Into the Gauntlet

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

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  He began running forward, clearly aiming for Isabel.

  Amy heard the gunshot before she even saw the gun.

  * * *

  One minute Hamilton was sprinting forward, getting into position for the best tackle of his life.

  It's a shame Dad's not here to see this, he thought.

  The next moment, he felt something being jerked from his hand --no, practically vaporized in his hand.

  He looked down--the rope torch he'd been carrying was gone.

  He looked back up, at Isabel.

  "That was the warning shot," Isabel said, her eyes narrowed. "The next time I'll draw blood."

  Behind Hamilton, he could hear the others shrieking. He blocked it out, just as he always blocked out crowd noise when he was preparing for a tackle. He narrowed his focus to Isabel. He saw how she'd put the vial down on a counter to pick up the gun. He saw what a large gun it was --capable of firing many shots, one after the other. He saw how expertly Isabel held it.

  And he saw where she was aiming it now: directly at his heart.

  Hamilton stopped running.

  * * *

  "The rest of you will all put your silly, primitive torches in that sink," Isabel commanded, pointing across the

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  room. "One by one, going separately, so I can watch you. Alistair will go last and turn on the water to douse the flames."

  Everyone stumbled out of the wreckage of the last ruined lab as if in a trance. Like the others, Alistair did as he was told, biding his time, watching Isabel as she watched him.

  He noticed how she stopped pointing her gun directly at Hamilton's heart as soon as he looked away.

  So maybe she doesn't really want to kill him, Alistair mused. Maybe ... she needs him? Needs the rest of us, too?

  Alistair remembered how many times in the gauntlet he'd seen five buttons in a circle, buttons requiring someone from each branch to be there.

  But Isabel already has the vial, he thought. She could have sneaked away with it before we even got here. She could have exploded the tunnel completely and killed us all way back at the beginning.

  Why hadn't she?

  Amy tripped in front of Alistair. Alistair grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back up. He shook her head sternly at her.

  Don't try anything yet, he wanted to advise her and all the others. Observe. See what Isabel wants before you do anything.

  But they were terrified, impatient children. How long would it be before somebody did something stupid?

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  Alistair flipped through possible plans in his mind. If we... No, won't work. Or if... Not that, either.

  Alistair could think of plenty of plans for vanquishing Isabel. But he couldn't think of any that guaranteed Alistair would be left holding the vial in the end.

  * * *

  "Go back to Gideon's lab and bring me Jonah," Isabel commanded Ian. "I want him here with the rest of you."

  "No," Ian said. "I'm not your servant. I don't even want to be your son anymore. I --I'm emancipating myself! Natalie and I -- we both are."

  "We are," Natalie echoed.

  Ian put his arm around his sister's shoulders. She was trembling, and Ian's legs were quaking, but Ian hoped that didn't show.

  Ian had been planning what to say to Isabel ever since he and Natalie had sneaked off that plane back in London. He'd hoped to do it after finding the serum. After dethroning his parents as heads of the Lucians. After taking over.

  He'd never imagined he'd have to give that speech while cowering in a position of weakness.

  He'd never imagined his voice would squeak.

  Isabel leveled her gun, aiming directly at Ian and Natalie.

  "Mum!" Natalie cried in shock.

  "You can't emancipate yourselves," Isabel hissed.

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  "Because I'm disowning you. Imbeciles!" She leaned in close, almost within reach. "Have you learned nothing from me? Didn't you see how I was giving you a second chance, giving you the opportunity to lie -- giving you a way to come back to me?"

  Something glistened in Isabel's eyes, but Ian knew it couldn't be tears. Not real ones, anyway.

  "We don't want to come back to you," Ian said coldly.

  He knew this was a terrible strategy. He knew she expected him to grovel and beg -- to lie and say she was the best mother in the world, and Ian and Natalie had missed her.

  But it felt so good to tell the truth instead.

  Isabel stepped back, abandoning him and Natalie. Or just making sure that, if she needed to, she could shoot anyone there. The whole group was in range of her gun.

  "Regardless," she said through gritted teeth. "Ian, you will go fetch Jonah. Now. Or I'll shoot Natalie."

  "No," Ian said. "I won't. You wouldn't do that."

  Too late, Ian realized he'd backed his mother into a corner.

  So here's your way out, Mum, Ian thought, staring into his mother's glittering eyes. Back down. Stop. Show everyone here that Natalie and I are more important to you than the serum. Show that... that you do love us after all....

  Ian actually opened his mouth to say this. But he choked on the first word: "Sh-show ..."

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  Because whatever trace of love he'd ever seen in Isabel's eyes was gone now. Nothing showed in her face but cruelty and resolve. Nothing else lived in her soul.

  Ian saw exactly what she planned to do. "No!" he screamed, lunging desperately forward. "No! Don't! You can't!" He was too late. Isabel squeezed the trigger.

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  CHAPTER 37

  Everybody screamed.

  "You shot your own daughter! You shot your own daughter!" a high-pitched voice shrieked again and again.

  Dan couldn't tell if it was Amy's or Sinead's or Natalie's. His ears weren't working right. He could feel himself slipping toward the same kind of numb shock he'd fallen into after Lester's death. His vision blurred.

  No, he thought, fighting against the numbness, the darkness. That's what Isabel wants. She wants us shocked and stupid. So she can do anything she wants.

  Dan's eyes cleared a little. Now he could see Isabel, still pointing her gun. He could see Ian bent over Natalie, crumpled on the floor.

  It seemed to take superhuman strength, but Dan stumbled over to Ian and Natalie.

  "The rest of us can take care of Natalie," Dan muttered to Ian. "You go get Jonah before Isabel shoots again."

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  "That's right--and I will if you don't obey," Isabel said, her voice as cold and hard as metal. "This time it was just Natalie's foot. The next time --" She spun the gun around, pointing first at Amy's head, then at Alistair's chest, then at Natalie's back. "Who knows?"

  Gasping -- possibly even sobbing --Ian stumbled away.

  "And don't take too long, or I will shoot again," Isabel threatened.

  Dan crouched by Natalie's side. He could see a hole in her fancy designer shoe. Blood was seeping out.

  At least it wasn't gushing.

  "It doesn't hurt," Natalie whispered. "I think the bullet just grazed my foot. I'm just pretending to be in pain so we can outsmart my mum."

  Dan decided not to tell Natalie that she was probably in shock, and that was why she hadn't felt any pain yet. But outsmarting Isabel -- that sounded like a good idea.

  Before Dan could think of a plan, he heard Hamilton call from behind him, "I'll go help Ian get Jonah. It'll be faster that way."

  "No!" Isabel screamed. She fired the gun again, but this time she aimed into the space between Hamilton and Ian, keeping Hamilton back. "I won't have you plotting together back there!"

  Amy dropped to her knees beside Dan.

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  "Does Natalie need a tourniquet to stop the bleeding? Or just a bandage?" she said loudly. Under her breath she added in a whisper, "Got a plan?"

  Above them, Alistair took a step toward Isabel. He had his hands up, as if surrendering.

  Dan hoped so badly that Alistair had a plan, t
hat his surrender was fake.

  Bur he teamed up with Isabel before, when my parents died, Dan thought. And now...

  Alistair was only asking a question.

  "Why?" Alistair asked Isabel. "You already have the serum. You won. Why do you have to torture the rest of us? Why can't you just let us go?"

  "Oh, I have the serum, do I?" Isabel mocked, her face twisting hideously. "That's what the Madrigals want me to think. They want me falling for their tricks!"

  "Tricks?" Alistair repeated numbly.

  "Are you that much of a fool?" Isabel asked impatiently. "Or do you think that I am?"

  Isabel waved the gun again, but this time she seemed to be making a decision. Selecting someone. Selecting ...

  Dan.

  Isabel pointed the gun directly at him.

  "Young master Cahill," she said, almost in that sticky-sweet voice that some grown-ups use with very small children. "You've proved to be quite a shining star of the Cahill family during this clue hunt. Tell

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  me. What have you seen again and again in this silly Madrigal gauntlet? Located near so many locked doors ... or doors the Madrigals intended to be locked before I intervened."

  Dan couldn't think. Not with the gun pointed at him, not with Isabel staring him right in the eyes.

  Amy grabbed him around the shoulders, holding him up. Protecting him.

  "You mean the keypads," she said. Her voice trembled, but Dan could still hear the strength in it. He felt stronger himself. His mind cleared.

  "The keypads that five people had to touch," he said. "One from each branch."

  "Oh, that's right, the two of you work together," Isabel said mockingly. "You help each other. That's so touching." She winced, almost as if she regretted having no one beside her. But surely Dan was only imagining that. He blinked, and when he looked again, Isabel's gaze was as steely as ever.

  It was cowardly, but Dan was so glad that Amy didn't drop her arm from around his shoulders.

  "All those keypads, all along the way," Isabel mused. "All the safeguards. And then this large vial of supposed serum is just sitting here out in the open? Unprotected? Available to anyone?"

  "Th-the keypads before," Amy stammered. "The Madrigals thought that was enough to pro--"

  Isabel shook the vial.

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  "It's only colored water!" she screamed. "That's all that's in here!"

  Don't shoot, Dan thought. Please don't shoot.

  Somebody was sobbing behind him. Amy held on to Dan so tightly it hurt.

  He didn't care.

  Isabel moved the gun. It wasn't exactly that she'd stopped pointing it at Dan, but that she was ready to shoot anyone.

  "But those tricky Madrigals can't trick me," she said. "I have been studying this vial for hours. I discovered my children's treachery much sooner than they expected. So I had time. It's such thick glass ... and those Madrigals do so love their fingerprint proof. They want fingerprint proof here, too. But just because five people trigger a secret, that doesn't mean all five get to keep it, now, do they?"

  Dimly, even with his brain swimming with terror, Dan could see what she meant. She thought the vial itself was like another keypad. If someone from each of the five Cahill branches touched it all at once, it would set off a message -- a Clue.

  The final Clue.

  She's going to force us to help her get it, Dan thought. And then ...

  There were gasps around him, everyone else starting to understand, too.

  Hamilton took a step forward.

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  "You can't make us all touch the vial for you," Hamilton argued. "You can't point a gun at five people at once. And if you kill any of us, then the fingerprints probably won't work."

  "Oh, I can make you all touch the vial," Isabel said. "I can make you do anything I want."

  "How?" Hamilton challenged. "I don't have a sister here you can threaten to shoot."

  "Not here, exactly," Isabel said.

  She took a step back and touched a button on the wall. For the first time, Dan noticed a huge flat-screen TV embedded in the wall. It came to life now, showing multiple scenes of the gauntlet they'd just left.

  So she was watching us all along, Dan thought with a chill.

  Isabel touched another button, and the multiple scenes were replaced by one large one: an exterior view of the island -- the pebble beach and the cemetery. The helicopter, the Holts' boat, Jonah's yacht, the Kabra kids' parachutes, and Alistair's submarine all lay off to the side, abandoned. Isabel did something to make the camera zoom in closer, focusing on the tombstones.

  The rest of the Holt family was tied to the tombstones.

  So was the helicopter pilot.

  So was Nellie.

  Dan couldn't look anymore after that. Isabel held up a remote control she'd evidently been hiding alongside the gun.

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  "This is hooked up to multiple explosives planted out in the cemetery," she said. "One beside each tombstone." Her lips curled up into a smile, slow and evil. "You will do everything I tell you. Or I will kill the people you love."

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  CHAPTER 38

  Nellie, Amy thought, her eyes blurring with sudden tears. We can't let Nellie die.... Nothing else mattered.

  On the TV screen, Nellie sat staunchly, even bound to the tombstone. She had her head raised, her jaw jutting upward. Her nose ring glinted in the sunlight, and her spiky hair stood up like beacons.

  She hadn't given up.

  Think, Amy commanded herself.

  "Th-the Madrigals," she blurted. "They'll never let you get away with this."

  "What Madrigals?" Isabel sneered. "You mean--you children?" She looked down her nose at Amy and Dan, making Amy feel as helpless and insignificant as a flea. "Or --the old men I found cowering in the island control room?"

  She adjusted the picture on the TV screen again, scanning down the row of tombstones.

  Uncle Fiske and Mr. McIntyre were tied to the tombstones, too. Unlike Nellie, they looked

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  completely defeated: battered and bloodied and covered in rock dust.

  "I exploded my way into their control room," Isabel said carelessly. "Unfortunately, it created a bit of a crater several hundred feet up into the gauntlet."

  A crater? Amy thought. The one Natalie almost fell into? And Isabel thinks that's just 'unfortunate'?

  "They were the only Madrigals on the island," Isabel said. "And --I have hired assassins who are ready to take care of all the other Madrigals, all around the world. As soon as I give the signal." She looked Amy straight in the eye. "Shall we proceed?"

  Amy saw that Isabel had just been waiting for Ian to return with Jonah. The two boys were back in sight now, Ian wearily pulling Jonah through the wreckage of the last exploded lab. Jonah barely seemed conscious.

  Amy thought that it was a terrible sign that Isabel made no attempt to blindfold any of them as she gathered them around the vial.

  She doesn't care what we see, Amy thought. Because she's going to kill us all as soon as she has what she wants.

  Isabel had everyone crouch down because Jonah and Natalie couldn't stand. Dan, rather than Amy, represented the Madrigals touching the vial. But Amy leaned in close as Alistair, Hamilton, and Isabel placed their hands alongside Jonah's and Dan's. She could see the side of the vial shimmering.

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  And then words appeared on the glass, a hologram:

  For Gideon Cahill's serum:

  One portion = One ounce

  Start with one portion of water

  Add 1/8 portion of each ingredient on the list given to Luke Cahill.

  Add 1/16 portion of each ingredient originally told to Jane Cahill. Then...

  The final Clue everybody had been searching for wasn't another ingredient in the serum.

  It was the serum recipe.

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  CHAPTER 39

  Alistair practically collapsed with relief when he saw the si
lvery words glowing from the glass. There's still time, he thought.

  Isabel would have to work to blackmail each one of them, individually, to find out the Clues the other branches had. She still needed them to make the serum.

  Alistair thought that Hamilton would crack first. He was all but giving himself whiplash, glancing back constantly at the TV screen and muttering, "I can't let my family die. I can't let my family die...."

  Alistair tried to catch someone's eye--Amy's? Dan's? Sinead's? -- hoping they could work together to fight Isabel. But all three of them were nearly as obsessive as Hamilton, peering toward the TV.

  Alistair caught Isabel's eye by mistake.

  "Tsk, tsk," she scolded playfully, as if she knew everything he was planning and it only amused her. "Surely you don't think anyone would trust you. It's too late for that."

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  She knew him too well. She knew all of them too well.

  * * *

  "... thyme, bone, wormwood, tin," Hamilton finished up. He kept his voice down, so only Isabel would hear. He hoped, he hoped ...

  "Oh, very good," Isabel murmured.

  Had it worked?

  Isabel's face twisted and her voice turned hard.

  "Very good --for getting your family killed!" she snarled, loud enough for everyone to hear.

  She lifted the remote control, her finger poised over a button. She glared at Hamilton.

  "The Madrigal clue your family got in New York wasn't thyme," she said, leering. "It was rosemary. Don't you know? You can't lie to me! I see right through you!"

  You just know about the rosemary because the Lucians must have found that clue, too, Hamilton wanted to protest. But how could he be sure which Clues Isabel already had and which she didn't? Especially when the lives of his entire family depended on it?