hurt.”

I heard what Henry wasn’t saying. No one was supposed to get hurt here.

Henry had told me that his grandfather’s death had taught him that the people in power couldn’t always be trusted. I’d kept the truth about the conspiracy from him for fear of what he might do if he knew. And when he’d heard me mention the possibility of a fourth conspirator, he’d been devastated. He’d told me that he wished I’d told him.

Not because he didn’t know, I realized, unable to keep from trying to make sense of how a boy who believed in honor—who believed in protecting people who couldn’t protect themselves—could have let himself be recruited into a group like this.

He already knew the conspiracy wasn’t over. They told him first.

If Senza Nome was trying to manipulate Henry, they might not have told him there were suspects, plural, for the remaining conspirator. They might have led him to believe there was only one.

“The president.” I forced myself to say it out loud. “They told you that the president is the one who had your grandfather killed.”

Henry stood, staring down at me with the same sick masochism that kept me from looking away from him. He didn’t speak—didn’t confirm what I’d implied, but didn’t deny it, either.

They told you the president killed your grandfather. They made you believe they could make it right.

“They just asked for money at first,” Henry said. “Then information.”

Information. I thought of all the times Henry had asked me what Ivy was up to. I thought of the two of us, sitting in the dark on the front porch. I thought of Henry asking me about Ivy’s files.

He’d used me.

The door to the room opened. Headmaster Raleigh, bound and beaten, was shoved in. Henry tore his gaze away from me, turned, and went to secure the headmaster.

“You don’t have to do this, Mr. Marquette,” Headmaster Raleigh told him.

“If I want to stay in a position to keep the people in this school safe,” Henry told him—told me, “yes, I do.”

I turned my head down and to the side. I refused to look at him. I refused to even acknowledge that I’d heard the words.

I didn’t look back when I heard Henry walking toward the door.