The Disappearance of Sloane Sullivan, page 22
Something inside me grew very still. What if they never let me see Mark again? What if they never let me see Jason again?
I had to find Mark.
My breath caught as I wrapped my fingers around Jason’s wrist. “I need you to help me get out of here as fast as possible.”
His pulse tripped but he slid his fingers through mine. “Anything.”
“Ask to go to the bathroom. Say it’s an emergency or something. And once you’re out, pull the fire alarm, okay?”
He nodded and started to stand.
“Wait!”
He leaned close and brushed his lips against mine, quick and sweet. “I’ll find you.” Then he was gone.
Fear crept up my throat. I wasn’t going to let this be another Duke. It couldn’t be.
I wasn’t going to lose Mark and Jason.
The youngest agent’s eyes swept over the students sitting by the stage as Jason made his way to the side door. I realized, too late, that if they knew I’d been in contact with someone from my past, they’d know exactly who that person was. And if they knew who Jason was, seeing him leave the audience, seeing where he’d been sitting, might lead them to me before I had a chance to get out of here and find Mark.
Every step Jason took closer to the agent sent a new round of icy tingles shooting through me. But after a few quick words to the teacher leaning against the wall by the exit, Jason slipped out of the auditorium without a second glance from the agent. I let out a silent breath, thanking whatever luck made the agent more interested in the audience than the guy who had to use the bathroom.
Thirty-six seconds later, the fire alarm sounded.
Agent Kessler paused midsentence and made a quick gesture to the other agents. The two by the side doors exited swiftly while the two in the back held their positions. “Stay calm, everyone,” Agent Kessler said in a soothing voice. “It appears we need to evacuate. If you could please exit through the rear doors, we’ll get through this in an orderly fashion.”
Thankfully, no one listened to him. Seniors started pouring out of the side doors and the teachers didn’t stop them. The pulse of the alarms and the crowd and my heart made my chest vibrate as I folded myself into a group of taller people—lesson number five: how to disappear in a crowd—and headed for the unguarded side exit.
I followed the flow of students out of the auditorium, ready to make a quick escape. Instead, I cursed under my breath.
Forty feet in front of me, at the intersection of hallways where I needed to turn left to get to the girls’ bathroom with the window big enough to climb out of, teachers were herding everyone straight. Straight toward the front doors, where I could see agents, including the youngest that left his post at the auditorium’s side door, scrutinizing the students as they exited. There was no way I was going to be able to slip past those teachers and down the now deserted hall into the girls’ bathroom without being spotted.
I blocked out the blaring sirens and searched my memory of the night I’d toured the school with Mark. There was a boys’ bathroom coming up with a window. It was a little higher and smaller than the window in the girls’ bathroom, but it could work if I had someone to give me a boost. Someone like Jason.
He wasn’t anywhere in front of me that I could see. I peeked over my shoulder, hoping maybe he’d been hiding somewhere, waiting for me to pass, and was now behind me trying to catch up. And that’s when I saw him, sandwiched between a goth guy dressed completely in black and a tall, skinny girl in a UNC shirt. Not Jason, but someone else from my past I recognized just as easily.
Someone who shouldn’t have been there.
My knees almost buckled and a gasp escaped my lips. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised, but a high school in North Carolina teeming with US Marshals was the last place I expected to see Lorenzo Rosetti.
Twenty-Three
How did he find me?
I pushed the question out of my head. I didn’t have time to figure it out right then. I needed to get out of the hall, and I needed to do it right away.
Even if I trusted these Marshals—and honestly, the fact Lorenzo was roaming around my school didn’t exactly instill a lot of confidence—the closest agents I could see were by the front doors, a good eighty feet away. And Lorenzo was only fifteen feet behind me. I didn’t like those odds. I quickly shifted all the way to the right side of the hall. At the doorway to the boys’ bathroom, I pushed the swinging door open as narrowly as I could and slipped into the room.
A second after the door swung shut, it began to open again. I didn’t have time to hide anywhere but behind the door. I held my breath and got ready to put my self-defense skills to use.
“Sloane?” a familiar voice called over the muffled sound of the fire alarm blaring in the hall.
I peeked around the closing door and saw Oliver standing a few feet away with his back to me. I inched forward and touched his arm.
He jumped. “I thought I saw you come in here. What are you doing in the boys’ bathroom?”
Before I had a chance to answer, the bathroom door squeaked its opening again. I’m not here, I mouthed as I dashed into one of the stalls and stood on top of the toilet, crouching low so I wouldn’t be seen above the stall walls. The door swung shut and I could feel the tension in the room building. There was a long moment of silence before someone finally spoke.
“Is anyone else in here?”
My heart spasmed at the sound of Lorenzo’s voice, the same voice I now realized I’d heard in my head after the scavenger hunt say, “You can’t hide.” I cupped my hands over my mouth. Just like the last time I was in Lorenzo’s presence, I was breathing too loud and too fast. I had to be quiet.
“No,” Oliver said. “Just me. I stopped to pee since who knows how long it’s going to be before they let us back in, you know?”
There was a shuffling of feet, but no response.
“Are you looking for someone in particular? Maybe I can help you find them outside,” Oliver said.
I leaned the tiniest bit to the right, trying to peek out of the sliver of space between the stall door and wall. I wanted to see where Lorenzo was, see whether it was working.
“You don’t go to school here, do—”
Boom!
I jumped and my foot almost slid off the toilet as the thin stall walls around me shook. I didn’t need to see to know what caused that sound: Lorenzo had pushed open a stall door.
“I told you no one’s in here.” Anyone else probably would’ve thought Oliver sounded bored, almost annoyed. But I heard the hint of panic in his voice.
Boom!
The noise was louder this time, closer. There were only four stalls in the bathroom, and I was in the third one.
My heart was in my throat and my fingers tingled from all the adrenaline, but I shifted my weight onto my toes and forced my body to go loose, ready to attack. If it was going to come down to a fight, surprise was all I had going for me.
A dark shadow passed over the crack by the door and I realized it was Lorenzo’s black shirt. He was standing a foot away from me.
Images of self-defense moves were flashing through my head as the door swung open. But it wasn’t the door to my stall that opened.
“Hey, Oliver,” Sawyer said over the squeak of the bathroom door. “And...some guy I don’t know.”
Lorenzo turned and I could see his profile, one eye narrowing to size up Sawyer.
“I hate to break this party up, but you guys need to leave.” Sawyer’s voice was even. He had no idea what he’d just walked into. “Principal Thompson told me to clear out the bathroom and she’s seriously out for blood. She’ll probably be in here herself any minute. Apparently someone’s hiding in the girls’ bathroom.”
Lorenzo straightened. “Where’s the girls’ bathroom?”
“Around the corner to the left,” Sawyer replied.
In a blink, Lorenzo was no longer in front of my stall door. I held my breath, praying he’d taken the bait. But instead of the squeak of the bathroom door, I heard his voice, low and suspicious. “What happened to your face?”
“I tripped.” Sawyer’s voice was defiant, challenging Lorenzo to question him.
My heart stopped beating.
Then Lorenzo snorted and the bathroom door squeaked. After a bit of shuffling, Oliver said, “You can come out.”
I eased out of the stall. Oliver was standing by a trash can he must’ve shoved in front of the swinging door to block it, and Sawyer was hovering by a sink. I shook out my hands and faced Sawyer. “Is the principal really coming in here?”
He shook his head. “I was searching for you and Jason to try to apologize again.” He glanced at Oliver, his cheeks turning red, then back at me. “I saw you come in here, and then Oliver, and then that dude, but no one came out. So I thought I’d see what was going on. And Oliver looked kind of freaked out and I didn’t see you at all, so I figured something wasn’t right with that guy. I was just trying to get him out of here.”
I closed my eyes and massaged my temples. Some escape expert I was. Oliver, Sawyer and Lorenzo had all found me in the span of a few minutes.
I’ll find you. My heart twisted at the memory of Jason’s promise. Lorenzo Rosetti was here. He was coming after me. Which meant Jason couldn’t be anywhere near me.
“I need you to find Jason,” I told Sawyer. “Tell him not to look for me, okay?”
A wrinkle appeared in the middle of Sawyer’s forehead. “What’s going on?”
“Please, Sawyer.” I eyed the trash can blocking the door. It didn’t look like it would stop Lorenzo if he really wanted to get back in. “If you want to apologize, this is how you can do it. Find Jason before he finds me.”
Sawyer nodded. “Yeah, okay.” He moved toward the door.
“Sawyer?”
He looked over his shoulder at me.
“Thanks.”
He nodded once more, then slipped out the door.
Oliver replaced the trash can blockade and was at my side in an instant. “Why was that guy looking for you?”
“It’s a long story. But if you ever see him again, run the other way.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket with shaky hands.
“I thought you didn’t have a phone.”
I didn’t look up. I texted 911 to Mark, placed the phone on the bathroom floor, and jumped on it as hard as I could.
“What the hell!” Oliver exclaimed. “What’s going on, Sloane?”
I stomped several more times, breaking the phone into tiny pieces. Then I remembered how Mark fried his last phone. I pushed my way into a stall and dropped the pieces into the toilet. I flushed and watched them disappear down the drain.
Oliver was waiting for me when I came back out. He grabbed my shoulders and forced me to look at him. “Why are you in the boys’ bathroom in the middle of a fire drill? Who was that guy? And why did you just flush a phone down the toilet?”
“I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. I’m sorry.” I studied the lone window in the bathroom, then turned back to Oliver. “Can you give me a boost to that window?”
He shook his head. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
I sighed as all the things that made me feel unsettled in the auditorium, before I’d even seen Lorenzo, came back: Agent Kessler on stage; the number of Marshals guarding the exits; the noticeable absence of Mark. “Something felt off about the assembly. Some people who were there may not be who they say they are. I don’t know. Jason pulled the alarm to buy me some time. All I know is that guy is looking for me and he can’t find me. That’s not a possibility. So I need to get out that window before he comes back. That’s all I can tell you, okay?”
Oliver’s expression grew serious. “Okay. Whatever you need.”
I turned and caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror. I’d forgotten I was wearing my bright red V-neck T-shirt. “Shit. I’m like a walking target in this.”
“Here.” Oliver reached into his backpack and pulled out a white T-shirt with the name of the school’s a cappella group written on the front. “It’s clean.”
I whipped off my red shirt and slipped on the white one, not worrying about modesty, but I couldn’t help smiling at the way Oliver immediately averted his eyes. “Got anything else in that bag of yours?”
He pulled out a black baseball cap with a grin.
“I should call you Saver of Lives.” I put the cap on and tucked my hair under it so it was completely hidden. After stuffing my red shirt into my own backpack, I faced Oliver.
“Ready for a boost?” he asked.
“One more thing.” I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed tight.
Oliver stiffened for a second, then hugged me back.
“Livie was the one who made Chloe break up with you,” I said into his chest. “She emailed Chloe a doctored picture that made it look like you were kissing a blonde girl. And she also texted that picture of you two eating ice cream together to Jason right after they broke up. I saw it and I thought it meant you were into her. I thought you asked Livie to your room on the senior trip. So I didn’t say anything about her, but I should’ve. I’m sorry.” I pulled back and searched his face. “You deserve so much better than both of them. You deserve someone who loves sweet potatoes and grand romantic gestures and melts at the sound of your gorgeous voice. Someone who will trust you and believe you when you say you didn’t cheat, and who won’t use you for revenge or to make someone else jealous. Someone who will always be honest.”
A tiny crease appeared in between his eyebrows. “Why does it sound like you’re saying goodbye?”
Lorenzo’s voice rang in my ears as I stared into Oliver’s green eyes one last time. Because I am. “I’m not saying goodbye, I’m just being honest in a limited amount of time. Now come on.”
Oliver hoisted me onto the windowsill and I paused there, balancing just like I had the last time I had to say goodbye to someone I cared about because of Lorenzo Rosetti. “I really like being your friend too.”
He flashed me a sad, confused smile and I dropped to the ground.
I couldn’t have asked for a better escape spot. The east wing of the school blocked me from the view of all the students and agents and psychotic mobsters gathered at the front of the school. But I still sprinted as fast as I could for the cover of the woods on the edge of the school property.
My backpack thumped against my back with every stride, but I continued to run until I was closer to home. Then I slowed to a brisk walk, weaving my way through the more populated streets until I came to the takeout Mexican place on the corner of my block. It wasn’t open at ten-thirty in the morning, but that didn’t matter. I was supposed to meet Mark in the back by the Dumpsters.
When I rounded the corner of the building, my heart sank. Mark wasn’t there. I sat on the ground in between two Dumpsters, hopefully hiding myself from anyone except the one person who knew I would be there, and waited.
After what felt like an hour but had probably only been ten minutes, I was officially freaked. I didn’t have my phone anymore so I didn’t know how long it had been since I’d texted Mark. I figured it had to have been at least forty-five minutes, if not closer to an hour, which was way too long. Mark should’ve been there by now. It was his day off, and he should’ve been at home. All he had to do was circle the block or, even quicker, cut through the trees and make a beeline for the place.
I stood. The Marshal’s words from earlier ran through my head: No WITSEC participant following program guidelines has ever been hurt or killed while under the active protection of the Marshals Service. I was about to totally disregard program guidelines and deviate from the emergency plan, and with Lorenzo roaming around, I knew it wasn’t my smartest idea. But without Mark, I had no protection at all.
I crept out from between the Dumpsters and listened. There was only the sound of the ocean breeze fluttering the tree leaves and the occasional car passing by on the road. I ran to the trees, headed straight for my house, and hid behind an oak tree at the edge of my backyard. Everything was still. There was no movement inside the house, no sound at all. I dashed across the backyard and unlocked the back door.
I held the screen door open so it wouldn’t slam shut. The inside of the house was as silent as the outside. I wished I could tell whether Mark’s car was parked out front, but I couldn’t see the driveway from the back door. After a full minute of silence, I eased into the kitchen and inched the screen door shut with an almost inaudible click.
I silently placed my backpack on the floor and studied the backyard, making sure no one had followed me. When I was convinced I was alone, I stepped back into the kitchen and closed the door. I spun around, eager to see if Mark was home, to see if anything was out of place. My foot slipped in something wet and I crashed to my hands and knees. A salty, metallic scent filled my nose as I lifted one hand and watched a warm, thick liquid drip from my fingertips. It took me a few seconds to realize I’d landed in a very large pool of blood.
Twenty-Four
There was a body a foot in front of me.
It was a man lying on his side, his back to me, with short brown hair the same shade as Mark’s. A scream died in my throat as I scurried backward, sliding in the blood until I found my footing. I made it as far as the island before nausea forced me to my hands and knees again, retching, but nothing came out. When the convulsions stopped, I sat with my back pressed against the island cabinets and wiped cold sweat off my forehead. My hand left a warm, sticky trail of blood on my skin.
