Life After Theft
Page 48

“Do you mind watching one again?”
I hesitated. “Maybe I’m not in the mood for a movie after all.”
“Well, I figure if we’ve seen it before, it won’t be as . . . distracting,” she said, her fingers skimming over my stomach as she wrapped her arm around my waist.
My voice was a little shaky as I turned to the ticket guy. I don’t remember which movie I picked.
But it was way better the fourth time.
Twenty-Two
I WAS CROUCHED BY MY front bushes a few minutes before two a.m. when Khail’s truck swung by and the passenger door popped open. Turned out it was harder to sneak out of my own house than I expected it to be to break into the school. And even when I got around the alarm and the gate, I managed to get a faceful of motion-triggered security light at the last second.
As the truck pulled up, I sprinted to jump in and felt like a kid trying to avoid the monster under the bed.
“You ready?” Khail asked, sounding utterly calm. I have no idea how he did it.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling my pits break out in a sweat even as I gripped the key so hard it made my hand hurt. I’m such a liar. “Where are the guys?”
“In the back, all loaded up.” I peered through the back window and saw them, hoodies shadowing their faces, jammed into the bed of the truck like sardines, arms around duffels.
I’d sorted items with Khail that afternoon and filled almost his entire truck bed with the other wrestlers’ duffels, each labeled with a teacher’s name and stuffed to the brim with bags. We cleared out enough stuff that it would only take one more return to get everything in the cave gone for good.
I couldn’t think about that now, though. One return at a time.
“Is . . . is she here?”
Guilt burned in my chest. I hadn’t seen Kimberlee since Sunday, when I’d abandoned her on the side of the road. She was still mad . . . somewhere. “She’ll meet us there,” I mumbled.
And I wondered if I was telling the truth. She’d been so excited about it; surely she’d come back. Hell, it was her idea.
She’d never stayed away this long, but everything was set and if Kimberlee still didn’t show, I didn’t think I had the guts to back out.
Besides, her big part was the codes and that was done. We’d be okay either way.
Probably.
Khail killed his lights as we pulled into the school parking lot and steered into the shadow of a big elm tree. “You ready?” he whispered.
Hell no. “Yeah.” I grabbed an old ski mask I’d found in the garage that barely fit over my head, and yanked it into place.
With a quick nod Khail slipped from the car and jogged to the front doors. By the time I got there, he’d scrambled up onto the stairway railing, shoved a paper bag over the lens of the camera, and secured it with a piece of tape.
My turn.
I dug the key out and, after a shaky breath, slid it into the lock. I turned it clockwise and for a moment, I thought it wouldn’t go. But a tiny bit more pressure and the unmistakable hollow click of a bolt sliding filled the dark space between Khail and me.
“Ghost girl says it’s all clear?” Khail whispered.
I nodded without thinking. But the guilt hit me half a second later. Still, it probably was all clear at this time of night.
Morning.
Whatever.
“Then move it,” Khail said, brushing past and pushing the doors open. A steady beeping greeted us, just like Kimberlee said.
“Get the doors. I got the code. We’re gone in ten minutes.”
Right.
I gripped the key harder and sprinted through the darkness with the key in one hand, a tiny penlight in the other.
Nothing bigger than a penlight, Kimberlee had warned. Or someone might see the lights through the windows.
I shook thoughts of Kimberlee out of my head and slid the key into the first classroom door. Ten doors on each side of the hallway, two floors. Forty doors, ten minutes.
I was on the second door when the beeping of the alarm stopped. Perfect. I continued unlocking doors and flinging them open, straining my ears for the other wrestlers’ footsteps.
And almost ran right into one before I heard him.
“Keep moving,” he whispered as he brushed past me, barely making a sound. I realized they were all wearing their soft-soled wrestling shoes.
Brilliant, I thought with a grin as I took the stairs two at a time. More than halfway done now.
I zigzagged across the second-floor hallway and the smallest wrestler caught up with me just as I got to the last door—the advanced-chemistry lab.
“This is it,” he whispered. “Head back to the truck.”
I was almost to the stairs when I heard the glass shatter.
I spun and pointed my penlight toward the last classroom along with a couple of other wrestlers emerging from their own classrooms with limp, empty duffels. The little guy popped out. And a bunch of tiny beams of light shone on him.
“It’s okay!” he said, blocking the lights with his hands. “Just a beaker or . . . something. Campbell had a bunch of crap on her desk; I knocked it over. Just go!” he said, sprinting past us.
Don’t have to tell me twice.
A group of about six of us were almost to the door when a piercing wail slammed into my eardrums.
“Dammit, Khail,” I called over the noise when I reached the door where he was waving guys out the door. “I thought you took care of the alarm.”
“I did; what the hell did you do?” He pointed down the hall, where a bright white light was flashing. “It’s the fire alarm, genius.”