by Sarah Cross
“If something goes wrong?” Darla says. “I have a whole contingency plan for that scenario. It’s called ‘say hello to my Carminotoxin truth serum and tell me exactly what I want to hear, before I incapacitate you and trap you in a sauna!’ I’m not leaving Avery at the mercy of you and your manipulative mother, ice boy, and if you think—”
“Darla!” Sophie shouts. “Shut! Up!”
Darla’s face flushes almost as pink as that girly assault rifle, but she flops down in her inventor’s chair and shuts her mouth. Sophie grabs the back of Darla’s chair and wheels her into a corner, talks to her quietly. Jacques takes his cell phone out to check the time, agitated.
“What am I going to have to defend myself against?” I finally ask, fairly certain I know the answer.
Jacques shakes his head slowly, pushes his platinum hair out of his face. “I hope nothing. My mother has an appointment tomorrow morning. A follow-up with her surgeon. She may cancel it, because of Nicholas. I don’t know. But it’s our best chance, to go there when she is away, and then perhaps—”
“If she isn’t going to be there, we can all go,” Sophie says brightly. “It shouldn’t matter then whether I can defend myself. I think Nicholas would feel good if he saw the whole team, and saw how much he means to us.”
“No,” Jacques says firmly. “I won’t discuss this anymore. My mother will have brought Nicholas to the house, which is a significant distance away from here. We need to leave now or not at all.”
He won’t look at me; he’s busy icing up his fingers and then scraping the frost away with his nails. Repeatedly. Distracted. And I wonder, is he lying to us? Is he setting me up? Jacques and I have never really been friends. But he seems nervous, ready to bolt. I don’t want to push him and make him change his mind—not when Nicholas’s future is at stake. Which means there’s no time for questions.
“I’m ready,” I say.
“Fine. But this is a horrible idea,” Darla mutters, hugging me tightly, a little too long. “We’re not leaving you on your own. I’m going to come up with a plan, and I’ll—”
“Please don’t,” Jacques says. “You have no idea what you are dealing with. You’ll only make things worse.”
Darla does something weird then—I mean weird even for her. She throws her arms around Jacques in this intense embrace, hands roaming across his back before she pulls away. I have to blink a few times to make sure I’m not delirious. That was like watching my dad French-kiss a raccoon—I feel violated on so many levels.
“Good luck,” she says, totally avoiding eye contact.
“Would you please reconsider?” Sophie says. “It might be good to have more support. I mean, if something bad does happen . . .”
“Absolutely not. I don’t want you there, Sophie. Your power doesn’t interest her. If you make her angry, you’re completely expendable—she doesn’t respond well to defiance. Promise me you won’t get involved.”
“But—”
“I am so serious about this,” Jacques says. “I have never been more serious about anything. Please: stay here.” His expression is totally bare, almost pleading with her. I feel like I’m looking at a different person, because there’s no awareness of me in his eyes, no anger, irritation, pride. He cares about her.
And I do, too. “He’s probably right. It’ll be an easy in-and-out, faster with just the two of us,” I say, even though I’m growing less sure of this by the moment.
I swallow. Jacques is talking about his mom here—what’s he so afraid of? I mean, if her own son is taking these kinds of precautions . . . either he’s determined to see me crash and burn alone, or Cherchette’s even more disturbed than I thought.
“Well, okay then.” Sophie hesitates; fidgets, then turns on her thousand-watt smile again. “I do have faith in you guys. Make us proud, team! Woot!” She steps forward and smacks me on the ass, like a too-cute football coach getting friendly before a game. I seriously cannot speak after she does that. “But be careful,” Sophie says. “Bring Nicholas back safe. And if you need me . . .” She holds up her cell phone, looking worried-hopeful, and wishes us luck.
And that’s how I end up in Jacques’ car that evening, speeding along the highway, towns whipping by us, some kind of moody trip hop on the radio.
I rub my hands together to warm them up, but it’s more a symbolic gesture than anything. Jacques’s focus is barely on me and the temps seem to stay pretty regular. I try to think of something to say, some normal way to interrupt the silence.
“How long of a ride is it?”
“Not long,” he says. “We’re going a bit out of our way to dispose of this.” He leans forward in his seat and reaches around behind him, fingers plucking awkwardly at his jacket until he comes away with a sliver of lavender plastic, about the size of a girl’s fingernail, with spiky metal teeth on the back.
“Tracking device,” he explains. “Unless your friend plans to kill me and has made a miniature bomb. But I doubt it.”
“How did you . . . ?”
Jacques gives me a look like he knows the difference between a girl who likes him and a girl who’s tagging him. “Something very strange about that good-bye.”
Wow. Darla has no shame. Pretty ingenious scheme, though. I wonder what she’d think if she knew Jacques saw right through it.
Silence again. The incessant mellow beat of the music wraps around me, helps me lose myself in my thoughts. We’re traveling via local roads now, not the highway, but it still all looks the same. A “Welcome to Wherever” sign, and then miles of homes, or nothingness, the endless road lulling me into a passive, thoughtful state.
“So why do you hate me?” I ask. The question bubbles up before I think to clamp down on it.
Jacques raises his eyebrows, surprised. It takes him a second to collect himself. But he looks like he’s considering it, so . . . I guess that means there’s something to consider. “I don’t know that it’s accurate to say I hate you. Maybe I did. Or I thought I did.”
“Because of Sophie?”
“Why would it involve Sophie?”
I clear my throat. “No reason.”
Jacques turns the wheel, hand over hand, as we take a curve. “You were an idea to me before you were a person. I knew you on paper first. And if you had remained paper, I would have shredded you. That’s how I felt. I know this doesn’t make sense to you. I don’t expect it to. I can explain, but I’m not sure how healthy it is for you to know this.”
“My life hasn’t exactly been easy lately,” I say. “I can take—”
“Your life is very easy,” Jacques interrupts. “You have no idea how lucky you are. Your powers are a burden to you sometimes—is that what you base this ‘difficulty’ on? You don’t wish to be discovered. You lose control on occasion and things go badly for you. But you are a diamond in the rough. You have amazing potential. Surely you know that about yourself.”
“I don’t know.” Fields and houses speed past us in the dark. People’s lives. Families. I wonder what my parents are thinking. If they’re angry. Or worried. And whether this is fair. Whether I was a total A-hole to them this morning. They don’t deserve me—that’s for sure. And I don’t mean that like I’m a prize. Like I have amazing potential . I mean they shouldn’t have to put up with me. My dad shouldn’t be working a sixth day a week because of me. My mom shouldn’t be freaking that she can’t leave the job she hates, the boss she hates, because they don’t know when I’m going to put them in debt next.
“I don’t feel very amazing,” I say finally.
“Well, my mother thinks you are amazing. You’re the pinnacle of what we could be. A human being who defies gravity, who has the strength of a hundred men. A human miracle. And I . . . I am a poor copy, a second-generation imitation. Of very little value, compared to you.”
“She doesn’t think that,” I say.
“You represent something more to her,” he goes on. “You are the future. We are all born with the same raw materials�
�but look what you’ve become.” He smiles bitterly. “And if I don’t surpass you, it’s my own fault. It’s because something in me is lacking. She’s so simplistic it’s infuriating.”
The chill in the car is growing, reaching out, like ghostly tendrils slowly strangling the warmth out of me. I curl up in the seat to get smaller—I don’t care how stupid it looks.
“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t spent my entire life trying to be what she wanted, only to be told that was impossible, because I wasn’t you. I will never be you. And so the next best thing, I suppose, was proving to myself that you weren’t what she wanted either. But you are,” he says. “What am I supposed to do about that?”
My body’s juddering, breath leaking out like steam. Jacques is pushing forward, lost in whatever he’s feeling, and I don’t know what to say to bring him back. “That can’t be true,” I say. “No matter what my powers are, I’m just some random kid; you’re her son.”
“Anyone can be a parent,” he says quietly. “My mother needs more than that.”
Jacques slows to a stop at a red light and finally notices me convulsing. The tendrils of cold retract. Blood rushes back to my fingertips. My nerves tingle as they thaw out.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “That was unintentional.”
I nod, wanting to believe him.
Jacques takes a few moments to compose himself, and I cup my hands together over my mouth, blow warm air into my palms. I might be stronger, but Jacques manages to nail my weak point every time. He can incapacitate me without even trying. I need him to look at this differently, or we’re both in trouble.
“Your mom’s opinion isn’t the only one that matters,” I say, forcing the words out because I know the next few are going to be even harder. “Sophie thinks you’re awesome. When we caught that mugger at the park, she said you were hands down our MVP. Not a loser.” The reject list conversation Darla and I had with Sophie flashes through my mind. “Or does it not matter to you what she thinks? Since according to your mom, Sophie’s a loser, too?”
“I don’t agree with my mother’s evaluation of Sophie.”
I figured that—but I’m trying to get the wheels turning. Jacques is alternating between hot and cold, flushing one moment, chilling the air the next—like he’s struggling with something, but isn’t sure how to say it. “My mother . . . doesn’t see what she has in front of her sometimes. There are very specific things that she wants to achieve, and life is too short to waste time on people she doesn’t value. I . . . admit that I have spent too much of my life being frustrated with her opinions, rather than questioning her judgment. But when I found Sophie on my mother’s exclusion list, I was curious. My mother was occupied, doting on her ‘chosen ones’; I had very little to do, and here was a girl my mother deemed worthless . . . like me. I wondered if I would view her that way, too, if I met her. But I decided that my mother was wrong.”
“If she was wrong about Sophie, maybe she was wrong about you, too,” I say.
Jacques sighs. His tense smile seems sad, a little angry. “Maybe.”
Knowing that we’re starting to understand each other should probably make me feel better—but it doesn’t. Everything is still so uncertain between us. And I don’t just have Jacques to worry about—there’s Nicholas, too. What if I tell him the truth about Cherchette, and he still wants to stay? I’m hoping that he’s already having second thoughts, and that if a way out presents itself, he’ll take it. But if he’s firm about staying . . .
“Do we have a plan?” I ask Jacques.
“In, out,” he says. “As quickly as possible. We do not use hired security; no one will be on the lookout for you, so long as my mother is absent. It’s up to you to convince Nicholas. You should have about an hour to do so, but the faster we get out of there the better.”
“Agreed,” I say. I don’t want to face Cherchette again. Once she finds out I’m unraveling the web she spun to snare Nicholas—on top of what I already did to her at Catherine’s—there’s no telling how she’ll react. She stopped herself from killing me once, but I might not be so lucky a second time. And considering how easily Jacques’s power can bring me to my knees, I don’t think I’ll stand much of a chance if Cherchette unleashes her full fury.
When Jacques finally stops the car, it’s at a fast-food restaurant hours away. The sun’s starting to set. Jacques pulls me out of the Jaguar and instructs me to lift my arms up, then proceeds to brush off my shirt like he’s trying to dislodge a stubborn insect. Or, uh, maybe a tracking device.
“Your hands are really cold,” I say.
“Deal with it. We can’t have the girls following us.” I wince and make faces and wait for it to be over. I mean, I agree with him—but it wouldn’t kill the guy to wear gloves.
When beating my shirt, and even checking the inside of my collar, doesn’t produce a second lavender sliver, Jacques steps back. Satisfied that I haven’t been tagged, he drops his own tracking device down a sewer grate.
“Don’t you think it’ll be a little suspicious when Darla’s GPS leads her here?”
Jacques smirks. “It will fit perfectly with what she already assumes about my family. A subterranean fortress below Burger King.”
We stop inside for dinner, kill time slurping shakes. We still have to drive back—cover all the ground we covered to get here, but in reverse. After that, Jacques claims it won’t take us long to get to Cherchette’s. But we’ll have to wait until morning to enter the house so that we can grab Nicholas while she’s gone. That means hours and hours before we’ll see him.
Hours and hours for something to go wrong.
I try not to think about that on the way back. Instead I try to visualize success, walk myself through a house I’ve never been in, imagine the moment we find Nicholas, imagine myself making this perfect argument and Nick agreeing to come home. I try to psych myself up like I would before a match. But this isn’t a game. It’s too real. Jacques’s moody music holds on to me and pushes me deeper into my thoughts.
Sometime later that night, Jacques murmurs that we’re nearing his home. He drives the Jaguar down a dead-end road, empty except for trees and the “Private Property: No Trespassing” signs that are staked into the ground every few hundred feet. He parks beneath a tree with heavy, drooping branches, a threatening sentinel in the dark. “We’ll wait here until morning.” My heart’s thudding, just knowing Cherchette’s so close—almost afraid she’ll sense us, come crashing through the trees that border the abandoned road.
Jacques shifts in his seat, stares into the darkness, a chill wafting from his skin with every creak of the leather. I need to get some sleep, but my mind’s racing, impatient for the seconds to tick away and bring us closer to Nicholas so this can all be over—so we can be okay. Back home. Safe. I try to hold on to these thoughts, to keep the icy fears at bay, but memories of my last encounter with Cherchette swirl through my mind. Like waking nightmares. Only worse, because they’ve already come true.
I must drift off at some point, because when I open my eyes, the Jaguar is gliding toward an immense, Victorian-style mansion: a cross between a fairy-tale palace and a haunted house. The grounds extend as far as I can see, wild with a sea of unkempt grass. Barren rosebushes tangle together into a wall of thorns—and there are no neighbors for miles, no one to get too curious or ask questions. Flaking paint and crooked shingles reveal themselves as we drive closer. I yawn, stretch, too bleary to be really nervous. My muscles are stiff and the warmth of the early morning sun lingers on my clothes.
“This is good,” Jacques says as we pull into the empty four-car garage. “I worried she might cancel her appointment because of Nicholas. But her car is gone. We have until . . . at least ten. Leilani sleeps in; I don’t think we’ll see her. But keep your voice down.”
With that last bit of advice, Jacques unlocks the house door with a resounding thunk.
The house is quiet except for the hum of appliances, the ticking of various clocks. Ou
r footsteps are muted by plush, dark carpets patterned with flowers. Jacques motions this way, and I follow him through a series of rooms, all furnished elaborately like we’re in Versailles or something.
The air is stuffy with strong perfume, the cloying scent of candles and furniture polish. The whole place is sealed up like a crypt. Most of the curtains are pulled. In the rare place where the sun filters in, it bounces off clear glass display cases filled with warped, plastic fashion dolls. Their cheekbones are sharp, like Barbie went under the knife. Every last one of them has platinum-blond hair, and full lips the color of blood.
Jacques only does a cursory walk-through of the main floor; he says Nicholas is probably asleep, so we head upstairs to where the bedrooms are. Jacques points out his own, Leilani’s, Cherchette’s, the bathrooms; we avoid those. He runs his hand across the rest of the doorknobs in the long, narrow corridor: twin rows of rooms like in an old hotel.
“He’s not here. Not enough body heat. The rooms are empty.”
“Check again.” The hinges creak as I open one of the doors. Inside I find a perfectly made bed, open curtains, sunshine streaming in. Fresh flowers on a bedside table.
Nothing.
But there are other rooms. I abandon the first one, check the adjacent room. And then the room across the hall. And—
Jacques stops me with an icy hand. “He’s not here.”
“Where then?”
We descend the stairs to the first floor again—creaky wood steps covered by thin, rose-colored carpet—and Jacques heads to a sort of den or TV room and flops down on a leather couch. Searches under it for the remote. “Where is it?” he murmurs, practically upside down now, shoving books and papers aside in his search.
There’s a huge flat-panel TV mounted on the wall—the one nod to the current century. “Uh, are you missing your favorite show or something?”
“Hardly,” Jacques says, emerging with the remote. He punches a series of buttons and the wall that holds the TV slides away, revealing a heavy steel door.
