by Carrie Jones
China doesn’t answer.
“China?” I am so not letting him off the hook.
“People tried to kill us back there,” Lyle suddenly spurts out. “Or a thing tried to kill us, I guess. I guess that’s more accurate. Right? In the past forty-eight hours I’ve been almost murdered twice. Twice!”
China nods at me. “You might have to slap your boyfriend. He’s getting a little hysterical.”
“I’m not hysterical,” Lyle goes, just as I say, “He is not my boyfriend.”
China just leans against the wall. “Right. So, it’s like an elevator, but not. It’s more like a transporter.”
“Like on Star Trek.” Lyle manages to sound normal again. I let go of his arm.
“Right.” China straightens up and stands, legs apart, facing the door. “We’re getting off just about now.”
CHAPTER 13
Worry robs me of my ability to breathe. I think of Pierce, fighting there, alone with Brian and Aaron. I’ve seen what Dakota Dunham can do. They could be dead. They could be dying. I just met them and they are already gone. I don’t even know anything about their lives or their families or their favorite kinds of ice cream or anything that makes them special or individual, or even if Pierce eats food or the nectar of certain rare flowers grown only in Switzerland. This lack of knowledge somehow makes their potential loss even more devastating.
I think all this as we wait for the doors to open.
“Any second now,” China says, almost sheepishly.
Lyle gives me big eyes. I take his hand and squeeze it. He squeezes back.
“Really … Any second now.” China groans. “It always does this. I always complain to Pierce and she says it’s fixed. It’s never fixed.”
His voice breaks a bit when he says “Pierce.” For a second, China has let his guard down. The door slides open. China barely surveys the scene to see if there are any evil acid-spewing drummers in sight. He just jumps out of the elevator/room thingy and motions for us to hurry after him.
We step out into a living room with a large, leather sectional sofa, a big flat-screen TV with three red Netflix envelopes in front of it, and a rattan-and-wire container that holds about one hundred old-fashioned CDs. A Bose stereo belts out Andrea Bocelli, this opera singer my dad’s into.
“Where are we?” Lyle asks. He still holds my hand. It feels good. It’s about the only thing that feels good as I take in my dad’s apartment.
“You want to answer him, Mana?” China says. He grabs the thick, white remote for the Bose stereo system and turns the volume level down from thirty to a more decent eighteen. It’s still loud, but you can hear people talk without having them yell. He takes a closer look at the display. “It’s on repeat. It could have been playing for hours.”
“Earth to Mana. Where are we?” Lyle lets go of my hand and pulls on my sleeve.
“My dad’s apartment,” I answer. “How … How did we get here?”
Lyle and I turn around and check out the door we just went through. The elevator is gone. “That’s the door to my father’s bedroom.”
I yank it open. It’s not metal. It’s not shiny. It’s just my dad’s bedroom. There’s a white down comforter on the bed. His razor charges on the outlet in the wall by the foot of the bed. There’s even the ironing board he never puts away, just hanging out by the bureau.
“Explain this,” I demand.
China straightens his spine, showing his exasperation in a somehow military way. “We were in a transporter.”
Lyle whistles. Again.
At this point, I’m not even surprised anymore. “You transported us here? To my dad’s apartment? Why?”
China doesn’t answer.
Lyle does, all brave and calm and inquisitive. “Is Mana’s dad involved in this, too?”
“No.” China is rummaging through the remote controls. “He’s not. But he’s still close to Mana and her mom, and he has failed to appear at his workplace for two days.”
Lyle crosses the room in a flash, gets ahold of China’s collar, and waggles him, which is so totally out of character that I freeze for a moment and watch. “You knew this? You knew Mana’s dad was missing and you’re only telling us now?”
Lyle never grabs people.
Lyle is stoic.
Lyle is calm in a crisis.
“Back off, grasshopper.” China shrugs him away like he’s a fly. “I haven’t exactly had a chance, have I?”
I slump onto the sofa. The leather is cold against the back of my head.
Lyle sits next to me and takes my hand in his. “Mana?”
I don’t answer.
“I think she’s in shock,” Lyle says, dropping my hand, standing up, and tromping back over to China. “You put her in shock.”
“And? You want me to elevate her feet or what? She’s fine. She’s much tougher than you give her credit for,” China answers. He puts down the remotes, picks up my dad’s phone, and starts pressing numbers.
Lyle comes back over and pushes my head down between my knees.
“I am not going to faint, Lyle.”
His hand rubs my back in sweet, big circles. “I know. Just humor me, okay? You’re looking pale.”
“Both my parents are … gone.” There is no other word for it. Gone.
I haul in a breath, smelling leather couch and fabric softener from my jeans. “They could be dead, Lyle.” The realization hits me so hard that I hiccup. “I’m all alone.”
His hand stops. “You’re not alone.”
My head snaps up. My body follows. “How do you figure that, Lyle, huh? Both my parents are gone.”
He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t frown. He just says, “Because I’m here.”
China turns around to face us. There is something guarded in his eyes, and he just stares for a second. Tension makes him stand a little taller. He pulls his coat around him, zips it up, and pockets my dad’s phone. “We should get going.”
“What? Why?” I stand up and pick up my bag from where I dropped it. “Why did we even come here?”
“I was hoping for a clue. Plus, the transporter was last configured for here, so it was easy,” he says. “Do you think your dad would mind if we got ourselves a quick snack?”
He strides into the kitchen and pulls open a cabinet that has glasses in it. He shuts it, tries another. “Does your dad have any chips or anything? I’m starved.”
I yank open a drawer near the refrigerator. “Crackers.”
“Beautiful!” China takes the package from me. “Wheat Thins? Those aren’t crackers. They’re like fake chips mated with salt.”
Lyle follows us in. “That’s what I say.”
“I hate them,” China continues, opening the box anyway and shoving his hand inside.
“You guys are bonding over crackers?” This is unbelievable. “What about my dad? What about Pierce and Brian and Aaron? They could be dead.”
“Hopefully, they aren’t. Um, I’m going to use your dad’s bathroom, okay?” Lyle asks.
“Sure,” I say. Lyle moves closer to me. His hands touch my elbows and then slide up to my shoulders. “We will find a way through this,” he says. He bends down and pulls me into a hug. His chin rests on top of my head. He smells so good—like comfort and strength with a side of smart thrown in. “We will find your mom and dad. We will be okay. Okay?”
“Okay,” I mutter into his chest as he kisses the top of my head and lets go.
Once Lyle is safely away in the bathroom, China holds the box of crackers out to me. I snatch it away and say, “I’m serious. No crackers until I get some answers.”
China meets my eyes. “We need to go because they could track us here. I need to get you to a safe location so that I can figure out what to do next, so you can figure out where your mom might have stashed the chip.”
I nod. “What about Pierce?”
He walks toward the door, flings it open. “She’s probably dead.”
I catch him by the sleeve of his ja
cket. “What? Don’t you care?”
“Of course I care.” He doesn’t pull his arm away, just examines me, glancing down while steaming. “What do you want me to do?”
“Mourn, maybe?” I shoot back. “Cry. Wear black. Act freaking sorry at least.”
He puts his big, heavy fingers on top of mine. His fingers hide mine completely. I can’t think of what to do, or remember how to move.
I gaze up at him. His eyes have lost the cocky crap that is usually in there. They soften into something else and then … it’s gone. Just gone. He is hard and tough again. He moves his hand off of mine. He pulls his arm free of my fingers.
He says, “I’m sorry, Mana. We don’t have time to mourn. Not yet.”
“When will we have time?”
“When we find your mother.”
“And the chip? And my dad?”
He is zipping up my coat for me. His hands seem big, like they could wrap around my entire circumference. I bet he would be a fantastic base, like Lyle. I bet he would never let me fall. This must be killing him—to be stuck with us. To not be fighting, with Pierce. To have lost my mom somehow. His eyes meet mine.
“And the chip. Not too sure about your dad.”
* * *
After Lyle comes out of the bathroom, he’s a bit ruffled, like maybe this is all starting to get to him. Maybe he only went in there so I wouldn’t see him worry. I flash him an encouraging thumbs-up. He barely acknowledges it. China leads us through the hallways of Dad’s apartment building. We move silently through the sterile, ugly, yellowing halls. Lyle says nothing. He doesn’t even try to be encouraging. As we walk, we pass brown doors marked with gold numbers. I imagine Pierce, her amazing hair, the way her brain thought things so clean and steady, like she knew exactly what she was doing at all times. I am not sure what I’m doing at all times, or even most times. I would like to be more like her, like an alien. How odd is that? And now she’s probably dead.
The walls of the apartment building seem to sway. China opens a door to a stairwell I never knew existed. As we walk, Lyle’s silence begins to freak me out, because I seriously thought we had a moment back in the apartment. I soft-jab him with my elbow and say, “You’re too quiet.”
His head pivots as he meets my eyes, then he clears his throat.
“You really know your way around here,” Lyle says, as China motions us through a door into the stairwell area. Flights of stairs reach up and down. “Why is that?”
China doesn’t answer, just shuts the door and locks it behind us.
“That’s a fire hazard,” I say. “If there’s a fire, people could get hurt. They won’t be able to get into the stairway to get out.”
China stares at me for a second, blinking hard.
“I don’t believe you,” he says.
“She’s a softie,” Lyle explains, jabbing me in the side with his elbow, just like everything is normal and we’re just horsing around, tormenting each other like we do every day on our way to school, or at practice, or when we’re just hanging out. I lean closer to him because it’s so normal and familiar. He keeps soft-jabbing me. He smells a tiny bit like pine soap. My dad must have switched soaps in the bathroom. He’s always been a lavender or mint Softsoap kind of guy.
“There’s nothing wrong about being empathetic,” I snap. “People always act like caring is a bad thing.”
“Children! Children!” China interrupts, all mock authority figure despite his leather jacket and battle-fatigued face. “No more fighting. Play nice.”
He starts thundering down the stairs and Lyle takes off after him, but I just stand there at the top of the staircase, because inside my head I am hearing something, hearing someone, and that something/someone is not me.
I wait. Everything is that ugly industrial white paint. The stairs go up above me. The stairs go down below me. The smell of old shoes, new paint, and stale air is totally not comforting. I stand there and listen really hard. Then I hear it again, and I absolutely, positively can identify this voice in my head. It’s not alien at all, and it says, Don’t trust him.
“Who?” I say. “Don’t trust who? China? Lyle?”
But it can’t mean Lyle … because the voice sounds exactly like him.
The voice doesn’t answer. Someone jiggles the handle on the doorway to the staircase. It doesn’t move. It’s locked, but people can pick locks. Aliens can probably acid-breathe right through them. Imagine what aliens could do to flesh. My ankle throbs where the Windigo got it.
Panic hits me. I pound up the stairs instead of down before I realize what I’m doing, what a stupid choice that is, since China and Lyle went down, but it’s all flight-or-fight in scary situations, right? We learned that in bio class. Right now, it’s flight, up flights. I race up one flight, another, and then a man in a black suit bashes the door open. There’s another guy behind him. They both step into the stairwell. I push myself back against the wall and take off again, leaping more than running, bounding up five stairs at a time like a cat woman. One more double flight of stairs and I’ll hit the top. I hope to God there is a freaking door to the roof.
“You see them?” Man in Black Suit #1 asks, in this beautifully polished voice.
“No. I’ll go down. You go up,” Man in Black Suit #2 answers.
They separate. Man in Black Suit #1 takes the stairs army quick, like he’s used to the stepper at the Y. Well, I’ve done my step machines, too, baby, and my squats and herkies, and I’m a freaking gymnastics/cheerleading machine. I sling myself up as quickly and quietly as possible. Five steps at a time. Seven. I use the railing to help propel me forward. Still, my heart races faster than my legs.
The door is right in front of me.
Lyle’s voice sounds far away: Don’t trust him.
Who? How are you talking to me this way? Are you an alien? Lyle?!
No answer.
I wish this telepathy thing were a little more controllable. I yank open the door. It says NO ADMITTANCE in big red letters that I totally ignore. Tumbling outside onto the roof, I hope suit man knows how to read.
The smell of heating units is what assaults me first: metallic, hot, heavy, and nauseating. The surface of the roof is completely coated with an inch of wet puddles and I slosh into it, soaking my sneakers. I pivot and slam my body against the door. I have to lock it, somehow, or else I have to run, hide somewhere on the top of the building. Nothing. There’s nothing except the heating vent.
The guy is banging up the stairs behind the door, getting closer. His footsteps clank on the metal. Crap. Wind blows debris across the roof—pieces of paper, a McDonald’s bag. There’s nowhere to go and I know, I know, I am not big enough to keep this door shut against some guy’s weight.
Crap. Crapcrapcrapcrap.
I lunge away from the door, slosh as fast as I can across the roof, and duck behind the heating vent. My dad’s apartment building is on the edge of the Merrimack River. There’s a curving asphalt walking path below me, surrounded by wet bushes. Concrete posts line it. It’s too far down to jump. Eight stories down. Next to this building is another apartment building, one story smaller, one alley away.
There is no time. There is nowhere to hide.
I run as hard as I can—Don’t think, don’t think—and vault, launching my body forward. I squeeze my eyes shut. One word flashes through my mind and I’m not sure if it’s my own word or someone else’s: idiot.
Bam.
My feet hit something solid. I somersault forward and bang back up to my feet like I’m in some Olympic floor routine, ready to power vault into an Arabian. My eyes open. I’m on the other roof. Holy God. I did it. I smash toward the door that leads into the building just as bullets whistle over my shoulder.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” I yell.
He doesn’t listen. I dive toward the door, slip, fall. Water splashes wet and cold into my chest and on the front of my jeans. I force myself back into a standing position. My hand wraps around the cold metal handle of
the door. Locked. Crap.
The guy is running across the roof of my dad’s apartment building, building up speed. His tie billows over his shoulder. His gun hand is pumping for momentum. He’s going to jump.
I yank at the door handle, kick the door. Nothing. It refuses to open. I glance up to see the Man in Black leave the apartment building roof. He flies through the air like he is doing some sort of parkour move. His legs scissor like he’s still running, but he loses speed. His body slams against the side of the building, but it’s too low. Just one hand clutches the edge.
I let go of the door and run over. He dangles there, his gun dropped. His head tilts up at me.
“Take my hand,” I order him.
He does, clenching his fingers around my wrist. “You can’t pull me up. You’re not strong enough.”
“Just don’t let go.”
Seagulls squawk in the distance.
“Believe me,” he rasps. “I don’t want to.”
But I can tell, we can both tell, that he’s not going to have much of a choice. I try to brace my legs against the little lip of the wall. My shoulders and arms quiver from his weight. “Just hold on. Your partner. He’ll get here, right? He’ll notice you’re gone.”
I can’t see his eyes because of his sunglasses, but his voice shifts. He’s resigned. He has already given up. “Mana.”
“You know my name.”
His fingers twitch around my wrist. “Mana. Don’t trust anyone.”
“What?”
“Don’t trust the guy in the leather. If you have to, trust your boyfriend. Just not him.”
“China?” I can’t believe this. “No offense, but he’s not the guy shooting at me.”
“He’s not who you think he is.” The man’s eyes stare into mine.
I lift an eyebrow. “Oh? Who is he, then?”
“Rogue. He and your … Dealing with something they don’t understand. So dangerous.” The man swallows. I can see his Adam’s apple move. “Just don’t trust him.”
“Don’t worry about talking right now. Keep holding on,” I order him, but I’m buckling under the strain.
“The chip … If it gets activated, it is the end. Some things should not be unleashed. You can’t control this.”
