Forbidden (The Seeker Saga, #2) (9 page)

“See?” Liz said.  “The danger is still there for the rest of us.  Sure, we might be able to resist it now, but what about after a few days?  A week?  How long will it take for one of us to crack?”

“But that’s
nothing
compared to the danger of these unknown attackers!” Eve said.  “If it hadn’t been for Rob, Tracy might not even be alive today!” She glanced at me and added quickly, “No disrespect.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.  “Ashley, what about you?  Can you do anything with your crystal yet?”

“I can link to it now,” she said in a voice that made her relief obvious.  “Sometimes.  Usually it slips away.  But it’s been getting better over the last month.”

“See?” Liz stressed.  “What if one of us pulls on her crystal as much as Ashley did?  What if one of us burns out her ability permanently?  Then we’d have absolutely no way to protect ourselves!”

“But with the crystals locked away,” Eve pointed out laconically, “we’d have no way of doing so, either.”

“But it’s not like any of us have Tracy’s strength!” Liz countered.  “With the crystals, we can feel the connections between things, sure, but we can’t manipulate them to any use!  If the triangulation worked as I thought it would have, that’d be one thing, but without it, the most we can do is slow our perception of time!”

“It’s better than nothing,” Eve replied.

Liz exhaled loudly.  “Madison, what do you think?”

The blonde girl jumped at being asked something directly.  Sometimes she reminded me of a tiny sparrow, hopping from spot to spot, constantly finding herself surprised by her surroundings.  “I think we should keep the crystals with us for a few days,” she said after a moment.  “Until all this settles down.  That’s not long enough for us to snap from the temptation, but it should be enough to better understand what we’re doing next. 

“I also think that the man who attacked Tracy is locked up, and while he’s there, won’t be able to harm anyone.  So there’s no point jumping at the wind.  But
he’s
who we should really be talking about!  We can’t just hide him down there forever.”

Liz looked at Madison, and then turned her gaze to Eve.  After a tense moment, she gave a nearly imperceptible nod.  “Alright. We can keep the crystals,” she sighed.  “But we’ll revisit that in a few days.  For now, Madison’s right.  We have to decide what to do with the man.”

“The only thing I know,” I said, “is that if there are more like him – if there are more who will come after us because of the crystals – we have to stick together.”

“Agreed,” Ashley said.  She glanced quickly over her shoulder.  “The island doesn’t feel safe for me anymore.”

“It doesn’t feel safe for
any
of us,” Eve said, and gave her head a curt shake.  I didn’t know whether to be surprised or impressed with her candor.  Usually, she tended to project a fearless demeanor.  “But… this will make it even worse.”  She dug into her pocket, and pulled out a creased manila envelope.  She held it out in her hands toward us.

“What is it?” I asked

“Look inside,” she said, handing it to me. “I found it on the man who attacked you.”

I frowned.  The envelope wasn’t heavy. I could feel something stiff and rectangular, like a credit card, inside.  I reached in and pulled it out.

It wasn’t a credit card.  It was an ID card.  And it was from Oliver Academy.

“What… is this?” I asked, my voice trembling.  There was a picture of a man on the card.  His face was unmistakable.  It was the face of the man who stood beside the headmaster at the opening day’s assembly.  The one who seemed to seek me out amongst everyone else in the crowd.  Except now, thanks to the card, I knew his name.  Paul Rosenberg
.
  Chris’s father.

The other girls crowded around me.  A fury erupted within the group as they realized what the card was –
whose
it was. 

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” Liz demanded from Eve.  “Why did you keep this from us?”

“I wanted her to be here,” Eve said, nodding at me.  “She has a right to know.”

“How did he get the card?” Madison wondered.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Eve said.  “The man who came after Tracy was
sent
by Chris’s father.  Professor Rosenberg.”

“Oh, this changes everything,” Ashley muttered.  “This means that Chris’s dad was in on it!  He was a
professor
at the school!”

“This is bad,” Madison cooed.  “This is very, very bad.”

“Who else knows about the crystals?” Ashley asked.  “Who else knows about
us
?  Who can we trust?  And why are they after Tracy?”

“Maybe,” I said, my voice still unsteady, “it was because I was new.  Maybe they thought I was vulnerable.  More vulnerable than any of you.”

 “None of us is safe anymore!” Madison exclaimed.  She looked the most shaken of any of us.  “I can’t go to my room by myself!  None of us can!  If a professor at Oliver sent the man to get Tracy, what’s there to stop more attempts?  Nothing!  What are we going to do?  We’re just sitting ducks on the island!”  Her eyes went wide, and she started breathing hard.  Her pupils darted from side to side as if seeking out a threat.

“Madison!” Eve commanded firmly.  “Calm yourself.  Nothing’s happened yet.  We’re all together now, and have our crystals.” 

“Eve’s right,” Liz said, touching Madison’s shoulder.  “As long as we stay together, and have our crystals, we’re relatively safe.”

Madison drew in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and exhaled slowly.  It seemed to calm her.  “You’re right,” she said finally.  “Sorry.”

I gave her a quick hug.  I knew how scared she must feel.  To realize that it wasn’t just Chris who knew about the crystals was a shock.  But to have somebody else at
Oliver Academy
know about them?  That was frightening.  Even worse, it seemed we were being targeted
because
of the crystals.  It was a threat we had never prepared for. We had assumed
we
were the only ones to know about them!  This type of danger could manifest itself in the form of anything.  I experienced that firsthand last night.

 “We have to think rationally about this,” I said.  “We can’t go harebrained just because we’re frightened.”

“Right,” Liz echoed.  “We should start with what we know.”

“Well, it’s clear now that either Chris or his dad sent the attacker,” Eve said, “and we can presume that they both know of the crystals.”

“But we don’t know
why
Tracy is being targeted,” Ashley said.  “I mean, not specifically.  We can assume it’s because of what she can do, and we can assume that Chris and his dad are behind it, but we don’t know
why
her ability – or any of ours – is important enough to have them send someone after us.”

“Chris’s dad could have been the one to pressure Chris to do what he did in the caves,” Liz said thoughtfully.

“Actually,” I said slowly, “I remember Chris telling me once that his dad was the one who showed him that massive crystal formation underground.”

“You never mentioned that before!” Liz exclaimed admonishingly.

“No.  I never made the connection before!  Chris brought me down there before you guys showed me what the crystals could do.  I never thought of it since then.”  I gave a nervous chuckle.  “I guess I’ve been avoiding thinking about it since.”

 “Tracy!” Madison suddenly exclaimed.  “I just realized where I know the man on the card from!  It’s the same man who stood beside the headmaster at opening days!”

“That’s right!” Eve and Liz exclaimed at the same time. 

“Didn’t you say he looked at you?” Ashley asked.  “I remember that.”

“That’s right,” I answered slowly, thinking back.  “I remember him scanning the crowd.  And when his eyes landed on me, I thought I saw – even though he was so far away – I thought I saw him smile.  And then he just turned and left.”

“But, why you?” Liz wondered out loud.  “What was it about you that drew his eye?”

“She’s special,” Madison said.

“
We
know that!” Eve said.  “We knew right away she was the strongest of us at using the crystals.  But how would anyone else know that?”

“Could this mean the headmaster is in on it, too?” Ashley asked.  “Could he have helped that man get on the island?”

“I don’t think so,” I replied.  I had wondered the same thing at the start.  “If he were, he wouldn’t have made that deal with us.  With me, I mean.  He wanted to keep events of that night quiet.”

“Maybe he wanted to keep it quiet precisely
because
he was in on it,” Ashley suggested.

“I don’t think so,” I said again.  “If he did, why wait until now to attack?  If he was in on it, he could have arranged something much earlier—like when I was lying in the clinic.  I think he was even the one who called my parents here.”

“That makes sense,” Liz admitted. “But the question still remains: Who else knows about the crystals and us?  And
how
do Chris and his dad know?”

“You know,” I said, suddenly thinking of an idea, “I think there’s a way we can find out.”

“What do you mean?” Ashley asked.

“Chris’s dad’s office,” I explained.  “Chris fled the island after the incident in the caves.  I presume his dad went with him?”

“As far as we know,” Ashley said.

“So then,” I continued, “maybe we can find something in his office that will tell us more.  With his ID card, we can easily sneak in.”

“You think he just left things lying around?” Eve said acerbically.  “A checklist with his master plan?  Come on!”

“If I were him, I would have taken everything with me when I left,” Ashley added.  Then she shot a look at Eve.  “But, I still think it’s worth a shot.”

“What do you think?” I asked Liz.

“It’s the only lead we have,” she muttered sourly.  “And as long as we have his ID, we might as well take advantage.”  A bell rang in the distance announcing the end of lunch.  Movement became apparent among the students gathered around the fountain.  I turned my head to watch.

“You guys said you were up all night, right?” I asked.  “I’m guessing you didn’t go to class.  If we’re going to search Chris’s dad’s office, now might be the best time.”

“Let’s do it,” Liz confirmed.  “And afterwards, we still have to figure out what to do with our prisoner.”

Chapter Five – A Giant Spider Web

We had to consult the staff directory in the library to figure out where Chris’s dad’s office was.  It turned out that he worked in the geology department. Surprisingly, Eve was the only one who knew where that was.  She led us to the building without hesitation.

Walking through the streets of the main yard during school hours felt a little unusual. Even though it was still bright, the streets were empty.  Everybody was in class.  The few adults we did pass – probably professors who had that period off – gave us such strange looks that we hurried on before they could wonder why a group of five girls wasn’t in class, too.

We stopped in front of a building at the end of a street. It was familiar to me for all the wrong reasons.  This was where the student council had hosted their first party, and where I found Liz struck with after sickness from using the crystal.  Looking back, I now understood why the girls had acted the way they had with Liz passed out on the floor.  It was nothing a hospital stay – or in our case, a clinic stay – could remedy. 

The doors of the building housing the geology
department were locked.  I took Chris’s dad’s card from my pocket and waved it in front of an old-fashioned card detector on the wall.  The blinking light turned green, and the doors clicked open.  Without pause, Eve pushed them open.

A long dark hallway greeted us.  Doors lined either wall, but they were all closed, and the lights were all off.  As we entered, the main doors swung shut behind us with a
clang
that echoed ominously through the empty building.

“Now where?” Madison asked.

“The directory said his office was number 216,” I said.  “So that means the second floor.  Right?”

Eve nodded in confirmation.  “The stairs should be this way.”

We followed her as she led us farther down the hall.  The only light in the whole place came from a red EXIT sign positioned behind us.  We found the stairs and started climbing.  On the second step, I froze.   I just heard something.

“Do you hear that?” I whispered urgently.

“Hear what?” Eve asked.  She spoke in a regular voice, and it carried through the building.

“Voices!” I whispered.  “Keep quiet.”

Eve shot me a baleful look, but didn’t say anything.  After a few seconds, I caught the sound that had stopped me.  It was the sound of conversation, but it came from far away.