Going Rogue (18 page)

“Dream on,” I told her, then gave her her passport. She flipped it open, her eyes widening in surprise. “How did Angelo get this?” she asked, pointing at her picture.

“I don’t ask a lot of questions about how Angelo does anything,” I replied, then gave her her brand-new birth certificate. “You probably shouldn’t, either.”

“Got it,” she said.

“What’s your name?” Jesse asked her.

“My name? Oh, my
naaaaame
. Um … Margaux Ellis.” Roux thought about it for a few seconds, then smiled to herself. “X marks the spot. Angelo gets me.”

I knew we were all bantering to keep the night’s sheer horror from seeping into our little circle, and I was grateful for it. Anything that kept the panic of realizing that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing was fine by me.

“Um, Mags?” Roux asked. She was already starting to nervously crease her birth certificate in half. “Why do we need passports? Why don’t we just have IDs?” Jesse nodded in agreement next to her.

“Because,” I told them, turning to walk back to Markus, “we’re going to Paris.”

Roux was beside herself. “Paris?” she cried as we climbed back up the stairs. “Paris,
France
, right?”

“Do you know of another one?” I asked, hanging on to the railing as Markus said, “Hurry up, hurry up.”

“Paris, Texas,” Roux shot back.

“There’s a Paris in Vegas,” Jesse added. “And probably more. We could wikipedia—”

“It’s Paris, France,” I interrupted. “When did you two turn into gigantic geography buffs?”

“Well, I
did
win the geography bee in fourth grade,” Roux said, her breath a little short as Markus urged us to go faster. “I don’t want to brag or anything, but yeah.”

Jesse snorted in response but didn’t say anything and ignored the dirty look that Roux gave him.

Once we were back in the car, though, Markus continued his daredevil tour of Manhattan. Our conversation died down, and I felt the panic start to creep back in small doses. “Markus?” I asked, leaning forward over the seat. “My parents are coming with us, right?”

“No idea,” he said. “My job is to get you three to the airport. That’s it.”

I sank back against the leather seat, feeling deflated.

“What about Angelo?” Roux asked. The streetlight lit her face every few seconds or so, and I could tell that she was trying very hard to keep the uneasiness at bay.

“See previous answer,” Markus told her.

“Can I ask a question?” Jesse said, raising his hand like we were in school. “Why Paris?”

“Angelo gave me an address a few weeks ago,” I said, twisting a loose thread from my shirt around my fingertip. The blood started to pulse, making me feel a little better, like I wasn’t dead yet. “He told me to memorize it. He said to go there if anything happened.”

“Did you know that this was going to happen?” Jesse asked.

“I knew that it was more dangerous than I expected,” I admitted. “But I thought that if I found what I was looking for, then we would be okay.”

“And did you find what you were looking for?” Roux’s voice was tight and I knew she was thinking about how she and I had researched the Fabergé eggs.

“Yes,” I admitted, hesitant to say too much about the coins. As of right now, Angelo, Dominic, my parents, and I were the only ones who knew I had them, and until I knew who to trust, it would stay that way. “I can’t say what I found,” I added quickly, “but I found it.”

“And is that why a bunch of men just tried to shoot at us and blew up the loft?” Roux asked.

“Very possibly,” I said. “Very, very possibly. Yes.”

Jesse let out a low whistle and then slumped down in his seat. “So this thing you found, do you still have it?”

I nodded just as we passed under a streetlight, now cruising through Queens on the way to JFK International Airport. “I do. I need it. I can’t let go of it. It’s what will help my parents prove that they’re not guilty.” Even as I said the sentence, though, I knew it wasn’t true. This new Collective didn’t care if I had the coins or not. They just wanted to gain power, and the more I was around, the less chance there was of that happening.

A huge rush of energy hit me when I realized that.
Screw them
, I thought. The Collective was
my
family,
my
home, not theirs. It had introduced me to Angelo, Roux, and Jesse. I wasn’t going to let anyone take that away from me.

Not without a fight, at least.

“Listen,” I said, leaning forward so I could talk to Roux and Jesse. “I trust Angelo with my life. He told me the other day that he would never let anything happen to me or to either of you, and I believe him. So if I trust
him
, then you have to trust
me
, okay?”

“Okay,” Roux said. It was as if I had asked her to borrow her history notes or something, she agreed so easily. (Not that she ever takes notes in history, though. Or math. Or any class ever.)

“Do you even know where we’re going?” Jesse asked. “I mean, besides just an address.”

I shook my head. “We never know. This is how a job works, and now you’re working with me.” Just saying it
out loud made me feel better. “We did it before, right? We can do it again.”

Underneath the streetlight, I saw Roux’s face break into a cautious smile. “Be careful what you wish for,” she murmured. “If that’s not the truth.”

“No kidding,” I replied, remembering Angelo’s words from a few days before, then held on to the armrest as Markus made a huge swerve into the British Airways terminal at JFK.

“I thought you said we were going to Paris,” Roux said, looking out of the tinted window. “Not London.” Then she looked at me. “Is Paris code for London or something? Is there a whole list of words we should know? Is there a secret signal?”

“You
are
going to Paris,” Markus said, screeching to a halt and forcing all of us to hang on to something to keep from flying forward. “Our journey has come to an end. Everybody out.”

“Thank God,” Jesse muttered. “Who taught this guy how to drive?”

“Well, we don’t exactly get our licenses from the DMV,” I told him as Markus got out of the driver’s seat and came around to open our door. Again, he stood next to us, one hand placed protectively to his hip as we climbed out.

It looked like a normal airplane terminal, travelers milling around with overstuffed suitcases, the smell of exhaust and jet fuel heavy in the air. I wondered how Markus knew who was a friend and who was a foe, then decided that I didn’t
want
to know. If Angelo had put us in his hands,
then he had a reason. (Bad driving abilities aside, of course.)

Roux hoisted her bag up onto her shoulder, holding her new passport. “You’re coming with us?” she asked Markus, and I could tell from her voice that she wasn’t exactly thrilled with the possibility.

He shook his head and pointed toward the check-in desk. “They’ll take care of you from here,” he said, then shook hands with Roux and Jesse. When he got to me, he put his hand on my shoulder. “I know you don’t feel like it,” he said quietly, “but you’ve done a wonderful job tonight.”

I felt tears rushing up, and I stuffed them back down just as fast. There was no time to break down. “You’re right,” I told him. “It doesn’t feel that way at all.” I glanced over at Roux, who was running her fingers through her hair. Two tiny bits of glass fell and bounced onto the curb. “Ugh,
lovely
,” I heard her say.

Markus just shrugged. “What, did you think this was going to be easy?”

He had, unfortunately, an excellent point.

Jesse walked through the sliding glass doors first, followed by Roux and me. “So long, crazy driver,” Roux said as Markus peeled away from the curb. “I hope he has a first aid kit in his car.”

“Where are we going, Mags?” Jesse asked as we looked at the check-in desk. “Do we have tickets?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “Maybe in our bags? I don’t—”

“This way, please!” a voice called, and I looked up to
see a flight attendant beckoning us to the first-class check-in desk. She looked familiar, so familiar that I couldn’t take a step until I could place her face.

“Thank you, Zelda,” my mom had said.

Zelda. The Collective had tried to turn her, too. I wondered if she had suffered the same way that Markus had, suddenly a citizen with no country.

“I know her,” I whispered. She was the flight attendant that had accompanied my parents and me from Reykjavík to New York last year. At the time, I had been so ready for Manhattan, ready to leave beautiful and boring Iceland and land in a city that offered nonstop excitement. I had been ready for something to happen, and as I looked at Zelda and saw the recognition in her eyes, as well, I realized that I had been so, so stupid.

“This way!” she called again, her voice brisk and efficient. Roux glanced at me and I nodded, leading our little ragged group over to her.

“You’re taller,” Zelda said to me by way of greeting, but I could tell that it was something she said because she thought she should, not because it was the truth.

“You know each other?” Roux asked, but Jesse elbowed her in the arm and she stopped talking, but not before elbowing him right back. “Watch it,” she muttered, rubbing her arm.

“Passports,” Zelda commanded, and the three of us handed them over. I got the distinct feeling that no one ever directly disobeyed Zelda. At least, no one who lived to tell about it.

“Do you know where my parents are?” I whispered to her. There was no need, though. There was hardly anyone nearby and certainly no one close enough to wonder why I was asking a flight attendant about my parents’ location. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to raise my voice. The question was scary, but not as scary as the potential answer.

“My job is you, not them,” she replied, but her voice was a bit kinder this time. “Angelo does such excellent work.” She scanned my passport with a satisfied nod. “The man’s an artist.”

“Do you know where
he
is, at least?” I asked, but Zelda just shook her head again as she scanned Roux’s and Jesse’s passports, then printed out our boarding passes. “Follow me,” she said, and we did only because we had nowhere else to go.

She led us through the maze of JFK and into the hustle and bustle of airport security. Her heels clicked on the floor almost like she was firing warning shots with every step, and I noticed a few security guards following behind us, bringing up the rear. Roux and Jesse were both glancing nervously at them, but I knew they were working with Zelda. Otherwise, there was no way she would have let them be so close to us. I had no dossier to tell me where to go, what to do, who to be. All I had was my training and instincts.

And my instincts told me to follow Zelda.

When we got to airport security, I saw the metal detector and froze so quickly that Roux bumped into me. “What is it, Mags?” she asked.

I ignored her. The ten gold coins were pressed hard against my hip in my jeans pocket, and I forced myself not to cover them with my hand.

“I can’t go through that,” I told Zelda.

“Me, either,” Jesse piped up, and both Roux and I looked at him. I had no idea why he said that, but hey, safety in numbers.

Zelda raised an eyebrow at Jesse, but when she looked at me, I realized that she knew exactly why I couldn’t go through the metal detectors. “This way,” she said, beckoning us over her shoulder as she turned around, and we followed her like rogue ducklings to the first-class security line. There was a man there in a uniform, watching bags go through the scanner, and when he saw us, he and Zelda exchanged a glance that was so fast no one else would have caught it.

I saw it, though. I knew he was working with us. On one hand, I felt relieved, but on the other, it just made me more nervous. How many of them were there? How many people had been betrayed by the Collective? How many more were in danger?

Zelda went through the detector first, looking like she did this sort of thing every day. Jesse went after her, putting his bag on the scanner as he took a breath and went through the metal detector. It didn’t let out a single beep, and the security guard never checked his bag or even looked up at us. Roux followed, again with no response or reaction, and I held my breath as I stepped through the gate. The gold coins almost felt like they were bruising me, their presence
was so overwhelming. There was no way that they wouldn’t set off the metal detector, that they wouldn’t bring everyone running, that Dominic himself wouldn’t suddenly appear and—

I stepped through without a sound.

Zelda raised an eyebrow at me when I looked in surprise at her.
See?
she seemed to be saying, then beckoned us with one finger as we scurried through the airport. It was after nine o’clock by this point, and the airport was still busy. I hadn’t been in an airport terminal in years—we always flew private planes after 9/11—and I gazed around me as we hustled to keep up with Zelda. “They have Starbucks in here now?” I whispered.

“Are you serious?” Roux whispered back. “You’re an international spy and you don’t know that there are Starbucks in airports?”

“I’ve been sort of busy doing other things,” I shot back.

“You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Starbucks,” she replied. “That’s just the way the world works now.” Then she grinned at me, a shaky one but a grin nonetheless. “Better keep up, Maggie.”

“Katherine,” I corrected her.

“Oh, right, right.”

I felt Jesse’s fingertips brush at my palm, and I reached out to take his hand. His fingers were cold, nearly as cold as mine, and neither of us even looked at each other as he caught up with my steps. We were walking in rhythm, Zelda a few steps ahead and Roux a few steps behind, two new security guards suddenly tailing us, and I realized that
we were like a little army going into battle. We had already survived one shootout, and who knew what lay ahead, but we were a team now. Roux and Jesse were in this just as far as I was, and I couldn’t tell if that made me feel better or worse.

Zelda led us into the Concourse Room, which was a lounge area for first-class passengers. The furniture looked new and comfortable, and the lighting was soothing and dim, almost like a hotel lobby. It was quiet and nearly empty, and as the doors zoomed shut behind us, I felt safe for the first time in what felt like hours. All I wanted to do was sink into one of the plush sofas and not think about anything, but Zelda
clack-clack-clack
ed us over to a spa.