by Trudi Jaye
That meant they’d had to change their plans, and there was only one option. If they were to succeed, Zeph had to help Tilly to turn on the fire alarms in the old empty warehouses at the northern corner of the village. They would do as many as they could between them before the security guards turned up. He checked his watch. Tilly had gone to check on the ice rink, to make sure it was melting on schedule and to make sure the alarms would go off when they needed them to. He would meet her soon on the other side.
They needed two people to break the glass and turn the switches for it to gather momentum and be noticeable. The distraction needed to be large enough to allow them time to escape and remove the blocks on both Missy and Sam before Veronica even noticed they were gone.
That was only one of the shaky sections of their plans. Tilly had left a few days before the others and wasn’t sure who would be there to help them other than Jack. She said she was sure Jack would think to bring Indigo, the woman who’d taken off her block. But Zeph had seen doubt in her eyes, and he knew she wasn’t as certain as she was making out. Jack and the others didn’t know Missy had a block, and they weren’t expecting Sam. So they wouldn’t know it was imperative to bring the woman who could remove the blocks.
If Indigo wasn’t there, Missy and Sam would be completely screwed. The only other way they could think to destroy the blocks would be to kill Veronica, and that was a step he wasn’t willing to contemplate yet. He wasn’t even sure killing her wouldn’t harm Sam and Missy somehow.
Added to that, Zeph was living on borrowed time. He could feel his hands shaking as he stood in the shadows of the big top. The tendrils of Veronica’s curse magic were sitting at the corners of his mind, yearning to come back in. So far, he’d managed to hold it back, but he knew he wouldn’t last forever.
To distract himself, he went over the plan. Once the show started, Missy was going to slip out and make sure her father and the others—Barb, Kitten, and Helene—were ready. They’d had some trouble with his mother, but Zeph had eventually convinced her it was just a temporary departure. Missy would go with them to the secret exit point, which had turned out to be a section of the fence that wasn’t properly covered by the security cameras, where Christoph had removed some of the nails from the boards. It looked normal based on a brief scan, but they could just push aside the boards and leave. Missy would make sure they all escaped and then put the boards back in place.
Zeph would meet up with Tilly after she’d checked the flooding in the ice rink. Sam had to stay in the big top, sitting next to Veronica. His job was to delay her as long as possible once the alarms started, to give them as much time as possible to get out.
Everyone knew their roles, but if Veronica even sniffed something was a little off, she would be able to extract their plans out of almost any one of them.
It was a terrifying feeling, knowing he could be the one responsible for their escape failing, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Zeph glanced at his watch. The early punters were starting to file into the arena; the show would start soon. He wanted to see who had come from the Carnival. Tilly had said they would be in the audience, waiting for their chance to get Missy, Kitten, Zeph, and his mother out of there.
He didn’t know many of the Carnival people, but he did recognize Jack when the tall Ringmaster filed into a row near the front. His face was sombre, and he was looking around as if he were memorizing everything around him. Another man Zeph didn’t recognize touched Jack’s sleeve, pointing at something across the ring. Jack and a third man followed his gaze to where Missy was standing in the shadows on the opposite side.
At least they had backup in the audience. That had been one of their concerns.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Veronica arrive, Sam following behind her. Daphne was sitting on her other side, her eyes bright with the excitement of a show. Zeph watched the trio for a moment, wondering how he’d managed to get out of sitting alongside Veronica. Maybe she sensed she’d pushed him far enough. He’d felt her healing magic helping his back, even as Sam had put salve on it to stop infection while they were still in Veronica’s office. He was almost healed on the outside, but inside, he could remember every slice. It was a confused mix of pain and happiness.
He’d been so pleased to be helping Veronica that the pain had meant nothing to him at the time. But whenever he thought back to it, anger flared inside him. He’d let her do that to him. He’d sat there and allowed that woman to cut him up, and then he’d helped her create a prison for Missy that was as binding as something with actual bars.
He turned and walked stiffly out the door, trying not to run. He was soon striding down the road toward the offices and beyond that, the warehouse buildings. They’d planted their gear earlier and knew exactly where to meet.
He rounded the corner of the last warehouse building and came face to face with a security guard. His own surprise was matched on the face of the guard, who hid one hand behind his back. Smoke rose behind his head.
“Is that a cigarette?” asked Zeph in a stern voice, his heart thumping.
“Uh… I… uh,” said the guard.
“Put it out right now and get back to your post. If you’re lucky, I won’t mention it to Veronica.” Zeph put as much scorn in his voice as he could, trying to mimic Veronica.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” the guard said, nodding.
There were definitely bonuses to being known as one of Veronica’s minions.
Zeph took a couple deep breaths to calm his racing heart and opened the door to the storehouse. It was dark inside, but once his eyes adjusted, he could see Tilly wasn’t there. “Tilly,” he called out, in case she was hiding.
No answer.
He walked silently over to their pile of supplies. They’d gathered newspaper and matches in case they came across a system that was activated only by smoke, plus a couple small hammers to knock out the glass in the others. Two separate backpacks were filled with the matching items.
He jumped when the door opened behind him, the hinges squeaking loudly in the quiet. He grinned with relief when he saw it was Tilly.
“I couldn’t think of a way to get rid of that stupid guard, other than to wait until he was finished,” she said in a rush.
“I bumped into him so I didn’t have a choice,” said Zeph. He noticed the strain on Tilly’s face. “What’s the matter?”
“The ice rink… It’s not melting like we thought it would,” said Tilly, tears shimmering in her eyes. “Or at least it’s melting, but not fast enough. It’s not going to create a flood in time.”
For a moment, Zeph couldn’t breathe. The ice rink flooding had been stage one of the plan. The alarms in the state-of-the-art facility were supposed to drag Veronica out of the big tent. The flooding damage would take her a while to contain and fix. “But… how? Why isn’t it melting?”
“We just didn’t start melting it in time,” said Tilly. “What are we going to do?”
For a moment, Zeph saw their plans tumbling around them. Then he hardened his resolve. “We’ll just have to do the fire alarms. If we do enough of them between us, we’ll cause sufficient noise to be a distraction. It can still work.” It had to work.
Tilly nodded. “Okay. You’re right. This can still work.” She didn’t sound entirely convinced.
He paused. “Are you ready?”
Tilly nodded again, her eyes grim. “Veronica has had her way far too long.”
“Okay. We’ll do the first one together to make sure of the system, then do the rest separately,” said Zeph.
The small fire alarm was next to the side exit on the wall, the small switch encased by a glass cover. Zeph lifted the small hammer, suddenly nervous. This was it. Once he hammered this glass and flipped the switch, they would have gone too far to back down. He thought of Missy and the block Veronica had forced on her. Grimly, he smashed in the glass and reached out. The small switch clicked into place. Zeph winced, expecting the loud siren of fire alarm to start up im
mediately.
Nothing sounded.
He glanced at Tilly. “Is it supposed to start straight away?” he asked.
“I think so,” she replied, her wide eyes staring back at him.
“It could be delayed,” he suggested, not really believing it.
Tilly shook her head. “No, last time it went off straightaway.”
“So she’s turned them off?”
“I think they’re powered by her magic. If she needed extra power for something else, she might have stopped it for a while.”
Zeph remembered Missy’s block. Veronica had said she needed extra power, including from him. Perhaps she’d stopped the power going to the fire alarms as well. He shook his head. “We have to test another one. This could just be an oversight. One they haven’t checked in a while.”
As they ran to the next building over, Zeph’s heart pounded. What were they going to do if they couldn’t set off the alarms? What was their next step?
Would they have to go back to the show and pretend nothing had happened? He shook his head. They couldn’t do that. But how were they going to beat Veronica if they didn’t have something to disturb her immense power?
“You do it,” he said to Tilly when they stood in front of the next alarm. She hesitated, then slammed her hammer into the glass and flicked the switch.
Nothing.
A headache started pounding along the back of his head, and Zeph reached up to rub his temple. “What are we going to do?” he asked quietly.
“We have to… We can’t stop this. There are too many people relying on us to get them out.” Tilly’s voice broke. “I have to get Kitten out of here.”
Zeph looked around the room. The building was mostly wooden, a large warehouse built decades before. “We could light a real fire,” he said.
Tilly shook her head. “We can’t. It’s too dangerous.”
“We’re desperate, Tilly. All our other options have dried up. We light a fire, or we admit we failed. Go back to living under Veronica’s thumb.” The very thought of it made his throat dry up, and he swallowed hard.
Tilly looked around. “I don’t know…” she said.
“We don’t have a choice. What else can we do to get her to stop paying attention to us?” Zeph willed her to agree. They both needed to be on board to make it work.
Tilly swallowed hard. She glanced away from Zeph and then back again, her eyes shadowed. “Okay, you’re right. We have to do something. Let’s do it.”
Zeph tried to be happy she’d agreed, but he wasn’t certain if he’d just convinced her to do the right thing or not. He wished he were more confident of their course of action. They were making decisions on the run, and it could go horribly wrong. But they had no choice.
They worked quietly, setting up piles of newspaper and any flammable materials they could find around the old warehouse. Thoughts were whirring around in Zeph’s head, and he tried to put aside the worry about his mother and Missy and the fear that he was about to turn back into one of Veronica’s zombies. He especially tried not to think about the possibility they were making a huge mistake by lighting these fires.
He had a job to do and he would do it.
“Okay, I’m ready,” called Tilly.
They raced around the room, lighting the little piles they’d set up, making sure each took properly before moving on to the next one. Neither of them spoke.
They hurried outside, Zeph following Tilly to the relative safety of the next building over. In the distance, he could hear the sounds of The Experiment—crowds cheering, the voice of Lorenzo as Ringmaster announcing the next act.
In front of them, the flames in the warehouse grew bigger and bigger until they forced their way out the windows and roof. Smoke billowed up into the sky, and Zeph watched with wide eyes. Their fire was gaining traction fast.
“It’s bigger than I imagined,” said Tilly.
Zeph nodded. He’d forgotten how dry L.A. was. Sparks started dancing on the rooftop and jumping over to the next building.
A strong breeze brushed over Zeph’s face. For the first time, he thought about what that meant for their fire, and his heart started pumping. In front of him, the flames rose higher and stronger, and sparks skipped and hopped to the surrounding buildings. The roaring sound of a hungry blaze was all around, and Zeph had trouble taking his eyes off the ever-expanding flames.
“Was that supposed to happen?” asked Tilly when a second building caught fire, the flames dancing a rapid foxtrot over the roof.
“No. It’s spreading too fast.” He watched as sparks bounced from the second building to a third. It was almost to Veronica’s offices already. “We’re going to have to get people out of the houses—maybe even alert The Experiment tent. And call the fire station right away.” Zeph’s panic made him move quickly. He didn’t want to be responsible for this level of destruction.
They’d made a terrible miscalculation. The fire was going to destroy everything, put lives at risk, and it would be their fault.
Tilly nodded, already starting to move. “I’ll call from Veronica’s office. There shouldn’t be that many people around the closest buildings. Mostly they’ll be at the performance or in their houses. But we have to move fast.” The orange of the flames was reflected on her face.
Then she was gone, sprinting toward Veronica’s office.
For a moment, Zeph gazed into the dancing flames and a wave of fear hit him. The heat of the fire in front of him became the fire on his bike during his accident.
The same terror and sense of helplessness surged over him, and his legs went to jelly. He put one hand on the building next to him and steadied himself. He’d been rescued before the flames had time to do more than warm him up, but he remembered the heat and the smoke like it was yesterday.
He gave himself a shake as one corner of the original building fell in, smashing to the ground and sending sparks leaping into the air. He didn’t have time to be self-indulgent.
He needed to make sure they hadn’t just done something really, really stupid.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Missy ran as fast as she could, Alphonso’s words ringing in her ears.
If you don’t get back in time for our act, it will be over. Veronica will know what you have done because you will tell her everything. You won’t be able to help yourself.
She’d promised to come back in time, but inside her head, she didn’t really believe she’d be able to do it.
The sound of her feet pounding the pavement was the only noise, other than the cheering from the big top she’d just left. Three acts to go until hers.
She hammered on the front door of her parents’ house, not caring about being quiet or unobtrusive. They didn’t have time.
Her mother opened the door and smiled when she saw who was there. “How lovely, Missy. I wasn’t expecting you.” She waved Missy inside. “Let me get you a drink, darling.”
“Hi, Mom. Where’s Dad?”
For a moment, her mother looked flustered, and one hand flittered in front of her like it didn’t know where it should go. Then the dulled expression returned. “I think he’s in the garden, dear. Why don’t you run out and see what he’s doing?”
Missy barely even waited for her mother to close the door before she raced outside. “Dad, what are you doing? Where are the others?”
Christoph nodded at Missy. He was working on something outside his small garden shed. “Hello to you too. They’re all in the living room, watching some show on TV. Kitten’s keeping an eye on the other two, making sure they stay put.”
“Are you ready to go?” Missy peered over his shoulder at what he was doing. It was a mini first aid kit, and he was placing the last few items into a small container.
“Yep. Just waiting for the word from you.”
“Are you expecting to get hurt?” Missy’s heart thudded in her chest.
“Sam gave me some first aid items just in case, and I just wanted them to be all together.”
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“Just make sure you don’t have to use it.” She paused. “Dad, this is it. The alarms are about to go off; the performance has started. You need to get Mom, Helene, and Kitten out now, while the going is good.”
Christoph looked sad and confused for a moment. “I don’t know how it all came to this, Missy. When did it all go so wrong?”
Missy gave her father a hug, trying to convey everything she was feeling. “It’s going to be fine, Dad. You’re going to get out of this place, and then you can figure it all out.” She wished she could say she’d be there to help them, but she really didn’t believe it. Veronica’s hold over her was too powerful.
Her dad looked at her with big eyes, tears shimmering in their depths. “I’m sorry, Missy. I’m sorry for everything.”
Missy shook her head. “Don’t worry about that now, Dad. Just get the others out of here.” She paused and realized she didn’t know where they were going. “Is the hole close?”
Christoph shrugged. “A few houses down from here. I’ll pull the boards aside so we can fit through. We just have to do it before the next guard comes past.”
“Okay, then we need to get going. I have to get back to the performance and somehow talk to whoever has turned up from the Jolly Carnival. Once the alarms start, everyone else will be able to get out of here.”
“I can take them on my own, Missy. You need to get back. We can’t let Veronica win just because you didn’t get back in time.”
“You can put the boards back in place?”
“I can do it well enough that it’ll hide it for a while. That’s all we need.”
“And you know where to meet the others?”
Christoph smiled down at her. “I’m not a child, Missy. I can handle this.” He hugged her again. “Take care of yourself.”
“You too, Dad,” said Missy. “I’d miss you if anything happened.”
And she really meant it.
***
Missy was halfway back to The Experiment arena when she felt something pull on her. It increased in force, becoming stronger, until it was like she had a giant hand dragging her along the road. She tried to fight it but couldn’t even make herself slow down. There was an imperative inside her body, coming from the burning core Veronica had put inside, that was forcing her forward faster and faster until she was sprinting down the road.