Payback, page 35
My gaze shoots to the ambulance. The back is open, and Susan stands in the bright lights from inside. Her hand is still in Moore’s, but her hard gaze cuts through the windshield of Frank Allen’s car.
Her chin dips in a nod.
My throat goes dry.
When this is done, you leave my brother to me.
“Oh,” says Henry weakly. “I suppose it’s safe to assume we won’t be seeing Dr. O again.”
“That would be a safe assumption,” says Geri, giving Margot a small smile as she wipes at the tears gathering in her eyes. “Though Susan didn’t want him dead. Just roughed up a bit and taken somewhere outside the country. It should be hard getting back with no money and no identification.”
A smile tips the corners of my mouth. The knots between my shoulders begin to untie, one by one. Even Margot seems to think this is an acceptable solution.
“So we did it,” I say. It feels too good to be true. My eyes turn to Ms. Maddox, taking notes on a small pad as Susan dictates a list of orders. I’m not sure where that pile of folders ended up, but with Susan in charge, I’m not worried. She’ll protect us, like her brother always promised. “How’d you turn Ms. Maddox?”
Margot tucks a stray hair behind her ear. “Same way I tried to get you. By pretending to be someone else.”
My brow quirks.
“Maddox has access to everyone’s messages—it’s part of her security clearance so that if there’s a breach, she can wipe everyone’s devices clean.”
I think of Raf—of the message she intercepted on Moore’s phone with his address—and my heart pangs.
“So I knew she’d see a message from Belk to Dr. O, especially if it came right before a security breach,” Margot continues.
“We just had one of those,” says Henry. “Ms. Maddox cleared all our phones.”
“You don’t say.” She grins.
“You did that,” I realize. “You caused the security breach.”
“I wasn’t going to that meeting to get Belk’s gun,” she says. “I was there to get his phone. The gun—that was just for show to trigger the security protocol.”
Belk told me he’d lost his phone when he grabbed me in the woods outside Susan’s cabin. I didn’t even think that Margot might have taken it.
“When I was running from town hall to the train yards, I sent a message from Belk’s phone to Dr. O’s that he would take care of Maddox. Two minutes after I sent it, the phone went blank. I burned it in the fire Belk was so kind to start for us.”
“So she thought Dr. O wanted her dead,” says Caleb. “That Belk was coming for her.”
Margot nodded. “She’s thought she was safe for too long.”
“You could have let me know,” I say. “I only gave you that message about Dr. O’s accounts because I knew Ms. Maddox was listening.” A lot hinged on that interaction—if that information hadn’t been relayed to Dr. O, we wouldn’t have been able to get to his money.
Margot laughs. “Of course she was listening. Which is why I gave her my own message.”
Lines crease the space between my brows as I think back to our conversation in the dining room. He’ll get rid of all of us. It’s just a matter of time. And if you trust Dr. O when he says you’re safe, you’re stupider than I thought.
I’d thought she was angry with me when she’d said this. I’d worried that her raised voice would attract the wrong attention. But it didn’t. The message went exactly where she’d wanted it to.
“You didn’t need to worry. I saw Paz eavesdropping on the other side of the kitchen and knew she’d take your message to Dr. O just like you wanted, even if Ms. Maddox was having a change of heart.” She makes a show of examining her nails. “Tonight, all I had to do was tell Ms. Maddox it was our only chance to save ourselves. She was more than happy to join the party.”
I stare at Margot, then laugh. She’s gotten me again. I didn’t even see this coming.
She smiles, and for the first time since I thought she was Myra, I think we might actually make pretty good friends.
“This is a fun game of who’s the better con,” interrupts Geri, “but don’t you have a plane to catch?”
She’s talking to Margot, whose grin widens. With a nod, she turns, only to stop, spin back, and wrap Geri in a tight hug.
“Thanks,” she says quietly.
“No problem,” says Geri, blushing.
As Margot hurries away, cutting in the line of gala attendees trying to catch a cab, I turn my questioning gaze to Geri.
“Where’s she off to?”
“To find Jimmy, I guess,” says Geri, beaming now.
Caleb looks to me, his eyes wide with concern.
“Did I say my dad didn’t tell me everything?” Geri shrugs. “Maybe that’s not entirely true.”
“Wait. He’s alive?” Caleb asks.
“In Malaysia. Which is where Margot’s heading tonight.”
I blink at her, too impressed to be angry. Jimmy Balder, the intern I once conned my way through Sterling’s staff for information on, Margot’s lost love, is still out there. I can’t believe it, but Geri’s face is 100 percent smug, and I know she’s telling the truth.
Apparently she wins the best con prize.
Beside me, Caleb and Henry are laughing in disbelief.
“I couldn’t tell anyone until we were sure Dr. O wouldn’t find out,” she says. “I guess it doesn’t matter if he knows now.”
“You are the best liar in the world,” says Henry.
“Hi,” says Grayson. “I did a pretty decent job.”
“Yeah.” Henry pets his shoulder. “Better than Brynn pretending to be a snitch, anyway.”
“Hey,” I say, as Caleb’s hands circle my waist. I feel his low, rumbling laugh as he pulls me against his chest.
In the flashing blue lights, I watch Geri’s dad drive Dr. O away from the Rosalind Hotel. As the ambulance doors close behind Moore and Susan, I think of Margot and Jimmy Balder. Dylan—Charlie now—and Renee, and Raf. All the things we’ve lost, all the things we’ve fought for.
Then I look up at Grayson, his arm over Henry’s shoulders, and a peaceful smile on his face, and I lean back against Caleb’s chest, and squeeze Geri’s hand beside me.
We’re going to be all right, because we’ve got each other. This family is the home I’ve been looking for all my life.
“What happens now?” I ask as Charlotte and Sam find their way through the crowd to our sides.
“Susan said she’ll call with an update on Moore,” says Geri. “She’ll meet us back at school.”
“Which means there’s time for an after party,” Charlotte says, and when we gape her way, she throws up her hands. “What? There’s at least five unopened crates of sparkling cider and a check with my name on it in the ballroom. I’d say that’s cause for a celebration, wouldn’t you?”
“Works for me,” says Sam.
“I’m in,” says Grayson.
Henry grins. “Will there be dancing?”
I think of Henry and Grayson sliding gracefully across the floor in our ballroom dance PE class and grin.
“I hope not,” says Caleb with a wince. He was never a very good dancer.
“Excuse me! Over here!”
“Ugh,” says Geri, turning her back away from the news reporters now charging toward us.
“What do we tell them?” asks Henry.
“To get lost,” says Grayson flatly. “I hate the press.”
They shout their names and news stations, begging us for a comment as the flashes go blinding. We ignore them, striding quickly back to the hotel, but I pause when one woman’s voice rises over the rest.
“Brynn Hilder! R. G. Rock with Pop Store! Can any of you tell us anything? Anything, please!”
I turn to face the reporter with an apple-shaped face and red-framed glasses.
Anything?
My friends grin as I lift my hand and wave. “Hi, Mom.” I know she’s watching.
And then, a giddy laugh bubbling up my throat, I slide under Caleb’s arm, and we head inside for the after party.
EPILOGUE
One year later
One final question, Ms. Hilder. What do you hope to get out of your time at Prosedda College?”
I sit before six scholarship committee members in a classroom with wide windows and long wood tables. The speaker, a man with kind eyes, a full beard, and patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket, leans over his forgotten notepad. Beside him, a woman with a white streak in her black hair is nodding, though I’ve yet to answer.
I’ve got them hooked, I just need to reel them in.
“That’s easy,” I say. “I want the skills to change the world.”
One of the committee members—a man with a German shepherd lying calmly at his side—chuckles at this. “How will you know when you have them?”
“I don’t know,” I answer, smiling. “I don’t know what I want to be. I don’t know what I’m going to do. All I know is that there are holes in this city that need patching. There are kids like me slipping through the cracks every day, and people who would try to exploit them instead of help them.” I take a slow breath.
Think about who you are. What makes you, you, right now. And if that’s not the person you want to be, use the next few years as a vehicle to get you there.
What happened to you’re fine just the way you are?
Then I suppose you, like me, have found your place in this world.
“I don’t have the answers. All I can tell you is that I know how to fix things, and if you give me the chance, I’ll be able to do more. I’ve found where I’m supposed to be, now I want to make it better.”
The committee members are smiling. A woman in a black suit claps her hands and says, “Well said!”
“Thank you, Ms. Hilder,” says the man who asked the question. “You’ll be hearing back from us soon, I think.”
“Thank you,” I tell him. “And thank you all for agreeing to meet me so soon before the semester starts.”
I rise to shake their hands. The man with the dog holds mine tight and says, “I enjoyed the stories of your travels immensely. You’re going to do great things, Brynn.”
I appreciate him saying so, but I don’t need this validation anymore. I know I’m going to.
I’ve already started.
I applied to three colleges after Susan Griffin took over as director of Vale Hall—all of them in Sikawa City—but Shrew convinced me I had a little soul searching to do before I settled down. It didn’t take much to convince Caleb to join me, and we spent the summer traveling through Colombia, looking for my aunt Daniela, whom we finally connected with at the end of July. She brought us into her home, and for two weeks fattened us up on arepas de queso and fried empanadas and showed us all the places where my father grew up.
And then we found Rise Up—an international program dedicated to building houses in impoverished areas, and the sweltering days of August stretched into the greatest four months of my life.
Caleb and I lived with host families in each of the towns we went to. We made friends with the women who worked the tiendas, and drank sodas out of glass bottles in their air-conditioned shops, and stayed up late watching stars with ranchers and their herds of cattle. We fell in love with the people, and made things to help them. We built strong, beautiful things that wouldn’t break, and it healed the parts that had been scraped raw inside us.
When fall came, we decided not to wait another semester to go to college. Caleb missed his father, and I missed Mom.
It was time to come home.
Outside the humanities building, I wrap my scarf, a present from Tia Daniela, tighter around my neck, and zip up my coat to fend off the cold. It hasn’t snowed in days, but the ground is still covered in white, and the spindly tree branches gleam with icy tips.
On the bottom of the steps, a boy leans against the railing, the collar of his jacket pulled up around his neck, his black hair gleaming in the afternoon sun. His glasses are slightly crooked as he smirks down at his phone, and, as always, my heart does a slow roll in my chest at the sight of him.
When he hears the door close, he looks up and holds out his arms.
“How’d it go?”
I jog down the steps, launching into his embrace. My cheek finds the perfect place on his shoulder. His chin rests on my head. I keep my eyes open, looking at the snowy quad where I’ve seen pictures of students in Prosedda College Valkyrie shirts playing Frisbee when the weather’s nice, and the stone building behind me that Caleb was sure to mention was built in 1827.
In three weeks, I’m starting here.
I have a feeling I’m going to love it.
“Good, I think. What were you smiling about?”
“We got new pictures.”
“Oh, gimme!” I grab at his phone, realizing mine’s been off since my interview began, and scan through the newest text from Charlotte and Sam of baby Chloe. At eight months old, she still doesn’t have much hair, but she drools like a champ, and her smile is all Charlotte’s.
She’s wearing a onesie that says My aunt is better than yours.
“Are they still good for tonight?”
Caleb nods. Charlotte and Sam live in Southern California now. He’s taking long-distance courses at NYU, and she’s going to UCLA and spending a few days a week at a law internship. Money’s a little tight, but the Jimmy Balder Memorial Fund covers child care and their apartment.
I miss them like crazy, but we video chat once a week. They’re coming home for a visit in February. It’ll be Chloe’s first plane ride, and our first time seeing them since we got home from Colombia.
I have a daily countdown in my room at Mom’s, where I’ll be staying until I move into the dorms in two weeks.
“I have more good news,” Caleb says. “Unless you want to be surprised.”
“I hate surprises. Better to know everything up front, that way I can manipulate what I need to in order to get what I want.”
Caleb grins. “Spoken like a true Raven.”
I laugh. Susan sends messages to check in on us from time to time, but Dr. O still hasn’t surfaced. I know he’s out there somewhere, maybe plotting revenge, but the power he wielded over us is gone. He’s alone, somewhere far away, and we’re moving on with the futures he promised.
“Waiting,” I remind Caleb as we begin walking toward the edge of campus and the SCTA station, where a train will take us into Uptown for tonight’s festivities.
“It’s not just going to be Henry and Grayson at dinner.”
I side-eye him, wondering if Henry’s still dragging Grayson around the city looking for decorations for Henry and Caleb’s dorm room. They’ll be six rooms away from mine in the new building Mayor Santos just had renovated over the summer. A lot of schools have social work majors, but not a lot have top-rated architecture programs and a best friend to bunk with.
Grayson, much to the frustration of his parents, is going to Sikawa State instead of a fancy private school, where he’s planning to major in psychology. He’ll be a twenty-minute train ride away, and, as Henry’s informed me on multiple occasions, he’ll have a private room.
“Go on,” I prompt.
“Geri’s coming,” he says. And as if that’s not good enough, he adds, “She’s bringing a date.”
“Marcus?” I practically squeal. “I thought he wasn’t coming back until the wedding!”
Caleb laughs.
Geri and Marcus continued their relationship over the phone after our visit to Baltimore, and over the summer, she spent two weeks at a theater camp at University of Maryland. Needless to say, things got a little steamy, and they’ve been flying back and forth ever since.
Geri’s already returned the plus-one response to Moore and Susan’s wedding, happening over spring break in March.
“Best night ever.” I pull him down for a kiss hot enough to make my jacket seem no longer necessary, and to have me wondering if we can make it to Mom’s apartment before she gets off work.
Caleb’s ink-stained fingers link through mine, reminding me we have time.
We have all the time in the world.
As we walk toward the train station, I can hear the birds in the trees, and the rush of the cars on the faraway highway, and laughter from some people gathered outside the library. I can hear that laughter in Devon Park now when we drive through, though I don’t remember hearing it when I lived there. It’s still not exactly a destination resort, but I don’t think of it with the same resentment I always did.
It’s a part of the city that made me, and the girl I turned out to be isn’t half bad.
“You think they’ll give you a full ride?” Caleb asks as we cross beneath a stone archway bearing the words Prosedda College. Warmth laces up my arm as his thumb traces along the inside of my wrist.
The Jimmy Balder fund went to every student Dr. O had ever promised a future to—from Renee, now sucessfully hiding somewhere out west, all the way to Charlie. Those who we lost along the way had funds delivered to their families. I deferred my scholarship, as did Henry and Grayson. We gave it all to Caleb, to take care of his father. It was hard for him to accept such a big gift, but the truth was, we didn’t want Dr. O’s money, and someone needed it more.
The rest of the account was set up by Susan to feed into Vale Hall, to help the students there get the best education they could in order to be eligible for scholarships and awards.
I think they’re all doing pretty well on their tracks to greatness.
“I don’t know,” I say. “If they don’t, I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
He laughs, and as we climb the platform to our train, a gust of wind plays with the ends of my long hair. Full ride or not, I’m going to be okay. Because here’s the truth: some people get lucky, and some don’t.
The rest of us? We make our own luck.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am not ready for this journey to be over! Can we please all stay at Vale Hall forever?
I have so much to be grateful for with this series. First, thank you, reader, for joining the flock and becoming a Raven. From the beginning, I knew this series would be special. I felt it in my bones. At night, when I lay in bed, I dreamed of Brynn and her crew. I giggled wickedly at the twists and turns this story would take. At no point during the writing of it, did I ever suffer through the process. Some books sing to you. From The Deceivers to Payback, I heard nothing but music.
