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“Will you?”
I let my forehead rest against the door. Despite all the misery my uncle put us through, my mother never suggested we betray him and return to the Warwicks. How can I do that now?
What I need is to escape. To disappear, once and for all, and make my dreams into reality in a world that has nothing to do with hostages and turf wars.
“Raleigh…” I bite my lip, feeling sick. “I know I have even less right to ask you this than I did last night, but… can you help me?”
There’s dead silence on the other side of the door, and my heart aches at it. My family has cost hers so much already. Maybe ten years ago we’d sleep in each other’s beds and share every one of our secrets, but now there’s an ocean between us. Threads of nostalgia are all that tie us together.
I hate that on the same night her house was burned down because of me, I’m asking her to come between me and her brother, but I don’t have any other choice. I won’t be a spy for Thomas. I won’t be responsible for harm coming to my own family.
“I’ll talk to Thomas,” Raleigh finally says. She sounds distant, and I can’t tell if it’s the roaring of dread in my ears or if she’s already walking away. “He’s stubborn, so I can’t promise anything, but-”
“I can’t stay here,” I say, desperation making my voice rise. “Please, you can take me to a bus stop if you want, but I just need to go-”
“This room is bugged,” Raleigh says, her whisper suddenly close and fierce. I clamp my mouth shut in horror. “It’s for special guests that Thomas wants under close surveillance. That room across the courtyard? It’s his, and you can’t see him but he can see you. He’s probably watching you through those windows right now.”
I fight the urge to look out my window. “I-I see.”
The silence stretches again, so long that I think Raleigh is gone. But then I hear a shuffle in the carpet outside the door.
“I’ll try to change his mind, Clara. I promise,” Raleigh says, more softly.
I nod, but of course, she can’t see me. “Thank you, Raleigh,” I mumble and turn back to my lavish prison cell.
CHAPTER 6
Thomas
I’m still quietly fuming over Raleigh and Clara’s conversation through the door as the clock hits a more decent hour- seven a.m. instead of four- and I finish off a breakfast of smoked lox and more coffee. Raleigh thinks she’s going to convince me to let Clara slip through the cracks, does she? My sister is many things, but she can usually be summed up with one word: reckless.
Still, this feels like a new record for careless things she’s done in a twenty-four-hour period.
Her first mistake was letting Clara into her house in the first place, and I’m going to figure out why she did it today.
When I go to Raleigh’s room, I’m shocked to find she’s not there. Whereas Iris and I tend to be up with or before the sun, Raleigh doesn’t usually show her face until noon- or later. I go downstairs and find her among my generals, who are currently divvying up a huge delivery of coffee and breakfast bagels from a cafe down the hill. Raleigh’s drink is huge, and it looks more like a slice of cake stuffed in a blender than coffee. I grimace at her, and when she notices me, she returns my glare with her own.
“There you are,” she says, as if she’s the one who’s been looking for me. “We need to talk.”
I cross my arms. “I assume that you already know that I know what you did.”
She takes a deliberately nonchalant sip of her drink. “Maybe.”
I roll my eyes. “Grab some breakfast and let’s go.” Raleigh tries to slip past me without taking a bagel, and I steer her back around. “That ice cream you’re drinking doesn’t count.”
Iris is waiting for us at the door to the garage. She’s hissing something into her phone, but when she sees us, she quickly ends the call. “Did you bring me some?” she asks Raleigh, who promptly hands her the one bagel she took from the tray. I roll my eyes and don’t bother to argue.
We pile into my car, which luckily doesn’t smell like the smoke lingering in Clara’s hair from only hours before. Raleigh claims the passenger seat, and Iris sits behind her.
“Since I know that you know that I visited Clara this morning,” Raleigh says as I roll out the front gate, “can we just cut to the chase?”
“Absolutely,” I agree dryly. “How about this- why the hell did you let her in the house in the first place? Why didn’t you call me the second a Speare was seen in our territory?”
Raleigh chews on her straw, suddenly uninterested in cutting to any chases. I let her stew. Once we see what’s left of her house, maybe she’ll be more interested in talking.
“Because she was my friend.”
She speaks so quietly, I’m almost not sure I heard her. “What?”
