by Jason Starr
“Okay,” the big guy said to Cassie, “but you better not try anything.”
The big guy led her out of the room into the hallway. It still smelled like Mexican food, but it didn’t make Cassie hungry—she was way too scared to be hungry.
“Okay, the bathroom’s right here, go in,” he said to her.
“How’m I going to go to the bathroom blindfolded?”
“It’s right there on the left—feel around, you’ll find it. And don’t even think of trying to get out the window. It’s bolted shut.”
Cassie went into the bathroom and shut the door. She had a feeling he was lying about the last part, but she wasn’t going to try anything stupid and get herself killed. She had to hope her dad could somehow save her. It was the best chance she had—maybe the only chance.
It was so gross, sitting on a toilet blindfolded. What if it was dirty like the toilet seats at school? But when you’re worried about getting killed, a gross toilet seat doesn’t seem to matter so much.
She thought about taking the blindfold off and at least looking out the window to see where she was, but she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get it back on. Besides, the big guy was right outside and might come in if he heard her walking toward the window.
She had to feel around to find the flusher and the sink. She’d never really thought about what blind people went through every day. If she got out of here alive, she was going to have more of an appreciation for what people with disabilities had to deal with on a daily basis. She would help whenever she could—doing community service, free tutoring, and anything else. She’d be a better person.
They brought her back to the same room. The big guy told her to sit in the chair, and then the other guy tied her up with rope.
“How long are you planning to keep me here?” she asked.
“That’s up to your father,” the big guy said.
“What do you want from him?” Cassie asked. “He wasn’t bothering you; he wasn’t bothering anybody.” Then Cassie looked toward where she thought the shorter guy was standing and said, “Why are you doing this to me? Can’t you tell him to let me go? Please, I won’t tell anyone what happened. Just drop me back in Manhattan, and I’ll make up a story that I ran away or that I was hiding.
Actually that’s what I told people the other day, that I was hiding, when I was really…” In her nervousness she almost blurted out that she had put on her dad’s Ant-Man suit. Instead, she continued, “Anyway, people will believe it, and I won’t tell them anything about you guys. I won’t tell them that the house smells like Mexican food. I’m great at keeping secrets. Seriously, it’s one of my greatest talents.”
“Hey, do yourself a favor and keep your mouth shut, will ya?” the big guy said.
She continued to the shorter guy, “Please. I know you’re not like your friend. I can tell you’re a good person—you’re different.”
She hoped he was different, that he would turn on the big guy, maybe get out his gun or something.
But it turned out he wasn’t different, after all, or else he was just a big wimp, because when they finished tying her up, he and the big guy left the room without another word.
Cassie was trying to be a big girl. She knew crying wouldn’t get her father here any quicker.
But she also knew that being so calm in this situation wasn’t normal. She was probably in shock, and had been in shock since the big guy had shot Roger and the guys forced her into the car.
Roger had been shot, actually shot.
Thinking about it now, it seemed surreal, like a nightmare. Cassie hoped he was okay. He had probably been wearing a bulletproof vest, so maybe he was alive—unless the man had shot him in the face. Why would these men shoot a federal marshal just to kidnap her? It had to do with her dad and Ant-Man, obviously. As usual, her dad’s big secrets had caused chaos in her life. All the moving around they’d done when she was a kid, the whole divorce thing with her mom—it was all because of her dad and Ant-Man. And now, if she got killed, it was going to be his fault, too.
She was so angry at him, but she also needed him to come save her. She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel about her father, whether she should hate him or love him. It was the story of her life.
Now she couldn’t stop herself from crying—she felt too scared, too alone. Why did life have to be so cruel, so unfair? This had gone from the best day of her life to the worst day, in a split second. She’d been so happy at school after finding out that Tucker liked her. She’d imagined kissing Tucker so many times, how his lips and tongue would feel. She’d never kissed anyone before, actually. What if she died without kissing anyone? It was so unfair—she hadn’t done anything to deserve this. Or had she? Maybe it was, like, karma. Because she’d broken Nikki’s nose with the basketball, she’d been kidnapped and might never have a chance to kiss Tucker.
She heard footsteps coming from the hallway, and then the door opened and someone entered the room. It was a man—she could tell by the body odor. It was really bad.
“So you’re Scott Lang’s daughter, huh?” the man said.
His voice sounded gravelly, like a smoker’s. His age? Maybe fifties or sixties, definitely older than her dad. There was something creepy about him, too. Not just the way he spoke—his whole vibe.
“I remember when you were born,” he said. “Used to sit on my lap. I knew you’d grow up pretty someday.”
Definitely creepy.
“Who are you?” Cassie asked. “What do you want?”
“Yeah, your father’s daughter, all right. Feisty little thing, aren’t you? That’s the thing I admired most about your dad. He was a fighter, not a whiner. He never gave up.”
“You better not hurt me,” Cassie said. “And you better let me go, or I’m telling you right now, my dad will track you down, he’ll find you and—”
“Don’t worry, your father’s already on his way up here.”
“He is?” Cassie wondered whether he was lying.
“Yeah,” the man said. “Spoke to him on the phone before, and he should be here by six o’clock.”
Still thinking this was some kind of trick, Cassie asked, “If that’s true, then why are you so relaxed?”
“What do you mean?” the man said. “Is there a reason I should be afraid of your father? I mean, if he’s really just some regular working guy in Manhattan, what can he do to hurt me?”
Cassie could tell the man was hinting about her dad’s identity as Ant-Man. But he didn’t sound like he knew for sure that her dad was Ant-Man, either.
“He’s my dad,” she said. “Dads get angry when their daughters are in danger.”
“Oh wow, I don’t want an angry dad coming after me,” the man said.
“You’re being sarcastic,” Cassie said.
“Okay, you want serious, I’ll give you serious,” the man said.
This was it—he was going to shoot her. Cassie thought about Tucker, his lips, kissing them. This was the last thought she wanted to have.
But the man didn’t shoot her. She was still breathing, still thinking about Tucker’s lips.
The man said, “I was a friend of your dad’s. We used to work together. This was a long time ago—like ten, fifteen years ago.”
Cassie’s pulse was still pounding—either from nearly dying or from nearly fantasy-kissing Tucker, she couldn’t tell which.
“I get it,” Cassie said. “You’re a criminal, just like my dad was.”
“Criminal’s a harsh word,” the man said, “but, yeah, we lived the life together. I trusted your father, literally trusted him with my life, but then he did something bad—something to betray me.”
Cassie said, “You’re the one who’s after my dad, right? You’re why we’ve had to be protected.”
“No, I’m not after him,” the man said. “I just want to make a deal with him, that’s all. If he cooperates, I’ll let you go. It’s all up to him.”
“My dad’s not a bad person,” Cassie
said. “He wouldn’t do something bad to you unless you deserved it.”
Just like I deserve to be here for what I did to Nikki, Cassie thought.
“Yeah, well, maybe you’re a smart kid, but you don’t know everything,” the man said. “Your dad did the worst thing a man can do to another man—he testified against me. You know what that means?”
“I’m fourteen, not four. Of course I know what that means.”
Snapping at the man made her felt stronger, more powerful. She managed to forget for a few seconds that she was tied to a chair and blindfolded, and had no power at all.
“Criminals like us—I mean real criminals, pros— we all take an oath,” the man said. “Not the kind of oath you take in a courtroom, not an oath to God. An oath just for us. Trust. I’m talking about trust. I trusted your father never to turn on me, and that’s exactly what he did. Worse, he did it to save his own ass. Putting yourself before your friend? What kind of man does that? And because of what he did to me, how he turned on me, I spent nine years in hell. Nine years of my life living in a cage, like an animal. But now I’m out of my cage—and I’ll tell you right now, I’m never going back in there again.”
One of Cassie’s greatest skills in life was her ability to spot crazy people. Sometimes in the city she’d be hanging out with her friends at a Starbucks or wherever, and she’d go to one of her friends, “Hey, look at that guy over there—he’s crazy,” and her friends would be like, “What do you mean? What guy?” And then the guy would do something totally crazy—like yell in somebody’s face, or start a fight— and Cassie would say to her friends, “See?” She was always right. And now her “crazydar” was, well, going crazy, telling her that this man was crazy. He had probably killed people before, and could easily kill again.
“If my dad testified against you, he must’ve had a good reason,” Cassie said.
She didn’t know where she was getting all this courage to stand up to the man, to say how she felt, but she wasn’t afraid anymore at all.
“He had no reason!” the man screamed, so loud it hurt Cassie’s ears. “No reason!”
Her crazydar was right again.
Cassie thought the man might hit her or something. She braced herself, but he said, “I have some information aboutyour dad, and I’ve been trying to figure out if it’s true or not. If you help me out, there may be a, well, better outcome for you and your dad. It’s up to you.”
Again, Cassie thought he was hinting about Ant-Man, though she didn’t know for sure. But one thing she did know: He wasn’t going to just let her go, no matter what she told him. She’d seen those guys shoot Roger, so why wouldn’t they shoot her, too? If her dad didn’t show up to save her, she was definitely going to die. So there was no way she was telling the man anything.
“What kind of information?” she asked.
“I think you know what I’m talking about,” he said.
“No, I don’t know.”
He let out a deep breath, then said, “You and your dad sound like you’re pretty close, huh?”
“Yeah,” she said. “So?”
“Did he ever talk about his secret life?”
Yeah, this was about Ant-Man. Wow, it was amazing how right she always was about people. Maybe when she grew up she should become a psychologist? Well, if she grew up—and right now, that was a very big if.
“No,” Cassie said. “Never.”
“You ever notice that there’s something different about your dad?” he asked. “I mean, as far as how he can talk to insects.”
“Insects?”
“Yeah,” the man said. “Or really I mean ants.”
“Ants?” Cassie said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Fine, I’ll just come out and ask it,” the man said. “Your dad’s Ant-Man, right?”
“What? What’re you talking about?
“He knows Pym, this scientist,” the man said. “Pym gave him a suit.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cassie said. “My dad’s just my dad. Wait, is that what this is all about? That’s why you’re doing this to me, because you really think…oh my god, this is so crazy. I can’t believe this is happening.”
Hey, her acting wasn’t too bad. If she did make it out of here, she would seriously consider auditioning for one of the school plays next year.
“I think you’re lying,” the man said.
Well, maybe her acting wasn’t that good.
She kept trying, though. “Think about it,” she said. “If my dad was Ant-Man, why would the FBI be protecting us from you? Did you ever think about that? If he was a super hero, he wouldn’t need any protection. He’d be able to protect himself, right?”
It was quiet. Cassie was proud of herself for coming up with that stuff about the FBI. It seemed to have had an effect on the guy—got him thinking, anyway.
Then he said, “You’re his daughter, all right. You’re stubborn, just like Scott. But you know what? I believe in hunches, and I got a hunch you’re holding back on me. Lemme tell you, you’re making a big mistake—a mistake that might cost you your life.”
“Oh, stop trying to scare me, already,” Cassie said. “It’s getting old. I’m not scared of you—I’m not scared of anything—so it’s not going to work.”
“Yeah,” he said, “just like your dad.”
Then she heard him walk out of the room, and the door slammed shut.
Cassie had no idea what to expect next. She wasn’t sure what time it was—day or night. She thought it was still day, because she wasn’t too tired or hungry. But what would happen later? Would they feed her? Where would she sleep?
In the movies, when people were tied to a chair, they just jiggled their hands a little, and in a few seconds that was it—they were free. But in real life, it was much more difficult—maybe impossible. Cassie tried to move her arms around to see whether the ropes would loosen, but the men had tied her too tightly. She kept trying; finally, the ropes around one of her hands loosened a little.
Then she heard the gunshots.
She tried telling herself that they’d come from a TV, that they weren’t real, but she couldn’t fool herself. There had been four shots, maybe five, and she heard a man screaming, or maybe wailing—it was all happening too far away to tell. And then there was another shot, and everything got quiet.
The quiet was the scariest part. She wanted to scream, but she was too afraid. With the blindfold still on securely, she couldn’t see anything—which somehow made the quiet seem quieter. Then she had a horrifying thought: What if everybody in the house was dead? And what if her father never came? She could stay tied up here in the chair for days, until she eventually died.
She kept squirming, pulling at the ropes.
For a long time—or maybe it just seemed like a long time—there was total silence. Then there were steps. Someone was coming down the hallway, toward the room, and then the door creaked open.
If this was it, if she was going to die, she wanted it to happen fast.
At least that would be better than having to stay tied to the chair and starving to death. In a few seconds, it would be over. She’d stop thinking, and she’d never be scared again. She hated being scared.
Cassie heard a click. She’d never fired a gun before, but she’d seen a lot of TV shows and movies with guns, and she knew what the click of a gun sounded like.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Just do it. I don’t care.”
Maybe she was in shock, because she wasn’t really feeling anything. Well, nothing except numbness. There was nothing she could do to stop it, nothing at all. She’d never have her first kiss, never see Tucker’s face again. Everything was dark, and she would stay in the darkness forever.
But the shot didn’t come. Cassie heard footsteps leave the room and fade down the hallway. She was alone again.
JUMPING from car to car, Scott made his way across the GW Bridge and onto the Palisades Parkway. He was able to check the
route and time with the helmet’s newest technology, which sort of worked like Tony Stark’s HUD, with voice-activation and images appearing in front of his eyes. Scott had sort of, well, borrowed the tech from Tony. Tony was cool with it, though: Scott and Tony were always competing with each other and riffing off each other’s latest inventions. Since Scott had moved to New York, he hadn’t had as much free time to tinker with the tech, but he was always coming up with improvements. Working on the Ant-Man suit was an absorbing, endless project.
Scott was making good time; he was easily on target to reach Wallkill by the 6 p.m. deadline. He had to make it on time, and Cassie had to be okay. Any other possibility was off the table. It wouldn’t get dark until 7:30 or 8—and even that didn’t matter, because he had night vision. The only thing that could slow him down was traffic, and that’s exactly what he hit approaching the exit for I-87.
The traffic was bumper-to-bumper. Scott managed to jump from car to car and make some progress. He could move quickly as Ant-Man, but not at fifty-five miles per hour. He jumped onto the back of a motorcyclist who was driving along the shoulder to beat the traffic, but even that only speeded him up a little bit.
Finally, he latched onto the roof of a bus and made it to the exit. The cars were moving well on 87, but the traffic had cost him a good twenty minutes. A map flashed in front of him: GPS estimated that he would now arrive at the location in Wallkill at 5:44. That didn’t give him much wiggle room to make the 6 o’clock deadline.
Scott hopped another bus onto I-84. When the bus exited, he tried to jump on top of a car, but— maybe because he was so concerned with the time— he misjudged the leap and landed on the edge of the car’s trunk. He tried to grab on, but he lost his grip and fell onto the highway. A few cars passed right over him, the wheels barely missing him. He got back on his feet and jumped cleanly onto the roof of a car in the next lane, and was back on his way.
The fall had cost him a little time, but not much. He exited in Newburgh and managed to make it most of the way to Wallkill on the back of a pickup truck. He had to jump off about a quarter of a mile away from the address when the pickup headed in the wrong direction, and then he jumped onto the fender of another truck to make it the rest of the way.
