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She rounded the last corner toward home and looked both ways before slipping through the back entrance. As soon as she stepped into the elevator, she pulled off her wig and unpinned her hair, shaking her copper curls loose. Then she kicked off her heels and stood in stockinged feet on the bare metal floor, wriggling her aching toes for the first time in hours. She couldn’t wait to wipe her face clean—to wipe the whole evening off. The makeup felt sticky on her skin and the glitter was starting to itch. She pressed the Up button.
When the door to the loft slid open, Meed stepped out—then stopped. The loft echoed with music.Livemusic. It was coming from the living area. From Dr. Savage. He was sitting at the piano, his back to her, working the Steinway with so much concentration that he hadn’t even heard her arrive. He was playing Rachmaninoff, and his technique was brilliant. Meed felt a pang in her stomach, and then a blind rage rose up inside her.
She dropped her heels and wig on the floor and walked over to the piano. The professor was on the second movement of the 3rd Concerto, executing a very difficult passage. Meed reached for the key lid and slammed it down hard. If the professor’s reaction time hadn’t been so sharp, she might have crushed his fingers. He jolted back on the bench and looked up.
“What the hell…!!” he shouted.
“Why are you playing that?” Meed demanded. “How do you know that?”
Dr. Savage pointed to the audio player and headphones lying on the piano top.
“You told me to surprise you,” he said.
Meed reached for the player and ejected the disc. She held it in both hands and bent it until it shattered into bright shards. When she looked down, she realized that one of the sharp edges had sliced a finger. She let the blood run down her hand until it dripped onto the floor. The professor sat, stunned, not moving from the bench.
“Never that piece,” said Meed coldly. “Never that composer. Notever.”
CHAPTER 46
Eastern Russia
12 Years Ago
IT WAS RACE Day—one of the most anticipated events of the school year, and one of the most dangerous. Meed’s leather gloves rested on the throttle of her growling black ATV. She tested the brakes, but she wasn’t planning to use them much. Speed was everything. The engine vibration rattled her hips on the leather seat. Standard racewear was a nylon jumpsuit with a single zipper from neck to crotch, plus a pair of goggles. Meed had added a red bandanna for style. As always, helmets were optional, and it was a school tradition to refuse them. Some students also considered safety harnesses a sign of weakness. But not Meed. She had hers buckled tightly, intending to stay one with her machine.
To reach the day’s competition, every student had already survived a course in evasive and tactical driving in high-powered sedans, pickups, and SUVs. Brutal and demanding. But the ATV race was the crucible—a no-holds-barred competition among the senior students. Rule number one: Last machine moving was the winner. There were no other rules.
The oval dirt track was rugged and uneven. It had been carved by bulldozers and left rough on purpose. The quarter-mile circuit route was interrupted by dirt mounds and wooden ramps at random intervals, adding to the perils. The infield was dotted with a few equipment hangars and an open-sided white medical tent. Spectators—younger students and school instructors—watched from a set of crude bleachers.
The outer edges of the track were ringed with bundles of hay staked to the ground with metal bars. All around the perimeter, flaming torches had been jammed into the bales. The torches gave off streams of oily black soot, which mixed with the bluish ATV exhaust fumes. The effect was hellish.
Meed had spent weeks working on her ATV, tuning the carburetor for the optimal mix and swapping out the clutch for a heavy-duty design. Her wheels were extra-fat, with high-performance treads, and the chassis was low and stubby. The machine looked lethal just sitting still.
Sitting at the starting post, riders revved their engines aggressively, sending fresh plumes of exhaust into the air. At one end of the track, the head mechanics instructor stood on a high platform with a pistol in his right hand. With his eyes on the pack, he raised his arm and fired a bright green flare into the sky. The engine noise rose to a thunderous din as tires bit into the dirt. Within seconds, all twenty-four ATVs were careening around the track, and drivers were picking their targets.
As Meed cranked her throttle, Irina slid her blue ATV into position just behind her on the right—the wingman slot. Irina’s job was defense, keeping attackers at bay while Meed concentrated on the action in front. They planned to switch positions after two circuits.
Meed had studied the videos of the previous year’s competition and calculated the most effective strategies. She was determined to strike early, while her machine was in peak condition. She crouched low in her seat, leaning forward, copper curls blowing behind her. Just ahead, one of the senior boys was already showing off, standing on the floorboards of his ATV as he drove, harness-free, stupidly raising his center of gravity. First victim.
Meed goosed the throttle and whipped her machine to the left in order to get a better angle, then turned hard right, cutting through the crowd. The show-off didn’t even see her coming. She banged into his left front tire with her thick steel bumper. The impact knocked the boy sideways. As he clung desperately to the steering wheel, his ATV spun wildly and tipped onto its side, sending him flying hard into a hay bale. One down. Meed swerved back to the center of the track as Irina held her position six feet to the rear.
Suddenly, Irina heard a fresh roar behind her. She glanced back. A boy with a blond crew cut had zoomed up from the rear in a dark green machine. He was making a move to pass. Irina swung left to block him. The pack was now moving at fifty miles per hour on the straightaways. The track was a blur. The intruder yanked his steering wheel to the right. Irina leaned forward to check her distance from Meed. In that split second, the pursuer banged hard into Irina’s rear bumper. A few yards ahead, Meed dodged a two-foot mound in the middle of the track. Irina swerved a split second later. Too late. She hit the hump hard with her right front tire and went airborne. Meed glanced into her rearview just in time to see Irina’s ATV crashing onto the infield. Irina flew from her machine, bounced, and rolled across the grass. Meed was another hundred yards around the track when she saw a team of white-jacketed medics rush out of their tent.
Meed had two choices. She could pull off onto the infield and help her partner. Or she could keep going and avenge her. Her foot inched toward the brake. Then, above the roar of the engines, she imagined Irina’s voice, low and even. Just like on the mountain.
“Stop being weak,” the voice said.
Meed hit the throttle.
CHAPTER 47
FIVE MINUTES LATER, the track was Armageddon. Students were ramming each other from every direction, causing spectacular spinouts and flips. Engines sputtered, transmissions whined, tires squealed. A few wounded ATVs limped to the side on bent rims. Others were left as smoking wrecks in the middle of the track, creating a fresh set of deadly obstacles. Out of two dozen starters, only a handful were still running. Meed was one of them. So was the crew-cut boy in the green machine.
He had vaulted past Meed to weave through what was left of the pack, so far evading every hit. Meed dodged a pair of ramps and accelerated toward him. A bright orange ATV knocked into her from the right, but only managed to bat her slightly off center. Meed straightened out and rocketed forward with just a minor dent. Her engine was still solid, her transmission tight and responsive. Her mind flashed to Irina, picturing her broken—or dead. But she shook it off and concentrated on the task at hand.I have only myself,she kept thinking.
About fifty yards ahead, two other drivers were working as a team to close in on the green machine from both sides. The boy with the crew cut waited until his pursuers were parallel to his rear wheels, then slammed on his brakes. As he dropped back, he knocked into the ATV on the right, causing it to careen into the machine on the left. A two-for-one hit. But costly, because now the two damaged machines had him blocked on the track.
Meed dropped her head low as she rounded the corner, sighting the center of the green ATV as it tried to maneuver around the wreck in front. She feathered the throttle, adjusting her speed to inflict maximum damage on the other machine without demolishing her own—a critical balance. Just as she made her final attack run, a mound of dirt obscured her view of the target. She leaned right in her seat, straining to see around it. Suddenly, she felt a violent shock on her left rear bumper. Her machine went spinning out of control. As she crashed hard into the side barrier, she caught a flash of orange. Her attacker sped by and hit the mound ahead at high speed, launching into the air.
