My heart told me Jack was right. So why was I questioning? Did I want it to be real? Was this some perverse way for me to find fault in Beckett so I didn’t get burned all over again like I did in Kansas? Was I protecting myself so I wouldn’t open myself up to vulnerability, only to receive lies in return?
Or maybe, more than anything, if Beckett were bad, if he weren’t the boy I knew and remembered, then I wouldn’t have to pick.
“Listen,” Jack said. “I’m not sure what kind of game Sven is playing with you, but anything about Beckett being on Dad’s side is a complete lie. Beckett loves you, Sage. If you could hear the way he talks about you. He’s a good person, the best I know—and probably the only innocent person left in the lot of us—especially if you’ve gone dark by believing he’s a traitor.”
My heart pinged at Jack’s words about Beckett loving me, but I pushed them away, closed them in a tiny box deep in my chest and locked it. I couldn’t open that box right now. Too many times my heart got in the way of clear thinking. I wouldn’t let that happen to me again.
Jack jerked a piece of gum out of the packet and then threw the rest of the pack at the trashcan. He shoved the piece of gum into his mouth.
“Sven’s messing with your head.”
“Fine,” I said. “So where is Beckett now?”
Jack glanced at his phone again.
“Think about it, just for a second.” I pressed. “He did legitimately work with your dad to get to my family. I’m sure it’s hard to hear because he’s the last relative you have that’s supposedly on your side. But maybe you’re just overlooking signs because he’s your bro—”
“Enough.” Jack straightened in his chair. “I’m not listening to this anymore.”
“But, Jack. It’s something we should—”
“I said, enough!”
He rose, marched to the door, and slammed it behind him.
80
BECKETT
This guy was a better biker than the others. He was right on my tail for two whole hours.
And then, he just slowed down. When I started to pull away and lose him, he turned around.
I decided to pull over and wait for an hour, just to make sure the guy really had left and it wasn’t some sort of trick.
Ollie wandered aimlessly around on the concrete at the side of the gas station parking lot. The station wasn’t open, just the pumps. It was 3:30 am now. It would be another two hours before the first rays of sunlight peeked through the trees.
I maneuvered my bike to a pump and started to refill with gas for the ride back to the city.
Jack wouldn’t be happy that I lost my phone, but I didn’t care about that right now.
My brain was still trying to process what just happened.
None of it made sense. The way the guy tackled me but let me get away, like he wanted me back on my bike. How he threw my cell phone before climbing onto his own motorcycle. And then what? He followed me for over two hours, slowed down, and when I finally started to lose him, he immediately turned around and drove away? If he wanted me so bad—a two-hour chase kind of bad—why would he just leave?
But more than anything, why was he still chasing me after he realized it was just a mannequin on the bike with me and not Sage? Sage was who they really wanted. I was just an afterthought.
It wasn’t fitting together, and I didn’t like it. My mouth went dry, the way it did when I knew something wasn’t right.
I climbed on my bike, ignoring the pain that shot through my calf.
I whistled for Ollie.
Once Ollie rested between my legs on the seat, I twisted the throttle.
I didn’t know what was going on, but I needed to figure it out and get back to Jack and Sage as soon as I could.
81
JACK
6:15 am.
Still no Beckett. Where was he?
I couldn’t sit still anymore. I’d already paced the hallway for the last hour with Sage’s ludicrous suggestion about Beck’s loyalties running through my mind. Beckett would never side with our dad. I knew that more than I knew anything else in the world.
No, if Beck wasn’t here, it was because he was in trouble. Which meant I had to go back to the mansion. Which proved tricky, because, what do I do with Sage? It was too risky to bring her within close proximity of Vasterias walls again. I didn’t want her within a hundred miles of that mansion.
So what? The only other option was to leave her in a public place with lots of traffic and tell her not to move until I came back with Beck.
I knew just the place.
I shoved through the door of our room and yanked my jacket off the chair. “Grab your stuff,” I said to Sage. “We’re going to a coffee shop.”
82
IMOGEN
His body was slowly changing back.
Finn didn’t look like he was dying anymore.
His long legs hung off the table a wee bit, and he’d set to jerking about every now and again.
His skin didn’t look so green-tinted.
With every passing minute, he was looking more human, less mod.
His breath picked up.
Then, the groaning began.
83
SAGE
The gun felt heavy in my jacket pocket as we walked along the sidewalk toward a coffee shop just down the road from the hotel.
“Don’t you think this is all a little unnecessary?” I said. “No one even knows I’m here.”
Jack swung the café door open, and the smell of baked goods and coffee wafted toward us. The shop already hummed with the noise of a dozen or more patrons grabbing their breakfasts and drinks. Inside, the shop lights shined a warm glow over the tables, couches, and comfortable leather chairs, some of them already occupied, even though it was hardly past 6:30. Jack was right, something about being around other people—even strangers I didn’t know—felt soothing.
“Nothing is unnecessary at this point,” Jack answered, guiding me into the line to order, scanning the faces in the café, scenting out any potential danger. Jack’s tension had only incrementally increased since 4:30 this morning. Anytime now, I expected him to blow.
On our right, a divider wall separated the order line from the other sections of the café. Along the wall to our left, shelves displayed artwork for sale as well as various random items someone might want for a day at the coffee shop: journals, origami kits, stickers, pencils, sketch pads, a few small travel board games. Jack picked up a sketch pad and some colored pencils.
“This should be sufficient to occupy you for three hours, right?” He held them up.
I shrugged. “Sure.”
I hated to tell Jack, but I didn’t really do art. Between running the farm and going to school, I wasn’t exactly budding with free time. Any little extra time I did have at the end of the day, Beckett and I always headed to the loft to work on our diagrams and charts of the stars. But somehow, I doubted that mattered much to Jack right now. Even as we stood in line, he pulled out his phone again, for the hundred and fiftieth time. And it must have still been crickets from Beck because Jack slid the phone back in his pocket, and his neck muscles tightened.
After the four people in front of us placed their orders, we stepped up to the counter.
Jack set the sketch pad and pencils down. “We’ll take these and a large hot chocolate, please. And …” He glanced at me.
“A café au lait, please,” I said.
“You want a scone?” Jack said.
I shrugged.
The barista watched while Jack reached over my shoulder and picked up two raspberry scones wrapped in cellophane from the top of the display case.
“We’ll take these, too.” He laid them on the counter in front of the barista. She couldn’t stop staring at him, and it reminded me of Cathy from last night.
I didn’t blame the barista girl. Jack’s black t-shirt hugged his torso, and his black leather jacket hung open, his chest and shoulders filling it out completely.
He hadn’t shaved, and a five o’clock shadow covered his jawline and chin. Jack’s tense expression just added to the dark and mysterious hot-guy appearance. The barista had no idea what was really going on in our world. To her, he was just another patron. And a very attractive one.
Jack didn’t seem to notice her staring, or more likely, he was just used to it.
I wondered what she’d think if she knew the truth—who Jack really was, the story behind his beautiful face, the burdens and weight he carried inside himself. Would she love him all the more for it?
Jack handed a fifty dollar bill to the girl. “Keep the change.”
She smiled and mumbled a “thanks so much” as Jack motioned me forward, and we walked around the counter to pick up our drinks at the other end of the bar.
“Hot chocolate? Really?” I said, trying to ease some of the tension. “I would have taken you for a black coffee kinda guy.”
Jack leaned in by my ear. “I already feel like I have ten cups of coffee running through my system every moment of every day.”
“Café au lait for Jack!” A barista shouted as he set the cup down on the counter. He didn’t look twice before he placed another cup next to the first and shouted again. “Chocolate Desire for Jack!”
Jack handed me my cup.
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Chocolate Desire? You have an entire selection of hot drinks available at an upper-end coffee shop, and you ordered their Chocolate Desire?”
Jack rolled his eyes at me and pointed toward a two-person table in the middle of the café.
He dropped the scone and a napkin on the table next to the sketch pad and pencils and waited for me to dutifully sit down.
“Okay, you’re all set, right?” He looked antsy, like he couldn’t wait to hop back on his bike.
I patted the sketch pad and pencils, then patted the gun in my jacket pocket. “Just great.”
“Do not leave this seat. I will be back in four hours or less. Can you promise me not to leave this table while I’m gone?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“You can leave that last part off,” Jack said dryly, pushing up from where he leaned on the table with his fingertips.
“And if anyone at all acts suspicious, make it back to the hotel room and call me. This is my number.” Jack pulled a red pencil from the box and scribbled on a napkin.
I stared at the number, frustrated that it didn’t immediately imprint to my memory. My numbers really had gone away. It felt strange, because for most of my life, remembering things like phone numbers and code combinations had been an afterthought, the effort to recall them had always been inconsequential.
I bit my lip, still unsure of Jack’s new plan.
He was leaving me with a gun in my pocket. This wasn’t like the shotguns from back home, either.
But Jack seemed adamant that Beck was in trouble and needed help. He refused to entertain the other possibility—that Beckett may not be on our side. I guess if it were Finn, I’d do the same.
“Okay, then, I’m leaving. Remember. Don’t go anywhere.”
Jack paused, just staring down at me. I could tell he didn’t want to leave, still torn between staying with me and going to find Beckett. Even now, he debated his decision.
“Go!” I said to Jack when he still didn’t move. “I’m fine. I’m a big girl. Go get your brother.”
I wanted him to go. Whether that meant Jack would find my reservations about Beck were true or bring Beckett safely back to us.
I tried not to think about it. I didn’t want to unlatch the lock on the section of my heart that contained feelings for Beckett. If I did that now and my seed of doubt about him proved true, it only meant feeling more pain in the end. If I did that now and he was innocent but Vasterias had caught him, it only meant a different kind of pain.
So better to wait until I knew for sure, one way or the other.
Jack stuffed a scone in his pocket, downed his cup of Chocolate Desire in five gulps, and headed for the door.
His face remained stone cold, but he winked at me before he exited—a habitual farewell, I assumed, because I knew the wink didn’t mean anything but an unspoken goodbye. Jack wouldn’t have done it if it meant anything more.
Still—innocuous or not—I noticed about four other females in the coffee shop who wished the wink had been meant for them.
84
JACK
I was only twenty minutes from the mansion.
I’d been replaying the evening—what could have gone wrong, what part of the escape might have led Beckett to get caught after he texted me that all was well.
Unless it was someone else texting and pretending to be him? If that were the case, the possible scenarios were endless, and I wished I’d just get there already so I could stop hypothesizing.
There was just one other thing I couldn’t piece together. It was the snapshot of my dad in the ballroom, standing in the corner, arms crossed, just letting it all play out. He didn’t even look surprised to see me when I dropped through the ceiling.
I knew how badly he wanted Sage, her eggs, her code. Why would he just stand by and let other people keep her from escaping? It wasn’t like him.
Normally, he’d have pulled out all the stops: shot me himself, grabbed for Sage, knocked Beckett’s knees out with a baseball bat. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t do that to Beckett, he actually liked Beckett a little.
But still, he would have done something. And he just stood there. Watching.
Like he wanted it all to happen.
*
I passed Beckett on the road two minutes later. He was going at top speed, holding the dog on the seat. The relief that flooded through me at the sight of him felt palpable—like I could ball it all up and shove it in Beckett’s cute little, perfectly unharmed face. I spun around before he’d had a chance to register it was me, and we pulled over on the side of the road together.
He yanked off his helmet.
“What are you doing here?” he said. He looked infuriated and exhausted all at once. Blood stained his jeans at his right calf muscle, and a strip of Sage’s dress was tied around his leg. Sari was nowhere to be seen. Ollie jumped off the motorcycle and retreated to the grass.
“Looking for you, you no-show.”
I didn’t want him to see how uptight I’d been. I had to mask the gratefulness I felt that he was here in front of me, unharmed—although his thankless response at me showing up to help him made it decently easy.
“I’m fine!” Beckett said. “Where is Sage? Why did you come after me? Why are you always so worried about saving everyone on the damn planet! I told you to stay with her! Where is she?”
The tight pitch of his voice had my chest tightening. “I left her at a coffee shop. Why?”
Beckett whistled for Ollie, and the dog came back. Beckett picked him up.
“Text her. Call the coffee shop, whatever. Tell her to stay somewhere public.”
My entire body tensed even as I pulled out my cell phone. Beckett knew something I didn’t.
“I already told her to do all that. What is it?” I said.
“I don’t know. Not good, though. Last night, after I texted you, somebody else came. He tackled me, then let me get back on my bike. He threw my phone away, then he chased me for a few hours, even after he knew Sari was just a mannequin. Then he just slowed down and disappeared.”
Beckett rubbed his face, like he was trying to puzzle it all together. “It’s like he was just pushing me away from the mansion, further from the city … buying time.”
I scowled at the entire mess. “Buying time? For what?”
“I don’t know! You tell me!”
And then, there was Dad in my head again, standing on the sidelines last night, letting it all play out, letting us get Sage out of the mansion, not offering himself as help to Vasterias but not affiliating himself with us, either ….
“Did you see the way Dad acted last night?” I said.
“Last night? I guess so, yeah …. He stayed out of my way, and I was grateful for it.”
I nodded, waiting for it all to sink into Beck’s head.
Beckett’s words were true. I did always get too worried about saving everyone on the entire planet. I knew it. Beckett knew it. Dad knew it better than anybody. And this time, I’d been too busy thinking about my brother, and whatever danger he might be in, to see what was really happening.
Our dad had played us again.
And now, Sage was alone.
Beckett followed my thoughts because he revved his engine and peeled out at the exact same time I did.
85
SAGE
I closed my sketch pad, stretched my arms over head, and ate the final bite of my scone.
This drawing thing was kinda fun. I might like to do more of it. I wasn’t any good, but the awesome thing was, it didn’t matter. No one was going to see my sketches—the pathetic renderings of the flowers in Mom’s garden; the front of our farmhouse; the old red barn; Ollie; and Cosmic, my horse. I even tried to recreate some of the star charts Beckett and I had made together.
But now it was over two hours since Jack left. I felt jittery, and I had to go to the bathroom. I know I promised Jack not to leave my seat, but we didn’t talk about getting up to go to the bathroom. Surely that was okay, right? I mean, the bathroom was right here in the coffee shop, and I could see everyone coming in and out. The place hummed with noise, busy and full of patrons. No one had so much as looked my direction since Jack left the premises, although across the aisle, a young girl, about nine years old, periodically glanced over, eying my pencils and sketch pad longingly. I’d heard her ask her mother for one of each, but her mom had refused and told the girl to finish reading her book.
I stood up, stretched again, and winked at the girl. She smiled shyly.
“Watch my stuff?” I said to her, pulling on my leather jacket, the gun heavy in my pocket.
The Golden Order Page 21