Chapter 31 #2
She’s in a different—but still stupid—suit, ugly shoes crunching on the gravel as she walks over to me. Look, I know she’s human, and Fallon was pretty clear that we do our best to only shoot Them, not people, but I’m fucking exhausted. I grab for my rifle and level the muzzle at her.
“I didn’t know we were on such bad terms,” the agent laughs. Her smile is like my grandma’s—but only in the sense that Sector might’ve peeled my Nan’s face off her skull and made a mask out of it.
I scowl. “Thought you’d clear out of here after the Hunt went through.”
She’s annoyingly calm despite the fact that I’m literally pointing a gun at her. Tucking her hands in her pockets, she comes to a stop a few steps from me, smiling up into the sky as if there’s some inside joke I missed. When her eyes finally meet mine, they’re ice-cold.
“We have multiple interests, Alice,” she says. “The Hunt is one of them, yes.” Watching me closely, she pauses and then takes another step forward.
“Nope,” I say, my finger curling around the trigger. “No closer.”
She stares at me with a hard expression, like she’s trying to gauge whether or not I’ll actually shoot a person. To be honest, I’m not sure, but if there’s any reason to do it, it’d be for Blackbird Hollow. For Wyatt.
“You are right about one thing,” she says, infuriatingly casual. “My team is headed out soon. And we’d like you to come with us.”
Moments pass slowly, my exhausted mind trying to make sense of her words. “What?” I finally sputter. “Are you fucking insane?”
She spreads her hands, making me jump, but there’s only open palms and a false imitation of peace. “Our offer,” Not-Cookie says, “was for you to stay enrolled at OrthCon in the Alien Biologies Program.”
“Kinda hard since aliens aren’t even fucking real, you hag,” I spit, my balance regained.
I think about yelling for Wyatt, but this agent is my problem.
I’m clearly what brought her here. So I’ll handle it.
I owe the Hayes that, at the very least. “If you people cared so much about me staying there, you probably shouldn’t have let me get expelled. ”
Not-Cookie lets out an exasperated sigh. “The point is that you’re not enrolled,” she says, her mouth curling into something almost…maniacal. “Which means we can do whatever we want to you. Per the terms you agreed to, might I remind you.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Babe, remind me—which one of us has the gun right now?”
The Sector agent who looks too much like my grandma, who claims to be one of the only friends I’ve ever had, drops all pretense of even being a goddamn person in one fell swoop.
The second those words leave my mouth, her entire expression changes, and she steps back, bringing her fingers to her lips and letting out a short, harsh whistle.
To my horror, two—then three, then four—besuited agents creep out of the shadows surrounding the parking lot.
And all of them have handguns trained on me.
“I’m honored you thought you’d need five agents to take down a pasty academic,” I find myself saying. My heart suddenly leaps into my throat, my blood pounding, as if my body has just realized I’m in danger.
She shrugs. “We thought the Hayes boy might be with you. Since you’ve grown so attached.”
That startles me further. “If you go near the Hayes family, I’ll fucking kill you,” I snarl, meaning every word of it. I lean into the butt of the rifle, wondering how many shots I can get off before an agent takes me down.
“We want you, Alice,” Not-Cookie says with a terrifying smile.
“Your mind. Your talent. If you work for us, there will be no funding restrictions. You would have your own lab, your own team. We need to understand more about the Fey. You are uniquely positioned to help us do that. You can even stay in touch with your beloved little hedgeriders.”
My mind spins. “You had to corner me in a parking lot and point a bunch of guns at me just to offer me a job?” I ask incredulously.
“You pointed a gun first,” Not-Cookie says, sliding her hands back into her pockets.
“That’s fair,” I grumble.
“And it’s not an offer,” she continues, stepping toward me, right up to the muzzle of my rifle, letting the metal press against her suit jacket.
Her heart is just beneath—if she has one.
Up close, the woman who is not my grandma looks absolutely unhinged—just as mad as the swarms of the Hunt did with Their mother-of-pearl teeth and bloodstained crowns.
“It’s very sweet you think you have a choice. ”
I’m too startled to even remember I could pull the trigger.
But somewhere in the back of my head, my mind is running a thousand calculations.
It would put all of Blackbird Hollow in danger if I killed a Sector agent.
If we have a shootout in the parking lot.
Would the violence draw the Hunt back to us? Or, even worse, the hellhounds?
“I’m not going anywhere with you, you insane bitch,” I laugh, glancing around at the other agents, who have unfortunately closed in on me, their faces expressionless.
“And who, exactly, is going to stop me from taking you?” Not-Cookie asks with a fake pout, her startling light-blue eyes sliding down to take in the rifle’s muzzle against her chest. “A ‘pasty academic’ who’s never killed anyone?”
“My boyfriend is right inside,” I spit, gesturing to the grocery store. “And he’ll absolutely fuck you up.”
Not-Cookie throws her head back and laughs as if that’s the most amusing thing she’s ever heard. “Stupid girl,” she sneers. “The Hayes don’t have the power to save you. They sure couldn’t save themselves back in New Big Sur.”
“The Hayes saved this whole town tonight, asshole,” I reply, but my voice shakes as I flinch from the realization of just how much Sector knows about the people I love. I shift my weight, and the gravel crunches beneath my feet, loud as an explosion in the tense parking lot.
Not-Cookie leans away from my rifle, looking thoughtful.
“Since you’re so sure,” she says, suddenly sly in a way that makes ice slink into my gut, “how about this? You come with us, no fuss, or we storm that grocery store, and then the Hayes house, and then whatever squalid little hovel they’ve holed up in, and we’ll see who comes out on top. ”
My hands shake against the rifle. I feel like I might throw up. “You can’t do that,” I say, my gaze darting to the other agents, but all their expressions are cold, distant. “The Hedgerider Council—”
“Those old have-beens?” She laughs, the sound becoming more like a howl. “They’re all the way across an ocean, Alice. What do you think they’ll really be able to do? Do you think we haven’t killed hedgeriders before? Wiped entire towns just like this one off the map?”
All at once, moving faster than a woman of her age should be able to, Not-Cookie grabs the muzzle of my rifle, shoving it to the side, and leans into my face. She’s so close, I can see the white outline of a scar under one eye.
“Come with us,” she snarls, “or you’ll see just how weak and useless a family like the Hayes really is.”
This time, I’m the one laughing. The sound of it surprises me, as does the way it comes bubbling up from my throat with a wild, reckless abandon. “For one last time, bitch,” I spit. “If you try to take me, you’ll find out exactly how terrifying the Hayes are.”