“I can help—”
“No, you can’t!” she whispered furiously. “Didn’t you learn anything from O’Connor? You have no power here, Nicole, and no other options. Get out while you still can.”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” I asked. I swept my arms around us, indicating the art room. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re under the freaking ground. Your buddies might be laughing it up out there, but I have a feeling they’d notice if I waltzed by on my bid for freedom.”
“Most everyone’s drunk,” she said shortly. “They’re celebrating. They got rid of O’Connor’s body and caught you. It’s a victory for us.”
“The Lockwoods certainly aren’t inebriated.”
“True, but I can get you out of here without them knowing. There are a bunch of underground tunnels that connect some of the other Waverly buildings to our clubhouse,” she explained. “It’s how we got you down here without anyone noticing. There’s one in the basement of Research Hall.”
“No fucking way.”
“The library down here. Have you seen it?”
I nodded.
Lauren crept over to the door, opened it a smidge, and peeked out. She beckoned me forward with her index finger. “That’s where we’re headed.”
Heart pounding, I followed Lauren out into the hallway, squinting against the bright light of the sconces. Chatter, laughter, and music poured from the dining room at the far end of the corridor, and though another member could emerge from the party at any second and discover us, we edged forward. Thankfully, the library was only a few doors down, and we slipped inside unnoticed.
Lauren raced to the long desk in the middle of the room, the one that held the BRS charter, and lay down on the floor beneath it.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, squatting down next to her.
“Just…one…second,” she grunted as she fiddled with something on the underside of the desk. A defined click met my ears. “There.”
She squirmed out from under the desk just in time. The floor gave way, revealing a rickety ladder and deep drop. I looked down into it, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“It’s not far,” Lauren reassured me. “It comes out in the basement of my dormitory. No one uses this one much. Mostly, it’s just me. It’s safe, I promise.”
“Are you sure?”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Not a bit.”
Lauren grinned. “That’s probably wise of you. Get going. Our ten minutes are nearly up, and I still have to stage your great escape.”
I shuffled forward, dropping my legs into the passageway and finding the first rung of the ladder. As I slipped entirely into the hole in the floor, I looked back up at Lauren. “I misjudged you.”
“Everyone always does.”
Without warning, the floor tiles slid back into place, and all traces of light from the clubhouse vanished. Blindly, I lowered myself into the darkness below.
10
Lauren had spoken the truth about the secret tunnel. It was only about ten feet down before my boots hit the floor of the passageway, but in the pitch black, I had no idea which way I was supposed to be heading. Thankfully, BRS hadn’t bothered to relieve me of my phone. There was no point, I guessed, considering they’d already wiped it blank. I took it out from my jacket pocket and flipped the LED light on. My route was easier than I expected. The rough stone tunnel branched out in one direction, so with a silent prayer that Lauren was genuinely trying to help me, I set off, bowing my head to avoid banging it on the low, stooped ceiling.
Ten minutes later, the passageway sloped gradually upward, and at the end, I pushed open a section in the wall, crawled through the hole, and found myself in the boiler room of Lauren’s dormitory. From there, I climbed the stairs to the first floor and let myself out into the main hallway. As I passed by a few student residents, I instinctively ducked my face, keeping my eyes on the floor, just in case any of them were members of BRS. I left the dorm building without issue and emerged into the bright sunlight of midday.
I wiped my watering eyes with the back of my hand. It had been so dark and chilly in the clubhouse that I’d all but forgotten it was just a normal day for the other Waverly students. They milled about in the dormitory courtyard, chatting with friends, or rushed to classes with stacks of books cradled in their arms. How mundane it all seemed now. I wished suddenly that I’d never looked in O’Connor’s safe, that I had remained blissfully ignorant of the Black Raptor Society. There were some things you just couldn’t take back.
As I jogged toward home, I considered my options. According to Lauren, my best bet was packing up and leaving Waverly, but there was a whole host of details to consider when trying to lose someone on your tail, and my fragile knowledge of the subject relied solely on mass-marketed movies. I’d leave the high-stakes deception up to Wes. It was absurd that I even had to think about this sort of thing. There was still so much I didn’t know about BRS. How deep did their connections go? What would Wes and I have to do to stop them from following us? They could track us in a million different ways—bank accounts, license plates, et cetera—but was the Black Raptor Society that committed to hunting down its prey?
Anger burned through me, and I sped up my pace. Why should I have to be the one to leave Waverly when BRS was the problematic entity? Though they might’ve confiscated all of my electronic evidence, I still had all of O’Connor’s paper research in the apartment back home. Going to the local police with it wasn’t an option though. Wilson and Whitehall would cover it up without a hitch. My only option was to skip over the local force entirely.
