Dangerous (24 page)

“Brutus,” the guy said, still in full panic. “Please, just get

the freaky robot away from me.”

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Dangerous

“Brutus, where’s my father and his favorite sidekick?”

Brutus shook his head, his legs still kicking.

“Robot girl,” Wilder said to me, “scare him.”

So I tossed the guy up. Pretty high, actually. I jumped and

caught him coming down, my arms dipping with his weight so

it wasn’t like hitting a concrete floor. Though it probably did

hurt a little.

I landed on my feet, and Brutus, who had been screaming,

now stopped in favor of rapid gasps, punctuated with breathy

squeaks of “Robot . . . robot . . .”

“So . . . we should go,” Wilder said.

“Because of the screaming?” I asked.

“Yeah, because of the screaming.”

I carried Brutus to the car, joining him in the backseat.

Wilder spun around on the gravel, peeling out. Brutus was still

trembling when he gave up the address of a warehouse a couple

of miles away.

Wilder parked in a vacant lot behind some scrub trees.

The sun was low, but the restless clouds smothered anything

yellowish and warm looking, bringing night on early.

“Stay here,” Wilder said to Brutus, as if I hadn’t already

duct-taped him to the seat.

We jogged to the closest building. “I’ll hide here till you’re

in,” Wilder said. “I don’t want Jacques to sense the thinker be-

fore you have a chance to scout it out. If Brutus is right, GT and

Jacques are four buildings west.”

No one was out in the freezing temperatures. Wilder lifted

his arm to place an earpiece in my ear, and the ripped piece of

his shirt lifted. He tucked it back in, but I had glimpsed some-

thing.

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Shannon Hale

“Wait.” I reached out, moving aside his torn shirt. He

flinched but clenched his jaw and let me.

Over his sternum was the henna-brown circle of the think-

er token. But there was a second one now, a kind of key shape

attached to the circle. I’d seen that mark before, but on some-

one else’s chest.

My heart seemed to stop. In the long, quiet moment be-

tween one beat and the next, all I could think was, No. No.

Please no.

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C h a p t e r 3 1

I backed away fast, knocking a branch off a tree, and I

turned to run.

“Wait!” Wilder raced toward me and then stopped. “Wait,

Maisie, I didn’t kill Mi-sun. You know I wouldn’t do that, right?”

My head went fishbowl, the world slurpy and sloshing ev-

ery which way. I sat down hard before I could fall over and break

something else. Like a building.

“Maisie . . .” He came closer.

“Don’t!” I yelled.

He jerked back.

Mi-sun was dead. Wilder was wearing her token on top of

his own. I thought of warriors keeping the scalps of their kills.

“Stay, please, while I explain. Please.”

“Go ahead,” I said. My voice was dry.

“Mi-sun was working for my father,” he said. “I found her

a few days before you came here, and she didn’t run when she

sensed me. I thought that meant she wanted to escape with me,

but she went crazy. She took off one of her rings, and she shot

it at the token in her chest. So fast. She fell over. I pressed my

hands to the wound . . . to stop the bleeding, not sure if she was

still alive, but . . .” He shuddered.

“The token entered you, against your will.”

“Yeah.”

I waited for more. He didn’t explain.

“And you didn’t tell me before because . . .”

He lifted his hands helplessly. “Because I felt guilty.

Shannon Hale

Because I thought you’d doubt me. And if you doubted me, we

couldn’t work together.”

In the lair, Wilder had turned his back to me when he

changed his shirt. I’d thought he was being modest.

Mi-sun—like Ruth—gone. Two out of five.

I wanted to run through some brick walls screaming. But

my brain refused to get freaked out, biting down hard on the

facts that I had. Wilder had hidden something really terrible

from me, but I did trust him. Didn’t I? Besides, I’d jumped into

the Gulf of Mexico and abandoned Mi-sun to get scooped up

by GT. I wasn’t without fault here.

“I wish I knew what you were thinking,” he whispered.

“I don’t think Mi-sun would kill herself unless she felt

threatened,” I said, my throat sore, my voice cracking. “Why

would she feel threatened by you?”

“Because I’m the thinker? Maybe the breaking apart of the

team messed her up, I don’t know.” His eyes teared up. “She just

. . . it was horrible, Maisie. And she died so fast.”

I felt my chin tremble. Mi-sun was eleven, she had two

little brothers, she’d been scared to go home . . .

“I should have told you, but I was a coward. I’m sorry,

Maisie. I’m so sorry.”

“Wait . . .” A new realization rumbled through me. “You’ve

got Mi-sun’s blue shot, so your thinker token is buried.”

He opened the rip of his shirt. “Your techno token faded

when you got Ruth’s, but both my tokens are equally dark. I

guess the thinker token never gets buried.”

“I want to see you use the blue shot.”

He sighed, picked up a piece of gravel, and shot it at the

warehouse wall. Blue shot was faster than a gun and silent. All

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Dangerous

I heard was the click of the gravel tapping the concrete. The

electric-blue trail seemed to appear a split second later, a pulse

that faded quickly in the graying evening.

My stomach turned. I’d slept beside him night after night

while this huge secret lay against his heart.

And another thought . . . how often he rubbed his hands

together. And the way his touch felt, my skin tingling under his

fingers. How I fancifully and stupidly decided it was a manifes-

tation of our attraction. But it was just the spare electrons danc-

ing down his fingertips, a side effect of the shooter token. Anger

dried my eyes.

“So has your thinker brain figured out what we’re for? An-

other secret you’re keeping from me?”

“No,” he said, not reacting to my gibe. “But I’ve traced sev-

eral assassinations back to Jacques, and for the moment it’s the

fireteam’s responsibility to stop him and bring him back.”

I didn’t want to be some alien’s zombie servant, doing

things against my will. But it seemed logical that we had to pro-

tect people from ourselves if we could. And I felt what Wilder

did—that the surviving fireteam members needed to stay to-

gether.

“I should have told you,” he said. “I’m an idiot, I know. How

can you trust me? But please believe I was just trying to do what

I thought best to reform the team. And now that you know, I

don’t have to stupidly hide the blue shot. I might actually be of

some use backing you up in there.”

GT and Jacques might be in that building right now. If

I failed, GT could make it impossible to find Jacques again.

Now was not the time to mourn Wilder’s lies. Now was the

time to strike.

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Shannon Hale

“Okay, I’m going in,” I said, standing. Wilder exhaled relief,

but I glared. “And we’ll talk after.”

He nodded, putting his hands back in his pockets.

At astronaut boot camp, when he’d turned suddenly cold,

I’d felt vulnerable because of our eight kisses on the roof. If I

was vulnerable then, what was I now?

I gestured to the building with a nod of my head. “Get go-

ing, Wild Card. I need to phone home then I’ll be there.”

“Wild Card?” he said.

“Yeah, maybe it’s time you had a nickname.”

He frowned. “Don’t forget to turn on your earpiece when

you’re done. Stay in contact, and as soon as you’re in, let me

know the situation and I’ll come in shooting. Don’t let Jacques

cut you. Hit him hard and fast. Between the two of us, we’ll

wrap this up nice and easy.”

“Sure.” I was losing faith in nice and easy.

He picked a padlock and broke into the near building

while I headed toward GT’s building, dialing my mom’s phone.

It went right to voice mail, so I left a short message, saying I was

fine. All had been well when we spoke that morning, so I tried

not to worry. I called Dad next.

“Maisie?” he said. His voice was breathy as if I’d caught

him in the middle of exercising.

“Yeah, hey Dad. How’s stuff?”

The line cut out. I stopped walking.

Low on battery? Bad signal? I called back five times. Noth-

ing. My stomach knotted. Driving to Florida would take at least

fifteen hours. No reason to panic without evidence. I’d keep

phoning, and in the meantime, I’d go get Jacques.

Frosted weeds cracked like glass under my feet, remind-

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Dangerous

ing me how cold the world was to those unfortunates without

tokens. Maybe it was worry for my parents that translated into

worry for Brutus sitting in a cold car. I ran back, jumping into

the car and shutting the door.

He was shivering. “You going to kill me quick or leave me

to die slowly?”

“Option three.” I took off my coat and cap and dressed Bru-

tus up as best I could, adding a scarf Wilder had left behind. “I

don’t want you freezing to death.”

“You sure? That seemed like your plan,” he said, his teeth

chattering.

“I don’t make the plans.”

“Yeah, I caught that.” He squinted. “You’re not a robot, are

you?”

“No,” I said with disappointment.

“So, what, you got all strong—freak accident, genetic test-

ing—and now you think you can run with the boys?”

“Pretty much.”

“You don’t know anything about these guys.
Kid
killers. I

saw your pal Wilder kill that Asian girl with my own eyes.”

Everything seemed to tilt—me, the car, the whole world.

I felt as if I were sliding fast and hard, scrambling for a hold,

because when I hit bottom, I’d have to think the words “Wilder

killed Mi-sun.”

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C h a p t e r 3 2

I froze, bent over the seat trying to reach a blanket. “What?”

“Asian girl, little thing. He was mad at her, she wouldn’t do

something he wanted, and he killed her.”

I didn’t breathe. I didn’t move. “She killed herself. She

shot herself.”

“Do you hear me talking? I
saw
him. It was right before

Halloween. Wilder had the girl on the floor, choking her till the

girl was blue in the face. I’m not claiming to be an altar boy, but

killing kids? This is what I’m telling you! Not happy company

for a girl who comes back to give me her coat, even if you have

freaky robot strength.”

I carefully stilled my face before turning back around and

tucking the blanket over Brutus.

“Thanks for the tip.” I got out, shut the door, and ran. It felt

good to run.

New data. Brutus could be mistaken or lying. But there

was corroborating evidence:

1. Mi-sun’s token sat in Wilder’s chest.

2. On the boat, Wilder had tried to get to Ruth before me.

Had the thinker known when she was dead, her token would

come free so he could claim it? When the token entered me,

Wilder had been so mad.

3. Jacques said Mi-sun was gone, that Wilder had taken

care of that.

Wilder said she died just before I came to Philly. But Brutus

said it had been three months. Who was wrong? Who was lying?

Dangerous

“Maybe he wants all the tokens.” The words slipped out,

hard as the slaps of my feet against the ground. He’d lied again

and again and again, but I kept trusting him. Did he deserve my

trust? Or was I nanite-poisoned or just blinded by a naive crush?

Perhaps Wilder’s thinker brain figured out that he couldn’t

kill Jacques without my help. Once he added the havoc token to

his arsenal, would the brute and techno tokens be next?

Maybe I was overreacting, maybe Brutus was wrong, but

I couldn’t have Wilder’s voice in my head till I figured it out. I

pulled out my earpiece and crushed it between two fingers, let-

ting the fragments fall to the wind. I’d go snatch Jacques and

deal with the thinker later.

Wilder might have killed Mi-sun
. A nudging anger warned

me that I was going to feel this later, like a hard workout that

screams in the muscles the morning after. My Fido hand

clenched as if on its own, and I realized I was a cyborg now

anyway, not far from total, emotionless robot. How liberating

that would be.

In moments I was at the building. This far away, I had to

strain to sense Wilder. He was where he said he’d be, in that

first building, waiting patiently for his queen to get into position

and put his father and Jacques into checkmate.

The front doors were unlocked. There was an informal

lobby and a guard station. No one there, but the feeds from the

warehouse security cameras were live on little black-and-white

screens. I looked them over for a sign of Jacques or GT.

A handwritten note was taped to one computer:

PUSH PLAY, MAISIE DANGER BROWN