Page 61

The Good And The Lucky

It was just before midnight on Thursday when Isobel crept down the stairs in a dark hoodie, a pair of tights, and olive green boots.

Her hair was twisted into long braids over her shoulders, easy enough to swirl up into her hood if needed.

Other than the phone in the pocket of her hoodie, she had nothing with her.

They couldn’t exactly stroll out of the building with their suitcases.

Kalen had told them to meet at the bottom of the stairs at midnight, and she had been counting down the minutes with Oscar and Moses, wrapped in a twitchy sort of adrenaline that made her fingers tremble and her thoughts dart too fast to catch.

Oscar had sat in one of her armchairs, his dark eyes fixed on the covered window, as if he could see beyond it to the falling rain outside.

The rain continued unceasingly as she skipped down the stairs. It battered against the windows in an uneven rhythm, just heavy enough to discourage anyone from going outside.

She didn’t know the whole plan, only that Kalen and Mikel had been casually adding one or two gym bags, computer bags, or book bags to their load every morning when they left the dorm.

The nights she spent alone with either professor had been taken up completely by sex, followed by sleepy conversation about topics entirely unrelated to their plan.

They couldn’t keep their hands off her as soon as she was locked into a room alone with one of them, and she couldn’t keep her hands off them, and none of them wanted to taint that sacred time with discussion of the impossible task they had ahead of them.

Even since meeting Amina and knowing that the plan was about to barrel ahead in a matter of days, they still avoided the topic.

Every reference to what they were doing, every seemingly innocent text, or whispered phone call, was another chance for the officials to figure out their plan and crush it with an iron fist.

Isobel didn’t know a single detail, and she wasn’t the only one, but she had noticed small things here and there.

Since Mikel and Kalen had been made official contractors of Orion—Ironside’s own recording label—they were required to pass over into the restricted area of the academy to meet at the Orion headquarters every day.

Isobel didn’t know exactly how they were doing it, but at some point before or after those meetings, Mikel and Kalen were managing to rid themselves of the extra bags they had left the dorm with.

She had also noticed that some of her clothes and toiletries were missing.

So now, as they descended the stairs in a staggered order, clearly going somewhere as a group in the middle of the night, there wasn’t a single piece of luggage in sight.

They kept quiet, but Isobel could feel her heartbeat pounding. Moses dropped his arm over her shoulders, dragging her close against the warmth and strength of his body.

Students didn’t usually try to run away from Ironside—or at least, she had never heard about it. Even those tangled up in a scheme at the Stone Dahlia knew that their miserable few rights within the walls of the academy would disappear entirely once they stepped outside.

Gifted belonged on TV screens or behind high fences. Always under supervision. Never in the real world.

Isobel had just reached the tiled entrance where Kalen and Mikel waited when the sliding door to Sloan’s office drifted open. Isobel turned to stare at the woman stepping out, and froze.

The Alphas froze.

Sloan froze.

The dorm supervisor blinked brown eyes bleary with exhaustion, the hand that had been rubbing at her temple falling limp to her side .

Sloan always left the dorm before dinnertime and never returned. It was why none of them had thought to make sure her office was empty.

The timing of the anomaly was tragic.

Sloan slowly took them in, blinking the tiredness from her eyes as she catalogued their dark clothing, the hoods that half of them had pulled up.

It wouldn’t be the first time some of them had left the dorm in the middle of the night to go for a jog, and the athletic hoodies could have easily been to ward off the rain outside …

but all of them going together? Including Kalen and Mikel? During a storm?

Sloan’s gaze sharpened immediately, running over them again, like she was searching for evidence to prove they were up to something. There was nothing for her to discover except their clothing, and she seemed no less suspicious because of it.

“What are you doing?” she asked sceptically, checking her watch.

“Going for a run,” Mikel answered impatiently. “The boys have some extra … tension to work off before tomorrow night.” He wasn’t allowed to mention the Stone Dahlia, but he didn’t need to.

Sloan stared right at Isobel. “You’re not an Alpha.”

Isobel blinked down at herself. “What gave it away?”

Sloan tsked slightly, reaching for something in her pocket.

Her phone, probably. She glanced around, probably seeking where all the little hidden cameras and microphones were.

Everyone tensed, waiting for the inevitable confrontation, but Sloan pulled out …

a packet of cigarettes. She shoved one between her lips and lit it, regarding them all seriously.

“I won’t get into trouble for this, will I?

” She waved the cigarette. When none of them answered, she added, “Because the cameras are off, aren’t they? ”

“What are you talking about?” Kalen asked, looking annoyed and impatient.

Sloan rolled her eyes. “You wanna know why I applied for this job? Because I hate unsolved puzzles, and ever since we moved to this new location, I felt like something wasn’t right with the cameras in Dorm A.

I even brought it up, but they checked the footage themselves and waved me off, said I was paranoid.

But I knew you were fucking with the cameras.

I just didn’t know how. I couldn’t prove it. ”

“Again,” Kalen gritted out, “what the hell are you talking about?”

“I have something to say, and I don’t want it caught on camera.” Sloan blew out a puff of smoke, her eyes glinting as she looked each of them in the eye.

“What is it?” Isobel asked when their gazes met and held.

“Go,” Sloan said simply. “If you’ve figured out a way—like you figured out a way around these cameras—then fucking go, and don’t look back.”

“How long will you give us before you tell someone?” Elijah asked evenly, not even questioning her shocking statement.

She sucked on her cigarette, her dark hair frizzier than usual, the granite in her eyes crackling to reveal the person beneath.

She looked positively unmoored, cast out into her own conscience to question everything she thought she knew about the deep waters she swam in.

It was the look of a person who was realising that the beautiful paradise before her eyes was being fuelled by the suffering of the innocent.

Her perfect beach was washing up bodies, and she wanted off the island.

“I’m tired,” she said, no longer looking at them.

She stubbed her cigarette against the marble floor and then turned on her heel.

“I don’t think I’ll be talking to anyone tonight.

Actually, I think I’ll take a little nap in my office and then stumble home to bed.

Will probably ignore my phone until the morning. I’ve earned a damn sleep in.”

She disappeared back into her office without another word. Not even a goodbye.

Isobel had spent months resenting the woman, annoyed by her. Resisting her. She was a nightmare of a manager, but she was … a good person, apparently.

“Let’s go,” Kalen said quietly.

They spilled from the dorm without hesitation.

The storm was heavy now, sheets of it falling hard and fast, turning the academy into a blur of water and shadow.

Hoods up, heads down, they moved in silence, led by Kalen and Mikel, their footfalls drowned out by the weather.

It was impossible to see much through the downpour, but that meant it would obscure their identities from the cameras.

Not that it mattered. Kalen had already told them that they had cut the power to several of the cameras—not all of them, but just enough to convince the officials that the storm was messing with their equipment.

She stuck close to Gabriel, huddled against his broad back, Cian close behind her, their group tight as they cut across the campus toward the gate that separated them from the restricted human area.

Bellamy was already there, waiting on the other side of the gate that couldn’t be opened from their side.

He let them through, one of his arms over his head to protect against the downpour.

As soon as they were gathered on the other side, Oscar grabbed Kilian’s arm.

“Come with me,” he muttered, and the two of them peeled away, disappearing down a narrow side path toward the back of the dining hall.

Elijah and Gabriel broke off in another direction, sprinting into the dark.

Isobel tensed, immediately uneasy that they were splitting up, but Theodore tucked her under his arm, hugging her sodden body close against his.

Kalen moved close to Bellamy. “Grab the others. Meet us out the front, in the car park.” The words were almost dashed away by the rain, but Bellamy nodded and ran back to one of the residential buildings.

Kalen led the rest of them around the outer edge of the row of office buildings, down a path slick with water and dimly lit by garden lights. When they reached the wrought iron pedestrian gate, he pulled a keycard from his pocket and swiped it against the reader. The lock clicked.

“Go through,” he said. “Stand tight against the car gate.”