“I’ll take the Agusta,” he said.
Jack was on edge—the light-hearted freedom of our morning bike race long gone. Something about being so close to Vasterias headquarters flipped a switch in him. I understood his anxiety, and I didn’t judge him for it. He’d been through more in that Vasterias building than any human should have to endure.
Jack moved across the warehouse to the giant safe in the corner and spun the lock. The safe door popped open. Jack swept the stack of credit cards aside and grabbed the rolls of cash, handing me half of them. Dad never had a shortage of cash, that’s one thing we could always count on—probably the only reliable thing about our father.
“Time to go shopping,” Jack said.
*
We walked to the boutique, Crash It, nestled in the base of a skyscraper, only five city blocks from Vasterias headquarters and fifteen from the warehouse. The window art reminded us it offered the “latest in trendy street wear and formal attire.”
The door dinged pleasantly as we stepped inside. Pop music played on the speakers, polished concrete floors gleamed, and glass shelves displayed all the newest clothing styles. Tuxedos and formal gowns hung along the walls. I pulled off my sunglasses, but Jack kept his on. Being so close to headquarters made him antsy. He didn’t want to be recognized, wouldn’t even risk it with the young clerk who was already heading our way from the back of the store.
I hadn’t been to this store since Jack and I were fifteen and heading to an event at the mansion with Dad, but I did remember one thing: the prices were high. Very high.
I seemed more acutely aware of this fact after living on the farm, down the road from Sage and her family for three years, watching them struggle to make ends meet: Sage salvaging a ruined pair of jeans and making them into shorts; Sage selling her favorite horse so Finn could have all the school supplies he wanted for the upcoming school year and they could keep dinner on the table.
I lifted the price tag on a pair of jeans displayed prominently in the center aisle: $579.
Thank the stars for Dad’s cash. I didn’t mind spending a couple thousand dollars of it, either. A handful of purchases here wouldn’t even make a dent in what we’d just shoved in our pockets.
“Can I help you?” A petite blonde approached, slowing to a stop before getting too close to us. Jack had that effect. His aura kept people at gawking distance.
How had I forgotten what it felt like to be in public places with my brother?
The girl glanced at me, but her eyes rested and stayed on Jack, still in his black leather biker coat, jeans, and conveniently tight gray t-shirt. All shirts fit Jack conveniently tight.
“We’re going to need a tux for him,” Jack replied, still not removing his sunglasses. “A couple of jeans and tees for us, and a few casual outfits for a girl, as well as some street shoes, and leather jacket. Also for a girl.”
“Umm, okay ….” The blonde appeared to be working hard to gather her senses. “First off, my name is Stella, and I’m happy to help you today.” She paused, as if this introduction might impact our purchases in some way. We didn’t say anything, and she clapped her hands together.
“What’s the size, then? Of the girl?”
Jack shrugged. “You’re size? But taller?”
She nodded, seeming pleased he’d somehow taken in “her size.” But he was right, the girl was much shorter than Sage.
“She’s five foot six. Size two,” I said. The girl nodded at me, not as pleased this time. Maybe Stella was a zero and Jack had over-sized her? Or was it simply that I was speaking, ruining whatever conversation she’d started with Jack?
She did seem to brighten after processing what I’d said, perhaps satisfied I knew more about “the girl” than Jack did. I could almost read her hopeful thoughts: So … so … that means … he’s available??
She skipped off toward the side wall of tuxes.
Jack held up a pair of jeans for Sage and finally lifted his sunglasses to rest on top of his head. “What about these? Comfortable enough for the ride back to KC?”
“Uh, she’s not a rhinestones-on-the-pockets kind of girl.” I couldn’t hide my annoyance.
Jack shrugged. “It’s not like she has to keep them.”
I snorted. “How about I just pick them out?”
“Why’s that?”
I paused with my hands on a stack of jeans. “Because I know her better.”
“I disagree.”
Oh, wow. Mr. Confident is out again.
“Okay, Jack, what’s her favorite ice cream? Time of day? Constellation? What are the names of her horses? How does she like to sleep? How many pillows? In what position?”
He shrugged. “The daily stuff. That’s the problem. It’s so daily. I know her deepest fears, Beckett. I’ve lived them myself. Have you?”
He stared hard at me.
Jack was back. Playing the game again. I had to exit to the front sidewalk before I dove for him and Crash It got some serious demolition. The problem was, I knew Jack was right. He had connections to Sage I never could, simply because the code was inside them both. I couldn’t compete with that, because I’d never be able to fully understand what it was like.
And that gave Jack the edge he needed.
Like he needed one.
*
Eventually, my heat cooled, and I reentered the store.
Stella found me a tux.
When we’d finished shopping, we had five pairs of jeans—two pairs with rhinestones, picked out by Jack; some t-shirts for us; my tux; and some street shoes, shirts, and a leather jacket for Sage. I’d have to return later that day, on my way to the mansion, to pick up the tux after they made a few alterations. I didn’t think it needed them, but Stella insisted. I think she just wanted another excuse for us to return—or Jack, anyway. She’d be disappointed when I showed up later and it was just me.
At the checkout counter, Stella opened the predictable small talk with Jack.
“No tux for you? You’re not going to the formal party with your friend?” Stella said, possibly hoping Jack simply didn’t have a date yet and that an invitation would follow her inquiry.
“Not this time.” Jack smiled tightly, glancing back toward the door.
I shrugged apologetically at Stella. “He would love to go, but he couldn’t get a date. And now the party is tonight, probably too late to find anyone to attend with him ….”
Jack’s head snapped in my direction as Stella flashed him an optimistic smile, but I was walking up to the front of the store before Jack could say anything. I waited at the front, watching him endure the wake of hope I’d left behind. Let him maneuver himself out of that one.
Ha.
As Stella bagged our final items, I twiddled with the arm of a mannequin in the storefront window. The fake, white plastic body brought to my attention a fallacy in tonight’s escape plan.
I walked to the back of the store again.
“I just thought of something,” I said to Jack, not at all worried about what this would sound like to Stella. “It’d be best if it looked like I have Sage on the motorcycle with me, or they’re won’t follow so readily.”
Jack frowned, like he was frustrated he hadn’t thought of this himself. He turned to Stella, thinking the exact same thing that I was.
“How much for the mannequin?” Jack said, nodding toward the one nearest the counter, draped in a glittery red dress.
“The mannequin?” Stella paused with one of our t-shirts in her hands. “Oh. It’s not for sale.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes.
Jack stepped closer to the counter. “Everything is for sale, sweetheart. So how much for the mannequin?” Jack released the power of his full smile for the first time since entering Crash It.
“Umm, well, my manager isn’t here right—” Stella stopped short when Jack rested his hand on her forearm.
He leaned in, whispering, like he and Stella were bonded through some conspiratorial plan they’d
make together. “How much would it cost for this mannequin to go through, say, an irreparable accident where you needed to order new one? Surely there’s a price for your time and the risk.”
The look in the girl’s eyes said she’d do it for free if Jack kept his hand resting on her forearm.
“Uh, five hundred?” Stella proposed the price as a question, glancing down at Jack’s hand resting on her skin. Just please don’t stop touching me! Her expression screamed.
Jack removed his hand from her arm and unrolled five one-hundred dollar bills, placing them in her palm. “Thanks so much. We really appreciate it, Stella.”
The momentary disappointment from lack of skin contact was replaced by pure happiness. That was it. Jack had said her name. I could tell she was about to ask how many more mannequins we wanted, so I nudged Jack’s elbow and tipped my head toward the door.
“Stella,” he said. “We’re also going to need you to ring up another pair of jeans, another leather jacket, some black leather gloves, and some black boots. All to fit the mannequin.”
Stella frowned, clearly confused by this request, but she recovered quickly and nodded.
When she finished gathering and ringing up our new items, Jack made sure to brush her hand one final time when he handed her the cash to pay.
“Thanks so much for your help today,” he said in a husky, low voice, his words more articulate and polite than he ever normally spoke.
I shook my head and gathered our bags, not wasting any time before heading toward the door.
Stella clumsily unzipped the red dress from the mannequin, and the dress fell to the floor. Jack plucked the naked mannequin from its stand and tucked it under his arm. He lowered his sunglasses back over his eyes and flashed Stella one final smile.
We left Crash It with Stella staring after Jack like she’d just had the best encounter of her life.
*
His voice returned to normal when we stepped outside. “Okay, I think we’re good. Let’s head back, drop this stuff, and then grab a bite at the deli.”
“Really, dude?” I said gaping at him, knowing my irritation had more to do with Sage than the clerk inside. “You really haven’t forgotten how to turn it off and on, have you? Actually, I think you’re even better than I remember.” I shook my head. “Just incredible.”
Jack shrugged. He was doing lots of shrugging lately.
His casualness pricked me somewhere already sensitive.
“That’s the thing, Jack. She can’t be bought, not like the other girls you’ve dealt with. She’s not like all the others.”
“Who, Stella?” Jack said innocently.
I ignored his smart remark. We hadn’t moved from the sidewalk in front of Crash It, and I vaguely wondered if Stella still watched us through the shop window.
“Sage appreciates life in a different way. Especially now that she knows everything about Vasterias—but before then, too. On the farm, she didn’t get involved with all the petty crap the others girls messed with. She didn’t care about all that. It was the animals, the stars, feeling good about a long day of work. That’s what she lived for. Your tricks won’t work on her like they did with that girl in there. They just won’t work. Even if you do both have this code inside you.”
“Listen, did you want a mannequin or not?” Jack motioned to the white plastic body tucked under his arm. “It is a crucial element to our plan. I was just getting the freaking mannequin, Beckett. Don’t turn this into anything else.” He shoved the dummy higher under his arm and headed in the direction of the warehouse.
“Yeah! And lucky I thought of it!” I called out after him.
I felt like punching something.
Why did I always feel like punching things whenever I hung out with my brother?
31
IMOGEN
Bert came again the next morning.
He brought a cup.
I stretched, my muscles stiff from sleeping on the concrete floor all night.
Bert acted strange again, shedding another round of tears at seeing Finn. I wanted to ask Jack about it. Jack’s hunches were rarely wrong.
Finn remained asleep or unconscious or whatever he was right now, while Bert dressed his arm and checked him over.
I knew what would happen once Bert and the guard left the room: the door would lock, no one would come.
So I asked to use the toilet.
The guard led me down the hall.
Inside the stall, I took apart the toilet paper dispenser and hid the usable parts in my waistband. I would work on some sort of weapon—and a door pick—once everyone left the room again. The dispenser deconstruction took me longer than normal because the skin at my knuckles had reddened and cracked a bit. The skin burned when I moved my fingers. The antibacterial soap I used last night to wash out that cupboard handle must be really strong.
Right then, no more soap.
I tucked my stolen items into my waistband and exited the loo.
“Back to the crack room, then?” I said to the guard waiting outside the door for me.
He frowned.
“It’s what I call it. Cracks in everything. Cracks in the walls, cracks in the floors, cracks in the ….” My voice petered out as I realized how crazy I sounded. I’d been locked up in that room for a few hours too long.
The guard led me back to the crack room.
Bert still leaned over Finn’s body, pressing in places, inspecting the skin.
“Is he okay?” I asked Bert.
“We’re not sure yet,” he said softly. “But I’m working on it.”
“Where is Dr. Cunningham?”
Bert glanced at the guard before he responded. “He’s … detained. He ordered me to help.”
Bert eyed my waist, and I quickly sat down in the corner and brought my knees toward my chest in attempt to hide my paraphernalia.
But then, I realized Bert wasn’t staring at my waist at all. He stared at my red, cracked hands. I tucked them under my arms, so the guy couldn’t see them, either.
Bert nodded to Finn. “Continue with the water for him, please,” he said.
I nodded back. “Alright.”
But something was not right. It was the same shady business as the day my mom got killed. My arms flexed in response, to what, I didn’t know.
I forced myself to relax against the wall.
Bert made to leave.
“Is there any way a girl could get a bit of grub around here?” I said. “The dry granola bars the boys and I had earlier would even be better than nothing.”
Bert looked at the guard.
The guard shrugged. “Maybe. We’ll see.”
And … that’s a no. I’m not an idiot.
The two of them left. The door locked.
My throat tightened.
Shady business. Lots of shady business.
I couldn’t do this for another day. We needed to get out of here.
I needed to talk to Jack.
32
SAGE
New York City was different than Canta, Kansas.
People. Everywhere.
No open tracts of land. No fields. No cows.
We pulled up to a high rise with big black letters above the door.
VASTERIAS ENTERPRISES INTERNATIONAL
So, they were real.
Sven handed his keys to a parking attendant and led the way through the front doors.
Inside the building my eyes saw one thing: white. White everywhere, white floors, white walls, white lights. Only a few hints of green—the chairs, a front desk—broke the expanse of white.
At the back of the lobby, we loaded onto the escalator and rode up to the thirtieth floor.
Sven knocked on a door at the end of a long, white hallway.
A rigid voice came from inside. “Come in.”
Sven swung the door open, and a woman sat behind a desk across an office space; her chin-length black hair, black blouse, and black skirt contrasted everything else in the room.<
br />
She didn’t stand from her chair to greet me or introduce herself. Instead, she waved me over, a look of annoyance on her face. Sven shut the door behind me, saying he’d be waiting for me whenever we finished.
I hesitated by the door, and the woman waved me over again. “Come.”
Once I’d lowered into the chair opposite her at the desk, she spoke.
“I don’t waste time. We’ll be performing a series of tests to gather data on you. Some we’ll conduct here in my office, others we’ll complete in the lab. We’ll begin with the hearing test. Put these on, please.”
She reached over her desk and handed me large, leather headphones.
“My name is Dr. Stanstopolis, by the way. Just raise your hand when you hear the beep.”
Her direct approach left me no choice. I put on the headphones.
She tapped into a tablet on her desk and then constructed a barrier between my line of sight and her tablet by setting a folder upright on her desk. I could still see her face though, over the folder, and I stared straight at her, waiting.
I waited. Ten seconds went by.
I waited.
Another ten seconds.
Nothing.
Another ten seconds.
Dr. Stanstopolis raised her eyebrows at me.
I stared back at her.
Nothing.
She rolled her eyes, lowered the folder, and held out her hands for the headphones.
“You couldn’t hear anything?” She crossed her hands on top of her desk, disbelieving.
I shook my head.
She frowned, pulled out a drawer in her desk, and removed a clear glass container the size of a pill bottle. She opened the lid and took out several strips of paper.
“Place these in your mouth one at a time and tell me what you taste.”
I did as she asked for no other reason than to get it all over with.
All the strips tasted the same: bitter.
Again, this didn’t satisfy Dr. Stanstopolis.
We did the same with a series of strips she instructed me to smell.
I couldn’t smell anything. Only the scent of the paper itself.
Finally, Dr. Stanstopolis shoved away from her desk and stood.
The Golden Order Page 9