Anger flared in Simon’s eyes, but he blinked it away. “We’re working on it.”
“How?”
“Later,” Derek said. “Right now, we need to get Chloe warmer clothes—”
“Chloe, Chloe, Chloe. Stop worrying about poor little Chloe. She hasn’t frozen yet. What about your dad? Any clues? Hints?”
“Not yet,” Simon said.
“So what have you been doing for the last two days?”
His anger flared, and this time he let it, turning on her so fast she shrank back. “We’ve spent every waking minute of them on three things: surviving, finding Chloe, and finding our dad. What have you been doing?”
“I was locked up.”
“So? That didn’t stop Chloe. What do you have to add, Tori? Did you find out anything? Or just piggyback on her escape?”
“Tori helped me,” I said. “Without her—”
She whipped around to face me. “Don’t you defend me, Chloe Saunders.”
Silence. Then Derek said, “Where can we take you, Tori? To a grandparent? Friend? You’re out now and you’re safe, so I’m sure there’s someplace you’d rather be.”
“No.”
I opened my mouth to tell them what had happened with her dad, but her glare shut me up.
“She doesn’t have any place to go,” I said. “Like me.”
“There must be someone,” Derek said, “maybe not in Buffalo, but we’ll buy you a bus ticket.”
“Preferably on one leaving in the next hour?” she said. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m joining your little gang of baby heroes on the quest to find Superdad.”
Simon and Derek exchanged a look.
“No,” Derek said.
“No? Excuse me, it was Rae who betrayed you guys. Not me. I helped Chloe.”
“And was it Rae who tormented her at Lyle House?”
“Tormented?” A derisive snort. “I didn’t—”
“You did everything you could to get Chloe kicked out,” Simon said. “And when that didn’t work, you tried to kill her.”
“Kill her?” Tori’s mouth hardened. “I’m not my mother. Don’t you dare accuse—”
“You lured her into the crawl space,” Derek said. “Hit her over the head with a brick, bound and gagged her, and locked her in. Did you even check to make sure she was okay? That you hadn’t cracked her skull?”
Tori sputtered a protest, but from the horror in her eyes, I knew the possibility hadn’t occurred to her.
“Derek,” I said, “I don’t think—”
“No, she didn’t think. She could have killed you with the brick, suffocated you with the gag, given you a heart attack from fright, not to mention what would have happened if you hadn’t gotten out of your bindings. It only takes a couple of days to die from dehydration.”
“I would never have left Chloe to die. You can’t accuse me of that.”
“No,” Derek said. “Just of wanting her locked up in a mental hospital. And why? Because you didn’t like her. Because she talked to a guy you did like. Maybe you’re not your mother, Tori. But what you are…” He fixed her with an icy look. “I don’t want it around.”
The expression on her face…I felt for her, whether she’d welcome my sympathy or not.
“We don’t trust you,” Simon said, his tone softer than his brother’s. “We can’t have someone along that we don’t trust.”
“What if I’m okay with it,” I cut in. “If I feel safe with her…”
“You don’t,” Derek said. “You won’t kick her to the curb, though, because it’s not the kind of person you are.” He met Tori’s gaze. “But it’s the kind of person I am. Chloe won’t force you to leave because she’d feel horrible if anything happened to you. Me? I don’t care. You brought it on yourself.”
Now that was too harsh. Simon squirmed, mouth opening.
I beat him to it. “Where is she going to go? She doesn’t have any money. Anyone she runs to will almost certainly call her parents.”
“I don’t care.”
“We can’t do that,” Simon said. “It’s not right.”
I knew Derek didn’t lack empathy—he couldn’t forget what he’d done to that kid who attacked Simon. But it was like he held some weird list of checks and balances, and if you got on the wrong side, like Tori had, he had no problem “kicking you to the curb,” to face whatever fate waited.
“No,” I said.
“It isn’t up for negotiation. She’s not coming.”
“Okay.” I stood and brushed off my jeans. “Come on, Tori.”
When Simon rose, I thought he was going to stop me. Instead, he followed me to the door. Tori caught up, and we made it into the next room before Derek jogged out, catching my arm with a wrench that yanked me off my feet.
I winced and peeled off his fingers. “Wrong one.”
He dropped my arm quickly, realizing he’d grabbed my injured one. A long minute of silence, then, “Fine.” He turned to Tori. “Three conditions. One, whatever your problem is with Chloe, get over it. Go after her again, you’re gone.”
“Understood,” Tori said.
“Two, get over Simon. He’s not interested.”
She flushed and snapped, “I think I’ve figured that out. And number three?”
“Get over yourself.”
Twenty
ONCE THAT BIT OF ugliness was over, I was—for the first time in my life—excited about going shopping. I couldn’t wait to get out of this damp, dark, cold place, reminding me too much of the basements I hated. Get away from that dead body, the vibes from it keeping my nerves on edge. Get warm clothing, get real food, and a real bathroom, with soap and running water and a toilet. Don’t ask what I’d been doing about “bodily needs” until now—the answer is really better left unsaid.
“If we get far enough from here that it’s safe, I want to try using my bank card,” I said. “My account is probably locked, but it’s worth a shot. We can always use more money.”
“We have some,” Derek said.
“Okay. If you don’t think it’s safe for me to try.”
“You aren’t going out, Chloe. We are. You’re staying here.”
“Where you’ll be safe,” Tori said. “We wouldn’t want you to break a nail using your card.”
“Tori…” Derek said, turning. “You’ve been warned. Leave her alone.”
“That slam was directed at you, wolf boy.”
His voice dropped another octave, almost a growl. “Don’t call me that.”
“Please. Can we stop the bickering?” I stepped between them. “If I haven’t proven by now that I’m careful and can look after myself—”
“You have,” Simon said. “This is the problem.” He handed me a newspaper clipping. I read the headline, then slowly lowered myself onto a crate, gaze fixed on the article.
My father was offering a half-million-dollar reward for information leading to my safe return. There was a picture of me—last year’s school photo. And there was one of him, at what looked like a news conference.
The night after my breakdown at school, my father came to see me in the hospital. He’d flown back from Berlin, and he’d looked awful—exhausted and unshaven and worried. He looked even worse in the newspaper article, circles under his eyes, lines etched in his face.
I had no idea what the Edison Group had planned to tell my dad about my disappearance. They must have fed him a story, maybe said I’d been transferred and he couldn’t visit me yet. They meant to cover up my disappearance, but they’d been too slow.
They were trying to cover their tracks, though. According to the nurses and my roommate, Rachelle Rogers—interviewed for the story—I’d run away.
Did my dad believe that? I guess he did. The article quoted him as saying he’d handled my situation badly—that he’d handled a lot of things with me badly—and he desperately wanted the chance to start over. When I read that, tears plopped onto the paper. I shook them off it.
“Half a million?” Tori read over my shoulder. “The Edison Group must be footing the bill, to get us back.”
Simon pointed to the date. Yesterday morning, when we’d still been in their custody.
“Okay,” Tori said. “They told her dad to make this big deal of her being gone so no one asks questions. He offers money he’ll never have to pay, because he knows where she is.”
I shook my head. “My aunt said he doesn’t know anything about the Edison Group.” I stared at the article, then folded it quickly. “I have to warn him.”
Derek stepped into my path. “You can’t do that, Chloe.”
“If he’s doing this”—I waved the paper—“he’s putting himself in danger and he doesn’t know it. I have to warn—”
“He’s not in danger. If they could have beat him to the media, maybe. But now, if anything happened to him, it would only attract more attention. He’s obviously not questioning their story about you running off so they’ll leave him alone…as long as he doesn’t find out the truth.”
“But I have to let him know I’m okay. He’s worried.”
“And he’s going to have to worry a little longer.”
“Do we know for sure he’s not in on it?” Tori said. “What did your aunt say? Did she trick your mom into the genetic modification? Or was your mom involved?”
I took out the letter and ran my fingers over it. Then I told them what it said—the parts that would matter to them.
“Anything about your dad?” Derek asked.
I hesitated, then nodded.
“What did she say?”
“That he wasn’t involved, like I said.”
“Which means it should be safe for Chloe to contact him, right?” Simon said.
Derek searched my face. Then said, in a low voice, “Chloe…”
“She said—My aunt said to stay away from him.”
I guess Derek trusted me not to run to the nearest pay phone and call my dad because all three went shopping after that.
Both my aunt and Derek thought I should stay away from my dad. Derek said it would endanger him; Aunt Lauren probably figured it would endanger me.
I loved my dad. Maybe he worked too much, wasn’t home enough, didn’t quite know what to do with me, but he tried his best. He’d said he’d stick around while I was at Lyle House, but when a business emergency called him away, I hadn’t been mad at him for leaving. He’d made arrangements to take a month off after my release instead, and that was more important to me. He thought I was safe at Lyle House, under my aunt’s care.
He must think that I’d been so hurt and angry that I’d run away. Now his schizophrenic daughter was wandering the streets of Buffalo. I wanted to call him, just to say “I’m okay.” But Derek and Aunt Lauren were right. If I did that, it might not be okay…for either of us.
To distract myself from thoughts of my father, I decided to check out the dead body. After what happened with the bats, if there was a way of honing my corpse-sense, I needed to start training now, so I’d know about nearby dead bodies before I accidentally slammed their ghosts back into them.
It did seem to work like radar. The closer I got, the stronger the feeling got. Which made finding the body sound easy, but it wasn’t. The “feeling” was only a vague sense of unease, a prickle on the back of my neck and a dull headache; and when it seemed to increase, it was impossible to tell whether I was detecting the body, my nerves, or a draft.
I couldn’t tell what kind of business had once run out of this place. Buffalo is full of abandoned buildings and houses. Drive down I-90 and you see them—crumbling buildings, boarded-up windows, empty yards. This one was no bigger than a house, with rooms like a house, though the outside didn’t look like one. The inside was filled with junk—moldy cardboard boxes, pieces of wood, broken furniture, piles of garbage.
I’m sure I could have found the body without using my powers—there were only eight rooms. But I used them anyway, for practice. I finally found it in one of the back corners. From the doorway, it just looked like a pile of rags. When I got closer, I saw something white sticking out from under those rags—a hand, the flesh nearly rotted away, leaving only bone. The closer I got, the more I saw—a leg, then a skull, the corpse mostly skeletonized. Whatever smell it gave off, my human nose wasn’t good enough to detect it.
The rags, I realized, were actually clothes, and not all that ragged, just crumpled around what remained of the body. The corpse wore boots, gloves, jeans, and a sweatshirt with a faded logo. A few strings of graying hair hung below the hat, and the clothes and body didn’t identify it as male or female, but I instinctively thought of it as “him.”
At some point last winter, this person had crawled in here to escape the cold, curled in this corner, and never gotten up. We couldn’t have been the first ones to find him. Had everyone else just steered clear, like we were doing? No thought of informing the authorities, getting him out and identified and buried?
Was he on a missing person’s list? Was someone waiting for him to come home? Had they offered a reward, like my dad?
Not quite as much, I was sure. A half-million dollars. That would bring out every crank in Buffalo. What was Dad thinking?