by Ryan Decaria
“Sasha, we have one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“We don’t know the color.”
“It’s got to be here somewhere. Maybe it’s the color of one her things. We need more help.”
“It can wait until tomorrow.” Hawking held out his hand. “We’ll all come over after school and figure it out.”
Sasha scanned the shed. Nothing stood out as a color of interest. She grabbed his hand and let him pull her up. He misjudged the space between the stack of boxes, and she bumped into him. They stood there, looking into each other’s eyes. “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course.” Hawking smiled as he took her other hand. “I’ll always come for you.”
As she held his hands, she felt tiny sparks of electricity between their fingers and a tingle up her spine. “I know.”
They stared into each other’s eyes a moment longer, and she thought he might lean in to kiss her, but his phone in his shirt pocket buzzed, followed by a few beeps from his watch, and a chime from his back pocket. He let go of her hands and turned toward the door. “We’d better call it a night.”
“Sure.” Sasha wasn’t sure what she expected. She was a freak of nature, and Hawking deserved a girl with a beating ball of muscle in her chest instead of a metal coil.
They hid the paperwork back in the organ and closed the secret door. On the way out, Sasha grabbed the picture of her family and took it with her. “They’re going to crash soon.”
“Who?”
“My family.” Sasha tripped over a box of old horror movies, knocking a few across the floor. She hung her head. “Well, their bodies anyway. In an airplane.”
Hawking knelt and picked up the movies. “You’re going to have to give me a little more than that.”
Sasha knelt beside him, picking up a copy of Night of the Living Dead. “Dravovitch is trying to give me closure. That and the insurance money and my inheritance. It’s something.”
Hawking set down the movies and offered her his hand, pulling her up. He put his arm around her shoulder as they walked out of the storage locker. “It’s something.”
Hawking slammed the door closed behind them.
Anika stared at the pink ceiling of her four-poster bed, listening for the door to open. She’d packed a go-bag with the essentials. She had to get Billie away from this place, and the only way she would ever get the girl to leave is to run away herself.
She’d planned to run away a dozen times already. Each time she found reasons to stay. She kept putting her friends in danger. For what? She had nothing to use against her father. The alligator was a time bomb. Pankina wasn’t going to go away. If she wanted to remain intact, it was time.
She was sure Sasha would come with them.
Her rat, Seven, ran in his little wheel on her desk. Jackie’s father insisted her rat carried a tracking device. Anika wanted to cut it out, but she couldn’t tell where it was located. She’d searched his little body, but could find no marks, incisions, or lumps. Well, except for the spot where she’d electrocuted him with a car battery to save his life. Maybe Jackie’s father had lied, but she couldn’t risk it. She’d leave Seven at the school. Yoko offered to take care of him.
The front door opened and Boulsour lumbered inside. She could easily identify his gait from across the house as he stumped into the kitchen. Anika sat up and slung her backpack over her shoulders. She couldn’t trust any of her belongings. Billie would provide her with new clothes. They would ditch the bag after she offered her friends a crack at the rest of her science crap.
She grabbed the cage and her microscope and left everything else in her room. She’d give the microscope to Hawking, begrudgingly. She was still surprised at its sentimental value. But it couldn’t be trusted either. Perhaps Hawking would find the tracker and eliminate it.
As Anika marched down the stairs, she felt a pang of longing for the creepy house. It went well with her guilt for abandoning her quest and her friends. In the short time she’d lived there, Moreau had become more of a home than any she’d had before.
Boulsour met her at the bottom of the stairs with a plate of unevenly sliced peaches and a cup of milk that had splashed all over the plate.
She stared into his eyes. “I’m not sure what I’d ever do without you.”
His eyes didn’t waver the slightest.
Anika handed the cage to Boulsour and took the plate. She slurped down the peaches and drank the milk, perhaps the best breakfast he’d made for her, then set the plate on the stairs. He held open the door for her as she swept out of the house.
She didn’t speak on the way to school, unwilling to give the slightest hint that she was emotional. The rat and microscope were huge tells, but somehow, she didn’t think Boulsour would ponder why she’d brought them. If they were being tracked, perhaps someone would come check on her, but she doubted anyone would even care.
As they sped into the parking lot, Anika cooed at Seven, trying to keep him calm. He was a survivor, but he couldn’t fathom the forces pulling on him as Boulsour rounded corners. She could relate.
She didn’t say goodbye as she climbed out of the Mini. Boulsour sped away.
Anika turned toward the school as the bell rang. Kids funneled inside, but Anika withstood the pull toward class. She wasn’t in the mood for calculus. After the second bell, she went inside and walked the empty hallway toward the nurse’s station.
As she rounded the corner, Claire jumped up from the bench in her cheerleader outfit. Her hair was an ornery mess, rivaling Anika’s own locks. Claire wobbled as she approached and spoke in a blur. “Anika, we have to talk. You gotta help me. I have no one else to turn to, and I know you do that sort of thing, helping people because you’re stupid and brave and…”
“No.” Anika danced around her.
“Please. I’ve done the math.” Claire swept around. “Oh, don’t look at me like it’s my first time doing math. I think…”
“I don’t care.” Anika tried to step around, but Claire stayed in her way.
“I’ll help you with Pankina, the alligator, and with your father.”
Anika leaned in close to her stupid face. “Shh. Shut up.”
“I figured out what you did the night I snuck you back into town.”
“No!” Anika barked. “You don’t get to blackmail me twice for the same thing.”
Claire’s face twitched twice. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she teetered. Anika managed to catch her as her body went limp, but between the cage and the microscope, neither of which she was willing to drop, Anika almost went down as well. She managed to slide everything to the door and turn the door handle.
She pulled Claire inside. Hawking insisted Claire had always been super smart, but now Anika was vindicated. This was likely a side effect from whatever experiment her parents had done on her brain.
Anika dragged her toward the bed.
“We’d heard you made a new friend,” a girl in the room said.
“But we didn’t believe it,” a second girl added.
The Mistys rocked Euro cut leather jackets, one blue and one red, and spiky punk hair shaved up one side, and skinny jeans.
Claire slipped through Anika’s fingers. Her head smacked against the floor.
“Misty!” Anika set down her belongings as they threw their arms around her. “You’re back.”
She didn’t want to let go. Why hadn’t they sent a message? What did they find out? Was her mother okay? After a minute, she finally let them pull away.
“Your mom says ‘hi’,” the blue Misty said.
“Is she okay?” Anika shut the door, side-stepped over Claire, and took a seat on the bed.
“She’s fine,” the red Misty said.
“Well, she’s safe,” Blue said, “but she was hurt pretty bad.”
“Why?” Anika asked. “What was she doing?”
Red leaned against the desk. “She was fighting the fight, trying to save you.”
Anika n
odded. Her mom had been at that fight her whole life, and for what? Anika was in more trouble than ever. “Thank you for saving her.”
The Mistys looked at each other, saying something in a glance that Anika couldn’t interpret.
“What?” Anika asked.
“What’s with Claire?” Blue asked.
Claire was sprawled out on the floor. “I think her parents were trying to make her smarter.”
“Damn,” said Red. “Didn’t miss that.”
“What’s with your rat?” Blue asked. “You’re finally leaving, aren’t you?”
Anika felt the heat in her cheeks. She didn’t owe them an explanation. “You heard about last night?”
They nodded.
Anika picked up Seven’s cage and set him on the table. He scurried in his wheel, no other care in the world. “I can’t keep putting my friends in danger. I’ll leave my father a note about the alligator. He’ll clean it up.”
Red crouched by Claire and pulled Claire’s eyelid open. “We won’t be safer with you gone.”
“Don’t you see? I’m turning into them.” Anika ran her hands through her hair. She was becoming like Dravovitch. And her mother, too, because she couldn’t get past using people as a resource. Even her own friends.
“We’ll be okay.” Red said. “Maybe Hayden will save us.”
Anika examined the girls. They were more muscular than when they had left and had a harder edge. “You don’t need saving.”
Blue nudged Claire with her foot. “She does.”
“And Jackie needs you more than ever,” Red said.
Blue grinned. “And Blake.”
“Stop it.” Anika balled up her fists. This wasn’t getting her anywhere. “If I stay any longer, I’m going to die. If I had a chance to save anyone, I’ve failed. I’m not a savior. I’m just not.”
They eyed each other again.
“What?” Anika fumed. “Spit it out.”
“What if you could be?” Red said.
Anika sat on the desk. “Spill it.”
Blue sat beside her. “After all those years, your mom found a way to kill Dravovitch.”
So that was it, then? Anika, in the end, wasn’t a ringleader, a mastermind, a leader, or even a daughter.
Her mother wanted her to be an assassin.
Red took out a large metal, silver and black cylinder with rubber seals on both ends. “She got caught stealing the last ingredient. After our dramatic rescue, we got her to her people. They had a laboratory whose sole purpose was making this.”
She handed Anika the cylinder. “It’s poison specifically targeted to tear down your father’s cellular structure and attack his organs.”
The metal was smooth and chilled, and the cylinder was heavier than she expected. This was her Clue board game moment—Anika in the Secret Laboratory with the Poison. One more death and Anika could be a free woman. She could get a real name. Not Dagmar, though. A real one with a real social security card, an honest driver’s license, build actual credit, and start a YouTube channel.
“What do I have to do?” Anika felt the seals on each end. She had no idea how they were supposed to open. “Get him to drink it?”
“It’s not that easy,” Blue said. “The poison needs to enter his bloodstream. If we manage to install it in his machine, the next time he fires it up, the poison will flow into his veins.”
Anika stepped over Claire as she paced across the room. “You do know that the next time he uses it, I’ll be the one strapped in?”
Red grabbed Anika’s shoulders. “Your mom says if you run, he’ll be forced to use someone else in your place.”
“My sisters?” Pass the buck? Was she that kind of girl? “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”
“He’s bound to have backup plans.” Red put her arm around her. “After we plant the device, you run wild. He’ll send people after you, but Gloria says you’re amazing at hide and seek.”
Anika rubbed at the pain in her gut. Her mom hadn’t gone by Gloria since Anika was eight. There had to be significance to that. “I’m not sure we’ll like any of his backup plans any better.”
“But he’ll die. And you won’t.” Blue picked up the microscope and set it on the desk next to Seven. “We’ll call that a win no matter what else happens.”
Anika grabbed a marker and turned to the whiteboard and drew a rough sketch of the lab’s floor plan. “We still have a huge problem. How are we going to get in?”
The Mistys shrugged in unison.
“That’s my job then?” Anika asked. “To come up with a plan?”
“Sasha found something we might be able to use in her mom’s stuff.” Red moseyed to the whiteboard and examined the sketch of the lab. “Hawking and the others are working with her on it, but without your playmaking, I’d say our chances are pretty crappy.”
“What about Pankina and the alligator? I need a plan to stop them, too. And save Claire? And fix Hayden? You guys are putting way too much faith in me. I’m going to get you all killed.”
“You see,” Red said, “we’re going to keep fighting whether you leave or not.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
Anika threw her hands in the air. “Of course, you do.”
“We’re going to try to sneak that device into the lab with or without you,” Red said. “Hawking, Jackie, Yoko, and Linh are going to help us. We’re going to save you whether you like it or not.”
Blue leaned against the wall. “But what do you think our chances are without you?”
Anika didn’t know what to say. She’d been determined to run and hide a few moments ago, but now she wasn’t sure what to do. “We do make a pretty good team.”
“And when it’s over,” Red said. “You and Billie find a beach somewhere and put on skimpy bikinis and silly wigs. Maybe take up surfing. He’ll never find you.”
Anika grabbed their hands. “Can’t be that easy.”
“No,” Blue said. “You’ll have to do something about Sasha’s scars and her plucky personality.”
Red laughed. “Something tells me Sasha won’t be thrilled with the beach plan.”
Anika stared at Claire, still unconscious on the floor. “There’s too much. I can’t do it all.”
“You have to delegate. Let us help you.”
“We’ll take care of Claire. We’ll take her to the hospital outside of Tampa.”
Claire stirred. “You’re not taking me anywhere.”
Anika waved Red outside, trying to block her from Claire’s view. Once the door closed, Blue and Anika helped Claire onto the bed.
“What happened?” Claire asked.
Anika sat beside her. “You passed out.”
“What?” Claire grabbed her head. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Same as the rest of us,” Anika said. “Your parents are experimenting on you, making you smarter. But there’s side effects.”
“No,” Claire glared at her. “That’s impossible.”
“What other explanation do you have? Are you staying up all night studying?”
She pouted her lips. “No.”
“Did your parents find some amazing new supplement?”
Claire rubbed her forehead. “Are you always right?”
“No.” Anika shook her head. “But I’m going to get you help.”
Claire leaned on Anika’s shoulder. “Do I get to stay smart?”
Anika patted her head. “I don’t know.”
Blue crossed her arms. “But it’s going to cost you.”
“I’ll do anything.” Claire focused on Misty. “Anything but quit the Olympiad. It’s mine!”
Misty offered her hand and helped Claire up. “You have to be nice.”
“I will.” Claire nodded. “I’ll be nice.”
Anika almost laughed.
Misty continued, “And you owe us one favor to be named later. Do we have a deal?”
Claire held out her hand. “Deal.”
As Misty and
Claire shook hands, Anika frowned. Claire was another risk in a sea of minefields. Another problem to solve against a ticking clock.
She slapped Claire on the back. “Welcome to the team.”
Anika strode down the school hallway with a singular focus. The other kids spilling out from the lunch room scrambled out of her way in a rippling wake. No more sitting back and letting things happen to her. And to her friends.
First on her list was Ms. Bolton and her notebook.
She had sent a text out to her crew. Billie had seen Ms. Bolton go into the faculty lounge. If she wanted to talk, now was the time. Anika had too much to do today. She kicked the door open and stomped inside.
Ms. Bolton shot upright. Her mouth fell open.
Vanderbleek and Blanding turned toward her mid-bite.
“Get out.” Anika pointed at the door. The two men glanced at each other and complied, collecting their belongings and vacating the room.
Anika slammed the note onto the table. “You want to talk? Talk.”
“Anika.” Ms. Bolton remained composed. “This is not the place.”
Anika folded her arms. “You’d think there’d be cameras everywhere, watching our every move, but the thing is, no one wants a record of anything that goes down in this crappy town. I’ve got things to do today. Important things. So why don’t you ask me what you want to know?”
Ms. Bolton set down her fork and put her hands in her lap. “What’s going on?”
“Too broad.” Anika tapped her fingers on the table. “Try again.”
Ms. Bolton cleaned ketchup from her fingernail. “What are they doing to the children?”
“I was hoping you could tell me that,” Anika said. “You’re the one taking detailed notes about everyone.”
“But they are, aren’t they?” Ms. Bolton leaned forward. “The scientists? The kids aren’t normal here. Why is that?”
Anika stared into her eyes. This was another game. Don’t be the first to reveal her hand.
Ms. Bolton flinched first, glancing toward the door like she expected men in black to storm inside at any moment. “I know they’re messing with the kids. I’m going to prove it.” A bead of sweat formed at Ms. Bolton’s temple and dripped down the side of her face. She held her palms on the table. Trying to hold herself together? To keep her world from falling apart?