by Meg Cabot
But my mom only cared because she had to…she was my mom. And Rebecca… well, she needed me for the money I made her.
At the same time, there was a hurt in my heart that I couldn’t deny, and it had to do with the fact that, while they might have been there, a certain other person was so conspicuously absent.
Frida and Lulu, noticing the sudden tears in my eyes, exchanged glances.
“Uh,” Lulu said. “Okay. Christopher was right.”
My heartbeat sped up a little.
“You talked to Christopher?” I asked. “What did he say? Did he… tell you?” If he had told them about my alleged trust issues, I was going to kill him.
“Yes,” Frida said. “He did. And don’t worry. I’ve got this. We covered it in my Psych class. Em.” She turned toward me, put her hands on my bare shoulders, and started speaking in an exaggeratedly slow voice. “What you’re experiencing right now is called Stockholm syndrome. It’s when you begin sympathizing with your captor because he’s shown you kindness. I know Brandon might be hot, and he gave you that nice shirt. But he’s still a bad guy. Just because he hasn’t killed you doesn’t mean he’s your friend.”
Shocked, I flung her hands off me. “Would you shut up? I’m not in love with Brandon. Ew, is that what Christopher said?” Talk about Too Stupid to Live….
“Oh, phew,” Lulu said, her fragile shoulders slumping with relief. “Good. Look, we don’t have a lot of time. I chartered a jet to take us all back to New York, and it’s waiting on the tarmac. They charge by the hour, so, you know, chop-chop. Go tell the Howards to come back here. By the way”— she dropped her voice— “has Steven asked about me? Did he like the eggs? I made them special just for him. He loves scrambled eggs. By the way, he knows I like him, doesn’t he? I’m being too obvious.” She poked Frida in the arm. “I told you scrambled eggs were too obvious. I should have gone for sunny-side up.”
“Ouch,” Frida said, rubbing her arm. “Lulu.”
“I peeked out a minute ago and saw him,” Lulu went on. “He looks really hot in that sweater. It’s cashmere and we’re at the beach, for heaven’s sake. Maybe he should take that shirt off. It would be all right with you if he went around shirtless, wouldn’t it, Frida? See, Frida wouldn’t mind. And what’s with Nikki’s hair? Is she not even trying? And that green is all wrong for her.”
I took a deep breath.
“You guys,” I said. “Seriously. We can’t leave just yet. Did Christopher not tell you? We have to—”
“Are you all right?” Frida asked. She had taken off the red plastic-framed glasses and now she blinked at me, her eyes looking very dewy. I realized this was because there were tears in them. “Because you look horrible. I mean, underneath the makeup and everything. Do you realize you haven’t smiled once since we got here?”
“You haven’t smiled once since you left New York,” Lulu said, accusingly. “I know, I’ve got you on Google Alert. I’ve seen every shot that’s been taken of you, and you look totally miserable. That’s how we knew.” She shot me a meaningful look. “That you needed to be rescued.”
“Look.” I took Frida and Lulu both by the arm and started steering them toward the back door, through which food deliveries were made. “Thanks a lot for trying to rescue me. I appreciate it. I really do. But we have to—”
Before anyone could say another word, the swinging door to the kitchen slammed open. Lulu let out a shriek…
…for which I couldn’t blame her, since Brandon Stark was suddenly standing there in front of us.
Eight
“WHAT THE HELL,” BRANDON DEMANDED, glaring from Frida to Lulu to me and then back again, “is this?”
“Oh,” Lulu said. Her dark eyes had gone the size of the pancakes she was making. “Hi, Brandon. Did you like the eggs? I made them myself.”
Brandon ignored the question. For which I couldn’t exactly say I blamed him.
“What are you doing here?” He ripped his gaze from them and instead raked it over me.
I knew I had to act, and fast. It wasn’t like I had a lot of time to think over how I was going to handle this, or what I was going to say or do. No one had told me there was going to be a second rescue attempt that morning. This wasn’t like the car bomb thing, which I’d lain awake nights mulling over and planning. I mean, I really hated Brandon Stark, so I’d decided to do the meanest thing to him that I could think of, and that was light his favorite thing on fire.
But in this case, I didn’t have a chance to come up with something as genius as a chemical-soaked beaded necklace slow-burning fuse. I just did the first thing that came to me.
I threw myself at him, draping an arm across his chest and snuggling my boobs up against his shoulder.
This was another advantage of being Nikki Howard. She was very distracting to men.
“My friends came for a visit, Brandon,” I purred. “And they made breakfast. Isn’t that a nice surprise?”
Brandon didn’t look like he thought it was a nice surprise at all. In fact, he continued to look homicidal, completely ignoring my purry voice. And my boobs. Which was quite unusual for him.
“No,” he said, fuming. “Where’s the chef? I paid a lot of money for that chef.”
“He’ll be back tomorrow,” Lulu chirped. “I promise. Look, Brandon. I was going to make you guys pancakes!”
Brandon seemed understandably unimpressed.
“Lulu,” he said. “Were you the one who lit my car on fire?”
Lulu looked confused— which made sense, since she’d had nothing to do with the destruction of Brandon’s Murciélago and had no idea what he was talking about.
“What?” she asked, setting the frying pan back down on the stove with a clang. “No…?”
“I knew it,” he said, reaching into his pocket for his iPhone. “I knew it wasn’t the paparazzi who destroyed my car. That’s it. I’m calling the police and having you all arrested.”
I let go of him and took a step backward.
“Brandon,” I said. “What are you doing?”
Except it was pretty clear what he was doing as the tones of 911 filled the air.
“Don’t worry, babe,” he said to me. “I have it under control.” He pointed at Lulu and Frida as he said, “This is trespassing, you know, and that, my friends, was destruction of property. That Murciélago was worth over a quarter of a million dollars. Lulu, your dad can afford to pay that back, even if his last movie was a bit of a dud. Yes, hello,” he said when someone on the other end of the cell phone picked up. “I’d like to report a—”
But before the last words were out of his mouth, a muscular, charcoal gray-clad arm appeared around his neck— seemingly from nowhere.
And Brandon’s voice was cut off. He dropped the phone, reaching to claw at the arm.
But it was too late. A second later, Brandon closed his eyes. By then the arm had released him, and Brandon had sunk quietly to the floor, unconscious. Cosabella hurried over to him to sniff his ear, then give it an encouraging lick.
We all stood there, blinking down at him, completely unsure what had transpired— it had all happened so fast— until someone cleared his throat.
That’s when we noticed Steven. He had apparently been standing behind Brandon the whole time he’d been talking to us. It had been his arm that had choked Brandon into unconsciousness.
“Steven,” Lulu said, her face transforming into an expression I can only describe as unmitigated adoration. “Oh, hi!”
“Uh,” Steven said, looking a little uncomfortable, “hi, Lulu.”
“Oh, my God,” Frida cried, snatching up a spoon and bending down to hold it in front of Brandon’s nose, apparently to check and see if he was still breathing. “He’s dead!”
“No,” Steven said a little diffidently. “He’s not dead. He’ll wake up soon, no worse for wear. He won’t even know what happened.”
“Did you learn that choke hold in military training?” Lulu asked as she stepped over Brandon�
��s prone body to come up to Steven and rub her body against his like a cat. I’m not even lying when I say her eyelashes fluttered.
“Uh,” Steven said, eyeing her even more uncertainly than before. “Yes?”
“That was incredible,” Frida said. She seemed just as admiring as Lulu. Maybe even more so. I flashed her an annoyed look. She was supposed to have a crush on Gabriel Luna, not Nikki Howard’s older brother.
“So,” Steven said, ignoring his new fan club. “Would someone care to tell me what’s going on here?”
As he asked this, there was the sound of an explosion…so powerful, it actually rocked the kitchen a little, causing all the pots and pans hanging from a rack over the center island to clatter together and make a tinkling sound. I grabbed hold of the counter to steady myself on my heels.
“What was that?” I asked, alarmed.
“Oh.” Lulu tugged on her chef’s toque so it sat at a more rakish angle, and said, “That was just Christopher. He was supposed to blow something up to distract Brandon’s security guards— and Brandon— so we could all slip safely out the back.” She looked over at Steven adoringly. “But Steven already distracted Brandon, as you can see.”
“Wait,” I said, my heart stopping. “Christopher’s here? With you?”
“Of course he’s here,” Frida said. “He said you two talked last night,” just as Lulu was explaining at the same time, batting her big Bambi eyes at Steven, “We’re here to rescue you. And your mom and Em.” Then she added, with just a hint of distaste, “And your sister, too.”
“Steven!” The kitchen door flew open. It was Mrs. Howard, looking pale, followed by Harry and Winston. “What’s going on? What was that—” She looked down at the unconscious Brandon. He seemed to be sleeping gently as a baby. “Oh, dear…”
“He’s all right, Mom,” Steven quickly assured his panic-stricken mother. He went to put an arm around her. “Why don’t you and Nikki go and get some things together? I think we’re going to have to be leaving here in a minute or two.”
Mrs. Howard shook her head, unable to tear her gaze from Brandon.
“We always seem to be fleeing places at the most unexpected times,” she murmured.
But her reaction was mild in comparison to her daughter’s, who came in a few seconds after her mother had left and whined, “What’s going on? What was that—”
That’s when her gaze fell to the floor, and she let out a bloodcurdling scream.
“Brandon!” Nikki fell to her knees at her ex-boyfriend’s side. “Oh, my God, Brandon! Are you hurt?”
Brandon actually appeared to be regaining consciousness as she asked this, partly because Nikki had yanked him into a sitting position. He rolled his head back and forth, murmuring something about how he didn’t want any more peekytoe salad. When his eyelids fluttered open, he looked at Nikki and asked in a dazed voice, just like in the movies, “What happened?”
“Steven did a secret military move on you,” Lulu volunteered to Brandon. “Don’t worry, though. You’re going to be fine.”
“What?” Nikki cried, whipping her head toward her brother. “You did it? Why would you do that to Brandon, of all people? He’s been so nice to us!”
Uh, maybe he’d been nice to her. To me? Not so much.
“Because he was going to call the police and have your friends arrested, Nikki,” Steven explained. “And they’re only trying to help.”
“Help?” Nikki’s flat-ironed hair flew around as she looked from Steven to Lulu and me and then back again. “Help how?”
“Help us get out of here, Nikki,” I said. I didn’t want to be the one to give Nikki the bad news. But someone had to do it. “Now that you told Brandon what you heard about the Stark Quarks, he has no use for you anymore. He’s going to cut you and your family lose.”
Brandon didn’t dispute this. To be fair, he didn’t look as if he was in the greatest shape to.
“No.” She shook her head back and forth so rapidly that a lot of that shiny hair got a bit staticky and started sticking straight up into the air. She didn’t seem to notice, though. “No, he’s not. He’s getting me my operation. Aren’t you, Brandon? Tell them.” Brandon was still a little groggy from whatever Steven had done to him, so Nikki, I guess to be helpful, gave his face a few smacks. “Did you hear me, Brandon? Tell them!”
“Uh, Nik?” Steven said. “Slapping him isn’t really going to help.”
It was at this moment that the back door to the kitchen tore open and Christopher came bursting in, a smudge of something that looked like oil on his cheek, his jeans dirty, and his leather jacket flapping open. He stopped on the threshold, apparently surprised to see us all gathered there, and particularly Brandon on the floor…
…and me, standing above him.
It only took him a second or two, however, to gather himself together.
And it only took a heartbeat for my breath to be knocked completely from me by the sight of him.
Which was infuriating. Because I was really, really mad at him. And I definitely wasn’t in love with him anymore.
Why would I be in love with such an infuriating, stubborn person?
Or at least, that’s what I told myself.
“Oh, good,” he said. “You’re all here. Let’s go, then; we don’t have much time. I’m pretty sure one of the security guards called 9-1-1. They’re all over on the beach now, putting out the fire. Still, we need to go now.”
Oh, the fire. Right. Of course.
“What do we do about him?” Steven asked, nodding at Brandon.
Christopher looked down at the heir to Robert Stark’s vast fortune. “What happened to him?” he asked curiously.
“Steven used a secret military choke hold on him,” Lulu volunteered again, just as chipperly as before.
“Excellent,” Christopher said with a congratulatory nod at Steven. “Tie him up.”
Tie him up? I stared down at Brandon, who looked about as freaked out as I felt. I couldn’t believe Christopher— my Christopher— had just casually suggested someone tie up Brandon Stark. Who had Christopher turned into? A week ago he’d been a relatively geeky— if hot— straight-A junior at Tribeca Alternative High School in Manhattan.
Now all of a sudden he’s John Connor from Terminator Salvation?
“Tie him up?” Nikki looked up with tears brimming in eyes that were already mascara smudged. “You can’t be serious. You are not going to tie him up.”
“Here’s some cooking twine,” Lulu said, after opening a few kitchen drawers.
“Perfect,” Christopher said, and reached for the spool of twine Lulu handed to him. “Steven, want to help me out here?”
“It would be my pleasure.” Steven bent over to begin wrapping Brandon’s legs in lengths of cooking twine, while Christopher went to work on his wrists.
“Are you crazy?” Brandon demanded. He seemed to be coming around, but not enough to fight what was happening to him. Except vocally. “Do you know who I am? When my father hears about this—”
“When he hears about what?” Christopher wanted to know. “How you had a girl he tried to murder here in your house for nearly a week and never told him about it, because you were trying to get her to tell you what it was he tried to have her killed for in the first place?”
Christopher did have a point. On the other hand…
Frida edged over to me and whispered, “What’s going to happen when Brandon gets out of that string, or whatever? I mean, isn’t he going to be mad?”
“I would think so,” I said.
“Then won’t he just come after all of us?” she asked worriedly.
“Probably,” I said.
This had been exactly what I’d been thinking. I was a little surprised Frida had figured it out. Frida had lately begun showing startling growth and maturity for someone who, just a few short months earlier, had been willing to stand for hours on line just to get the autograph of some guy I had never even heard of.
Suddenly, I
became aware that Nikki’s sobs had reached a pitch where they sounded like keening. I’d never heard actual keening before, but I’d read about it in books. It sounded like wailing, only higher pitched. Nikki was hugging herself and rocking back and forth on her knees like a little kid who’d had her favorite toy taken away.
“No, no, no, no,” she was saying, the noes growing progressively louder. “I am not leaving here! Not without Brandon!”
Lulu, I noticed, was viewing Nikki’s theatrics a little less sympathetically than anyone else in the room. Since I’d never seen Lulu behave anything but kindly toward anyone, I couldn’t help feeling a little surprised when she said with more than a hint of prickliness to Nikki, “You seem awfully devoted to Brandon now, Nikki. But you weren’t so devoted to him back when you were sneaking around behind his back— and mine— with my boyfriend, Justin, were you?”
This cut Nikki’s keening off like a siren that someone had suddenly silenced— just as, in the distance, we heard the wail of a real-life siren.
The police were on their way.
Brandon looked over at Nikki in surprise— almost as if he were really seeing her for the first time.
“You?” His dark eyebrows furrowed. “And Justin?”
Nikki’s mouth fell open, and she looked from Brandon to Lulu and then back again, seeming to be gulping a little for air, as if she were one of the fish from Brandon’s aquarium…one that had accidentally leapt out of the safety of its soothing blue waters.
“You— you found out about that?” she asked, sounding a little stunned.
“He tried to perform mouth-to-mouth on Em,” Lulu said, pointing at me. “Only she wasn’t experiencing any trouble breathing, if you know what I mean.”
I winced. I’d always wondered if Lulu had been looking out the window that day Justin had snuck up on me outside the loft.
Now I knew. Poor Lulu.
And poor Nikki. She blinked as if someone had slapped her. Her mouth was still moving noiselessly, as if she were trying to say something.
Only no words were coming out of her mouth.
“As much as I’d love to stand around and continue this very special episode of America’s Next Top Teen Supermodel,” Christopher said, “we need to get moving before—”