AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Bree shook her head.
“She was a Player last year,” Clover answers. “She told me at one of the galas. I saw them arresting her. I don’t know what she did—”
“We don’t know what any of them really did, but it doesn’t matter,” I say to them, continuing to guide them through the jungle.
“Where’s Eve?” Sarah asks.
“She left us. Abandoned us. She was in on this and didn’t tell us.”
Silence follows my words, and that low boiling anger gets hotter within me.
We continue in heavy silence as we move through the jungle, pushing branches aside as we search for something resembling a sanctuary and eventually come to a building.
No, not a building, a hangar.
An airplane moves down the runway. I sprint toward it.
“Lily!” the girls shout after me, but I’m not allowing our nearest chance of escape to leave us behind. These are obviously other Echelon Society members who slipped through and had a back-up plan making their escape.
The first airplane doesn’t stop, but the second one does. It’s bigger, a small private jet. It could fit all of us. I run in front of it just as it leaves the hangar, before it can get a start on the runway. The whir of the other plane’s propeller gets louder as it takes off into the air. This is the last airplane, our last chance. Iplant my feet and stand in the way. The engine doesn’t stop, but the door opens, and I run toward it, the engine so loud it makes me feel like my head’s going to explode.
Standing in the door is Vaughn Jamison.
The other girls run up, joining me. He takes a look at them, glancing between the two of us.
“Please!” I shout, accentuating the word with my mouth in case he needs to read my lips over the roar of the engines. I plead with my eyes. “Please,” I mouth again.
Vaughn visibly sighs, his shoulders slumping in defeat as he crouches down and offers me a hand. One by one, he pulls us up until we’re on the plane with a few others, including Morticia, who I only spare a hateful glance for and then look to Vaughn.
“Thank you.”
“Take a seat and buckle up,” he says, returning to the cock pit. There’s a seat closest to the doorway he slips through. I take it and do as he says as the other girls do the same.
Vaughn takes off down the runway, and we’re in the air before I know it, time moving impossibly fast as my heart continues to race in my chest from nearly not escaping. My fingers grip the armrests as the jet’s front lifts up into the air, and we’re ascending into the sky.
The jet is quiet, almost solemn. No one speaks as we continue to move up, up, up. It’s not until it levels out over the blue water, the sky clear around us, that my heart rate begins to slow. That I realize I made it out. Except… now what?
I hear Vaughn flipping switches in the pilot’s cabin, then see him rise to his feet and step out. His eyes land on me briefly, their color an intense blue, nearly violet. Dark and full of secrets I probably couldn’t fathom, and I can’t look away until he releases me.
“We’re flying into my private airport in California. From there, you’re on your own. I’m not giving out favors. I didenough just allowing you on here.” His eyes land on me again before flicking back up. “The Echelon Society is finished, and you’d do best to sever your name from any part of it.”
“What about Terrence?” Morticia asks.
Vaughn holds himself steady like a statue, a stoic example of a man that has an exterior even more impenetrable than mine. I feel like I could learn a thing or two about having a tougher exterior. My soft one doesn’t suit me anymore.
“I’m not answering any questions. I don’t recommend discussing the events we just participated in either. I suggest forgetting all about them.”
With one more glance at me, he enters the cock pit. A moment later, a beeping sound fills the cabin and above the cock pit doorway the signal for being able to roam the cabin comes on.
I unbuckle and slip into the cock pit as the others start conversing behind me, voices riddled with concern. I ignore them and stand in the doorway. Vaughn sits in his seat, his head leaning back on the head rest, eyes closed.
“Are we not getting our winnings then?” I ask, and his eyes slowly open. He doesn’t look at me, peering out over the clear sky.
“Obviously not, Seven.”
“The games are over,” I say, moving in to take the empty seat next to him.
“This is a sensitive area, Seven. Go back to the cabin.”
