The Darkest Legacy (Darkest Min - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,55

going to retrieve it from the trunk. “Priya, where did you put it?”

She pivoted back toward the car, her long legs eating up the distance. “It should just be in one of the pillowcases—”

It wasn’t. I had moved it when we stopped earlier, shoving it under the backseat. I had maybe a minute before they spotted it and my makeshift distraction was over.

From what I remembered, the cameras Liam and his father had installed were motion-sensing. They had to have switched themselves on as soon as the car pulled in, but they were disguised and insulated well enough in the trees that I only found the one nearest to us by tracing the length of the hidden cable feeding power to it.

I turned my face up toward the lens, giving it a clear look at me. Then I did the only subtle thing I could think of to indicate things were not okay. I brought up my arms, resting each hand on the opposite shoulder, creating an X.

Please still be using them, I thought, as I mouthed a single word: Help.

Liam had told me he was teaching the Haven kids about the old road signs the Psi used to use, including the X surrounded by a circle that had indicated a place wasn’t safe. If the people watching, whether that was Liam, Ruby, or someone else, couldn’t tell what I was signaling, maybe it would still be enough to signal that things weren’t what they seemed—that something was very wrong.

“Found it,” Roman said, shutting the back door. He switched the flashlight on, scanning it over the ground.

“What’s wrong?” Priyanka asked, coming to stand beside me.

I let my hands drift down my arms, pretending to hug them tighter to my chest. “I just got cold for some reason. Must be the lake or something.”

It had to be seventy degrees at least, never mind the humidity. Priyanka just shrugged.

“Let’s go,” I said. “We have to walk a little ways.”

We had to buy Haven some time to figure out what was happening and what to do.

Roman kept pace with me, his head up, eyes sharp as he scanned the trees. He had the gun on him, but kept it tucked into the waistband of his jeans. I could see its outline through the close fit of his gray T-shirt. I’d debated telling him to leave it behind, but I hadn’t been able to think of a way to do it that wouldn’t have set off an alarm in his already cautious mind.

“While traipsing through the woods at night is one of my all-time favorite nightmares,” Priyanka whispered from behind us, “I would dearly love to know what I should be looking for. A house? Some kind of tunnel?”

“It’s not far,” I whispered back. “Listen for the water.”

The lake was a speck on most maps, looking especially insignificant next to the nearby Lake Lee—a fact that had not gone unnoticed or un–joked about by one Liam Stewart. But it was big and deep enough to require a boat to cross to the other side, where the trees were thicker on the ground and there was no road access to the structures hidden behind them.

I kept them going forward, meaning to swing them in a wide arc before looping back to this spot, but Roman suddenly straightened.

“I think it’s this way,” he said, nodding his head in the exact direction of the lake.

I turned before Roman could say anything else, reaching back to take the flashlight from him. The path wasn’t as clear here; there were large rocks and a slope to contend with. I didn’t need an excuse to make my way down slowly. By the time we reached the muddy bank of the lake, my heart was beating like we’d run all the way here from Nebraska.

I knelt down, motioning for the others to do the same. I angled the flashlight toward the opposite shore and switched it on, off, on, off, on, off….

“What are you doing?” Roman asked.

“It’s a signal,” I lied, “to let them know we’re friendly. They have a security protocol.”

And this was absolutely not part of it.

Here we are, I thought. Come and get us.

“Ooh,” Priyanka whispered, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “This feels very sneaky.”

“Yup,” I agreed.

“I think I see someone,” Roman said, squinting at the other side of the lake. Sure enough, a moment later, there was a faint splash as something entered the dark water.

A boat, and the single person rowing it, took shape