He taught me how to climb the gorgeous sandstone mountain while he belayed, holding the safety ropes firmly while I climbed. I only climbed half of the 1500 feet, but I could see how fatigue might play a huge roll in my success or failure tomorrow. He then started me on free soloing. Talk about difficult. My arms shook more often than I cared to admit, and I only climbed about 100 feet. Jeremy made me take the ropes to get back down.
“You don’t have to do this, Christy. It’s so dangerous. You can’t infiltrate the kidnapping ring if you’re dead.” He saw the look of determination on my face and sighed. “At least, if they give you a choice, go up attached.” He grabbed my arm and rubbed his thumb over my skin. “You have nothing to prove, and I won’t be here to guide you. Can you trust these kids to teach you well?”
“No worries,” I said. “I don’t want to die. I’ll be as safe and careful as I can be.”
“I had Toni, our electronics guru, make this lip balm to help protect you. If it’s within fifty feet of you when you activate your tracking beacon, it will protect the signal, effectively making it undetectable to anyone but us. That way, you won’t have to pulse it, you’ll be able to send a sustained signal. Still, you won’t want to let it send longer than about a minute just to be sure, but Toni outdid herself on this one. Keep it with you from now on.
“Whichever group it is they will be kidnapping, now that you’ve appeared on the scene, I’m sure it will happen soon. I don’t know how you fit in with the Avengers besides being number eight, but we need to be alert from now on. I have to have you safe and be sure I can find you when the kidnappers take you.”
Hearing him say it that way really drove the fact that I was about to be kidnapped by some crazy person, and I had no idea what they did with the teens they took. What if we were to be used as sacrifices, or for torture, or for experimentation? What if I never had the chance to activate the tracker in the first place?
He gathered me into a hug, and I thought I felt him kiss my hair, but I must have been mistaken.
“Be careful, watchful,” he said.
“I will,” I said.
When he pulled back, he sighed. “I guess that’s all I can ask. Let’s get this over with.”
On the drive home, I took the opportunity to ask Jeremy about himself.
“So, how old are you anyway?”
He looked at me briefly and smiled. “How old do you think I am?”
“When I first met you in DC, I thought you were about twenty-one.”
“That’s right. I’m twenty-one.”
I slugged him. “No you’re not. You couldn’t be. You’ve been doing this for a while.”
“You’re only eighteen and you work for Division 57. Why not me, too?” He raised his eyebrows at me. “You think you’re special or something?” He chuckled.
I laughed, too. “Give it up, ordinary guy. What’s your age?”
“I take offense to that,” he said, trying to keep a straight face. Then he busted up a bit, pushing a rush of air through his nose and smiling. “You really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“Oh, man, you’re practically an old man.”
For a mere second, I thought I saw sadness pass through him, but then it was gone just as fast as it flashed by.
“Yep,” he said. “Could you hand me my spectacles, young chic-a-dee, I can’t seem to see the road.” He swerved dangerously close to the edge of the road and then wove in and out of the two lanes of highway.
I screeched. “Okay. Okay. I take it back. You’re a quarter of a century young.”
“You better remember that,” he said, smiling and straightening his driving.
He took me to lunch in a town on the way home. Dakota texted me a few times, but I ignored him. After lunch, we drove back to my house. I slept the whole way. At home, I took a shower, and only then did I text Dakota back. I picked up the lip balm Jeremy had given me and noticed in the fine print it said, Believe in you! Ltd.
Code, of course.
I giggled, putting the lip balm up to my lips and closing my eyes. With Jeremy protecting me, I wouldn’t have to worry about staying safe.
I got a text from Frankie,
No rock tomorrow. Next Mon. Surf the rails Wed.
I hated to admit it, but I was glad. I was pooped. I went to bed early, and I got up late, my body aching. I was in great shape, but rock climbing used muscles I don’t think I’d ever used before. I took a few ibuprofen with my breakfast and it eased the ache. I let Agent Wood and Agent Penrod know about my plans for the day, and they actually seemed interested and didn’t talk down to me. What had caused the change?
After school, Madness got together to create a video for drama class. We acted out a modern day Tristan and Isolde. Ian was Tristan, and Abby was Isolde. They’d made up the modern twist on the play a while ago, but did a few clever things to add a part for me. They’d gone all out with costumes and props. Camden was the camera man/director. Troy would be editing it the next day, and we’d have a movie night Wednesday to view it. I’d never done anything like that before.
Dakota coached me a bit before I made my cameo appearance. He was a great director. I had no doubt the final product would be extraordinary. He was kind and forgiving when people made mistakes. There was no way he was working for the bad guys. Dakota wanted me to stay afterward, but I told him I wasn’t feeling well. I had to start distancing myself from him now that I thought he probably wasn’t a part of the group getting kidnapped.
Much to my relief, neither group did anything together on Tuesday. I pretended not to feel well the whole day at school so that Dakota wouldn’t push doing something together after school. While he cuddled me a bit, he didn’t kiss anything but my forehead, and when hugging me at my car after school, he told me to rest and get better.
There was no time for rest. I met with Jeremy in the abandoned warehouse for a few hours to learn about rail surfing and work a little bit on climbing again. I claimed exhaustion at nine, and he spread a blanket out on the floor, set a flashlight in the middle of it, and pulled out two take-out boxes and two bottled waters and sat them next to each other.
“Dinner?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” he said, and raised his eyebrows. The scruff on his face made him look extra enticing. “Why don’t you open the box and see.”
I did. Inside was a Belgian waffle. A real one. Not like the fake, fluffy ones we had in the U.S. We’re talking an authentic, rich, dense, luscious waffle.
“Oh no, you didn’t!” I squealed with delight as I sat in front of it.
“Oh yes, I did,” he said, sitting next to me and then opening his box and digging in. He could be so thoughtful. I hadn’t had one of these since leaving Belgium and the spy school. Jeremy and I had gone out to a couple of international restaurants while I was at Division 57 headquarters, and I always ordered one if it was available.
I closed my eyes to enjoy the crispy crunchy outside and rich, dense inside more fully. I could feel chocolate sticking to my lips and didn’t even care if he saw it there. I was in heaven—I’d clean up when I was done. When I opened my eyes, his lips were covered in chocolate, too. We laughed and playfully bumped our shoulders together. He gave me his last bite, popping it into my open mouth. Something about the way he did it caused goose bumps to rise on my neck. We were so close. He smelled fantastic, and I had this sudden desire to touch his arm. I resisted and began cleaning up. Despite my sudden chocolate high, after we’d cleaned up, I was totally ready to go home and sleep.
The next day after dinner, I went to Troy’s house to watch the video we’d made. Dakota hadn’t arrived yet, so I plopped down in the middle of Mindy and Tarran. Troy had done a great job of editing. He even made me look good. He had one of those cool, old-fashioned popcorn poppers and a soda fountain. He ordered pizza from Abby’s, and we pigged out on junk watching and rewatching the video. Dakota was a good hour
late. I waved at him and smiled when he walked in, but made no move to go to him. We laughed so hard a few times, tears rolled from our eyes. My gut ached from both the junk food and the laughter. We wrapped it up about ten. Dakota walked me to my car and hugged me tight.
“Why were you late?” I asked.
“My dad needed me to do a few things for him.”
“You didn’t miss much, anyway.”
“I missed sitting with you, so I missed a lot.” He looked me in the eye and then kissed me. He knew just what to say. I wished he didn’t.
Back home, around midnight, my phone vibrated, and then I heard a knock on my window. It was Frankie letting me know the Avengers were there to get me. No one had told me what time or where to meet for the rail surfing, so I had guessed they just forgot about me. It felt good that they hadn’t.
She climbed into my room with a bag in her hand. “Here are some clothes for you to wear.” She handed the bag to me. “I hope they fit.”
The tags were still attached when I pulled them out.
“How much do I owe you?” I asked.
She laughed quietly. “You think I bought those things? Are you crazy? Did you see how expensive they were?” She laughed again.
I shook my head and started to dress. I made a mental note to send money to the store Frankie had lifted the clothes from.
The clothes were black and form fitting. The socks and shoes were rubbery, gummy even. I could see them easily sticking to slick surfaces. The gloves had the same stuff on them. I felt I could grip anything with what I had on. I didn’t put the mask on. I figured I’d wait until we got there.
Once I climbed out the window and closed it, I made a sound like a bear roaring and chased Frankie to the car.
“You’re such a dork, Misha,” she said, climbing into the van.
“I know,” I said. “Every time I try to reign it in, it gets worse.” I followed her. “So, I just let myself be.”
Duncan gave me a little tutorial on rail surfing as we drove. “We need to jump on the train while it’s still in the yard. It only goes about ten miles an hour in the yard. Even a newbie can jump on a train traveling at ten miles an hour.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m a fast runner anyway.
“It’ll be easy, really,” he said. “The trick is getting on the train without being seen. Typically there aren’t any workers around that time of night, but we have to make sure. The train only has one conductor, too. We’ll be jumping on cars at the back of the train, so he’ll have no idea we’re even there. At this time of night in the darkness, he’ll never see us.”
“Convenient.”
“Indeed. Once on the train, we’ll hunker down until the train gets up to its maximum speed, which on this train, on this track, is fifty miles per hour. It’s a respectable speed for a beginner. Once at speed, we’ll climb to the top of the train and then stand.”
“Cool.”
“We all usually take our own car, but Frankie will double up with you until she feels you have the hang of it. At that point, she’ll move to the car in front of you.”
After that, Duncan told me pretty much the same general things Jeremy had said. The train would not be smooth, but rock from side to side. A wide stance and rubbery shoes ensured a stable ride. I would start out crouched and on the balls of my feet then slowly rise up like a surfer in water. That I understood. I’d lived in Florida, and surfing had been a favorite activity of my friends there.
Duncan informed me that they would be tricking it, but that I shouldn’t try to trick it. Apparently, they didn’t only stand when on top of the cars, but they did tricks on the car top. They’d been practicing for years.
“It might look easy,” Duncan said. “But it isn’t. Depending on how you do tonight, we’ll teach you some tricks before we go again, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. I couldn’t imagine doing tricks on a moving train anyway. Jeremy hadn’t told me about doing tricks. I wondered if he knew about kids doing that.
“In all honesty,” Duncan said. “Fifty miles per hour isn’t that fast. You shouldn’t have a problem staying upright.”
“You should try riding a passenger train in Germany,” Payden said. “I about got myself killed surfing there. Those babies go over 125 miles an hour.”
“Yeah!” Lunden said. “And don’t even think about trying the TGV in France, that baby goes about 250 mph. You’d need to be anchored down for sure.”
We each had a set time and place assigned to us to jump on the train. Houston was taking his turn to drive and meet us up at the pickup location about fifty miles away. I was in third position, a place they thought would be safest. We were pretty much guaranteed not to be seen for three reasons. Number one, the train was long and we’d be at the end of it, and two, there were only five workers in the yard tonight. Three, we were boarding on a straightaway, and it was dark. This made it almost impossible for the conductor or agent to see us.
The train yard was big and scary. I pressed my tracker. Shadows hung all around and the smell of grease, metal, and rotten wood filled my nostrils. The longer I looked around the yard, searching for workers, the more it seemed there were a lot of people about, causing shadows to jump out at me. I had to force myself to stay put until it was time. The screech of the train moving hit loud on my ears. I was hidden at about the halfway mark.
Frankie was hidden about fifteen feet behind me, and I was to follow her lead. When she ran, I was supposed to run. Air brakes and clanking filled my ears as the train pulled out. I watched for Frankie. She darted to the car right beside her and jogged at the same speed as the train until she grabbed a handrail and pulled herself up onto the first of three stairs that led to a landing at the back of the car.
As soon as she jumped aboard, I left my hiding spot and easily jogged at the same speed as the train. When I hit a steady rhythm, I grabbed the same rail Frankie had and pulled myself onto the step. She was huddled against a metal door in the middle of the landing. I sat next to her, and we waited for the train to leave the yard and pick up speed. It didn’t take long. It felt weird thinking I was breaking so many rules. My nerves were on edge.
Climbing on the top wasn’t as easy as it appeared. The rocking of the cars made it difficult. The ladder was on the side of the car, not the back, and the rungs were rough and dug into my hands. Frankie was there to guide and encourage me the whole way.
Once on top, she went in front of me and showed me how to get safely into standing position several times. My stomach clenched as I followed her lead. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, and I relaxed a bit. The difficult part was staying standing. Frankie made it look easy. The rocking of the car was completely unpredictable, and I lost my balance several times, ducking each time into a crouch so I wouldn’t fall off the train. After about ten minutes, Frankie climbed down and made her way to the car in front of the one I was on.
She had no trouble balancing. Once in the middle of the car, she bent over and did a handstand. She stayed up for a count of ten. Pretty amazing. She rocked to the side a couple of times, and I thought she’d tumble off, but she never did. Then she did several cartwheels as well as somersaults. Crazy.
I looked around me, enjoying the feeling of freedom that coursed through me. Life for me had been restricted, plain, and rule-driven until my trip to DC, where everything changed. Now I was a rule breaker, and it felt great to be Misha. Christy, that little bit of the real me that I clung to for my own sanity while using an alias, on the other hand, screamed for me to get down and be safe.
I found it exhilarating to let the wind slide over my face and body and tug at my clothes. I thought bugs would be slapping me, but they didn’t. The person who really surprised me was Payden. He was an amazing tumbler and would do back tucks, layouts, and fulls, a front flip with a 360 in the air, all on top of the train car behind us. I could do those things, but not on a moving train.
Getting off the train was the hard part. Duncan, on the car in
front of us, signaled we needed to get ready to de-board. I hunched down and scooted my way to the back of the car to get down. I didn’t trust myself to move standing up. I climbed down the ladder and shuffled to the edge of the car, waiting to feel the train slow for the curve where we were supposed to jump. It was easy to feel the train brake. I saw both Duncan and Frankie jump and roll. I didn’t even give myself a chance to think. I just jumped and rolled. It hurt. The ground was hard and rocky.
They didn’t wait until we reached the car, a good fifty yards from the tracks, to start celebrating. They danced around and talked about the success or failure of this trick or that, stopping to demonstrate as we made our way to the car. Houston sat outside the van, a cooler by his feet that he opened as we got close. They all grabbed a beer from inside.
“Go ahead,” Houston said, noticing my hesitation.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll drive back. I owe you guys that much.”
He nodded and grabbed his own beer. Twenty minutes later, we were on the road.
School was pretty routine every other day that week. Every one of my seven classes had at least one person from one of the two daredevil groups I was a part of in it, so I stayed in close touch with both. Dakota met me in front of the school every day, and I sat with Madness for lunch every day. I tried to slowly move away from Dakota, waiting to text him back, getting to school right before classes started so we had no time together, and making sure I had other things to do in my free time.
We longboarded to and from gym class, and he met me at my locker after school. The girls of Roseburg High seemed to hate me. I had taken one of its most eligible members off the market. I got told I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t pretty enough, and got called all sorts of unsavory names. It was lucky that I was constantly with people from the two groups, or I may have found myself in some pretty messy situations.
Once, I opened my locker just as Dakota arrived. Several notes lay on the floor of the locker. Dakota picked them up.
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