by Shannon Hale
“I’ve missed you, Danger Girl.” Wilder’s hand crossed over the dog’s neck, and his fingers hooked mine. “Missed you a lot.”
I wanted that to be true. I wanted him to like me so much, it hurt. I opened my mouth, not sure what I was about to say.
“Who is this trog?” Luther asked.
I stood up fast, moving away from Wilder, and blushed as if I’d been doing something bad. Luther was standing on the sidewalk, his arms folded.
“This is Jonathan Wilder, a … friend I met at astronaut boot camp. Wilder, this is my best friend, Luther.”
The boys looked at each other. The mood was Arctic Circle.
“Okay, break up the love fest.” I took Luther by the arm (gently) and escorted him to the front door. “I’ll be in soon.” I shut the door after him.
Wilder was staring with pleased incredulity. “That was Luther, your BFF, your top gun, your Tweedledum?”
“He’s a good guy. Some can actually manage the good-guy thing.”
Wilder blinked, then shrugged. “I’m sorry.” He took a couple steps forward, holding out his hands as if asking to hold mine.
I wanted the whole world to shut off, rush to night, and leave me and Wilder with a starred sky and maybe a moon, no one else around. And I wanted his thinker self to answer all my questions and make everything make sense. But the more I talked with Wilder, the harder it would be to cut him loose, so all I said was, “Thanks for the dog.”
His hands dropped. “I wanted you to have someone to watch your back, if that someone couldn’t be me.”
“Thanks,” I said again. “Good luck.” And I went inside. Because if I didn’t go quickly, I wouldn’t go at all. I leaned against the closed door, taking deep breaths.
Luther was sitting on the stool, fingers drumming his knees.
“Report,” he said.
I peered through the blinds. Wilder was screwing a stake into the front lawn. He attached Laelaps’s leash and unloaded a few sacks of dog food from his car before driving away.
I sighed. “It’s a nice dog.”
“What dog?” Luther peered through the blinds beside me. “Did you get a dog?”
“Seriously, Luthe, you’re as observant as a hibernating bear.”
He grilled me as I went back outside, filling up water and food bowls for Laelaps.
“That guy knows what you are? Why was he all Betazoid on you?”
It never helped to ask Luther questions like, “What does Betazoid mean?” He would just mock me and not answer.
“I don’t like him. He kept calling you by your middle name.”
“He calls me Danger Girl sometimes, but it’s not a big deal.”
Luther folded his arms. “You think your middle name is a feeble joke. If I’d called you Danger Girl, you would have hated it. But he does and you think it’s all girlie cute?”
“Luther, you’re freaking out about nothing.”
“Oh, am I? Then let me freak out of your way.”
He got on his bike and rode off. Laelaps and I watched.
“I think he forgot it’s my birthday,” I told Laelaps.
Mom came out, saw the dog, and muttered in Spanish that if Dad was going to get me a mammal for my birthday he might have checked with her first.
She drove us to the west desert where I could exercise and punch rocks. That dog could run. I was falling in love. When we got back the phone was ringing. I answered.
“Miss Brown? Is that you?”
“Oh. Hi, Howell.” I sat down.
“You made it home then. I’ve tried calling you on your Fido phone but never have success.”
“Yeah, you won’t. I had set it up so the number was constantly rotating. Can’t be tracked or traced. How … how are you all?”
“Well, we’re not riding unicycles and juggling at the moment. Actually, I am juggling, but just for practice. I’ve worked up to four balls now.”
“Wow. Congrats on that. Um … so, how’s the rest of the fireteam?”
“I’d like to know. They all left after you did.”
“Left?”
Come back with me, Wilder had said. Back where?
“Mi-sun didn’t want to go home, but when Jacques ran off she changed her mind. How am I to protect you when your behavior is so unpredictable as … is that a doughnut? No, just the shadow my lamp made on my desk. Anyway, if your secret gets out, the government will come after you, Miss Brown—maybe not even ours. And heaven knows who else. You’re not safe.”
I looked around. I couldn’t see my mom.
Chapter 21
I hung up on Howell and ran to Mom’s bedroom. She glanced up from her desk, her expression turning to alarm when she saw my face.
“I have to go,” she said on her phone and clicked it off.
“I can’t leave you alone anymore.” I was weirdly out of breath. “The others … they’re not with Howell. We’re all separated. That feels wrong. The fireteam was supposed to stay together. It was dangerous to be apart. We all felt that.”
Mom called Dad, asking him to come home, her eyes never leaving my face. A line from a Yeats poem was going around and around in my head: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”
“Ruth died and broke the team,” I said. “Maybe I helped break it by leaving, and I bet none of us function right anymore.” Sitting was impossible. I paced. “Four powerful people who were tied to a leader. I think … I think bad things can happen to us when we’re apart. Lions loose in the circus without the tamer, or maybe sheep without a shepherd. Or both. Am I making sense? We’re vulnerable or the tokens won’t work right or maybe we’ll go bad like Ruth or just crazy when we’re alone—”
“You’re not alone,” Mom interrupted.
“But the team …”
She took my hand and said it in Spanish, so I’d know she meant it. “No estás sola.”
Laelaps started barking. I told my mom to lock her room behind me, and I inched open the front door.
GT, in a frayed Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts, was coming up our walk, two men in black suits following. I’d read up on GT—high school dropout, moved up from bag boy to supermarket owner to filthy rich corporate mogul. Three times acquitted on federal charges of corporate espionage, embezzlement, and conspiracy to commit murder. In an interview, when asked to explain his shocking success, GT said, “Clean living. I don’t smoke, drink, gamble, carouse. I’m at peace with the world. But I’m relentless. When I have my eyes on a prize I never, ever give up.”
Right then, his eyes were on me.
“Maisie Brown,” he said, his voice warm, his smile charming. “How are you? May I come in?”
He seemed so tranquil and harmless, maybe I would have let him in, but Laelaps kept barking. It kept me on edge.
One of the suits looked at Laelaps through his dark glasses, his hand going into his suit coat. “Want me to shut up the mutt?”
I pulled the guy to me by his lapels and stuck my hand into his jacket. I was aware of his tender ribs that could break with a flick, of all the tiny bones in his hand as he tried to push me away. But I got my fingers on the gun I’d suspected was there and yanked it free from its holster. It took two squeezes of my left hand to squish it into a ball, careful to avoid pressure on the bullets. The steel made a nice grating sound, satisfying, like popping packing bubbles.
The guy’s eyes lifted in alarm above his sunglasses frames, and he stepped back, falling down three steps to the concrete walk.
I put the metal ball into GT’s hand. “Maybe we should just talk on the stoop.”
GT laughed, his smile crinkling his eyes. “Maisie Brown, you are extraordinary. Your fearlessness, your decisiveness. If I had twenty employees like you, I’d own the world. I have to speak honestly …” His voice lowered, he leaned against the doorjamb, and he gave me a crooked smile. “I am enchanted.”
Laelaps was still barking.
“You are so your son’s father,” I said. “I have to know—do you, um, surf or is thi
s a fashion choice?”
He winked. “I have an opportunity that could be worth a great deal of money to you.”
I wrinkled my nose.
GT’s expression shifted, and I thought he could tell that he’d gotten me wrong. “But of course you’re not interested in money. You want … protection for your family.”
“Are you threatening my family?”
GT chewed his gum. “No. Not me, of course, but—”
“I understand that the police are interested in your general doings, GT. Maybe I’ll let them know you’re trying to blackmail a minor.”
GT looked down at his flip-flopped feet. “Detective Brand …” The man who had fallen down the steps was on his feet again. He flashed an FBI badge.
“The officers and agents I don’t own will be happy to exploit you for their purposes,” said GT, “only they don’t pay as well as I do.”
I felt sick. I started to shut the door, but GT put a hand on it. I could have broken his hand off, but he must have known I wouldn’t.
“You think Howell is content losing her treasure to a bunch of kids? Her people will discover a way to extract them, and then she’ll come for you. Maisie, I want you to keep what’s yours, and you can use it to your full potential in my employ. I can help you, and I’m the only person who can.”
Howell’s warnings were still pricking goose bumps on my skin. Dad would be home soon. I wanted to crouch over my parents, protect them. I wanted GT gone.
“Look, you seem like a really nice guy,” I said with a fake, toothy smile. “But you’re way too old for me.”
I shut the door. And I watched through the blinds. If any of them had touched Laelaps, I would have jumped through the front window and gone Hulk on them. But they just looked around the side of the house and went back to their expensive-looking black car.
After GT got in, someone else got out.
I opened the door. “Jacques!”
He waved at me, his cheeks full of dimples. I still wasn’t used to his face without his thick black glasses frames. His eyes looked smaller, his face thinner.
“Maisie, Maisie, one-armed crazy,” he said, strolling to my stoop.
“Get off my lawn, you pesky kid,” I said happily.
“Go bleep yourself.”
“Go teach evolution in Tennessee.”
“Go …” He squinted. “Go …”
Pre-token Jacques would have countered with “go wear a fur coat to a PETA fundraiser” or “go wear a thong on a nude beach” or something. But now he just rubbed his forehead.
“Jacques, what are you doing with him?” I whispered.
“Seeing what the tide brings in.” Jacques fished a pack of peanuts out of his pocket.
“If you want to get away from him, I’ll help you.”
“No thanks,” he said, crunching on peanuts. “I’m in the big time, baby.”
“Are you sure? Has he threatened your parents?”
Jacques made an expression of disgust. “I went home yesterday. Mom said hi, I missed you, and by the way, an honorable businessman has offered you a bleepload of money to start working for him immediately. Told me it’d do me some good to work for a guy like that. Do her some good. She’s getting sick of working two jobs to pay for my private school. Bleep her, I don’t care.”
I couldn’t imagine my mom pushing me to go with GT. “What about your dad?”
“Mon père? Oh, you mean the guy who calls on my birthdays and sent me a bleeping LEGO set at Christmas? No. It was GT who got me away from HAL and … and the thinker.”
I knew why he stumbled. Just a few days ago, leaving the thinker had been unthinkable. I wondered if it’d been as hard for Jacques to run away from Wilder as it had for me. I wondered if his heart still hurt.
“Wilder made some mistakes with Ruth, but GT can’t be better. Is Mi-sun with him too?”
“What if she is? Think of it—you, me, and Mi-sun. The fireteam, on tour and ready to conquer!”
“You and Mi-sun should come here. My parents are cool, they’ll take care of us.”
He dropped the empty bag of peanuts to the ground and rubbed his nose, his eyes never leaving mine.
“How. Bleepin’. Tender. Okay, fine, you stay here in your shoe box of a house. Does it feel good, imagining yourself smart and superior and cozy with your very special mommy and daddy? Does that feel extra fine?”
He started to the car.
“Jacques,” I said.
He turned back. “He won’t stop trying to own you. Neither will Howell or Wilder or any of them. We’re too valuable.” He smiled. “Pick a side, Peligrosa.”
Chapter 22
When Dad got home, we sat in the family room, too nervous to eat dinner. Laelaps took up half the couch, his head on my lap. I stroked his ears.
“What do you think the techno and brute tokens are worth?”
“Hundreds of millions,” said Dad.
“More.” Mom rubbed her neck. “This isn’t a safe place for you, Maisie.”
“We need to stay together or I can’t protect you,” I said.
Perhaps we were falling into GT’s Plan B. He intimidates us, Dad stops going to work so I can watch over him, we get desperate for money, and GT’s “business proposition” starts sounding really good.
The phone rang. Laelaps sat upright.
Mom glanced at us, then answered. She listened for some time before saying, “Thank you, we’ll consider that,” and hung up. “GT offered to hire Maisie as a consultant and pay her a one-million-dollar signing bonus. He implied …” She faltered and then finished in Spanish. He’d implied that if I didn’t, there would be consequences.
Things fall apart, I thought.
A breeze came in through the open window, rattling the blinds. The evening warmth was distilling into the coming dark. I could feel the cool promise of it on my skin, raising the hairs of my arms. The world was softening toward autumn. I put my hand on my mom’s knee and was aware of her heartbeat, fast as a rabbit’s.
The phone rang again. Mom stiffened.
“Don’t answer it,” she said.
Dad said, “It’s better to know as much as we can.”
I said, “From now on, no one gets to you guys without going through me.”
I answered.
“Do you know where Mi-sun is?” It was a woman’s voice.
“Is this Mrs. Hwang?”
“Bonnie Howell said Mi-sun left. She said to call you.”
“I’m sorry, I haven’t seen Mi-sun since I left Texas.”
“She never came home,” said Mrs. Hwang. She had a mild Asian accent, her tone frantic, breathy. “Bonnie Howell took her to the airport, but Mi-sun must not have gotten on her flight. She called me from somewhere, said she didn’t want to come back. I have two other children. How can I handle a daughter who runs off?”
I really wished my mom had answered the phone.
“Mrs. Hwang, if I see Mi-sun—”
“Tell her not to come home if she’s too good for us now.”
She hung up.
I put down the receiver, almost missing the cradle because my hand was shaking. I made sure for the tenth time that the blinds were shut. It felt like the whole world was peering in.
“GT or Howell took Mi-sun. Or the police or FBI or some token hunter … I don’t know who is safe.”
“Do you trust Dr. Howell?” Mom asked.
“I want to, but—” I tapped my chest. I didn’t need to say it—Howell had discovered perhaps the most valuable treasure in the world, a bunch of teenagers ran off with it, and who knew what she would do to get it back.
“We have to go,” Dad said.
“They can’t hurt me,” I said. “I won’t make Ruth’s mistakes. And … and I could fight them, I think.”
“No,” said Mom. “Don’t fight them.”
“But I can—”
“I’ve seen people live a fighting life, nenita. I don’t want that for you.”
Dad nodd
ed. “We go. Together.”
“No. No! Just … just abandon our house and your jobs and everything?” I started pacing again, and I could hear the floorboards protest beneath me. I felt a bone-deep anger, a boiling that made me want to punch something. “This sucks. It sucks. I didn’t even do anything wrong.”
“Maisie …,” Mom started.
I didn’t want to hear it. Guilt was a knife in my gut, twisting.
“It’s partly your fault,” I said. “You gave me this stupid middle name, so I had to prove that I’m not a joke.”
I stepped too hard. There was a crunch of wood, and my leg was knee-deep through the floor. I stomped again and again, feeling strong and mean enough to break the entire earth and let the rocks bury me. And that was where I wanted to be—down and far away, hidden from everybody.
Laelaps whined. I was hip-deep in a hole in the middle of our living room. I glanced up. My parents didn’t look mad or scared. Just sad.
Mom said, “No es culpa tuya, nenita.” It’s not your fault.
I put my hands over my face and cried. I felt Mom and Dad pulling me in, and I let them hold me. Because if Mom hadn’t said what she did, I think I would have run through the front door. I would have gone into the night and never stopped running.
“Luther,” I said through my hands.
“The best protection we can give our friends is if they know nothing at all,” said Mom. “We pack up what we need, and we go.”
“Where?” I whispered.
They hesitated, and I snapped my mouth shut. What if the house was bugged? Anyone could be listening.
We stood in silence for a couple of minutes, full of thoughts that didn’t need speaking. I could see the pencil marks on the doorjamb measuring my height every birthday, the dent in the wall where I’d knocked over a chair, the lighter bit on the hardwood where Dad had sanded away the purple splotch from my spilled grape juice.
Everything felt slippery, life too slick to hold, tipping forward fast. Hadn’t I ached for change? What a huge joke the universe was playing on me.
There was a knock at the door. We all startled, my own heart thumping. Why didn’t Laelaps bark?
“Don’t answer it,” I whispered. But the door started to open on its own. I tiptoed closer, my hand in a fist.