“I used to be. Then I started working here…” He opens a door to a room that I would classify as lavish-hotel style. The bed is large with an upholstered headboard and the room as high-end fancy as the room we were just talking in. Four throw pillows lean against four posh sleeping pillows, and the bed is tastefully covered in a sort of beige-gold comforter and duvet set. There’s a Queen Anne settee against a wall. A door appears to lead to the bathroom. Jeans and an Irish fisherman’s sweater, thick wool socks, a tan vest that seems fleece lined, and a dark green jersey shirt are laid out on the bed.
“Clothes?” I ask.
“We thought you might be in need of a change of wardrobe,” Jon says, striding across the room and pulling shut the drapes. I grab a pen off the dresser and scrawl across my hand, Are they listening?
When he turns, he sees what I’ve written and mouths the word yes.
I scrawl out, Cameras?
He mouths the word no, and then says, in a slightly too loud voice, “If you care to shower, which I imagine you do, the bathroom is through the doors to your left. The closet is to your right.” He takes my pen and writes on my hand, Wash this off. Trust nobody.
Not even you? I write back, but aloud I say, “Do I smell?”
It is the only thing I can think to say to cover the silence.
Jon snorts and says, “I would never tell a lady such a thing.” He blathers on, “So, if you need anything tonight, I would suggest you pick up the phone by the head of your bed and just ask. Either I or a young man named Steven Boucher will answer your requests. I am on duty until midnight and then it is Steven’s turn. Breakfast will be served promptly at seven in the morning. If you miss it, there are no warming stations. The dining area is down the hall to the left and to the right and to the left, third door.” When he’s speaking, he writes something on my other hand.
“That’s complicated.” I give him big eyes.
“Everything is complicated or convoluted here,” he says.
“Can you tell me why I’m not considered worthy enough to be an agent? Am I a captive here?” I blurt.
“Of course not. And it isn’t my place. I will say that our agents are picked with absolute discretion. And I am not the one who makes those choices, sadly.” He winks, hands me back my pen, and folds my fingers into my palm. “Again, please let me know if you need anything, but I am only on duty until midnight, then must sleep before I have more sciencing to do. Have a lovely shower.”
He bounds out the door and shuts it quietly behind him. I stare at it. It locks. I am obviously a captive. Grumbling and confused, I slowly uncurl my fingers so I can read what he’s written on my hand. The printing is small but legible. I wonder if he does this often.
I gasp when I read it.
You need to leave.
She plans on killing you.
Go before midnight. I left the window unlocked. Change into these clothes. I have stripped them of tracking devices. There is a clean car by the main road, left of entrance, hidden in bush.
China does not know. They feel he is too attached to be trusted.
Use the crystal.
Find the others.
Do not become what they fear you might be.
“Holy…” I whisper.
Enoch whines.
Jon knows about the crystal. Does Julia, too?
“I don’t want to leave China,” I whisper.
Enoch whines again.
“Do you think I have time for a shower?”
Enoch walks to the window and hits it with her paw.
“Fine,” I say and begin changing my clothes. “Fine. It just would be nice to feel clean for once.” I rethink this as I pull off my shirt. “Clean and not hunted. And safe. It would be nice to feel safe.”
Enoch doesn’t say anything, just sits and waits and tilts her doggy head like this is the sort of self-involved whining that she doesn’t have time for. I get it. I don’t have time for it either.
CHAPTER 10
The decision to trust a total stranger or not to trust them is kind of a gut reaction, an instinct, and I don’t waste time second-guessing myself as I run through the woods outside of the mansion-slash-compound-slash-whatever. Jon Hill wrote on my hand to use the crystal and to leave. He said that they want to kill me—not China, but the organization. The question is why. Why would they want to kill me? It has to do with their worrying about what I might become, I guess.
Okay.
And he wants me to use the crystal to find the others. As I narrowly avoid slamming into a tree trunk, I think about when I activated the crystal. There was a guy. I saw a guy who could potentially be dead. He must be one of the people I need to find. But why?
No idea.
And there was the other guy—I only saw the back of his head—who was in that medical room that was all creepy.
How did Jon Hill even know about the crystal? Nobody is supposed to know about the crystal.
Jon Hill is probably risking a lot letting me escape.
Enoch the dog seemed to agree with his assessment of things, so I am still not second-guessing my decision. I just feel a bit bad leaving China.
China doesn’t know. The words are still on my hand. Why wouldn’t they tell one of their best employees their plans? Who are these people?
“They suck,” I whisper to Enoch.
Enoch sits abruptly. I stop. “What? Is it a Wendigo?”
Enoch flattens on her belly. She hits me with her paw.
“You want me to hide?”
Just then a motor rumbles, a softness getting louder and closer. I slam down to the ground next to the dog. She gives me five. Lights slash through the trees and the ground vibrates beneath me.
“Bad guys?” I whisper.
She doesn’t answer.
“You want me to be quiet?”
She still doesn’t answer, which I take as an affirmative in the dog world of interspecies communication. I sigh. My junior year of high school should be full of cheering competitions, bad dances, studying, and stressing about college. Instead, I am flat on the cold, snow-frosted forest floor talking to a dog, possibly running for my life. Strike that. I am almost definitely running for my life. I’m trusting the advice of a random stranger, running from the people I wanted to work for and help. And what am I running to? That’s the next big question.
When we can no longer hear the car’s engine, Enoch stands back up. I follow her lead and rush along parallel to the road, a few feet into the woods, but not so far that I will get lost. We break out on the main road.
“He wrote that the car is to the left of the entrance,” I announce, but Enoch has already turned her doggy self and she heads straight for some brush. “Here?”
She barks, which I take as a good sign because she finally feels safe enough to make noise.
All around us is darkness and quiet. The cold bites into my skin. A quick check of my phone tells me it is eleven, but it feels later. I start pulling the pine boughs off a dark-colored car that looks like it’s some sort of electric hybrid, newer model. Sap sticks to my hands and probably ruins what Jon Hill wrote on my skin. I think I have the words memorized now, though.
You need to leave.
She plans on killing you.
Why would they want to kill me? Why am I such a threat? They have agents like China, and future agents like Seppie and Lyle. Bile fills my throat. It’s hard not to be chosen. It’s hard always to be the one who is the worst. Lyle is the best at running and making friends. Seppie is the best at school and life. I am only the best at flying and tumbling, and that’s just because aliens enhanced me. This is what I’m obsessing about as Enoch drags some limbs off, using her mouth and walking backward.
“You are an amazing dog,” I whisper.
Her tail wags. I push away my feelings of inadequacy as best as I can and try to focus on what is happening right now. The words on my hand. Escape.
Go before midnight.
It’s super-obvious that I have t
o hurry. It’s getting close to midnight, I know. What if Jon’s relief has to drive in? Someone will see me. I start pulling the boughs off at a faster rate.
China does not know.
Use the crystal.
Find the others.
Do not become what they fear you might be.
What the hell does that honestly mean? The crystal is in a pocket on my vest, zipped up and safe. I hadn’t even told China about it, but somehow Jon Hill knows. I finally get enough boughs off the car to open the driver’s side door.
“Hop in!” I order Enoch.
She doesn’t.
I feel bad for being bossy. She’s such an exceptional dog, so I soften my voice and say, “Sweetie, we have to go.”
She whines, pawing at the snow by the car’s back tires. Suddenly, the world seems still and cold and full of danger all over again. There’s got to be a reason she won’t just jump in the car.
“What is it?” I whisper as I take my phone and turn on the flashlight app, checking out the front of the car. It seems fine, but how would I know what to expect? Then I let the light sweep the back and my breath comes out in a horrible rush.
There’s a body in the backseat, facing the back of the car so I can’t see his face, but I recognize the jeans and the jacket and the short, shaggy hair and my heart flutters.
“Lyle!”
I’m in the car without a second thought, trying to free him, pulling at the duct tape around his ankles, which is pretty freaking impossible to tear. I find the end and start unwrapping it.
“Enoch, help me,” I demand even though Enoch is a dog and I don’t know how I expect her to help. But she actually does. She rips at the duct tape with her super-sharp dog teeth and makes easy work of it. I flip Lyle around, abandoning the duct tape encircling his hands to Enoch’s superior abilities. She tears right through it again as I rip off the tape over his lips. I remove some of the skin with it and I’d apologize if Lyle wasn’t already swearing and shouting.
“We have to go. Mana, we’ve got to go,” he insists, scrambling into a sitting position. “What’s with the dog?”
“The dog is mine.” I move into the driver’s seat as Lyle scoots past Enoch into the passenger seat. He rubs at his shoulders as I close the doors. “Thanks. Start the car. Let’s go.”
This is the same person who just a few hours ago tried to attack me with a crowbar, and a few hours before that broke up with me. So, no, I don’t go. “Dude, you have to tell me what’s going on.”
“Seppie,” he sighs out. “This guy took Seppie. He left me here as a present, he said.…” Lyle unleashes a volley of swear words that would get him grounded for life if his mom wasn’t in a containment cell somewhere.
“What guy?” My palms tingle and my vision blurs. Not again. Not Seppie.
“Large, angry, but calm all at once. He said that China’s people want to kill you but that you’d escape. He said that he was leaving me here as a good-faith present. He said that you’d understand that the time of humans is almost over. He sucked.” He pauses. “Can you start the car?”
“There’s no key.”
“You push a button.” He points at a button.
“Oh.” I pause and do not push the button. “Do you remember trying to kill me?”
“Sorry about that.”
“Do you know why you tried to kill me?”
“I think I was trying to kidnap you, not kill you.”
Relief floods me, but I’m still not 100 percent about this situation, not with everything that’s already happened. I have to be cautious, no matter how psyched I am to have rescued Lyle and to actually be interacting with him in a normalish way—well, normal for us. So I ask, “Is that what you’re doing now? Trying to kidnap me?”
“What? No … Not at all. I…” He pauses and lets his head fall back against the headrest. “This is all so confusing, but I don’t think so.”
I press the button, starting the car. “Tell me what you know and apologize.”
“I’m sorry I tried to kidnap you.”
“No, you couldn’t help that. Apologize for being an ass at school. Why did you do that? That hurt.”
“Oh,” he says. “That…”
“Yeah, that.”
I pull out onto the road and just start driving. I don’t know where we’re going other than away, and for right this second that is good enough.
“That,” he says, rubbing at his forearms, “is all part of the story.”
“Well, start telling it, then,” I say.
And he does.
CHAPTER 11
It was a woman who approached Lyle just a couple of weeks ago. He’d been running down by the country club. She stepped out from behind the side of the main building and fell in front of him. She’d watched him long enough to know that he was the sort of guy who would stop if someone seemed hurt.
“They’d been watching you?” I ask as I drive down the dark road.
“All of us.”
I stare ahead of me, too nervous for some reason to really look at Lyle. “And that didn’t creep you out?”
“It did and it didn’t. I sort of figured that someone had us under observation since you are what you are and I am what I am, you know?”
“I know.” But I hadn’t been the one thinking about it. Maybe China’s boss was right. Maybe I’m not agent material. Depression settles in my stomach. Bile rises in my throat. I bet agents have stronger stomachs than I do. I bet agents think about people watching them. I push all the anxiety and doubt away and try to focus on driving and Lyle and Seppie.
“So, what happened?”
“She said she was recruiting for China’s agency, the one your mom worked for,” he tells me. “She said you were in danger.”
“Ha. Danger from them,” I sputter.
“Disdainful much?”
“Disdainful a lot,” I answer and give him a quick rundown of what’s happened before he continues with his story.
“And you trust this Jon Hill?” he asks.
“Enoch trusts him, I think. But I’m not a hundred percent sure.”
“Enoch is a dog.”
Enoch makes a noise.
“Enoch is special,” I retort. “But she does like China.”
“Maybe China is villainous.”
“That makes no sense. China isn’t a bad guy! Enoch wouldn’t like him if he was. And you don’t really think so either. You let yourself be recruited for the agency.”
“I know, but let’s face it, Mana. We don’t know who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy. Maybe we’re the bad guys.” He cracks his neck, which he’s been complaining is stiff from being tied up in the back of the car. “It’s all perspective. I mean, when a shark eats a surfer, the shark’s friends are cheering him on because he’s got food to survive.”
“In someone else’s story, we probably are the bad guys,” I admit. “The two annoying cheerleaders who refuse to do what they are supposed to, to trust who they are supposed to trust. They could cause the end of the world if they aren’t careful.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“What? Is that wrong?”
“I was too busy gulping to respond.” He sighs. “I don’t want that to be what we are.”
“What do you want us to be?” I ask and honestly, I’m asking because it’s a perfect time for him to say a couple.
“Best friends, like Captain America and Bucky or Achilles and Patroklos, only with Seppie, too, of course. Three friends meant to save the world and each other.” He must feel my mood shift because he goes, “What?”
“Those are guys.” I don’t add, and they aren’t romantic. Although, I think something may have been going on with Cap and Bucky and also with Achilles and Patroklos.
“Oh.” He is silent. “Are there dynamic women world-saving duos or trios?”
“You’re the geeky one. You should know.”
“Xena and Gabriel?”
“I have no idea who they are,” I admit.
“I need some girl-power schooling. Like, if the world survives.”
“We all do.”
“Back to your story,” I insist, trying to ignore all my sad feelings about romance and Lyle’s lack of it. “Who put you here? Tell me about the guy.”
“He was bulky, strong. Military, I think, not super-old, not a lot of hair. He could have been a cop, I guess. It was his attitude. He took us after—after we tried to capture you at the hospital.”
“I’m already trying to forget that.” You don’t want to remember your friends coming at you with crowbars.
He rubs his eyes, and his voice is hoarse. He grabs my hand with his free hand and holds it, wrapping his fingers around my fingers. It feels … good and right. He says, “Me, too.”
After a second, I ask, “What was it like?”
“I could feel him in my brain, you know? I could feel him trying to control me.”
So, the mind controller wasn’t Pierce. It was a man.
“Trying?”
“Okay. Controlling me.” His fingers tighten around mine and then let go of my hand altogether. His voice shakes a bit with anger, or maybe embarrassment. In the dark of the car, it’s hard to tell. Plus, I’m focused on the winding road. But the distress in Lyle’s voice breaks my heart as he continues, “And I tried to fight him and I couldn’t and then it all just went hazy while we were trying to get you. I tried to fight him and my head felt like it was exploding. Like I literally thought it was exploding. We chased after you again and I fought him again and I wake up and I’m in the back of a truck—some sort of box truck—and Seppie’s there, too. We’re both bound up. He and some other guy open the back doors and he’s smiling, happy. He points at me and says, ‘You are the present,’ and he points at Seppie and says, ‘You are the toy. Or maybe I should say bait.’”
“Toy.” My stomach turns, but I’m actually a tiny bit relieved. All of this means that the mind controller was male. That means it definitely wasn’t Pierce. “Why were you guys at the hospital?”
“We got a message that you needed us. So we left camp—Seppie had only just got there, too…” He pauses. “The counselors were not happy.”
“You guys got in trouble for me?”