Dull Boy (25 page)

Two more stuffed animals bear the brunt of her anger before she grabs her cell phone and punches Sophie’s speed-dial number. “Code red, Soph. Nicholas blew the proverbial Popsicle stand and went over to the dark side. I hate to ask for his help, but I need to know what the ice boy knows about this.” She pauses and I hear Sophie’s voice chirping through the speaker. Darla grimaces. “Fine, what
Jacques
knows about this. And tell him
thank you
.”

Darla starts pulling street clothes on over her pajamas. “I need information, Avery. Anything you think would be helpful.”

“Cherchette’s messed up. Dangerous. I think she’s running out of patience. She wants some of us, and . . .” I tell Darla everything I can remember. The things Cherchette said to Catherine, the way she attacked. My mind’s a jumble of sensations: the way the heat left my body as soon as we collided; the pain of my veins being shot through with ice.

By the time I finish my story, Darla’s on her way to a massive un-genius-like freak-out. “I
knew
she was corrupt—and dangerous insofar as, like, killing his belief in himself, which I was
fighting
to keep alive. But if she hurts him . . .”

Darla grabs her backpack and starts stuffing supplies into it: her Taser inhaler; a box of chamomile tea; a purple Magic 8 Ball that has a strip of masking tape across the back, labeling it CONCUSSION GRENADE PROTOTYPE. DO NOT TOUCH!! “We have to hurry! Who knows what she’s done to him since she picked him up?”

“Just . . . try to calm down. We can’t do anything until Jacques gets here. We don’t even know where Nicholas is.” I do my best to take my own advice. Sit down at the edge of Darla’s messy bed and will Sophie and Jacques to hurry. I try not to torment myself with questions, but it’s impossible. Nicholas doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into—and the scary thing is, neither do we. What does Cherchette really intend? Why does she want us so badly? She swings back and forth between loving and vicious—where’s that needle going to stop when it comes to Nicholas? And will we get there in time to save Nicholas from whatever she has in store for him?

When Sophie and Jacques finally arrive, I’m no calmer than I was thirty minutes ago. I’ve worked myself into a nervous frenzy, and Darla’s even worse.

“Bedroom door stays open,” Nana C. reminds us, eyeing Jacques and me suspiciously.

Darla looks like her brain’s about to pop. “Oh yeah, right!” she grumbles. “Like I’m going to have a top-secret superhero conversation with my nana eavesdropping in the hall. Let’s go to my workshop.”

I fill Sophie in on the way, whispering what happened at Catherine’s house. It seems rude to relate this stuff directly to Jacques, so I don’t—but I’m pretty sure he hears every word. He looks nervous, especially unsettled when I tell Sophie how Cherchette attacked us, and how it seemed like she’d snapped, like she’d decided that our time was finally up.

Darla unchains the shed doors and ushers us inside, stopping to attach a tiny surveillance robot before she slams them shut. She punches a code into an electronic keypad on the wall, and a stilted, soothing voice announces:
“Defense mechanisms activated: nonlethal.”
“I just know Nana will show up with cookies eventually. I need to be prepared.”

The interior of the shed is ruled by the most bizarre organizational system known to man—er, Darla. Like, you know how you insist you shouldn’t have to clean your messy room because
you
know where everything is? Picture that, only with a high-tech bejeweled supercomputer instead of a bed, tools and weapons and welding equipment all over the floor instead of dirty clothes, and a giant purple robot sitting where the closet would be, his tree-trunk-size legs bent in front of him, like an enormous sulky kid stuck in the corner.

“Uh, is that a giant robot?” I ask.

“Of course it’s a giant robot,” Darla snaps, clearly unimpressed with my observational skills. She plunks her overstuffed backpack down on her gadget-strewn inventing table—and considering she’s got an untested concussion grenade in that bag, she’s either gone totally mad or is insanely stressed.

I can relate. At least Darla never talked about Cherchette like she was a potential mentor, a role model just waiting for the right opportunity. I didn’t know how far Cherchette was willing to go, but I
wanted
to believe in her—and I feel like it’s partly my fault that Nicholas believed in her. Every time Darla brought up the warning signs, I had to play devil’s advocate. So if anything bad happens to him . . . that will be partly my fault, too.

Sophie browses the new weapons stash, ever the optimist, like everything will be fine as long as we have enough firepower. She aims a futuristic-looking, pink assault rifle at the giant robot’s head and mimes shooting it. “Bam! Okay, I want this one.”

“It’s a prototype. It’s not ready yet.” Darla sighs. “It’s a dynamic pain cannon, also with a stun setting. It overloads the nerves with pain without causing physical damage. I haven’t really been able to test it . . .”

Jacques looks uncomfortable in the midst of all this pain-producing technology—not that I blame him. I’m feeling a little queasy myself. “You wanted to know about Nicholas,” he says. “What is it you think I can do for you?”

“Well, first off, you can tell us where he is,” Darla says. “And what your crazy mom plans to do with him.”

Jacques’s jaw tightens, and Sophie shoots Darla a dirty look. Obviously the genius is too stressed to be diplomatic, so I jump in.

“What Darla’s trying to say is that she’s going to shut up now. We’re worried about Nicholas. We think that, um . . .”
Your mom is dangerous? Out of her mind?
I can’t exactly say that to Jacques. “We think he made a hasty decision. He’s been having trouble at home, and . . .”

“Of course he has been having trouble,” Jacques says. “He possesses a vortex that kills people. He has gone with my mother to learn how to control it so that he will not be a danger to himself, or his family. It’s not as if he’s the only one. Leilani has been with us for months.” The air in the workshop chills when Jacques mentions Leilani. He seems to drift for a second, his focus leaving us, his eyes growing stormy—a darker, brooding blue.

Oh yeah—you can feel the love there.

“Right,” Sophie says softly. “But Leilani was alone. She didn’t have anyone else. Nicholas has us. We’re still going to help him. We just . . . we need your help in order to do that.” Sophie stops herself and takes Jacques’s arm, turns toward him. Like maybe he’ll loosen up if he’s less aware of Darla and me.

“I don’t want to strain your relationship with your mom,” Sophie says. “But Nicholas is making a huge mistake here. And you remember, you said . . . that lately she’s been . . .” She bites her lip, peers up at him like she’s willing him to fill in the blanks. I wish one of them would just say it.

That lately she’s been . . . ?

Wild? Reckless? Erratic? Mad?

“The way she lost control with Avery and Catherine . . . doesn’t that fit in with what you were worried about? You don’t have to be involved,” Sophie says. “She doesn’t ever have to know who told us.”

“Who else would tell you?” Jacques mumbles. A long sigh escapes him and he leans against Darla’s inventing table, his arm trembling like mine does after too much caffeine.

“We could have heard from Nicholas.” Sophie shrugs, takes a quick breath, and dives in again. “I know it’s an uncomfortable situation for you, so Darla and Avery and I will go. We’ll handle it. But we need to know where to find him. We can’t leave him there. He’s our friend. He needs our support. We need to keep him safe. Please, Jacques.” She’s pleading with him with big blue eyes, as sweet and earnest as the manga girls she draws. Jacques hesitates, like he’s dying to say no, but can’t—he crumbles under the weight of that stare.

“Fine,” Jacques says. “But you have to promise to stay here.”

“Me?” Sophie rapid-fire blinks. “But—”

“I’ll take Avery if he’s willing, but no one else.”

“I’m not breaking up the team,” Darla says, bristling.

“You don’t have a choice,” Jacques says. “Avery is the only one who has a chance at defending himself if something goes wrong.”

“If something goes
wrong
?” Darla says. “I have a whole contingency plan for that scenario. It’s called ‘say hello to my
Carminotoxin
truth serum and tell me exactly what I want to hear, before I incapacitate you and trap you in a sauna!’ I’m not leaving Avery at the mercy of you and your manipulative mother, ice boy, and if you think—”

“Darla!” Sophie shouts. “Shut! Up!”

Darla’s face flushes almost as pink as that girly assault rifle, but she flops down in her inventor’s chair and shuts her mouth. Sophie grabs the back of Darla’s chair and wheels her into a corner, talks to her quietly. Jacques takes his cell phone out to check the time, agitated.

“What am I going to have to defend myself against?” I finally ask, fairly certain I know the answer.

Jacques shakes his head slowly, pushes his platinum hair out of his face. “I hope nothing. My mother has an appointment tomorrow morning. A follow-up with her surgeon. She may cancel it, because of Nicholas. I don’t know. But it’s our best chance, to go there when she is away, and then perhaps—”

“If she isn’t going to be there, we can all go,” Sophie says brightly. “It shouldn’t matter then whether I can defend myself. I think Nicholas would feel good if he saw the whole team, and saw how much he means to us.”

“No,” Jacques says firmly. “I won’t discuss this anymore. My mother will have brought Nicholas to the house, which is a significant distance away from here. We need to leave now or not at all.”

He won’t look at me; he’s busy icing up his fingers and then scraping the frost away with his nails. Repeatedly. Distracted. And I wonder, is he lying to us? Is he setting me up? Jacques and I have never really been friends. But he seems nervous, ready to bolt. I don’t want to push him and make him change his mind—not when Nicholas’s future is at stake. Which means there’s no time for questions.

“I’m ready,” I say.

“Fine. But this is a horrible idea,” Darla mutters, hugging me tightly, a little too long. “We’re not leaving you on your own. I’m going to come up with a plan, and I’ll—”

“Please don’t,” Jacques says. “You have no idea what you are dealing with. You’ll only make things worse.”

Darla does something weird then—I mean weird even for her. She throws her arms around Jacques in this intense embrace, hands roaming across his back before she pulls away. I have to blink a few times to make sure I’m not delirious. That was like watching my dad French-kiss a raccoon—I feel violated on so many levels.

“Good luck,” she says, totally avoiding eye contact.

“Would you
please
reconsider?” Sophie says. “It might be good to have more support. I mean, if something bad
does
happen . . .”

“Absolutely not. I don’t want you there, Sophie. Your power doesn’t interest her. If you make her angry, you’re completely expendable—she doesn’t respond well to defiance. Promise me you won’t get involved.”

“But—”

“I am so serious about this,” Jacques says. “I have never been more serious about anything. Please: stay here.” His expression is totally bare, almost pleading with her. I feel like I’m looking at a different person, because there’s no awareness of
me
in his eyes, no anger, irritation, pride. He cares about her.

And I do, too. “He’s probably right. It’ll be an easy in-and-out, faster with just the two of us,” I say, even though I’m growing less sure of this by the moment.

I swallow. Jacques is talking about his mom here—what’s he so afraid of? I mean, if her own son is taking these kinds of precautions . . . either he’s determined to see me crash and burn alone, or Cherchette’s even more disturbed than I thought.

“Well, okay then.” Sophie hesitates; fidgets, then turns on her thousand-watt smile again. “I
do
have faith in you guys. Make us proud, team! Woot!” She steps forward and smacks me on the ass, like a too-cute football coach getting friendly before a game. I seriously cannot speak after she does that. “But be careful,” Sophie says. “Bring Nicholas back safe. And if you need me . . .” She holds up her cell phone, looking worried-hopeful, and wishes us luck.

A
nd that’s how I end up in Jacques’ car that evening, speeding along the highway, towns whipping by us, some kind of moody trip hop on the radio.

I rub my hands together to warm them up, but it’s more a symbolic gesture than anything. Jacques’s focus is barely on me and the temps seem to stay pretty regular. I try to think of something to say, some normal way to interrupt the silence.

“How long of a ride is it?”

“Not long,” he says. “We’re going a bit out of our way to dispose of this.” He leans forward in his seat and reaches around behind him, fingers plucking awkwardly at his jacket until he comes away with a sliver of lavender plastic, about the size of a girl’s fingernail, with spiky metal teeth on the back.