B003J5UJ4U EBOK (17 page)

“Hi, guys.” He looked over at me. “Man I’m glad you’re not dead. How come they said you were?”

“Long story.” I gave him the basic details. When I was done, I asked, “What about you? How are you doing?”

“Real good.” He put the accordion down on the bed, then said, “Wow. You’ve got sheets and a blanket.”

“And television,” Martin said. He tossed the TV schedule from the newspaper to Torchie. “There’s some great stuff on tonight.”

“You’re controlling your power?” I asked.

“Totally. I’ve hardly burned up anything all summer, except for a tiny part of one cornfield. And our mailbox. But just twice. Oh, and a billboard. I’m real good, unless I get excited.”

That’s when I noticed the smoke curling up from the newspaper. Flinch, of course, was way ahead of me. He smacked
the paper out of Torchie’s hand and stomped on it. At the same time, Torchie leaped up, screamed, “Yeooowwwcch,” and blew on his fingers.

“Guess I was excited to see you,” he said.

“Here, put some ice on it.” Martin looked in the bucket. “Shoot. We’re out.”

“I’ll get it!” Torchie shouted. “I love ice machines. They have one where I’m staying, but it doesn’t work. And it sort of smells.” He grabbed the ice bucket and headed for the door, then turned back. “You guys aren’t gonna ditch me, are you?”

“What?” I asked.

“You know. Slip out while I’m away.”

“Drat! You figured out our secret plan,” Martin said. “I was going to steal your accordion, go back to your motel, and impersonate you. I’ve been plotting this my whole life. The hardest part was learning to sweat on demand.”

Torchie grinned at Martin. “I forgot what a kidder you are.”

“Here. Take this.” I handed him the key card. Torchie put it in his pocket and walked out.

A half minute later, there was a knock on the door. “That was fast,” Martin said. “I guess he had trouble with the lock.” He turned the knob and opened the door.

Maybe if it had been Flinch who’d gone to the door, we would have had a chance. But Flinch was busy channel-surfing and Martin never saw it coming. As soon as the door opened, someone tossed a small cylinder through the
opening. Before I could react, the cylinder exploded in a cloud of gas.

I tried to open the window, but everything went gray. I could feel myself falling toward the floor. I seemed to be falling forever.

while trash learns that
life is a gas, torchie
gets some ice …

“THIS IS AWESOME
.”
Torchie couldn’t believe he was together with his friends again. Sure, they had some problems. People were trying to kidnap Trash. Lucky and Cheater were in the hospital. But there was a bright side to everything. Trash had escaped. Cheater was healing. And Lucky was in a place where he could get help. That was a Grieg family motto:
It could be worse.
Of course, that came true a lot, too. Things got worse. But even then, the motto applied.

Torchie followed the signs, turned several corners, and finally found the ice machine at the far end of a hall. It took him a while to figure out how it worked, but he managed to fill the bucket. And this machine didn’t smell. The hotel seemed a lot nicer than the one where he was staying. There weren’t any holes in the carpet, and you could see through the windows. He held a piece of ice against his finger for a minute, until it stopped hurting, then headed back.

As he turned the final corner, he looked down the hall and saw a couple guys coming out of Trash’s room. Torchie got lost all the time, especially in buildings he’d never been to before. But when Flinch had brought him to the room,
he’d noticed the number on the door. It was 427—which was easy to remember because that was exactly what his Uncle Duley weighed last year after Thanksgiving dinner. So the room was right. But something was wrong. The men coming out were pushing a laundry cart. They didn’t look like maids.

Pretending he was going to another room, Torchie walked right past 427. He waited until the two men had gone into the elevator, then he went back and unlocked the door. There was nobody there.

“Oh boy,” he muttered. “This is not good.”

cell mates

WHATEVER THEY USED
to knock us out, I came awake faster than before. No gorillas. No singing crumbs or smiling shoes. But I had a killer headache, and my eyes didn’t want to focus. My left arm ached, too. I lifted my sleeve and saw I had a bandage wrapped around my arm, just above my elbow. I guess I’d gotten hurt when they’d captured us. I didn’t remember putting up a fight.

I was on a concrete floor. This wasn’t the lab house. It looked like a large basement—except part of the space, maybe ten or twelve feet long, had been walled off with iron bars, forming a cell in one corner. There were no windows in the walls. Even without the bars, it would have been a dark, depressing place.

“My head hurts,” Martin said.

I looked over to where he was sprawled. “Sorry. This is my fault. I got you into it.” I couldn’t believe I was a captive again, so soon after escaping.

Flinch was slumped in the corner. His eyes were closed, his mouth hung open, but he was breathing.

“We’ll be okay,” Martin said.

“And you know that with your psychic powers, Martin?” I shouted.

“Hey, chill out,” he said.

“Sorry. It’s not you. I’m just angry at everything right now. You have no idea how bad this is about to get.”

I clamped my mouth shut as my eyes focused and I realized there was another cell in the corner opposite ours. Someone was sleeping on a cot. An adult. His back was turned to us. There’s an old saying Cheater had taught me:
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I was still too dizzy to stand. I crawled to the door of my cell and shouted at the guy, “Hey! Wake up!” He didn’t move. I tried a couple more times, then gave up and went back to the corner.

A moment later, Bowdler came down a flight of steps to the right of the cells. He didn’t have anything in his hand. Maybe he thought I was still too dizzy to be a threat. I waited until he unlocked the door and stepped in. Then I lashed out with my power. I wanted to crack his skull against the bars.

Nothing happened. No satisfying smack of bone against metal. No flying bits of brain.

I scanned the room, looking for the disrupter. Bowdler gave me a thin smile. “Oh, we’re not lugging around clunky prototypes anymore. You’d be surprised how small a device we can make. But I’m not here to discuss technology.” He glanced toward Martin. “I have the feeling you also have psychic powers.”

I remembered the sarcastic words I’d shouted a moment ago.
And you know that with your psychic powers, Martin?
Bowdler had probably heard me all the way upstairs. “That was a joke,” I told him.

“I think not. I think it was the truth. The name ‘Martin’ does seem to ring a bell. You cried it out the day you escaped.” Bowdler crossed the cell and put his foot on top of Martin’s hand where it rested on the floor. “The truth?”

Martin shrugged. “You heard him. It was a joke.”

Bowdler rocked forward slightly, putting more weight on Martin’s fingers. “I don’t like playing ‘truth or dare.’ I much prefer ‘truth or pain.’ Pain builds character. Something that your generation sorely lacks.”

Martin hated bullies. I expected him to spit out an insult or to grit his teeth and refuse to make a sound. I never expected him to talk.

“If I tell you what I know, will you leave the fourth kid alone?” he asked.

Bowdler slid his foot off Martin’s fingers, then leaned over and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “What fourth kid?”

“Nothing,” Martin said. “There’s no other kid.”

“There’s nobody else,” I said. What was Martin thinking? If Bowdler got his hands on Torchie, it would be like tossing a puppy to a python. I wanted to jump on Bowdler’s back and pound him, but I wasn’t even sure I could stand up without help.

Bowdler ignored me and pulled Martin closer to him. “Do you know how easily I can make you talk? Do you know how quickly I can have you crying like a baby, just begging me to let you tell everything? Do you have any idea how much of
the human body can be sliced off or peeled away without killing someone?”

“You can’t…” Martin said. “We’re just kids.”

“Can’t what? Look around? Do you see anyone who can stop me? Your little friend, that telekinetic freak of nature, has been tamed. You don’t have any way to hurt me, or you would have tried by now. I’m getting bored. So talk.”

Don’t do it,
I thought.
You can’t mention Torchie.

“His name’s Dennis Woo,” Martin said. “He’s in Philly, at the hospital.”

“No!” I leaped to my feet, then fell back to my knees as a wave of dizziness washed over me. How could Martin betray Cheater?

“What’s his power?” Bowdler asked. “Is he a telekinetic, too?”

Martin shook his head and whispered something to Bowdler. It was too faint for me to hear. Bowdler let go of Martin and strode toward the cell door.

Martin grabbed the bars on the side of the cage and pulled himself to his feet. Grunting with the effort, he dove at Bowdler. Bowdler glanced over his shoulder, then threw back a kick that caught Martin in the gut and dropped him to the ground.

“Looks like I can see the future, too,” Bowdler said.

See the future?
I had no idea why he mentioned that. Precognition wasn’t Cheater’s talent.

It didn’t matter. Even if he’d mentioned the wrong talent, Martin had broken our vow. Bowdler went out and locked the cell door behind him.

Martin was curled up, but I didn’t feel any sympathy for him. “Why’d you do that?”

After all we’d been through, I couldn’t believe he’d rat out Cheater that quickly. I know I’d have kept my mouth shut, no matter what sort of things Bowdler threatened to do to me. No matter how many fingers he crushed. I held my hand up, with my palm facing him. “Doesn’t this mean anything to you?”

Martin glanced toward the stairs, then whispered two words. “Trust me.”

“What’s going on?” Flinch asked. He sat up and rubbed his face, then looked around. “Where are we?”

“In deep trouble,” I said.

while trash begins to lose
hope, cheater meets a
misinformed man …

“HELLO, DENNIS
.”
The man pulled the curtain around the bed and sat in the chair. “Your friend Martin tells me you can see the future.”

“No, I can read minds.” That’s what Cheater would have blurted out if he hadn’t been trying to avoid moving his jaw so much. As he bit back the words, his brain went from high gear to overdrive.

Obviously, Martin had spilled their secret. But he’d spilled the wrong information. Why? Because Martin must have wanted to bring the two of them together. But why would Martin mention psychic powers? He would never reveal their secret. Which meant it wasn’t a secret. So the man knew something. But not the right thing. And he definitely didn’t know anything about mind-reading.

Cheater felt like he was holding a weak hand in a game he had to win. He couldn’t fold. He had to play it out. Barely moving his lips, he whispered, “I can only see blurry stuff.”

“What?” the man asked.

Cheater whispered again, even more quietly, making sure he slurred his words.