Concentrate.
Her mind immediately focused on Dan. The thugs surrounded her, but she jumped out of their reach, her legs springing her higher than she thought possible, and grabbed the zip line wire, the one that was being cut on the other side of the river.
Amy made her way along the wire, hand over hand. She reached Dan in a matter of seconds, just as the wire broke. He dropped toward the water as his harness slid off the broken wire. But instead of filling her with terror, the sight of her freefalling brother activated a surge of energy as her arm shot out, grabbing one of Dan’s hands just before he fell out of reach.
“Hold on!” she told him. She strained all her muscles to tighten her grasp. The wire tore at the skin on her hand. The momentum of the fall swung them back over the river, back to the side where Pierce’s men were waiting. She clung to the wire like Tarzan clinging to a vine. They swooped upward and crashed into the stunned goons waiting for them there, knocking them to the ground.
Dan stared at Amy in shock. “What — ?”
“Get on my back,” Amy ordered. The zip line wire now dangled down the cliff toward the rushing water. Dan clung to her back like a little kid. She shimmied down the wire, bracing her feet against the cliff.
“Amy, what are you doing?” Dan felt heavy, but she knew she wouldn’t drop him unless he let go.
“I’ve got you. Just hold on tight,” she shouted. They made their way down the wire, rappelling against the cliff. She jumped the last twenty feet to the narrow river’s edge. He slid off her back. Large rocks dotted the water from one side to the other. She stepped on the first rock, then the next. They were sharp, wet, and slippery. “To the other side! Come on!” she told Dan.
He struggled to follow her across the rocks. Her sense of balance was supersharp — she hardly had to hold on to the rocks as she leaped from one to the next. Dan crouched down, clinging to each boulder as he slowly made his way over the rushing water.
She helped him over the last few rocks until they landed on the other side of the river. Pierce’s men watched them helplessly from above, unable to reach them. “What do we do now?” Dan asked. There was nowhere to go but up, nothing on that side but a sheer cliff about thirty feet high.
“We climb.”
“But what about — ?” Dan pointed at the man with the machete looking down at them.
Amy studied him. He had a machete, but there was only one of him. “We’ll deal with him when we get there.” She hoisted Dan onto her back again and started scaling the cliff. She stretched to reach a jutting rock, clung to it while her foot found a sturdy hold, and slowly made her way up the face of the cliff.
About three feet below the top of the cliff was a narrow ledge of rock. “Climb off,” she told Dan. She left him perched on the ledge. Just above her, the man with the machete was waiting.
Amy hoisted herself to the top of the cliff. The thug raised the machete, ready to strike. She kicked it out of his hand. It fell over the cliff to the river, clanking heavily against the rocks. The thug’s jaw dropped open in surprise. Amy knocked him flat with one swift kick to the gut. She reached down to Dan, hauling him up to the top of the cliff.
They ran through the jungle to the zip line center a quarter mile away, where Jake and Atticus were waiting for them. She had to hold herself back so Dan could keep up with her. She felt like a gazelle, as if she could breeze through the jungle for miles and never get tired.
“Are you okay?” Jake asked. “What took you so long?”
“We’re fine,” Amy said. “We’re great.” She wasn’t even out of breath. She could have kept running, she could have run a marathon without getting tired. She bounced up and down on her toes.
“Amy.” Dan was gasping for breath. “What just HAPPENED?”
“What do you mean?” The golden energy coursed through her veins. She knew what he meant; in the back of her mind she knew something was wrong, but she couldn’t feel it, she could only feel the energy.
“You — you caught me before I fell,” Dan said, staring at her in disbelief, as if the strangeness of what had happened was just dawning on him. “You rappelled down a cliff with me on your back. You took on one of Pierce’s thugs like it was nothing —”
“What?” Jake asked. “Amy — ?”
She stopped bouncing. She still felt the energy coursing through her veins, shining out of her eyes. But the voice in the back of her mind was getting clearer: Something is wrong, something is very wrong. . . .
“I had to do it, Dan,” she said. “I couldn’t let you die. . . .”
Dan’s mouth opened, then closed. He knows, she thought. He knows but he can’t say it out loud. “It was worth it,” she said. She was done letting him make her feel guilty for saving him. “I’d do it again.”
“What are you talking about?” Jake demanded.
Dan and Atticus stared at her with questions in their eyes, and fear. “The serum,” she told them in a confident voice she didn’t recognize as her own. “I had a vial of it with me. Dan was about to die. I had to save him. So . . . I drank it.”
“You had it with you?” Dan asked. His features were frozen in shock. “All this time?” She nodded. “And you . . . you took it.” He looked down now as if the gravity of what had happened was beginning to weigh on him. “The full-strength serum.”
She nodded again. His eyes searched her face as if looking for something — or someone — he’d lost long ago.
Amy recoiled from the look on his face as if it were a blow, the confidence draining away as quickly as it’d appeared. What have I done?
“I don’t understand,” Jake said.
She looked at Dan, and his eyes filled with tears. He fell against her in a long, deep hug. She held him, never wanting to let go. Her little brother, safe in her arms.
Atticus stepped forward and put a small arm around each of them. “What, you guys? What is it?”
Dan just shook his head as if he couldn’t speak.
“I took the Cahill serum,” Amy explained gravely. “That means I will be the strongest, smartest, most powerful person on earth. For one week.”
“And then?” Jake asked.
Dan started sobbing, soaking her T-shirt.
“And then,” she said slowly, the gravity of it finally sinking in, hitting her like a blow to the solar plexus, “I will die.”
Dan held on to Amy the whole way back to the hotel. He couldn’t bring himself to let go. Tears streamed down his face and he couldn’t make them stop.
His heart was breaking. He didn’t even care how it looked, a thirteen-year-old boy with his arm around his sister’s waist, sobbing uncontrollably. Nothing mattered now.
Amy had taken the serum to save him. And now she was going to die.
Maybe dying would have been better than this, the heavy guilt weighing on his heart like a lead blanket. It was his fault that the serum existed at all. His fault that Amy had been secretly carrying it around for safekeeping. His fault that she’d taken it . . .
His fault that she would soon die.
He could feel how the serum had changed her while they walked. Jake and Atticus stumbled down the path like zombies, numb with shock. But Dan could feel Amy holding herself back to keep from running ahead of him. Her skin seemed to hum with energy and power.
He couldn’t hold on to her forever. He let her go.
She immediately sprang ahead, almost involuntarily. She hopped up onto a stone fence in one easy leap, then double-back-flipped off.
She turned back to Dan with a sad, apologetic smile. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”
Jake and Atticus watched her blankly, as if they couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening. The Amy they knew was no gymnast — especially not at a time like this.
It doesn’t seem real to her, Dan thought. She’s feeling the power, the strength .
. . but not the poison.
It didn’t quite seem real to him, either.
Back at the hotel, Amy bounced around the room, trying to contain her energy. It might’ve been comforting — someone that full of life couldn’t possibly be dying. But Dan could see the emotions playing over her face, bouncing around, too. One minute she looked giddy with power, the next overwhelmed by panic.
Atticus tried to take her hand and lead her into a seat. When that failed, Jake took a more direct approach. “Amy, settle down,” he barked. “We’ve got to concentrate on finding the crystal. The antidote is more important than ever now.” His tone was harsh, as if he were furious with Amy, but whenever Dan caught Jake’s eye, he could see a flicker of anguish.
“I need to look at those glyphs.” Atticus’s breath shook as he spoke, but he tried to hide his fear, tried to act as tough as Jake. “Where’s Olivia’s book, Dan?”
The book. Dan opened his backpack and rummaged through it. “I had it in here when we were attacked. . . .” He searched the pack, then emptied it. “Maybe I put it in my back pocket.” He patted his pockets, then pulled them inside out. No book.
“Dan, where is it?” Amy’s voice was high and tense.
“I — I don’t know.” He was beginning to panic, the terror rising from his gut with a bitter, metallic taste.
“Check the pack again,” Atticus said.
“I am.” Dan double- and triple-checked every corner of his backpack, every pocket. There was no way around it. Olivia’s book was gone.
“It must have fallen out of my pocket when I was fighting off Pierce’s men,” Dan said.
So it was somewhere out there in the jungle . . . the vast jungle where planes could crash and never be found.
The mood in the room settled into a dark gloom. Dan kicked over a chair in a fury.
Amy was dying. And now the book was gone.
He’d done it again. He’d let Amy down. She’d been right to abandon him. He couldn’t be counted on to do anything right.
Without the crystal and a perfect antidote recipe, Amy could not be saved. Dan knew the recipe by heart, though some of the more complicated codes had yet to be deciphered. The book was crammed with information that shed light on the recipe — like where to find the exact ingredients. One small mistake and the antidote wouldn’t work.
And he’d lost the book. It was his fault.
His sister, who stood before him now so full of life, would be dead in a week. Only seven more days of eye rolls whenever he made a bad joke. 168 hours of ruffling his hair and calling him a dweeb with a smile that meant she wouldn’t have him any other way. 10,080 minutes left with his big sister, the one who’d let him sleep in her bed for a year after their parents died, who skipped the first day of seventh grade to sit on a bench next to Dan’s elementary school and wave to him during recess. Amy, the only family he had left, gone forever.
The clock was ticking. They still had to stop Pierce from taking over the world. But first they had to save Amy’s life.
Off the coast of Maine
After clobbering Galt in their morning karate bout, Cara showered and changed for Round Table. Round Table was a “quiz game” her father had invented, where she and Galt competed to see which of them had the most knowledge of politics and history. Pierce played “moderator,” asking the questions. He kept a running tally of points won by each child. At the moment, Galt was beating Cara 110 to 100. But Cara had been beating him lately. She was closing the gap. Maybe today would be the day when she’d pull ahead. And if she did, would her father finally take notice and realize that Cara was as worthy of his attention as Galt?
Cara finished dressing and glanced through her history notes. The facts and figures stuck in her mind so easily now. Her memory had improved while she was taking the power shakes her father had given her, but with the extra punch from Galt’s shake, her memory had become photographic.
Galt and her father were waiting for her in Pierce’s study. She took her place at the round “game table,” which was equipped with little buzzers, just like a real quiz show. Let the games begin.
“Are you both ready?” Pierce shuffled through his note cards and trained his icy blue eyes on his children. “All right, Round Table, Round Five. Let’s begin. Secret Service Code Names: What is the Secret Service Code Name for Barack Obama?”
Easy one. Cara pressed her buzzer a split second before Galt did. “Renegade.”
“Correct. Give me three more code names for bonus points.”
“Bill Clinton: Eagle. Richard Nixon: Searchlight. John F. Kennedy: Lancer. Senator Ted Kennedy: Sunburn —” Cara could go on forever.
“Enough.” Pierce’s voice was stern, but he was smiling. “I only asked for three, Cara.”
“You should penalize her a point,” Galt said.
“I’m not going to penalize her for doing more than I asked,” Pierce said. “You should always strive to do more than is asked of you. That’s how you get ahead.”
Galt scowled.
“Next question. Name three cities that have hosted the Republican National Convention. Go.”
Again Cara was quicker to buzz. “Tampa, 2012; St. Paul, 2008; New York, 2004; Philadelphia, 2000 —”
“Showoff,” Galt grumbled.
“Extra credit for knowing the years. Good job, Cara.” Pierce noted Cara’s points on a score sheet and shuffled his question cards. “Lightning round. This one’s for the losers. I’ll name a president, and you tell me the name of the candidate he beat. Ready? Dwight D. Eisenhower.” Cara buzzed. “Cara.”
“Adlai Stevenson.” Give me something challenging, Cara thought. This is too easy.
“George W. Bush in 2000. Cara.”
“Al Gore and Ralph Nader,” Cara said.
“Ralph Nader! Green Party!” Galt shouted out.
“Too late, Galt. George H. W. Bush. Cara.”
“Michael Dukakis.”
“Right. Um . . . Rutherford B. Hayes. Galt.”
“Samuel J. Tilden,” Galt said.
“Score one for Galt.” Pierce noted their scores. Of course Galt would get Rutherford B. Hayes — that was his favorite president. Because his name was Galt Rutherford Pierce, after his father.
They played for another half hour. Galt managed to score a few more points, but Cara beat him in the end.
“Cara has pulled ahead,” Pierce announced after adding up their scores. “It’s now 157 for Cara, 123 for Galt. Nice job, Cara. And as a reward for your impressive performance, you’ll be going to Washington with me tomorrow.”
Galt jumped to his feet. “What!? You said I could go with you!”
“I think the most politically astute child should be the one who accompanies me while I’m meeting with Congress,” Pierce said, nailing Galt with a hard stare. “Don’t you agree, Galt? It only makes sense.”
Galt was fuming and frustrated. Cara could practically feel the heat of his rage coming off his skin.
“Thank you, Dad.” She stood up to go. “I’ll start packing.”
“Ask your mother to help you,” Pierce called after her. “She knows the right things to wear in Washington.”
Cara fumed as she walked up the plushly carpeted stairs to her room. Her father wouldn’t have worried about what Galt was going to wear. Was he taking her to Washington because she was smart, as an aide? Or as an ornament, like her mother?
He still favors Galt, Cara realized. Her father thought Cara’s recent success was a fluke, just a temporary setback for her brother. Deep down, Cara thought bitterly, in spite of everything I’ve done, my dad thinks I’m a carbon copy of Mom — basically, a ditz.
I’ll show him.
Cara’s mother knocked on her bedroom door later that day. “Would you like to go shopping with me this afternoon, honey?” Debi Ann asked. “Your father told me that he’s t
aking you to Washington with him! That’s exciting. There are going to be more and more of these public appearances, and you’ll need some new dresses.”
Cara knew the kind of dresses her mother wanted to buy her. They were expensive, neat, and always had some little-girlish detail — a white Peter Pan collar, maybe, or a bow at the waist. Perfect for a candidate’s daughter. But utterly ridiculous.
“Can’t you just order a few things in my size?”
“Of course, dear.” Her mother hated conflict, and she must have known from past experience that a shopping trip with Cara would be one long argument. “Your father said you were a whiz at Round Table this morning.” She looked down at her perfect pink manicure, as if she were afraid to meet Cara’s eye. As if she were intimidated by her own daughter.
“Thanks, Mom.” She could barely look at her mother these days. Debi Ann got this pained, deer-in-the-headlights expression that drove Cara crazy. If only her mother would stand up for herself. But Cara couldn’t really blame her. How could anyone stand up to her father?
Debi Ann Pierce sat at the pristine white desk in her pristine white study. This was where she signed the notes her secretary wrote for her, thank-you notes to the wives of visiting dignitaries, get-well cards to important people who were sick, checks to the many charities she supported. She didn’t really need a study all to herself, but they had the space, and so here she spent her days, sitting alone, worrying.
Lately her worries had settled on Cara. Cara had changed recently. It was surprising enough when her slightly awkward daughter began excelling at tennis, waterskiing, judo, karate . . . pretty much any sport she tried. She seemed to become a natural athlete almost overnight. Galt, too, though he’d been more athletic than Cara as a young child.
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