A few swear words cursed through my mind too, and Mr. Prent's voice echoed through the school.

"Intruders!" he belted out, and if anybody was still asleep then they were surely awake now. A beam of light coming from the hallway got me right in the eye and I squinted. I could just make out that the figure holding it was Miss. Demi. More footsteps thundered down the steps. Liam was in with the students , probably trying to blend in. It didn't work, and everyone else shifted so that he could be easily seen. He sighed, giving up on the whole secrecy thing and joining us. We were stuck, not close enough to the door to make a run for it. I started shuffling towards it, but Mr. Prent came in, holding Maddi by the arm. She was limp.

Adam was nowhere to be seen, which surprised me. Although he was probably trying not to get caught. Best if one member of the team got away to tell headquarters what had happened.

My hoped were dashed when he slid in behind the other crew, followed by Mr. Hart.

Mr. Prent held up something the size of a fist in his hand. The rock. With the other, he flicked the light switch on and everyone was blinded momentarily.

In that moment, he moved so that he was blocking the doorway.

Great. We were trapped, with our leader unconscious. And no rock.

"Umm... Hi?" I squeaked.

"While I admit it was very kind of you to visit, Lindy-Sam-Abbot-and-Liam, I do wish it had been under different circumstances. Namely you not trying to rob me of something very important. Again," Mr. Prent said.

"So did I," Liam muttered. "With you in a jail cell for murder."

"I wasn't the one who murdered your parents, Liam. That was entirely their fault. They were the ones who broke into my house and tried to steal this." He held up the rock. Hmmph. And he had to shove it in our faces.

"You didn't need to kill them," Liam argued. It would go nowhere, I wanted to say. Mr. Prent wouldn't listen.

Apparently, I was wrong.

"True, but it's so much easier than getting them into that horrible jail. Honestly, we need to get a security upgrade. If five barely trained subs can get in it's way too easy."

"No, it was crazy hard to get in," I said. Maybe I could fool him. Didn't seem likely, but then we could get out and I knew for one that I was disappearing into the world.

Mr. Prent laughed. "Oh no, it was easy. I saw the security footage. Those guards are jokes. Now, back to the real stuff. Lindy Marvin, why were you breaking into my school- unsuccessfully, I might add- and getting this rock. It's worthless to you."

"Um, it's pretty?" Obvious lie, much? I scolded my brain for not thinking of something better.

"No need to lie. I was merely asking for your sake. If you told us the truth, you'd have a slightly better chance of being pardoned." That is to say, zero.

"They told us they'd kill us if we didn't," Abbot said, confident. Was that a prepared answer I smelled? Gods, had he actually thought about what to say if we got caught? He had that little faith in us as a team?

"They meaning..?" I looked over to the others, who were almost frozen, staring at us. Contri was doing some weird motions with her hands, frantically and gesturing to me. I shrugged. No idea what she was trying to say. Contri sighed and mumbled something under her breath.

"The Resistance," Abbot said. "They kidnapped us and said we had to do stuff for them or they'd kill us."

"As if I'd actually believe you. No, Abbot, I do know that you are part of the 'Resistance', that little interfering rebel group. I know that very well, in fact. Did you not think to check the kitchen for microphones?"

I groaned. Looked like Maddi wasn't as genius as I'd thought. There would have to be a hidden microphone. How else would they catch us.

"Did you plant any spies?" Adam asked. I hadn't realized it, but he was right behind me. I jumped.

"Of course."

"Who?" Adam said.

"You of all people should know the answer to that question, Adam," Mr. Prent said. He wrapped a rope around Maddi's wrists, which was kind of useless considering the fact that she was slightly unconscious. "It's you."