“Dylan, go after her!” I yelled, unable to run. “Call for backup!”
He nodded and took off down the hallway at breakneck speed, his phone to his ear, before disappearing into the shadows. In the near distance, fireballs sizzled as they found a target, and Dylan shouted at Stella to stop. Given his Herculean abilities, I hoped he’d be able to catch up to her. If he couldn’t, we were well and truly screwed. Stella had a lot of intel on us.
I knew we shouldn’t have trusted her! What the hell was Alton thinking, even letting her come here in the first place? If we made it out of this without a whole heap of collateral damage, I had a couple of bones to pick with the director. He would end up feeling the sharp end of my wrath before dawn rose.
“Are you okay?” Tatyana asked, her eyes returning to normal.
I nodded. “I’m fine, just go and help Marjorie.”
“Are you sure? You look like you might keel over at any moment.”
“Marjorie needs more help than me,” I urged. Taking a second to drag air into my exhausted lungs, I staggered over to where Dylan had set Marjorie down. She was curled in a ball at the foot of a bronze dragon, tears streaming down her face. Raw flesh showed through the hole in her sweater, where Stella’s fireball had singed her.
“Is she gone?” Marjorie whimpered.
I sank down next to her. “We’re trying to catch her. Tatyana, can you do something about this?” I gestured to the burn on Marjorie’s shoulder.
“I can help it heal,” she replied, kneeling beside Marjorie and placing her hands over the wound. A white light shone beneath her palms, her eyes turning the same shade. I sat back against the dragon, feeling hideous after such a huge expense of magic. Sweat covered every inch of my skin. Every muscle hung on my bones like so many lead weights, a dull throb squeezing at my ribs, my eyelids heavy as all hell. I’d never felt so tired in my life.
“I’m grateful for the intervention and everything,” I muttered, forcing myself to stay awake, “but where did you and Dylan come from? It’s one o’clock in the morning. Shouldn’t you have been in your rooms?”
She glanced at me for a moment, with her eerie white eyes. “We were in one of the empty classrooms.”
“And what, pray tell, were you doing in there? A little late-night studying?” A weary grin tugged at the corners of my lips. I wanted to laugh, but I was worried my ribcage might implode.
Tatyana gave the ghost of a smile.
“Ah, a little lesson in human biology, eh?”
She chuckled, saying nothing as she returned to the task at hand.
“What happened back there, mi changuita?” I cast a tired glance at Marjorie. “You went all black-eyed on us. Did you see something?”
Marjorie nodded. “I think I saw Micah when I touched Stella. I recognized him from all the pictures and objects that I’ve touched of his, and I guess he must’ve been on my mind when Stella grabbed me,” she replied nervously. “He’s all I’ve been focusing on all day, so I knew it was him right away.”
I sat up a little taller. “You saw Micah Cranston?”
“Yeah.”
“Holy crapbags, do you know what that means?” I gaped at her. “It means Stella is one-hundred-percent involved in the missing kids… and, therefore, Katherine friggin’ Shipton. I knew there was something up with the GI twins. I just knew it!” Channing wasn’t off my radar, either. If Stella was involved, it was likely that Channing was, too.
Tatyana sat back on her haunches. “Did you see anything else, or was it just Micah?”
“I saw an old abandoned factory. There was some rusty paintwork on the side—the name of a place. Hoffman something.”
“Hoffman Millwork?” I pressed. I typed the name into my phone’s Google search, with some snippets of information coming up. It was an old company that dealt in wood and metalwork, though I’d never heard of it.
Her eyes widened. “Yeah, that was it. Hoffman Millwork. I don’t know if that’s where he’s being kept, or if that was where he was being kept, but he was definitely there at some point. A big old factory—nothing inside, just a bunch of junk and machinery.”
“This is the lead we’ve been looking for, you absolute hermosa!” I went to hug her, then remembered she was in the middle of being fixed by Tatyana. “This is the kind of good news we need. We should tell the rest of the Rag Team, right now.”
Tatyana nodded. “Marjorie, you should be well enough to stand. I have done what I can with the burn, and it shouldn’t scar, but there will be some tenderness for a couple of days.”
“I’m okay to walk, just a bit shaken up,” she replied.
We helped Marjorie to her feet and let her lean on us as we headed down the hallway. Well, Tatyana bore most of the weight, while I fought to catch my breath. Marjorie’s knees were still trembling. I felt sorry for her, but there was no time to waste; we were eager to inform the others of our glorious Micah update. After so many days of nothing, this would boost morale and get us all going again.
Quarter of the way to Alton’s office, Tatyana’s phone rang. She held the cellphone to her ear and nodded along, making a few noises as she listened to the speaker on the other end.
She hung up and turned to me. “Dylan lost sight of Stella, but he’s already told Alton about what happened. The others are being brought in as we speak. We’re going to come up with a game plan to decide on our next move, and the coven has been put on lockdown until further notice.”
I was about to reply when something caught my eye. About twenty yards ahead, our hallway crossed another, and Stella walked right through it. The lights were brighter in the junction, and I had no doubt that my eyes weren’t deceiving me.
Practically shoving Marjorie into Tatyana’s arms, I sprinted the length of the corridor and leapt onto Stella, sending us both careening to the ground. Déjà vu. She screamed in surprise, struggling to break free of my grip, but I wasn’t about to let her get loose again. My Orishas twisted around Stella’s wrists, restraining her with very little fuss from Stella herself.
“What the hell, Santana!” she snapped. “What do you think you’re doing? Let go of me, now!” A tremor of fear shivered through her voice, taking me by surprise.
“The only place you’re going is a dark cell, for a very long time!” I shot back. “Don’t play games with me. We know you’re working for Katherine. We know you’re involved in stealing the kids. We know you’re a spy, Stella.”
She stopped writhing. “What?”
Oh, nice try. Am I going to get waterworks next?
“You heard me.”
“Are you kidding? Get off me!” she barked. “I’m not involved with Katherine in any way—have you gone crazy? Seriously, what the hell?”
Puzzled, I glanced down at her neck and realized she had none of the bruises from before. There were no singes on her from where the Orishas had burned her skin. I sat back slowly, keeping the Orisha-driven restraints on her wrists. All I could do was sit and stare at her as a horrifying possibility dawned.
What if there was more than one Shapeshifter working for Katherine? Well, wouldn’t that be the freaking cherry on top of the damn crazy cake. It could well have been the same one who attacked Harley and Wade at Isadora’s hideout, but what if it wasn’t? The uncertainty made me nervous. Shapeshifters made the perfect spies; there was no way of knowing how many Katherine might have at her disposal.
“Come on, we’re going to see Alton,” I said, helping Stella to her feet. I kept a firm hand on her as we walked to the director’s office. If this was a super elaborate trick to get me to look elsewhere for the spy, I wasn’t going to be the one ending up with egg on my face. Until I could be completely sure that Stella was innocent, there was no way I was relinquishing my grasp on her.
If it turned out she was clean… I would owe her an apology for this.
Twenty-Seven
Harley
Everyone assembled in Alton’s office, a tense atmosphere bristling within. The only ones who weren’t present were Raffe and Wade. The latter had gone to check with the Fleet Science Center security guards, to see if they’d seen anyone matching Stella’s description. And the former was apparently coming down with some sort of flu. At least, that’s what Santana had told me. She and Tatyana had quickly brought me up to speed on everything that had happened, which explained why Stella was sitting in one of the high-backed armchairs with two loops of swirling Orishas around her wrists.
Seriously, what else can go wrong tonight? Better not answer that.
After so many days of nothing, everything seemed to be hitting us at once. Although, nobody else knew about Krieger’s particular situation. I’d vowed to keep that to myself, and I wasn’t about to break that confidence.
“Hang on, if Dylan was chasing Stella and lost her, then how come Stella is here?” I asked.
“We think we might be dealing with another Shapeshifter,” Santana replied, with a roll of her eyes. I frowned at her. She might have been trying to put on a show of strength for the others, but I could feel the underlying current of exhaustion and concern running beneath her fierce exterior. She shot me a telling look that pleaded with me not to say anything. Relax, your secret is safe with me. I’d ask her about it later, once we were alone. Clearly, something was up.
Stella pulled a sour face. “I can’t believe you actually thought it was me. As if I’d attack Marjorie like that!” she said. “Why would I have gone to such effort to find and protect these missing kids if I was in on it the whole time? Can someone explain that to me?”
Alton paced the floor at the back of the office. “I really am sorry for the inconvenience, Stella, but we have to make absolutely sure that it couldn’t have been you. There are several healing spells you might have used, and laying the blame on a Shapeshifter is always a very convenient excuse for anything.” He paused, offering an apologetic look. “I really am sorry, but we can’t take any chances right now. Everyone is a suspect, as much as I hate to admit it.”