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“Hey, where are you going?”
I turn, and Bishop is standing there with drinks in his hands and a puzzled expression on his face. He guides me to an empty spot at the base of the stairwell. “I saw you talking to your sister. What happened?”
I force a smile onto my face, not sure how successful I am in the effort. “Sibling thing,” I say as lightly as I can. “Sometimes being an only child is a blessing. ”
He’s watching me, his eyes probing mine. He hands me a champagne flute and grabs my free hand. “Come on. ” He leads me up the staircase and down a shadowy hall lined with closed doors.
“Where are we going?”
“To my old room. ” Bishop stops outside the last door, hand on the knob. “You look like you could use a break. ”
“Your mother is going to have a fit if she figures out we’re hiding up here,” I tell him.
“Added bonus,” he says and opens the door.
His room is large and faces the front of the house. Through the sheer curtains, I can see the flickering candles along the driveway. He doesn’t turn on the overhead light, only a small lamp on his desk, leaving most of the room in darkness. Across from the desk is a double bed, made up with a patchwork quilt in shades of blue and gray. The far corner holds an armchair and a small bookcase. The room is spotless and impersonal. It doesn’t tell of Bishop’s love of the outdoors or his dreams of the ocean. In one glance, I know his mother decorated this space and that she doesn’t understand who her son is at all.
“Ah, much better,” he says, sinking to sit on the bed. I lean back against the edge of his desk, my fingers fiddling with the stem of my champagne flute.
“I always wanted a sibling,” Bishop says. “I imagined having someone around who always understood me. An automatic best friend. ” He catches my eyes across the room. “But I’m guessing it’s not always like that. ”
“Maybe for some people it is,” I say. “But not with Callie and me. ” He stares at me without speaking, and I know he’s waiting for more. “We’re just…different. Our personalities. Life would be easier if I were more like her. ” Tears spring to my eyes and I blink them back frantically.
“Hey,” Bishop says gently. “Easier on who? Her?” He stands and walks over to me. “That’s her problem. Maybe she’s the one who needs to be more like you. Or maybe she just needs to accept who you are. ” He braces his hands on the desk on either side of my hips and leans into me. His lips are warm and firm and his mouth tastes like champagne.
He starts to pull back and I thread my hand through his hair and hold him still, rest my forehead against his. Our breath mingles on the exhale, our lips a heartbeat apart.
“You’re my best friend,” I whisper. I don’t realize those words are waiting to be said until they are out of my mouth. They reveal too much, and yet they are the very least of what I want to say to him.
“Ivy,” he whispers back. “Open your eyes. ”
I do and find him staring at me, his gaze serious and dark. I’m terrified of what he might say, words that can never be taken back or forgotten. Words that will kill me to hear. So I press forward and stop his voice with my mouth. He makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, but his hands lift from the desk to my waist, pulling me tighter against him.
The knock and the opening of the door occur at the same moment, so there’s no time to spring apart, to pretend we’ve been doing anything other than what we’ve been doing. For his part, Bishop doesn’t even try. He keeps his arms wrapped around me, his lips at my temple, even as his mother fills the open doorway.
She radiates icy disapproval as she stares at us. “People are asking for you,” she says. “This is a party to honor your father. Not to hide away up here…doing God knows what. I expect you both downstairs in five minutes. ” She turns and her high heels click away down the hall. I realize it is the sound I most associate with her.
“Busted,” Bishop says under his breath, and a laugh spills out of me as I bury my face in his shoulder.
We heed Erin’s not-so-veiled threat and make our way downstairs within the five-minute time limit. I don’t doubt she’d come back up and drag us down by our earlobes if we disobeyed. The foyer has cleared out, almost everyone in the backyard where food has been laid out on long tables.
“Hungry?” Bishop asks.
I am, starving actually, but there’s something I need to do first. Find the codes. I can still hear Callie’s voice in my head, accusing me of not having the will to carry out my mission, so sure I’m not strong enough. “Why don’t you get us some food,” I tell him. “I’m going to use the bathroom. I’ll be right out. ”
I wait until he’s gone before walking quickly toward the front of the house. I bypass the bathroom, though, and without thinking too much about it, press the code into the keypad outside President Lattimer’s office. I’m still not sure it’s the same one as on the front door, but with the general lack of security, I have a feeling it is.
As I suspected, the lock releases with a quiet click. I open the door and slip inside, closing the door softly behind me. My heart is beating in my throat, threatening to choke me, and I tell myself to calm down. Breathe.
The room is dark, and I know I’m taking a risk by turning on a light, but I have to be able to see what I’m doing. Luckily the heavy drapes are closed and the windows face the side of the house. I’ll just have to hope no one outside notices the light.
I try not to think about what I’m doing and what it means. I tell myself I’m helping my family. I’m helping the girls who will come after me. But Bishop’s face is all I can see. What are you doing, Ivy?
I crouch down behind President Lattimer’s desk and pull out one deep drawer. It’s filled with files, all neatly labeled, thank God. I skim through the tabs with my fingers, but nothing about the gun safe, weapons, or defense. I have to hurry. Bishop is going to come looking for me any second. And I have absolutely no good reason to be in this room, let alone hunched behind the desk like a thief. Maybe you want to get caught. Maybe that would make it all easier. But I push that thought away and move to the next drawer.
Bingo. The files in this drawer are what I’m looking for. My trembling fingers fly through the tabs until they land on Weapons. I pull the file out and open it on the floor. Page after page of inventory sheets, it looks like. Every type of gun and model the government owns. My father would love to have these, but it’s too risky to take the file and there’s no way I can memorize the information. I keep flipping through the pages, my eyes on the file but my ears on the door. Hurry up. Hurry up. If it’s not here, then I’m going to have to give up for now and try again later.
I’m about to forget it and shove the file back in the drawer when I reach the page with the code to the gun safe neatly typed out. It’s a memo to President Lattimer from Ray. 21-13-6-18-57. Same code for both the outer door and the safe. Sloppy, but better for my purposes. And these words at the bottom of the memo: “The final digit increases by an increment of three every month until the New Year, when the entire series will be replaced. ” Memo dated January 1 of this year. It’s early August now. So 78. 21-13-6-18-78. I close my eyes and the numbers scroll across my eyelids.