by Shannon Hale
We were sitting on a rooftop across from a building where Wilder thought Jacques and GT might be working. So far no sign. Below us, wind chased loose snow low across the asphalt, writhing and swimming like horizontal candle smoke.
“I can break through walls, you know,” I said. “We don’t need a key to get inside.”
“I won’t risk going into any place my father has claimed as home turf. We wait till they’re in the open. This is why I need you, Danger Girl. I can find Jacques, but I can’t force him to come with me.”
My breath came out in a cloud. “So what is his weakness?”
“Food, just like you. If I wanted to stop you, I’d stick you in a Maisie-proof box with no food, and when I let you out you’d be too weak to fight. Not that I would ever do that.”
“Of course not. You’re a gentleman.”
“If you force Jacques to keep creating new armor, he’ll weaken.”
“And once he’s defenseless …”
“Carry him back to the car. I’ll meet you there. We’ll take him to the apartment—”
“Lair.”
“Right, lair. If I can just get Jacques away from GT, I know I can persuade him to rejoin the team. Jacques could give enough evidence that even a crooked FBI agent would have to convict Dad.”
“So,” I said, “he mentioned you’d done things, gotten kicked out of schools …”
“Yeah,” he said.
I looked down to avoid his gaze, inspecting my fingernails. I understood why Ruth had been obsessed about keeping her nails painted. The brute token grew them so thick they had a yellowish tint. I’d started keeping mine painted in Florida. This week they were coral pink.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Car theft, dealing prescription drugs, vandalism, fighting. Mostly to impress my dad.”
“Yeah, that kind of stuff dazzles my dad too,” I said.
Wilder smiled. “Dad worked his way from grocery store bagger to the top. The corporate mogul part was a lot of work, but the megalomaniac part came naturally. He put me in expensive private schools but wouldn’t buy me clothes. Anything I wanted, I had to earn, just like he did. So I started side businesses. His approval seemed to increase the more creative I got. He wanted me to make myself wealthy and successful, no matter how I got there.”
“So you tried to become a criminal to follow in his footsteps.”
“I guess. And because it was funny. And because I was bored.”
“Is that why you suddenly didn’t like me anymore after they announced we both would visit the Beanstalk? You were bored with me?”
His exhale was so heavy, I couldn’t see his eyes behind that puff of breath.
“No, I just—I panicked. We were getting close fast, and I was afraid after the week of training alone together—”
A door opened down below. Three people exited the building just as a black SUV pulled up for them. Two were bundled up in the cold, but one was hatless. I could see his short, curly hair.
“Go,” Wilder whispered.
I pushed the power button on my earpiece, put a hand on the ledge of the roof, and leaped over. It was five stories down. I tried to keep straight, my legs fighting the air to keep my body from twisting. I landed feet first, and the sidewalk cracked beneath me. My bones seemed to vibrate, and never had the soles of my feet been so aware of the ground.
GT stumbled away from me. The other guy had pulled out a gun, but I heard GT say, “Don’t bother.”
“Jacques,” I said. “Please come back.”
Jacques looked up to where Wilder sat hidden.
“The bleeper returns,” Jacques whispered. He swept back his brown leather trenchcoat. He was wearing a gray turtleneck, jeans, and silver-studded motorcycle boots. And I was pretty certain that underneath it all were his bulletproof long johns.
“We need to be a team again.”
“A lot’s changed, One-Arm.”
“Wilder says we’re strongest together. We need each other to figure out—”
“I’m not going back with Wilder—are you crazy? It was hard enough to pull myself away from that spider’s web the first time.”
“Take her out,” GT said.
Jacques’s eyes seemed uncertain.
“Like you told me, the fireteam should be together,” I said. “Me, you, Mi-sun …”
Jacques’s laugh was as bitter as a sob.
“Mi-sun’s gone. Wilder took care of that himself. Now I have a new directive.”
Blades of sharp havoc grew out from Jacques’s hands and his armor extended over his head, everywhere but his eyes.
I went for his eyes.
Chapter 28
Jacques ducked, rolled to the side, and came at me with arms windmilling. I jumped back, just missing his attack. So, it would appear he’d spent the past months training.
I heard the car start behind me.
“Ignore GT,” Wilder said in my earpiece. “Keep Jacques on defense, push him away from the car.”
I threw a garbage can at Jacques, and he sliced it in half with one of his arm blades.
“Are you going to let GT treat you like his pool boy?” I said.
Jacques emphatically lifted one of his blade hands, and I was pretty sure he was giving me the bird.
I ran in for a tackle, and he dodged to the side. The force of my run sent me sprawling into a building. Now he was behind me and running toward the car. GT had just climbed inside, the other guy getting into the driver’s seat.
“Knock him down!” Wilder’s voice cried in my earpiece.
I threw half the steel garbage can, striking Jacques in the back. He fell face forward, quickly regaining his feet and turning to block my punch with one of his blades. It sliced through my sweatshirt and grazed my arm.
“Ouch,” I said. “You’re prickly.”
His eyes smiled. I had a weakness.
He attacked with vigor, slicing at me with his razor arms. I grabbed the garbage can half and used it as a shield, but Jacques carved it up. One of his blades found my shoulder, coming down hard.
“Ow!” I said, backing away. Nothing had ever hurt my brute hide before. And the increased sensitivity of my skin made it ten times worse.
His eyes glittered with pleasure, but instead of slicing at me with those havoc blades again, he got excited with his fancy new skills and tried to round house me. The arrogant little bacteria farm.
“Grab him,” Wilder said in my earpiece as Jacques’s armored leg caught me in my gut. I snatched his ankle and threw him against a wall.
“His armor,” Wilder said.
I was trying, but I couldn’t get my hands on him, let alone crack it and pull it off. I went in for a punch to knock him down at least, but Jack Havoc was both nimble and quick, and I ended up punching bricks.
“Come on, Jacques! This is silly. Just come talk to us.”
His response was to try to slice my leg.
“Getting stuffy in there?” I said. “Doesn’t that bacteria poo make you sweat?”
Jacques’s eyes narrowed and he tried to stab me, but I was not letting that thing get me again. I grabbed his arm at the wrist, twirled him above my head, and threw.
He rolled across the pavement and stood up, releasing the armor over his mouth.
“You think I’m the bad guy? You’re the one who bleeping left. You left, Maisie, just like Ruth.”
I felt struck, and I just stood there when he came at me again, blade arms swinging.
“Maisie!” Wilder shouted.
I moved, just ducking under a swipe, grabbed his arm, and threw him again.
“Wrong way!” Wilder said, but too late. I’d thrown Jacques toward the SUV.
Jacques sprang to his feet, and GT pulled him inside before I caught up. The car peeled out as I grabbed a handful of bumper. I threw the bumper like a spear through the back window, but the car didn’t slow.
“Chase it, Maisie. Grab the first big thing you find and throw it at the car!”
I was chasing. I bounded as fast as the car could drive, but no faster.
They turned a corner, and the first thing I saw that wasn’t bricked and mortared to the ground was an empty minivan. I grabbed the chassis, getting it up on my left shoulder to fling it forward. The vehicle groaned like a robot in pain.
In less than a second, I did the calculation. I could hurl the minivan and smack it right on the roof, but not beyond. I throw this two-ton car onto that two-ton car, and most of the people inside are crushed.
Ruth’s token throbbed in my chest.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Do it!” Wilder said.
“I can’t …,” I said, trembling to defy the thinker. But I put it down.
Two seconds later, the SUV was out of sight.
I began to chase it, but Wilder crackled in my ear. “Forget them. You can’t catch up now.”
It had taken Wilder weeks to find Jacques, and I let him get away. If the techno token was still working, I could have built something to tap into Jacques’s tracking device. By taking Ruth’s token and losing access to the techno token, I’d weakened the team.
I jogged back to the building and met up with Wilder as he came down the fire escape.
“I managed to throw a tracker onto the roof of their SUV at least,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Wilder. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t … do something that might be fatal. I should have realized earlier, so you could have planned for that.”
He paused, as if the most important thing in the world right then was just to look at me. “Maisie Danger Brown, you are—”
His hand rose, and for a moment I thought he would touch my face or my hair, but his hand paused at my shoulder. He examined the cut in my shirt.
“Jacques marked you. He left a wound. I didn’t know he could …”
I opened the rip wider and traced the thin red welt made with a havoc blade. It stung to the touch.
Wilder was so close to me, the air warmed between us. He frowned, took a step back, and turned away.
Back in our car, Wilder tracked their movements on his tablet. Sometimes he’d stop and rub his hands together.
“Are you cold?” I asked.
He paused to think. “No. Must just be habit.”
“Or else you’re practicing your evil genius hand rub.”
“Mwa-ha-ha,” he said unconvincingly.
“Jacques said Mi-sun was gone, that you took care of that.”
“Gone …, ” he said, tasting the word. “I wonder if Mi-sun got away from GT, and Jacques thinks she’s with me. Maybe she’s with Howell.”
We followed the signal into another neighborhood and found the tracker in a gutter on a tree-lined street, the limbs heavy with ice.
“Probably knocked off by a branch,” Wilder said. “Where are you, Jack Havoc?”
We drove around the rich, dusky streets, houses hidden far behind walls, parks open and empty.
“Have you always given nicknames?” he asked suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
“Ruthless, Jack Havoc, Code Blue, Speetle, HAL. You name things, and they stick.”
“I don’t know. I’ve always just called you Wilder.”
“Should I be hurt?”
I didn’t nickname Luther either, or Mom or Dad. It was the rest of the riffraff, the huge teeming world. My brain wanted to remember it all, so it invented shortcuts.
But I didn’t need any help remembering Wilder. I didn’t tell him that.
“Do you wish Ruth were your partner instead of me? Someone who wouldn’t have hesitated to crush GT’s car?”
“Maisie Danger, I don’t want anyone else—” He stopped. “Sorry, I … I’m trying not to talk like I used to.”
I turned away to watch the world darken outside my window. Wilder cleared his throat.
“I should have been clearer, told you to throw it past the car, blocking their escape.”
“No way I could have thrown the van that far. Since getting this token, I can usually tell how far I can throw, how much I can lift. ”
He squinted at me a moment before returning his gaze to the street before us. “Ruth could have done it. Maybe the nanites are more potent when it’s one token per person. I hadn’t realized …”
He parked in our little garage. I’d just pulled the garage door down when Wilder grabbed my hand and pulled me at a quick but casual pace to the side of the building behind the stairs. Across the street was a man in a suit, brown coat, and knit cap walking, scanning the buildings. A black SUV drove by, the driver slowing to talk to the man.
“Is that them?” I whispered.
“I don’t sense Jacques, but they could be some of GT’s guys.”
Wilder still hadn’t let go of my hand. I pretended not to notice.
“Do you want me to capture them?”
“No … see, the guy’s talking on an earpiece. If Dad’s on the other end, he’ll find out where we are and have the advantage.”
“They must know where we are, or they wouldn’t be here.”
Wilder shook his head, his eyes tracking the man. “They wouldn’t be so obvious. If they’re looking for our lair, they don’t know they’ve found it.”
He rubbed his thumb across the back of my hand. My heart responded, thudding out frantic Morse code messages. S-O-S, S-O-S.
We stayed pressed to the wall, watching through the breaks in the stairs as the man looked over our building, the one next to it. Wilder’s fingers intertwined with mine. And though my gaze never left the guy, I barely noticed when he climbed into the SUV and drove off. Ninety percent of my brain power was focused on that touch. I took a deep breath, and my breath shuddered.
“I think they’re gone,” I whispered.
“Maybe,” he said, though he didn’t move either.
I could hear his breathing speed up too, though all we did was stand there, our hands touching. I had to get away or my chest would explode with the increasingly violent beats of my heart.
“We should go while it’s clear,” I said.
So we ran up to the apartment. Wilder still didn’t let go. He fumbled with the key while I watched the street. We closed the door and locked it. The broken blinds were partially open, the light on in the bathroom, and I felt visible to the whole world. Another man walked the sidewalk outside. He turned, looking up, as if noticing our window. Wilder ducked, diving onto the mattress and pulling me beside him.
Calmáte, tonta, I scolded myself.
I felt so aware of Wilder, his weight on the mattress, his warmth, his hand. Aware too of my own body. I was way overreacting to a harmless touch.
“Maisie?” he said.
Don’t answer, I told myself. Pretend you’re not here. Even though you’re holding his hand, feeling his palm with your thumb, timing your breaths to his, lying beside him—just pretend that you’re far away and alone and—
“Yeah?” I breathed back.
Traitor, I called myself.
“Maisie …” He turned onto his side so he was looking at me. I didn’t look back. For a long, long time … like, several minutes. Or one. Because when his voice got soft like that, his eyes would be brighter, his just-plain-touchable face would be so close and his attention locked onto me, and I would feel swoony and vulnerable and completely giddy-brained. So I didn’t look. For several seconds.
Then I looked.
“I’m not supposed to feel like this about you.” His right hand was still tangled with mine, his left rose to my face, his thumb barely touching the corner of my mouth. His blue eyes were hot like a hydrogen flame.
“I shouldn’t,” he whispered, leaning closer, glancing at my lips.
“Okay,” was all I said. Words were smooth as glass and slick in my hands. The only thing I could seem to hold was the rough ache of longing.
Chapter 29
Wilder was as close as an exhale. It wasn’t far to lean, but it felt like a journey. I hesitated till resistin
g made my skin ache. Then I moved, he moved, and we met in the middle. Our mouths touched, a soft greeting. Relief poured through me, cold followed by hot. He pulled me closer. And we kissed.
We kissed, and I was back in space, my arms around Wilder, our bodies spinning. But there was no hurry here, no Ruth about to turn around, no Mi-sun or Jacques or Howell. Nowhere to be but here.
There was time between the kisses to trace the line on his jaw, discover that slight roughness. I wanted him to understand, as I kissed his cheekbone, that I’d missed him. So many places to kiss. And be kissed. And I wanted to know them all, like I wanted to breathe.
And his hands explored my back, my neck, my hair. He held me closer, and his kisses sped up. I wanted them to. I wanted the rough skin of his jaw against my chin, his mouth against the hollow of my throat. I wanted everything. My body rang with an exquisite kind of joy. This, this, is what it was made to do.
His hands went up my back beneath my shirt, soothing fingertips against my bare skin. He kissed the pulse under my jaw. His hands found my waist, circled front, and pressed against my belly. How simple that was, and yet what an astonishing sensation.
Then his thumb popped the button of my jeans. My eyes flicked open. Thoughts thudded back into my head.
“Uh-uh,” I said.
He stopped, but his eyes pleaded with me. His hands caressed my face.
“Maisie … you’re so beautiful … I can’t help myself …” His fingers traced my chin and then found my lips.
He started to kiss me again, and I relented, kissing back.
But his words haunted me—I can’t help myself, as if he were constrained to want me. I wanted him to choose me, not kiss me mindlessly. Even so, a part of me would give up any choice to just let things happen. And that shocked me. I’d decided long ago what I would do and would not do, and here at the first opportunity, I was tossing out reason for instinct. If I couldn’t make a decision using my brain, then was I even Maisie anymore? Better to ache with want than to become an illogical girl I didn’t know, I thought.
So I whispered, “Stop.”
He leaned his forehead against my neck, frustration in the grip of his hands.
“Please,” he said.
