by Anita Oh
"There is a way to break the spell, Lucy O'Connor," the spellcaster said, backing out of the room. "But first you have to believe."
*
"What happened? Are you okay? Lucy, answer me!"
I sat up in bed, stretching and yawning. I had no clue what the time was but that was the best sleep I'd had in ages.
"What's up?" I said.
I looked up from my cozy little room to find three massive werewolf faces staring down at me from outside the iron cage. Clearly, the full moon was over.
"Did Astor try to attack you?" Sam asked. He looked tired but better than he had in days.
I shook my head. "Not Astor."
"Don't tell me, you tripped and pressed the panic button by accident," said Tennyson Wilde, rolling his eyes at me.
"No, you jerk. It was the spellcaster."
That made him pipe down. The three of them listened while I explained everything that had happened.
"And that was all they said? Why did you question them about their master plan? Why didn't you get more clues on their identity?"
I rolled my eyes. "Look, sorry that I failed Interrogation 101 but they kind of caught me off guard. Maybe you could draw up a list of questions for me to ask next time since you're so awesome at everything ever."
"How did they get in?" Sam wondered aloud.
"Probably Astor's card, but we should look into it. And also check any security footage."
"They seemed like they were looking for something in particular, and they obviously knew you guys weren't going to be here. You should double check anything they might have taken as well."
Nikolai and Tennyson went off to check stuff but Sam stayed behind with me. I opened up my wardrobe and went through the clothes, trying to pick something to wear out of all the fresh, clean clothes in there.
"It will take a while for the cage to be restored," he said, sitting down on the floor outside the bars. "Do you need anything?"
"Food," I told him. "Bacon." I'd been craving it ever since the night before.
He sent down for some food and then sat there, staring up at me. "I wonder what they meant though, about your kind."
I shrugged. "Probably nothing. Just messing with me."
Sam shook his head. "Strange thing to say though."
"Maybe they meant humans."
"Humans and magic casters have never been allies though, there's a long history of fear and mistrust."
"What are you trying to say, Sam?"
He shrugged again and wouldn't meet my eye. We both knew what he was trying to say but no way were we going to talk about it out loud. Ever.
"Our parents…" he started.
"Our parents wrote a book. So what? That doesn't mean squat, so just drop it."
He didn't speak again until the food came. While he arranged it on a tiny plate, I dressed in a stripy dress but didn't bother with the plastic shoes because they were strange. Once I was dressed, I climbed down out of my house and over to the iron bars, where Sam handed me my food.
"Lucy," he said softly. "If we knew what you were, maybe we could stop all this from happening."
"I'm a human girl," I told him, tucking into my food. "Just a super unlucky one."
Sam didn't say anything else about it but I could tell it was on his mind. He didn't say anything to the others about it either, at least, not in front of me. I was sure Tennyson Wilde had picked up on it though, nothing got past him, so maybe they were talking about it when I wasn't around. Making a list of things I could be, going through their database of magical creatures and ticking me off it. But I knew it was wrong. I was human. There was literally nothing different or special about me at all, I was the most ordinary person ever.
The day after the full moon, Astor was back, and more obnoxious than ever.
"I know she's here somewhere," Astor said. "I know you lied, so now you gotta just shut your faces and do what I say. You're gonna hand her over in the next 48 hours or I'm going to post that video all over the internet. Now, get me some lunch and one of those Swedish massages. And not with some ugly girl either, the hottest girl you got." He snapped his fingers at Tennyson to hurry him along.
"We have to get that video," I whispered from Sam's pocket as everyone left the room as quickly as possible. "I'm small enough to creep up and steal his swipe card out of his pocket without him noticing."
"They have fingerprint ID and retina scan as well," said Tennyson.
"I'm okay with him losing a hand and an eye," I said. "It might be good for him, character building, you know?"
"Any of us could get into the Green House easily," said Nikolai. "We'd just need to turn on the charm. It's getting into his room that's the problem."
"That's not the only problem," I said. "By now he's probably backed the video up to the cloud, so we don't need to just find the device that has the original video, but anywhere he might've saved it to as well."
Which gave me an idea. I'd never written a virus before but I knew the theory behind it. I couldn't do it myself though, not unless I wanted to spend hours running around a keyboard, jumping on keys.
"This is not going to work," Tennyson said, looking over Sam's shoulder as Sam typed out my instructions.
"Well, it's better than your plan, which was to do nothing and just let Astor do as he liked. And there's no reason it won't work. We just need to send this to his phone and watch the beauty unfold."
We named the file "BOOBS.jpg" and sent it to Astor through the messaging system on the school app. We saw when he received the message but couldn't tell whether or not he'd opened the file. There was really no way of judging if it had worked or not, that was the one flaw in my amazing plan. That was why we had to steal Astor's phone to see if all the data had been wiped.
Tennyson Wilde thought he was the king of plans, but his plans always sucked the most. At least my plan hadn't involved anyone getting up close and personal with Astor's back pocket. And I don't know why it had to be me, anyone could've snuck into the polo club's locker room and grabbed his phone. Sure, they'd have been way more noticeable in Tennyson's pocket but it wasn't impossible.
I kept my eyes tight shut and blocked my ears as I waited in the coat pocket while the polo players got ready to train. There was some grumbling from a few people about Tennyson's tactics and that kind of thing, which seemed mostly incited by Astor. I didn't much care for the opinions of the polo team, no matter how loudly they gave them, but it did give a good indication of where I'd be able to find Astor's stuff. It took them forever to change clothes and complain, but finally they filed out onto the ground, leaving me alone with their sweaty jock straps and other treats. I climbed down out of the pocket and onto the bench, climbing over everyone's school clothes they'd dumped down to try to find Astor's stuff.
Astor hadn't left his stuff lying around like the others had, but had shoved it willy-nilly into his locker. That made my job a bit more difficult. It crossed my mind that I could bow out, tell them it had been too hard, I couldn't get all the way up into Astor's locker. Nobody would blame me. The locker was up super high. But everyone was counting on me to get this done. If it hadn't been for me, Astor would never have been able to film Sam turning all wolfy because none of them would've been anywhere near Astor. Even though Tennyson and Nikolai were jerks, they had no obligation to me and yet had protected me from the moment Tennyson had found me in the snow, about to be eaten by rats. Now it was my turn to protect them.
Astor's locker was near the end of the row, right near a bunch of spare polo sticks. That was perfect. I grabbed one with both hands, wrestling it into position. Astor hadn't locked the locker, I noticed, just pulled it closed. I tried to lift the polo stick up high enough to hook around the handle of Astor's locker and pull it open, but it was too heavy and I lost my grip, and the polo stick clattered to the floor. I tried again with another stick and the same thing happened, they were just too heavy and cumbersome for my itty bitty hands. I had to try something else.
I grabbed another polo stick and balanced it with the handle against the ground and my arms around the knobby end bit. This really needed to work because I did not want to end my life squished up on the floor of the boys' locker room.
I kicked off from the bench, clinging to the polo stick as I flew through the air. Wow, they really should give these jobs to someone a bit less clumsy than me, I thought, as the locker grew closer and closer. I had to time it perfectly.
When I thought I was close enough, I let go of the stick and launched myself at the strips of holes in the locker. What even are those holes for? Ventilation? For what though? Lockers were a mystery to me. But I caught on and pulled myself in through the hole, landing safely inside Astor's shoe, which had a nice, springy sole.
It was pretty dark inside the locker but I looked around as best I could until I found his phone inside his blazer pocket. Unlocking it was no problem — he said his passcode out loud every time he typed it into his phone and he never seemed to bother with fingerprint ID. Hitting the numbers with enough force for it to register was a bit of an issue, but I managed it.
First, I went to his photos app. I braced myself for the horrors I might find there, but lucky for me, it was empty. His mail was empty too, and his messages and call log. I went into the school app, but the only thing in there was the message with the virus. It was great that it had worked so well but also sucked that I had access to all his info but couldn't actually find anything out from it because it had been wiped. I searched through all his apps, my arms aching from the effort of swiping across the screen, but I couldn't find one for the cloud. It was possible he had everything automatically back up though, so I went into his settings to see if I could find anything out. If I could find even the email he used to log in, I could try to access it when I was home.
Before I could get into his settings though, I heard something unmistakable. It sounded like a herd of buffalo only more obnoxious and entitled.
The polo team returning from practice. And I was stuck in Astor's locker.
Chapter 15
I hadn't thought my plan through to the extent of how I'd get out of the locker, but there was only really one way. I had to throw my full weight against the locker door and hope for the best. Even if I landed headfirst on the cold concrete floor, that would be way better than getting caught by Astor in his locker.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and rammed into the locker door. I flew through the air, hoping for the best but expecting any moment to black out from the contact with the floor. I landed on something soft, and drew a sharp, relieved breath. That was a mistake. I'd landed in someone's sweaty socks and the smell was overwhelming. The herd of polo players was almost upon me, so I fought my way out of the socks to try to reach the safety of Tennyson Wilde's coat pocket.
I ran as fast as I could, using the terrain of discarded shoes and bags to my advantages, ducking behind them and hiding once the polo players were there. Every time I thought I was safe and could take a moment to catch my breath, the landscape would move — someone would pick up with sweatshirt or sit down right next to my head. Then there was the other danger. I did not want to get up close and personal with the most intimate places of sweaty polo players, and I certainly did not want to invade their privacy by being forced to look at those intimate places, but it didn't seem as if I'd have much choice. They stripped off their clothes and frolicked around naked as they prepared for the showers. Why did they need to frolic so much, were they actually trying to trample me? Sheesh, just get in the shower already, what was with all the towel-snapping and name-calling and whatnot.
Finally, I made it back to Tennyson Wilde's pocket. He had not taken off his clothes, but was sitting primly by his locker. He looked down as I climbed up into his coat and I gave him a thumbs up to show that the mission was complete, before I ducked down out of sight. I covered my eyes and ears just to be on the safe side, those naked polo players really liked to flaunt their stuff.
It wasn't surprising that I had a little nap. My energy levels seemed to be proportionate to my size and getting into Astor's locker had been a mammoth effort. Plus, there was something super comforting about Tennyson Wilde's pocket; something about the smell, the luxurious texture of the fabric that made me feel as if I was protected from anything the outside world could throw at me. Through my nap, I was vaguely aware of being carried back to the house, but I didn't see any need to be alert for it. Rather, I just let the soft motion of his footsteps rock me back to sleep.
I was woken up by yelling. It took me less than a nanosecond to figure out what was going on.
"Do you think I'm stupid?" Astor yelled.
"Buddy," said Nikolai. "Everyone you've ever met thinks you're stupid. That's hardly the issue here."
"Did you think I wouldn't have back up copies of the video? You think I don't have it scheduled to upload if there's no response from me? See, that's exactly the problem with you lot. You think you're so much better than everyone else and then it's a big shock when you find out you're not, right?"
I didn't dare to peek out of the pocket to see what was going on but things sounded heated.
"You know what this tells me?" Astor asked. "It tells me you're never going to hand over the girl. You're going to find some way to weasel out of this, just like you weasel your way out of everything. Well, that's not going to work on me. I'm sick of playing around with you losers. If you don't hand over the girl by midnight tonight, that video is going live."
I heard stomping footsteps and then a door slam, and Tennyson Wilde sunk down into his chair. I climbed out of his pocket and up onto the table.
"We're not handing her over," said Sam, sitting opposite.
"Obviously not," said Tennyson. "She is our only bargaining chip. If we hand her over, we lose any leverage against him."
"We need to discredit him," Nikolai said, pulling out his phone. "I'll make some calls."
"Even then, does anyone ever care about the integrity of the person who starts a scandal?" I asked. "People will watch the video and make their own conclusions."
"I'm sorry," said Sam, quietly.
I shot him the finger guns. "People probably won't even believe it," I told him, trying to sound upbeat. "It doesn't even look real; you look like you're wearing some sort of freaky Halloween make-up or something."
Sam's face fell and I bit my lip. Yeah, way to win his heart, Lucy, by insulting his face.
"That is true," said Tennyson. "Humans do tend to rationalize. But even if the video is passed off as a fake, there are those out there who will know the truth of it…" His eyes met Sam's across the table.
"The people who captured me."
Tennyson nodded. "And others like them. The opinions of the general public matter little and are easily swayed, but if the wrong people see it and learn where you are, we will all be in great danger."
"What, like werewolf hunters?" I asked, looking around at their worried faces.
Tennyson shook his head. "Nothing so straightforward. We call them The Others. We do not know what they are, not really. They are human but not entirely. We only know of them because of those like Sam, people lucky enough to survive them and brave enough to oppose them. They do hunt us, that is true, but they also steal from us, distort us, torment us, and only kill us when they have no use left for us. They are scientists and magicians, part demon and part fey, combining the worst of both natural and supernatural worlds for their evil purpose."
I sat down with a thud. I didn't want to think about that kind of thing even existing, let alone being out to get Sam. I remembered that figure I'd seen the night Sam had vanished, the screaming I'd heard, and I completely understood the fear in Tennyson Wilde's voice.
The three of them discussed different plans, ways they could get into Astor's room and find any hardcopies of the video he might have, but I felt a million miles away.
Tennyson said they needed me as leverage, but I didn't think Astor was bluffing about uploading
the video. I couldn't just sit there and let them risk themselves. Not just their lives, but their family's, their entire world. They'd protected me while I was tiny and now it was my turn to protect them.
They were so involved in their planning that Nikolai had discarded his phone on the table beside me. They didn't notice as I opened up the school messaging app and sent Astor through a message.
"This is Lucy. Let's discuss terms."
Chapter 16
I waited until the others were asleep to sneak out and meet Astor. Getting out of the Golden House was no easy thing, there were sensors everywhere and everything was locked up tight, plus everyone who lived there had super hearing. I had to use every bit of my stealth to get out undetected but finally I escaped out into the night.
It had been difficult to find a suitable place to meet Astor. It had to be neutral ground — I didn't want him to have concrete proof that the Golden had been harboring me, but it wasn't as if I could get very far on my own either. He was going to have the advantage no matter what but I didn't need to make it easy for him. We agreed on the entrance to the bamboo forest. I could get there without help if I just followed the path and it provided ample hiding spots and places to escape should my plan fail.
My plan was going to fail. I had no illusions about the lameness of my plan. It was so lame that Tennyson Wilde could've come up with it. The best possible outcome was that I'd get Astor to wipe the footage of Sam and agree to never bother the Golden again, and I knew exactly how likely that was, which was not at all. And even if he did agree to that, no way was I coming out of this meeting safely. I wasn't sure what he wanted from me, what his end game was, if he even had one, but I knew it was nothing good. Astor was a jerk and that surely meant he was motivated by being a jerk.
Even though the bamboo forest was close, it was still a huge walk for my short legs. I'd gotten used to being carried around in fancy hats and pockets all too quickly and it was a rude shock to be faced with the huge, scary world all by myself again. I'd planned to be early, to set myself up in the prime position for the meeting, to give myself even the slightest advantage, but it took me longer than I anticipated and I'd barely scouted out the area when I heard Astor's booming footsteps approach. I ducked into the forest and hid behind a bamboo stalk as I waited for Astor to stake his spot. I let him sweat for a while as I went over in my mind what I planned to say to him to get him to agree to what I wanted.