Clara nodded again. Though she was clearly terrified, she was not crying. She looked up at me with clear eyes.
“It’s okay, Truman. I’ll go,” she said.
I was proud of her. I looked at her intently, not caring that the Pied Piper could hear what I told her next.
“I promise you Clara, I will get you back. This is only temporary. He won’t have you for long,” I said.
Clara nodded. Her thin face was pale as a ghost’s. I hoped she believed me. I feared she did not.
“It’s my own fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t have called Mom. You told me not to, and I did it anyway. I didn’t want her to worry about me. I’m sorry.”
Clara visibly steeled herself and turned to the girl who had been doing all the talking.
“Where do you want me to go?” Clara said to the girl.
“Follow us,” said the boy who was on the ascending part of the stairs holding a gun to the temple of a smaller boy. He was at an age where his voice had not deepened yet, and he sounded much as the girl in front of me had.
Without a backward glance at me, Clara walked up the stairs towards the boys. The boys turned and walked up the stairs followed by Clara. They walked towards the dirt road that extended past Shadow’s property. They soon dropped out of sight.
“The children will remain here to keep an eye on you,” the girl before me said. “Once those two boys lead Clara to where I and my men are, I will have the boys come back to you. Once my men and I are safely away with Clara, I will release my hold on the children. You can either return them to where they came from, or let them wander through the woods to try to make it back to their homes on their own.” The girl’s lips curled into the same humorless smile that was almost a snarl from before. “I think we both know which you will do. It will give me even more time to get away from the area. I will make sure you do not locate Clara again. I will not make the mistake of underestimating you twice.”
“This is not over,” I said. I felt impotent. It was not a feeling I was used to, or one I liked.
The girl did not respond. She merely stared at me vacantly. All of the kids were staring at me like that. Soon Shadow joined me in the doorway. We all stood there like statues for quite a while, staring at each other.
When the children’s faces eventually stopped looking like mannequins, I knew the Pied Piper had released his hold on them. The children suddenly looked confused by where they were, and then scared. Most of them started crying.
I knew how they felt. I wanted to cry too.
***
It was late in the evening by the time Shadow and I had returned all of the children to where they belonged in and around Lexington. We were tired, but we were not through for the day. Not by a long shot.
“So how are we going to find Clara?” Shadow asked me once we had returned the last child and we were alone. “The Pied Piper won’t be so stupid as to take her back to MLF headquarters again.”
“I already know where Clara is,” I said. “Or at least I will once we consult the location software you took from the government. After we bought Clara some new clothes, I sewed one of your locator bugs into each piece of her clothing. I wanted some insurance in case something like this happened.”
Shadow smiled. She started to say something. She saw the look on my face and stopped. I was in no mood for banter or for compliments. I only wanted two things: Clara back, and to confront the Pied Piper.
One way or another, I would make sure he never took Clara again.
CHAPTER 28
Shadow and I returned to her cabin to hastily pack after we returned the children to their families. We got into my car and headed back towards Maryland. That was where the tracking bugs I had planted on Clara’s clothes told us she was.
I drove north on Interstate 81 back towards Maryland while Shadow consulted the tracking app on her phone and navigated from the passenger seat. Though I wanted to push my car to its limits to get to Clara as quickly as possible, I smothered the impulse and instead merely drove a few miles over the speed limit. I did not want a state trooper to try to pull me over for speeding. If he did, I probably would not stop in my haste to get back to Clara as quickly as possible. The last thing we needed was to get involved in a police chase while we were trying to rescue Clara.
Almost four hours after we started the drive but almost forty hours after the Pied Piper took Clara, we closed in on Clara’s location. It was around mid-morning on a Saturday. From the signals from the tracking bugs, Clara was on the Astor Bay Bridge.
The iconic dual-span bridge was about four miles long and crossed Astor Bay, the largest bay in the United States. The bridge was one of the largest in the world. Astor Bay Bridge connected the eastern and largely rural part of Maryland, known as the Eastern Shore, with the Western Shore of Maryland, which was far more urbanized than the Eastern Shore since it contained Astor City.
That time of the day and year, traffic was heavy and got heavier the closer we drove to the bridge. Right as we were about to hit the toll booths that marked the entrance to the bridge, I started to sense the unique water signature of Bonebreaker’s body. It was unmistakable. We zoomed past a dark sports utility vehicle that was pulled onto the shoulder of the road shortly before the toll booths.
“Bonebreaker is in the SUV we just passed,” I said to Shadow. She twisted in her seat to look back at it. “Are you sure Clara is not with him?”
Shadow consulted her phone again.
“No, this is saying she is about two miles straight ahead,” Shadow said.
I shrugged, wrote Bonebreaker and the Pied Piper a mental IOU, and kept driving. I stopped to pay the toll, and then kept driving onto the eastbound span of the bridge. This side of the bridge had two lanes. The westbound span, which was separated from the eastbound span by water and air, had three lanes.
The bridge was really quite beautiful. Once we had been on it for a few moments, the view from it overlooking Astor Bay extended for miles. Sail and powerboats plied the waters around us and off in the distance. My mind gaped at the immensity of the water below. Almost without meaning to, I stretched out my powers to touch the water. I let the water wash over my mind, luxuriating in it like a caught fish released back into the water. The road got blurry before me. With an effort I pulled back the range of my water awareness. I wrenched my mind back to the task at hand. The road refocused before me. Letting my mind linger on the vast expanse of water that was Astor Bay would be like staring at the sun too long. It would overload my senses.
Anxiety mounted in me as I drove closer to Clara’s signal. I did not understand why she was up ahead of us, and yet Bonebreaker and, presumably, the Pied Piper were behind us. Then, the obvious hit me like a brick wall. The Pied Piper planned on making Clara explode on the bridge. He did not want to be caught in the blast, which was why he stayed off the bridge. The bridge was busy with traffic. How many would die this time in an explosion Clara caused, especially with her augmented powers? Dozens? Hundreds? How many more would die or be injured if the explosion cause part of the bridge to collapse? At its highest point, the bridge was about one hundred and eighty feet from the surface of the water. Astor Bay was cold that time of the year. The shore was far away from where we were. If someone was not killed or injured in Clara’s blast, he likely would be by the fall into the water below, by the cold, or by drowning.
My stomach clenched at the thought of it. I stepped down harder on the gas. I drove as fast as the thick traffic would allow. I weaved in and out of the stream of cars. My tires squealed in protest. Shadow and I were rocked violently from side to side. We were peppered with honking horns as we barreled down the bridge.
“We’re not going to do Clara or anyone else any good if we kill ourselves trying to get to her,” Shadow said. Her head was down as she studied her phone. Her voice was perfectly calm. It was as if she was simply telling me the time.
I ignored her. I swerved into the left lane into a tight space to avoid a car d
riving too slowly in the right lane. Again, horns rang out around me in protest. After surging ahead, I swerved back into a space in the right lane.
“She’s up ahead on the left side,” Shadow said.
I peered ahead and to the left. I could just barely see what appeared to be the top of Clara’s head.
“I see her,” I said as I swerved into the left lane again. Within seconds, we were almost next to her. She was roughly in the middle of the bridge’s span, walking on the far left side. There was a thin walkway on the outer edges of each bridge span which was used by maintenance workers and where people often stood to get out of traffic when they had an accident. The walkway was separated from traffic by a low concrete guardrail.
I drove until I was alongside of Clara. I skidded to a stop as I rolled down my window. I was blocking one of the two lanes of traffic. A symphony of horns swelled behind me. I did not care. The people behind me could get out and swim if they were in such a rush. It would be better than being blown up.
I looked at Clara. Her face did not hold the blank look people controlled by the Pied Piper always did. Rather, Clara looked agitated and terrified. We must have been too far from the Pied Piper for his powers to have a hold on her anymore.
“Get in the car,” I shouted to Clara. The wind was whipping and more and more cars were honking. “We’ll get you away from here.”
Clara turned her head and looked at me. She looked startled for a moment at the sight of me. She stopped walking. Happiness at seeing me lit up her face for a brief moment. An instant later the look was replaced again by fear and panic. Clara took a step towards me, and then stopped. She shook her head.
“I can’t,” Clara shouted back. Even though we were relatively close to her, I could barely hear her over the car horns and the high wind.
I cursed. I opened my door. As an afterthought, I slapped the button on my dashboard to turn on my emergency blinkers. I got out of the car, as did Shadow. I absently noted my stopped car was beginning to cause a bottleneck. Cars were continuing to drive eastward in the right lane, but their pace was already beginning to slow as drivers rubbernecked at us and the cars stuck behind mine started to merge into the right lane.
The concrete guardrail separating us from Clara was a little lower than waist high. I vaulted over it to land in front of Clara. Shadow did the same thing on the other side of Clara.
“You have to come with us,” I said to Clara. “The Pied Piper is close by.” Even standing in front of Clara, I had to raise my voice to be heard over the sounds of the cars and the wind rushing past us.
“I can’t,” Clara insisted again. “I’m going to blow up.”
“What do you mean?” I shouted. “The Pied Piper isn’t controlling you.”
Clara’s eyes were wide saucers. They looked like those of a spooked horse.
“They pumped me full of that drug they had been using to boost my powers,” Clara said. The words came out in a rush. “They gave me the biggest dose ever. I’m going to blow up, and I can’t control it. I can feel it. I’m going to fly apart any second now. I’m trying to hold back, but I can’t. They left me here a little while ago and drove off. The Pied Piper held me in place with his powers. They must have driven further than the Pied Piper can control me because his control wore off a couple of minutes ago. They must have gotten as far away as possible out of fear of how much damage the blast will do.”
Clara looked at the line of cars that were now backed up behind my car. Her face was pure panic and terror.
“I’ve been looking for a way to get off the bridge. I don’t want to kill all these people. Not again. But, there’s no way off but down. Even if I jump, the blast will partially destroy the bridge, especially with my powers boosted. I don’t know what to do!”
“How long before you think you’ll explode?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Clara said. Her voice shook. “I’m barely holding myself together as it is. A minute or two maybe. I don’t know. That drug they gave me is really doing a number on me.”
A minute or two was not enough time to get Clara off the bridge. I did not know what to do. I looked up at Shadow. She looked back at me. She shook her head slightly. She did not have any ideas either.
“The water!” Clara suddenly said. “Remember how the river water muffled my explosions at Shadow’s cabin? If I dive down into the water, you can cover me with it and muffle the explosion.”
My mind raced. It could work. But, to make sure Clara’s explosion was muffled as much as possible, I would have to cover her with as much water as I could. I stretched out my powers to check the depth of the water below. It was about one hundred and fifty feet deep.
I shook my head in the negative.
“The water is too deep,” I said. “I would have to bury you as deep as I could in the water, and your rematerialization range is far less than the water’s depth. We don’t know what will happen if you rematerialize in water instead of in the air as you normally do. You could die. Or, you could not rematerialize at all.” I shook my head again. “We have to find another way.”
Clara’s face hardened. She was still scared, but she looked resolved.
“There is no other way,” she said. “Either I do this, or I kill a bunch more people. I kill you and Shadow.” Clara shook her head. Her eyes were wet. “I’m not going to let that happen.”
My mind groped for another solution. I did not want to die, but I would if I had to. Risking your life came with being a Hero. And, though Shadow was no Hero, she faced death all the time. She was not afraid to die either. But how could I sacrifice the lives of all the other people on the bridge just to save Clara? Didn’t the lives of many outweigh the life of one teenaged girl?
I did not know all the other people on the bridge, though. I knew Clara. I did not want her to die.
I shook my head no. I would not sacrifice Clara.
Clara took my hand.
“You have to help me do this,” she said. Her eyes bore right into my soul. “I can’t let anyone else die because of me. I want to grow up and be a Hero. To be like you. What would you do if you were me? You would jump off this bridge. I know you would. And I have to do it, too.”
She was right. I hated to admit it, but she was right. If I were in her shoes, I would jump off the bridge and try to save everyone else. It was what a Hero would do. It was what a Hero had to do.
I picked Clara up and put her on top of the guardrail on the outer edge of the bridge. I put my hand around her waist as she balanced there.
“I’ll drill a hole down into the water,” I said to her. My voice cracked. I coughed to clear it. “I’ll put you as deep down as I can. The moment the hole collapses around you and the water hits you, explode.”
Clara nodded. I felt her thin body shaking. She looked at Shadow. Shadow nodded at her respectfully. Clara looked back at me. With her on top of the guardrail, her gaze was level with mine. Since Clara was as much of a Hero in that moment as I was, that was only fitting.
“Tell my mother—” Clara’s voice caught. She started again. “Tell my mother I love her and that I know she did the best she could.”
I nodded. I let go of Clara’s waist. She balanced on the guardrail for a moment. My world froze. Then, Clara deliberately stepped forward, and she was falling.
Both Shadow and I leaned over the guardrail to watch her fall. It was not a dive, not an Olympic-level athletic feat that would make Clara cut into the water cleanly. It was a free fall. Clara’s arms and legs flailed about as she fell. She did not scream as she fell, though. I would have.
In a vacuum, a falling object accelerates at the rate of thirty-two feet per second. We certainly were not in a vacuum, but it only took seconds for Clara to come close to hitting the water.
It seemed like much longer.
When I was confident of where Clara was going to hit the water, I used my powers to drill down into the water at the point of her potential impact. I drilled an open shaft into the
water as deep down as I could. The shaft was well over a hundred feet deep. Exactly how deep, I did not know. I had never displaced that much water before, and it was the most difficult thing I had ever done. The water pressed in on my mind, exerting a pressure on me like none I had every felt before. I struggled to keep the shaft open. But, if Clara could do what she had done, I could do this.
Clara fell into the open shaft. The rate of her fall was terrific by that point, and she was near the bottom of the shaft in a wink of an eye. I released my hold on the water, and thousands of pounds of it rushed into the shaft, hiding Clara from our view.
An instant later, there was an explosion. I felt the vibration of it through my feet. A plume of water rocketed upwards to a point high over our heads. Down on the surface, the water cratered out from the water spout like the ripple caused by a giant rock thrown into the water. Then, the plume of water splashed back down, spraying us. My clothes were instantly soaked. The jet of water fell back down into the bay with a crash.
I looked down at the water’s surface. It was turbulent and foamy. There was no sign of Clara.
“She saved us, Truman,” Shadow said. Her voice was uncharacteristically soft. “All of us. If Clara had exploded like that above water, she would have incinerated God knows how many people.”
I nodded absently, still probing the water’s surface with my eyes. I also probed the water with my powers, looking for Clara. I had never been able to sense her body before because of her unique biochemistry, but it could not hurt to try. But, even if my powers worked on her, the human body is over sixty percent water. There were literally tons of water in the area. Looking for Clara with my powers was not like looking for a needle in a haystack. It was more like looking for a needle in a sea of needles.
Yet still I looked, as did Shadow.
We never did find her.
CHAPTER 29
I barely remember getting back into the car, driving to the end of the eastbound side of the bridge, and then getting back onto the westbound span of the bridge. That was what Shadow and I eventually did, though. It had become clear there was nothing we could do for Clara. There was much we could do to the Pied Piper.
Superhero Detective Series (Book 2): The Missing Exploding Girl Page 18
