Gypsy (The Cavy Files Book 1) (39 page)

“It could be,” I admit, wondering how
she’s
aware of that fact.

“Tell you what. No matter Chameleon’s reservations, he won’t want you all to be caught and kept. Their nullifying agent doesn’t work on us, that’s for sure. I’ll round up a few Olders, and we’ll be there tomorrow, just in case. You won’t see us, and if nothing goes awry, you might never again. But if you need help, we’ll be there.”

We thank her, and even though I can feel Mole wondering the same thing I am, which is why she would promise to do this after days and days of silence, we don’t ask the question.

Maybe we don’t want to hear the answer.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

It hits me while I’m brushing my teeth that Christmas is almost here. I bought a book for my dad, just a nonfiction one about the French Quarter that he’d mentioned wanting to read a couple of weeks ago, but nothing else. It seemed a silly thing to buy on a whim, but it’s the only thing I know he wants.

Now I realize he’ll open it after I’m gone. That to him, I’ll be the ghost in this house.

My soul aches at the thought of breaking my father’s heart. In the wee hours of the morning I write the best explanation I can come up with in the front of his book, then wrap it up and tie a pretty bow with shaking fingers. I hope he knows it’s not because of him, and that he can see the regret smeared among the letters and words.

I want to stay. I just can’t.

The presents from Jude, a strange mesh of my past and present, go into a backpack I fill with the few things I want to take with me. A spare pair of jeans, five pairs of underwear, a second bra, two sweaters, and one tank top. These things, combined with the sneakers on my feet and the coat trying its best to thwart the shivers wracking my body, are all of this life that comes along when I leave.

Mole waits in the alley, like we planned. His blank gaze finds my face, making me feel stripped bare and raw. I don’t bother to blink away my tears since he can’t see them, but he reaches up to brush them away, anyway.

I jerk at the last second, causing him to miss, and I frown. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t care if we know when I’m going to die, Gypsy. You’re sad, and I want to help. I want to touch you, and not through pieces of cloth.”

My lungs squeeze. I want that, too. It’s what I’ve always wanted, to find physical comfort in the people closest to me.

“I can’t. I don’t want to know, Mole, especially not now that there’s a chance I’ll see details.” Disappointment pinches his face, and I tug his bare fingers through my gloved ones. “It’s too much. I can’t see you that way and still keep it together.”

He sighs, pulling me down the street toward where Pollyanna should be waiting at the corner of East Bay. “I understand. I don’t like it, and I have to say, I’m pretty miffed to be the only guy in your life that you haven’t touched at this point.” His fingers tighten, and his voice lowers to a whisper. “But I understand. Because the idea of losing you—just
thinking
about it—kills pieces of me so fused with everything that matters in this world, that it’s impossible to imagine a day without you.”

They’re strange, these sweet, heartfelt words. They flutter around us, brushing my cheeks and hair and heart like the wings of a million butterflies that have spent years flying around me but only now come close enough to touch, to reveal their vibrant, stunning beauty. Instead of trying to touch them back, to capture them, I turn up my face and try to memorize the way they look. How they feel. Because I know they can’t stay.

“I love you, Gyp.”

“I love you, too.”

“Yeah, and I love you both. What the fuck are we talking about?” Polly steps out of the darkness against a brick building, annoyance shadowing her face. “I’m freezing my ass off.”

“Where’s Geoff?” I ask, pulling my gloved hand out of Mole’s and trying to focus on the morning’s task. The butterflies lift off toward the sky, still there but in a different stratosphere.

“Haint’s busting him out.”

“Has anyone heard from Reaper yet?” I look at Mole, who shakes his head.

Pollyanna nods. “She called me yesterday, and I filled her in on everything that’s been going on. She said she’s going to meet us by the Port Authority this morning.”

Relief blooms inside me like a bush of peonies in the spring. We need her. Even though I hope we don’t hurt anyone, or feel as though we need to, just having the threat of another lethal Cavy could up our chances.

We don’t talk for the rest of the long walk. My friends’ thoughts are a mystery, and my mind is somewhat of a blank slate. We’re on the path to somewhere new, unknown, dangerous. Instead of tumbling down a hill covered in prickly worries, I push my face into the brisk, early morning breeze and breathe deep. I stare out at the horizon, where the first pinkish glow touches the waves and the sky, and take it one step at a time.

Everyone but Reaper waits at the assigned checkpoint, a parking lot behind one of the Port Authority buildings. Gray has smudged out the blackness of night, and now streaks of orange join the pinks and purples lightening the sky. Morning arrives, and the nervous energy that thrums through us, increasing with every heartbeat, says it’s time to get this showdown started.

In whispered voices, Mole and I tell the others what we learned from Jeannie last night, which isn’t much, but the idea that they’re here, that we have backup, straightens everyone’s spines.

We creep toward the address from my vision. The warehouse is unimpressive from the outside, just a haint blue building built from corrugated steel and topped by a bright white roof that’s home to a roost of pigeons this morning. They coo, covering the crunching sounds of our footsteps in the gravel.

Once we’re close, it’s easy to spot items that Mole will be able to use for his diversion. Crates and wood pallets slump in a tumbling pile next to a dumpster, which is probably filled with more of the same. We stop, meet each other’s eyes. When Goose nods and disappears, then Haint follows suit, and Athena and I head for the back door. He’s going to wait there in case Goose needs him.

Behind us, there’s a deafening screech of scraping metal, a whoosh of wind, then a tremendous crash as what must be that Dumpster flies up in the air, drops its contents, and smashes back to earth—courtesy of Geoff, who can now move objects without fear of conking himself on the head. Or, he says he can, anyway. We haven’t seen it yet. My shoulders tense, waiting for the explosive heat of Mole’s fire, only relaxing when it comes.

I risk a peek over my shoulder, knowing that Athena and I need to hurry before the commotion brings everyone and their mother outside, but I trip and fall at the sight of something completely unexpected.

Jude’s lying in the scraggly bits of grass and gravel to the side of where the Dumpster was.

His face and hair are blackened with soot, and I almost throw up until I see him roll over. His eyes, keen but watering from the heat and dirt, grow into huge round orbs as they take in the scene and the Cavies.

Mole and the others run over, dragging him around the side of the building with them.

“Gypsy, we’ve got to hide. They’re coming,” Athena begs.

The demand in his voice triggers my instincts, but they can’t override the stuttering, desperate voice in my head asking what Jude is doing here. What he saw, what he knows, how he found us—whether he could have been involved this whole time, but slipped my radar because Dane was so much more obvious.

No.
It’s possible, I guess, but my gut says that if he’s here now, it’s because of me.

The sight of the thick, tall hydrangea bushes that sprout along the back side of the building, all but obscuring the entrance and hiding a row of windows that sit just above the ground, makes me stumble. They’re not flowering, but I know they’re purple.

This is it—this is where Jude is going to die. Not today. But soon.

Athena has no idea why I’m freaking out. He reaches back and snags the hood of my sweatshirt, hauling me up and forward, straight into the bushes. Branches and leaves scrape my face and arms but I hardly feel them as I twist around to make sure the others got out of sight.

The huge metal door bangs open less than five feet from our heads. Four men and one woman spill out, all dressed in street clothes but palming pistols, and spread across the parking lot. They approach the fiery mess of the Dumpster with caution, and once their attention is captured, Athena pulls me through the still-open door.

It’s dark inside, and there aren’t any windows. Or if there are, they must be covered.

“Do you know where we’re going yet?” I mutter. He’s not even really supposed to be inside, since he agreed to be a liaison between the group and Goose, but I’m not complaining. I’d probably still be standing in the middle of the parking lot gaping at Jude if Athena hadn’t pulled me away.

“No. I can’t hear anything.”

The statement amps up my nerves as we continue down the corridor, feeling our way along the walls. If his gift isn’t working, this is going to be a lot harder.

We don’t encounter anyone, but it’s hard to believe that’s not going to change. Even if there are only five people here at this hour, more have surely already been alerted. I’m not too worried about the Cavies outside because as long as our abilities work out there—which the display seems to suggest—Polly can have five people eating out of her hand in no time. They could be doing cartwheels down the street by now.

Or, if even one of them is like Dane, my friends could be in handcuffs.

I shake off the vision as we jiggle the handles on the doors to our left and right. They’re all locked. We find a flight of stairs inside a closet but don’t go up or down, deciding to wait to hear from Goose.

We don’t wait long.

“He found her. Upstairs.”

The steps are rickety and narrow, a spiral with no handrail and no backs to the individual stairs. I’ve seen one like it before—we all have—at Darley. It’s an old servant staircase, built behind doors and through the center of the house so that maids and nannies and cooks and the like could serve all levels of the house without accessing public areas. Useful but dangerous: The Darley Hall records detail no less than five mortalities, mostly slave children who tripped and fell to their deaths.

Athena and I make it to the top without any such incident, and I follow him into the room at the end of the hall. It’s some kind of laboratory, with gurneys and equipment and monitors and electrodes, all of which reminds me of Darley as well. It takes me back with such force that for a moment, the sight of Flicker slumped in a chair toward the back doesn’t register.

“Over here,” Goose hisses. “She’s out cold, and these bonds are… I don’t know. Just smooth metal. No locks.”

She’s alive, her chest pulling in deep gulps of oxygen before exhaling, spilling stale breath into the space. We’re not too late, even if she’s got bruises on her face and arms and blood crusted around the bonds on her wrists. Relief makes me so weak my knees almost dump me right onto the floor.

“How do we get her out?” Athena raises his eyebrows, nervous energy tugging him from one foot to the other. “Even if Polly keeps them distracted, they must have called in the disturbance. We’re going to have company.”

I turn my back on the boys and Flicker, scanning the contents of the tables. Then my gaze lands on a half-sized refrigerator and I speed toward it, excited to find labeled containers of drugs on its neatly arranged shelves.

“What are you doing?” Goose whispers, panic encroaching on the edges of his outward calm.

“Just shut up a minute.” My fingers turn the labels toward me, fumbling and knocking some over in the process. The tinkling of glass on metal sounds louder than it probably is, making me wince and feel as though we’re going to bring the cavalry down on us at any moment. My heart leaps at the label that reads PHYSOSTIGMINE,
and my hand closes around it. The rolling set of drawers beside the nearest gurney houses an array of syringes, and I eyeball the one that looks like the right size.

Years of being poked and prodded, put under anesthesia and brought out, are about to pay off.

The twins stare at me, eyes wide, as I suck out some of the drug with the needle. “What are you giving her?”

“Physostigmine. It should bring her out of the anesthesia.”

“How do you know they put her under? Maybe she’s out for another reason” Athena shifts toward Flicker as though he’s going to block me.

“How else would they be controlling her? She could just disappear out of those bonds.” I grit my teeth, every last piece of me sure we’re running out of time. “Move.”

The thing that worries me is not knowing how much of the drug to administer. I could make it worse, or speed up her heart too fast, or any number of other mistakes. I’ve watched a hundred nurses plunge drugs into my veins, but that’s not the same thing as doing it myself.

But we don’t have a choice, so I plunge the syringe into a vein on the inside of her elbow and we all stare, waiting for her eyes to open.

“How do you even know that’s the right drug?” Goose asks after disappearing and returning in the span of five seconds. “We’re still alone in here. For now.”