whispered. Another roar from the crowd, a sound that echoed the cacophony in my own head.
“Six?” he said, clearly puzzled. Once again, I found myself yearning for Lucas. He would have understood immediately.
“The five current grant students . . . plus Sarah,” I said.
His mouth widened into a surprised oh. His expression was a slide show of emotions. Wonder and fear. Pity. Sorrow.
On that last one, the hard line of his mouth softened, and I saw a hint of the Hunter he used to be. A glimmer of concern, of shared pain. But before I could even process those thoughts, he retreated to his touch-me-not posture.
Meanwhile, the data spun a never-ending circle.
Claude Parsons: Active account.
Ben LaCosta: Active account.
J. D. Rothschild: Active account.
Hannah Peckles: Active account.
Sharon Alexander: Active account.
The final one had a special note by her name:
Sarah Lusk: Account inactivated.
I swallowed a lump full of emotional sludge—regret, sorrow, excitement, and fear. “Sarah’s account’s inactive.”
The security system was mocking me with a euphemism. Inactive. So much kinder than the reality of dead.
No other students had access; no faculty I could see, except for Dean Parsons. But there were some guest accounts that weren’t specified.
Hunter brushed his hair away from his eyes. “What now?” he said.
“We need to get closer. I want to see if I can sense anything else inside there. Barring that, there’s the old-fashioned way to snoop—peeking through windows.”
After performing a quick scan to assure me no one was paying attention, I stood, and Hunter followed suit. This was the riskiest part of our venture. The closer we got to the building, the harder it would be to disguise our intent if someone saw us.
We’d just have to ensure that didn’t happen.
As we headed over, my thoughts ran wild. At some point before her hasty departure, Sarah had been inside that building. We couldn’t know what that meant until we saw whatever the structure concealed.
We approached from the south side. As much as I wanted to head straight for the main entrance, we’d be safer inspecting the rear first.
I yanked Hunter’s hand, hurrying until the stone facade hid us from view of anyone who might decide to make an early retreat from the game. Four stately trees towered in a row to our left, forming a makeshift path. Along the back of the building, the windows had been more than boarded over. They were also covered with sheet metal. The door had met the same fate. Dead ends.
“Someone certainly went to a lot of trouble,” Hunter said. We made a right turn when the building ended.
It was dim over here—not much light from the main campus paths reached this far. But the closer we got to the front, the more illuminated we would be.
As we neared the edge, I performed one final scan. No one within one hundred feet. I still felt uneasy, though, and I realized with a pang that some of my anxiety came from Hunter’s presence. Doing a mission with someone who thought you might go serial killer at any moment didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Hard to believe that only weeks ago, we had been a team.
Another planter lined the front of the building, so we edged along it. The hedges were tall, rising almost to my shoulders. Large windows rose behind them, but from this angle, they were completely blacked out.
“Let’s get a closer look.”
I slipped between a gap in the hedges, the tiny branches grabbing at my shirt. Hunter turned sideways to push his way through behind me.
I still couldn’t see a thing through the windows. I peered more closely at the glass, my nose only inches away, frowning. Something about the glass seemed unusual. In fact, I wasn’t even sure it was glass at all.
I followed the window until I reached the elevated platform that housed the front door. A KEEP OUT: AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY sign hung there, while a small sign next to it read MONITORED BY SECURITY. The door itself I recognized as a metal monstrosity camouflaged to look like old wood. Difficult to open, unless you defeated the security system that kept it sealed.
I told Hunter. “Looks like our only way in is through hacking the system.”
Another quick scan alerted me that someone was eighty feet away now, but they weren’t heading any closer. I turned back to the door, allowing the data to stream into my head so I could probe and prod it into submission.