Page 70 of Lessons in Power

Not just someone.

As I watched, Dr. Clark stepped dispassionately over the Secret Service agent’s body. The gun she’d just fired was still in her hand.

CHAPTER 48

My World Issues teacher just shot a Secret Service agent. She just shot Anna’s Secret Service agent.

“Time to come out now, Anna,” Dr. Clark said, sounding exactly like the woman who’d stood at the front of our World Issues class and lectured about everything from elections to acts of international aggression. “I don’t want to have to hurt you. None of us do.” Dr. Clark walked until she was standing directly over Anna. She softened her voice as she looked down at the girl. “None of us want to hurt you,” she repeated, “but we will.”

“W—why?” Anna choked out the word.

“Believe me,” Dr. Clark said, “this was not my first-choice way to spend this morning, but unfortunately, I am not the one calling the shots.”

“You …” Anna’s gaze was locked on the dead Secret Service agent. “You killed Dave.”

“He called you Starlight. I take it that was your Secret Service code name?” Dr. Clark’s voice was straightforward, no-nonsense.In other circumstances, it might have been calming. “His job was to protect you. He died protecting you. He would want you to do whatever you have to do to protect yourself now.” Dr. Clark waved the gun at her. “Stand up.”

Anna was crying. She scrambled backward until she hit a wall.

Dr. Clark simply repeated herself. “Stand up, Anna.” She trained her gun on the girl. Anna stood. A moment later, a pair of armed guards came into the room.

“Secure her,” Dr. Clark ordered. “Get her in the room with the other high-value targets. If you have to make an example of someone, do try to make it someone disposable.”

One of the guards grabbed Anna. She screamed, and before I could blink, the guard had hit her over the head with his gun. The vice president’s daughter crumpled to the ground.

“Get her some ice,” Dr. Clark ordered. “We want these kids intact.”

The guard scooped Anna up and gave a brisk nod. “You’re the boss,” he said. His tone seemed to tack a disclaimer onto those words:for now.

Dr. Clark stared the guard down, her gaze unflinching, her finger steady on the trigger of her gun. “We’ll have company any minute. If you’re going to mutiny, I suggest you do it now.”

The guard looked away before she did. The other guard stepped forward, shoving the man who held Anna toward the door.

“Reinforcements are in place,” he reported to Dr. Clark. “We have thirty men. The snipers are on the roof. Campus is secured.”

“I want a head count of all students. We need to know who we’re missing, and we need to find them.Now.”

I closed my eyes, unable to keep watching. Every breath I took was deafening in my ears. My heartbeat, the barest shift of position—any second, they’d hear us. Any second, they’d find us.

Blood.

Blood on my hands.

I couldn’t let myself get caught up in a flashback, but the present was no better. There was blood seeping into the library carpet.

The Secret Service agent. Two gunmen.

Bodies on the floor, and bodies strewn through the halls—and I was here, trying not to breathe, not to think, not to move. My fingernails dug into the wood of the bookshelf.

Still. So still. Have to stay—

There was a sound. I wasn’t sure if it was me or Emilia or the settling of the floor, but Dr. Clark’s head whipped toward us. I pressed myself back, willing the dark on our side of the room to swallow me whole.

Don’t let her see us.

Don’t see us.

Don’t—