The Long Game

I was starting to believe that was what our country ran on—secret upon secret upon secret.

“There will be a press conference,” the president told me. “In addition to the occupation of Hardwicke, I will also address the attack on my life.” A shadow flickered over the president’s features. I wondered if he was flashing back to the moment he’d been shot, the feel of the bullet as it had entered his chest. “Thanks to the hard work of a trusted few,” the president told me, shooting a brief look in Ivy’s direction, “the shooter was apprehended less than an hour ago.”

The shooter. As in the person who’d taken aim at the president and pulled the trigger.

“Unfortunately,” the president continued, “the shooter resisted.”

Resisted. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up the moment the president said the word.

“He’s dead,” I said, reading between the lines again.

“We’ve been able to connect the shooter, financially, to the same people responsible for the death of John Thomas Wilcox and the hostile takeover of the Hardwicke School.”

Suddenly, I felt less like the president and I were having a conversation, and more like he was issuing a statement. This was the press release he would be giving shortly. This was the whole ordeal, wrapped up with a neat little bow.

My stomach twisted sharply. “The assassination attempt—that wasn’t Senza Nome,” I said. “Daniela, Dr. Clark, Mrs. Perkins . . . they all maintained the organization had nothing to do with the attempt on your life.”

The attack on President Nolan might have disturbed one plan, but it gave us an opening for another. I could hear Mrs. Perkins, could remember the way that when I’d said that Senza Nome had claimed responsibility for the attack, her response had been, Did we? Did we really?

“People like this,” Georgia said, her voice full of compassion, “organizations like this—they get inside your head, Tess. They tell you what they want you to believe.”

I knew that. But I also knew that Mrs. Perkins hadn’t been concerned with making me believe anything, other than the fact that she could and would execute the entire student population of Hardwicke, one by one, if I didn’t do as she asked.

“Tess, darling, it’s over.” The First Lady rested her hand lightly on the president’s shoulder. The president winced.

“Your shoulder,” I said softly. Like Henry, the president had been shot in the shoulder.

A muscle in the president’s jaw tensed slightly, but he didn’t allow himself to close his eyes. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’m fine—grateful for my life. I’m ready to heal and to lead this country as they do the same.”

“The bullet,” the First Lady said softly, trailing her hand lightly over her husband’s stitches, “did less damage than the fall.”

“Apparently,” the president joked, taking his wife’s hand in his own, “my head is not as hard as I’ve been led to believe.”

There was something intimate in the exchange between the two of them, something that made it easy to see how America had fallen in love with this first couple on the election trail.

Ivy put a hand on my shoulder. “We should go,” she said.

President Nolan turned his attention back to Ivy, back to me. “Get some rest,” he ordered. “And this time, Tess?” He smiled. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

CHAPTER 67

Hot water beat against my body. I closed my eyes and stepped farther into the spray. This shower was the only thing standing between me and Ivy.

I’d risked my life.

I’d lied to her.

And we both knew that given the same circumstances, I would do it again.

Eventually, the hot water ran cold. I turned off the spray and stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my body. I slipped on an oversized T-shirt.

Ivy was waiting for me in my room. With her hair wet from her own shower, I could see the resemblance between us. She was dressed nearly identically, in an oversized USAF T-shirt—one of Adam’s.

It was two in the morning. I shouldn’t have even been vertical. And all I could think about was how different Ivy’s life might have been, if it weren’t for me.

Ivy picked up the brush on my nightstand. She sat on the edge of the bed. I sat on the floor. Wordlessly, she began brushing my hair. As she worked her way through the tangles, I felt my throat tighten.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the headmaster. I saw Matt Benning. I saw Henry, drowning in tubes. I heard John Thomas Wilcox’s gasping last words.