Project Paper Doll: The Trials (25 page)

She didn’t answer, just reached down the collar of her shirt and pulled the vitals monitor off her chest, the adhesive giving way with a reluctance that I could hear and taking layers of
skin with it, I knew from experience.

But Ariane’s face remained impassive as she folded the plastic edges together, the middle giving with a snap before she discarded it as well.

“They’re cleaning house,” she said. “I believe that’s the expression.”

“What does that mean for us?”

“Mara called out Jacobs and Laughlin. The Committee can’t take the risk that someone will find us and tie them to the program. They waited until Adam took Carter out, and then they
shot him. And we’re next.”

Instinctively, stupidly, I hunched my shoulders. As if that was any protection from a bullet.

“The trials are over. They’ll get rid of us so we can’t be evidence, and then they’ll just restart the program later,” she said.

“Isn’t that kind of a good thing?” I asked cautiously. “If we can just avoid—”

“We won’t get out of this alive,” she said.

“So what now?” I asked, fighting the urge to turn and search the rooftops.

“We need to get out of sight, reevaluate, figure out a new plan.” But the grim set to her jaw told me more than I wanted to know. She wasn’t sure there would be a new plan.

“What about Ford?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Seeing Ariane so uncertain like this was enough to make me feel as if the world were tipping and I needed to find something to grab hold of to keep myself from flying off into space.

“Will Elise and her friends be okay?” I asked.

She paused, the faintest hesitation in her response. “I don’t know. I think so. They’re fully human, and they don’t know who sent them on the trip. Carter is…They
let Adam kill him because he’s like me and that saved them the trouble. Two deaths, one bullet.” Her voice was choked with justifiable bitterness.

“Ari, I’m sorry.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer.

She slipped out from under me. “Not now. They might be looking for a couple, especially if they know Adam took your place.”

I tried to tell myself that she was right, not to mention still reacting to Carter’s death and this new, incredibly messed-up situation we’d just found ourselves in.

But I still felt a flash of frustration. If she was right, she wasn’t the only one who was going to die. And maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t the only one still trying to adjust.

Dying once, technically, had not made the prospect of a second go-around any more appealing.

We joined the streams of people, moving toward the shopping on Michigan Avenue. It was relatively easy to feel sheltered by the number of people around us, but that was an illusion.

“What exactly are we looking for?” I asked, more for something to say to ease the agitation I could feel growing inside me, like my internal organs were all set to vibrate.

“I’m not sure yet. Maybe that.” She pointed to a banner in the distance.
ULTA HOTEL:
LUXURY SUITES
.
OPEN DURING
RENOVATION
!

“Another hotel? Are you serious?” I asked.

“We need a place to keep our heads down for more than a few minutes at a time without attracting any attention. I’d consider breaking into a condo building, but the odds of us being
identified as outsiders are much higher in that case,” she said.

The elementary kids and their teachers peeled off at the next intersection, heading for the next block up while we continued down Michigan.

Ariane picked up the pace to attach us to a quartet of elderly people.

By crowd surfing in this way, never by ourselves, always on the heels of a larger group, it took us longer to reach the hotel.

I found myself imagining a cover story for us with each group, as if that helped project a cover over us. With the old folks, I was a dutiful grandson and she was my reluctant, kind of
rebellious girlfriend. When we joined a group of city kids, clearly cutting through on their way to somewhere much cooler, we were cousins (from opposite sides of the family) from the hopelessly
dorky suburbs. With the three nuns, in full black-and-white garb, we were two trouble-making students who couldn’t be left alone with the others on the class field trip, therefore requiring
direct nun supervision. I didn’t actually know if that was how it worked in a Catholic school; I was just guessing.

Ridiculous, yeah, but it made me feel better.

Then finally we were crossing the street to reach the main entrance for the Ulta. The signs of renovation were more obvious now. Scaffolding lined the structure on the lower levels, and two huge
green Dumpsters were filled to overflowing with chunks of drywall and other debris.

“Okay,” she said, as we headed toward the doors. “Just follow my lead.”

“Uh…” Before I could ask what that meant, she was crossing the threshold into the lobby.

Then, to my surprise, she grabbed my hand and beamed up at me.

I started to respond, smiling reflexively, before I noticed the flatness in her gaze. That’s what people talk about when they say someone is (or isn’t) smiling with their eyes. She
was faking it.

“It’s not that expensive? Daddy will get it for me?” she said in a singsongy voice that pitched upward at the end of the sentence, like a question.

Ariane was, as always, an amazing mimic when she wanted to be, thanks to all those years of observing the people around her, and right now she sounded exactly like Cassi Andrews from our school.
Cassi had never, in all my years of knowing her, stated anything with confidence. She was like a contestant on a perpetual game of
Jeopardy!
, where everything must be phrased as a question
in a breathless surprised voice. A flake, in short, and the furthest thing from Ariane’s true nature.

I struggled to play my part equally well, though I wasn’t exactly sure what, or who, I was supposed to be. “Okay, if you say so.”

Lame. Very.

But no one, including the staff behind the oversized registration desk, paid us much attention beyond a polite nod, acknowledging our existence.

She headed to the elevators, moving excruciatingly casually when I wanted to run. “The only question is blue or green? I mean, I know that blue totally sets off my eyes better, but you
know it can’t always be about that, right? Sometimes I’ve got to consider my hair, which, I think, means green?”

I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. A car, a dress? Possibly jewelry. Or maybe she was just talking, prattling to fill the space with talk that would fit the part she was trying
to play. “Uh-huh,” I said. “Of course.”

She pushed the up button for the elevator and turned to face me with an excited squeak that was entirely phony. “Obvious solution! I’ll just get one of each!” She clapped her
hands excitedly, and I almost laughed in spite of everything because it was just so not her.

Inside the elevator, faster than I could blink, she pushed the buttons for the first seven floors. Roughly the same floors that, from the outside, appeared to be under construction. That much I
had figured out. Beyond that, I had no idea.

“Oops, more time alone with you!” She caught my hand and pulled herself closer to me, rising up on her tiptoes. “Just go with it,” she said in a whisper I could barely
hear a second before she pulled my head down toward hers and she kissed me.

Uh, okay.

But she wasn’t entirely with me. When I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her up and helping to support her weight so she wasn’t wobbling on her toes, I could feel the tightness in
her whole body. Usually she sort of went soft and boneless—not bragging, just reporting the details—but right now, it was like trying to cuddle with a metal support beam. She was still
on high alert, no matter how convincing her performance of “relaxed and flirty,” and her body was giving her away.

Not to mention that every time the doors opened, she was distracted enough that her tongue stopped, which was driving me crazy in an entirely different way.

She was paying attention to the levels we were passing, perhaps counting off floors without turning around to check. I wasn’t sure what she was looking, or listening, for. But I was more
than happy to help her in this way.

“I think this is us,” she said brightly, and turned to peer out onto a floor that reeked of new carpet and paint. The light fixtures gleamed so brightly, they were almost
blinding.

“Nope, guess not.” She smiled up at me, her cheeks flushed and her mouth pink and slightly swollen.

“Too bad,” I murmured, and pulled her back to me.

Three floors later—or possibly four—Ariane paused again and glanced over her shoulder when the door opened.

I followed her gaze. From what I could see, the left side of the hall looked normal, if a bit dusty. Footprints and wheel marks from a luggage cart were outlined in white in the dark-green
patterned carpet, with larger crumbs of drywall sprinkled throughout.

The right side, though, was sectioned off in plastic, and faint sounds of hammering and sawing came from that direction. This floor was definitely under construction.

She tugged my hand and led me off the elevator to the left, just as the doors started to close.

The hall split again and she took us right, down a dim corridor with glossy wooden doors and plaques bearing suite numbers above what appeared to be…Yep, those were doorbells.

“Stay close to me, and keep your eyes down,” she said quietly.

The first light overhead blew before I had a chance to ask what she meant.

I ducked instinctively, my free hand flying up to protect the back of my neck.

She moved swiftly, the bulbs popping and raining down on us as we passed, and then she let go of my hand to stretch her fingertips toward either wall. Door locks snapped open on both sides of
the hall, even as the lights on the key card scanners remained a stubborn red.

Glass from the lightbulbs crunched into the carpet beneath my feet as I followed her.

Once she’d reached the end of the hall, she backtracked to the second-to-last room door and waved me inside, the motion tight as though it were painful.

She shut the door with care behind us, even as I heard the first confused guests open their now-unlocked doors and call out into the darkened hall.

“What’s going on?”

“Hello? Is someone there?”

“The goddamn power’s out again.”

Ariane held her position at the door, while I hesitated just inside the largest hotel room I’d ever seen. It was, from what I could see, three rooms. A living room with a huge flat-screen
and a big sectional couch. Beyond that, I caught a glimpse of a dining table and chairs, and then, through a set of black-framed French doors, a big white corner of a bed.

“What—” I began.

She shook her head, holding her finger up to her mouth. A second later, her shoulders sagged as if she’d been holding her breath and finally exhaled, and the lock snapped into place on our
door with a loud clack.

The same noise sounded in the hall, moving away from us, a series of muted thwacks that got quieter, like someone running past and hitting each door as he passed.

She’d forced open the locks on all the doors in this section and then released them. And I had no idea why.

I shifted my weight but kept quiet as the sound of heavy footsteps and the squawk of a walkie-talkie came through the door. “I’m on seven,” a man’s voice said just
outside our door.

Security, it had to be.

I jerked back as if he could somehow see me through the door. Ariane caught my wrist, giving it a warning squeeze.

“I don’t care what you were working on,” the man said, annoyed. “You had to hit something with the electrical. I’ve got twelve doors that misfired here and broken
glass everywhere.”

The doorknob rattled; someone checking to make sure it was locked. Even though I knew it was, my breath caught in my throat.

The walkie-talkie chirped again, a softer female voice asking a question, but the words were indistinct.

“Yeah, I don’t know,” the security guy answered. “Locks are back on line now, but you’ve got to get someone up here to clean up the mess.” His voice sounded
farther away. He was moving on. The further rattle of doorknobs confirmed his location.

“Hey, are the lights coming back on or what?” a loud and irritated voice, no doubt one of the guests, demanded.

The security guy answered, his voice low and soothing, and Ariane edged away from the door, moving past me and deeper into the suite.

She peered cautiously around the corner into the dining area, which, when I followed her, also turned out to have a freaking kitchen in the opposite corner.

That didn’t seem to impress her, though. She paused only to grab several snack items from the honor bar basket sitting on the counter, then she kept moving toward the bedroom.

Getting us away from the door, I realized.

“What was that about?” I asked, tagging along after her. Just inside the bedroom, there was a doorway to a huge bathroom with a marble floor, a tub that would easily seat six, and a
television in the mirror. Holy crap. On the bathroom counter, a silver tray next to the sink held any and every kind of personal item you might need—shampoo, toothpaste, mouthwash, cotton
balls, a disposable razor, even condoms—in discreet packaging with the hotel’s logo.

Behind me, Ariane closed the French doors, shutting us off in the bedroom. “I couldn’t have them checking the room individually for someone breaking in. You’re the one who
taught me that they can tell when the room locks are triggered on an unregistered room.”

I blinked. She was right. When we’d stayed in that crap motel on the way to my mom’s house. That felt like a lifetime ago.

“So you picked a floor that was under construction, figuring they’d blame anything strange on a malfunction or short circuit or something.” It was freaking brilliant. I felt a
burst of warm pride in my chest. No,
she
was brilliant.

“You need to eat,” she said, pushing a package of pretzels into my hands with a frown. “You’re too pale.”