The Conspiracy of Us (The Conspiracy of Us 1)

Jack took the locket from my hand. “Where’d you get this?”

“My mom gave it to me when I was little,” I whispered.

He let the locket fall back to my chest, then grabbed the flashlight and shone it on the bracelet. It was encrusted with jewels in the shape of some kind of winged creatures, and—

“An inscription,” he whispered. “That has to be it.”

What Mr. Emerson was expecting us to do with a bracelet, I wasn’t sure, but if there was an inscription, we’d probably find out. “Okay, how are we going to get it?”

“It’ll be alarmed,” Jack said, circling the pillar.

I looked inside. I didn’t see any trip wires. “See anything?” I said.

Jack checked the next pillar over. “This one has an obvious security setup. Maybe Fitz left the bracelet without an alarm on purpose.”

I glanced in the direction of the stairs, expecting a guard’s boots to come clomping up them at any moment. “Try it?”

Jack nodded.

I grabbed the foot-wide cube of glass.

To my surprise, it lifted off easily. Jack grabbed the bracelet and pocketed it.

I set the glass back down with a low thunk and held my breath. Nothing. No alarm. A smile tugged at the corners of Jack’s mouth.

And then the darkness exploded with a shriek of a siren. It was so shrill, I clapped my hands over my ears, but I still knew what Jack was saying.

Run.

We ran down the same stairs we’d come up, but halfway down, pounding feet and shouts turned us back. Before we made it ten feet down the gallery, shouts came from that direction, too.

Jack grabbed my hand and we froze, spotlighted by the squares of moonlight on the floor. Trapped.

The shouts reached the top of the staircase.

Jack took off again, pulling me with him. We were headed to the railing overlooking the main floor.

I stopped, tugging on his hand. “I’m not jumping off there. There has to be another way.”

He yanked me close, his face inches from mine, eyes flashing black. “Trust me.”

He climbed over the railing and hid behind a pillar. Trying to do it my own way hadn’t worked out so well on the fire escape, so even though everything in my body said not to, I took the hand he offered and trusted him.

Twenty feet away, a second railing would have kept us safe, but orange construction tape told me why there was no railing here. I just had to not look down. If I didn’t look down, it’d be okay. Just don’t— I looked down.

There was nothing at all between us, huddled on a foot-wide ledge, and the cold marble floor three stories below. I clutched at Jack with both hands. One of his feet cartwheeled in the air.

I bit back a scream and squeezed my eyes shut, and the next thing I knew, my face was pressed into Jack’s chest, feeling his heart beat frantically, and one of his arms was locked around me. “Don’t move,” he breathed into my hair.

I wasn’t planning on it. Seconds passed that felt like hours while the voices circled our hiding spot and flashlight beams played over the walls and the floor below.

A set of heavy footsteps stalked to the railing a few feet away. Jack’s fingers tightened on my back, and I curled farther into him, making us as small as possible.

I opened one eye in time to see a flashlight beam raking across the floor far below, and sweeping quickly toward us. I felt Jack’s whole body tense.

Not quite believing I was doing it, I let go of Jack. I took one step away, then another. He followed, and right before the light hit us, we were around the other side of the pillar, hidden.

Jack held out his arm again, and I sank into him gratefully.

The voices had finally retreated, and I’d almost started to breathe when a gunshot reverberated through the cavernous space. I jumped so hard, I nearly fell again.

Jack leaned around the pillar, trying to see.

More shouts, in a language I couldn’t understand. The sound of something heavy hitting the floor. Another muffled gunshot. Glass breaking.

“Here! This case is empty,” yelled a new voice with a thick and recognizable British accent. Jack cursed under his breath. Somehow, the Order had followed us, and they’d just taken out all those guards. They weren’t messing around.

“All right, kids,” another voice called. Scarface. “Let’s all of us be logical now. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care, which means I don’t care about putting a bullet in your meddling little skulls. We know the old man knew something. We just want to know who the One is.”

He paused like he actually thought we’d respond. I looked up at Jack and widened my eyes. That really was what Mr. Emerson meant. He knew what the whole Circle—and the Order—were searching for.

“All right, then,” he said. “I’ll make this easy. Give us what you took here and from the old man’s flat, or he dies.”

Jack drew a tight breath. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Would they really kill him? No. I was pretty sure. They’d keep him alive for information, or for bargaining. Or, if they found out, to trade for me.

I clenched my teeth hard, but shook my head up at Jack. He squeezed my shoulder, and I knew he agreed. Mr. Emerson specifically didn’t want them having it, so we wouldn’t hand it over. At least, not yet.

“Gonna check downstairs again,” said the voice I knew was the redhead. “The Commander’ll kill us if we lose this stuff to a couple of kids. Like, he might literally kill us.”

The Commander? I raised my eyebrows at Jack, and he shook his head.

“We’re not going to lose it,” Scarface retorted. “Chaz, take the front entrance. Jer, find the old man’s office. I’ll look downstairs.”

We waited until we couldn’t hear their footsteps anymore, then I whispered, “Let’s go.”

Jack put his hands on my waist and lifted me over the railing. He vaulted over after me, and this time we reached for each other’s hands at the same time as we sprinted down the stairs and out the first emergency exit door we saw.

CHAPTER 25

A few blocks away, Jack collapsed against a brick wall on a dark street, and I leaned beside him, panting. Somehow, we’d done it again. We’d gotten away, and we had Mr. Emerson’s first clue. I didn’t mean to, but I started laughing, at the adrenaline, at the relief, at the terror, at the ridiculousness of it all.

Jack stared at me for a second, then his mouth twitched, and then he was grinning, and I was laughing so hard, there were tears running down my cheeks.