Page 98 of Lessons in Power

There were four men. At least three of them were armed.

So not good.

“Head down and keep walking,” Priya murmured. She slowed her pace slightly, and I matched mine to hers.

“You!” I heard a voice say to my left.

Priya tensed, ready to launch herself into action.

“Tess.”

The sound of my name drew Priya up short, and for the first time, I looked past the guns to the men’s faces. Three of them appeared to be guards of some type. The fourth was the vice president of the United States.

Where’s his Secret Service detail?

“It is Tess, isn’t it?” the vice president said. Beside him, one of the men’s hands hovered over his weapon.

“Yes,” I told the vice president, turning to face him full-on. “It is.”

“They say you saw my daughter. They say you saw Anna.” The vice president didn’t say a word about my presence here. He didn’t seem capable of registering surprise or suspicion or anything other than a haunting mixture of sorrow and fear. “She’s okay?”

“She was screaming,” I said, unable to keep the memory from coming to life on my tongue. “I saw them knock her unconscious, but they weren’t trying to hurt her. They needed her intact.”

They need her to get to you.

“They won’t need her much longer,” the vice president said, the words getting caught in his throat.

I realized, then, why he was here.

He turned to Priya. “I never saw you,” he said gruffly.

“Nor we you,” Priya returned. She started walking again at that same brisk pace. After a moment, I followed.

He’s here for Daniela, I thought.The same as us.

The difference was, the vice president—theacting president—had the authority to let her go.

Priya and I made it to the surface. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised to see Ivy waiting outside. Adam stood slightly behind her.

They were very surprised to see me.

“What—” Ivy started to say, but then she changed her mind. Instead of asking me what I was doing here, she turned on Priya, the look on her face promising dire consequences.

“She had a message,” Priya told Ivy. “For the prisoner. I assure you—”

“I assureyou,” Adam countered, stepping forward, “that you do not want to finish that sentence.”

Adam and Ivy hadn’t been happy when Priya had used me to send a message to them. And now that she’d brought me to see a known terrorist? Put me in a room with that terrorist?

This wasn’t going to be pretty.

“She didn’t have a choice about bringing me,” I said, trying to get Adam and Ivy to focus on me. “Just like I didn’t have a choice about coming.”

They have Vivvie.

I willed Ivy to remember that, willed Adam to ask himself what lengths he and Ivy would have gone to if the terrorists had still held me.

“Get Tess out of here,” Ivy told Adam, clipping the words.