Indelible (34 page)

Surprise rippled through me like chocolate in a marble cake. Based on my previous dealings and DJ’s warnings, I thought they’d be harder to convince. They must have been really hard up for information.

“A vial of the cure will be delivered to Mr. Springsteed this evening. You’re free to go.”

“Thank you.”

“We look forward to our next venture together.”

“I think our relationship ends here.”

“We’ll see.” His words felt like a leech draining my soul. I hoped he was wrong. I never wanted to have anything to do with the Clutch again.

v

The following night I got a call from Brent.

“I got something in the mail today. What did you do?”

“Are you at home now?”

“No, my parents drove me to school to pick up my homework. I’m in the commons building.”

I gave a yelp of joy. “I’ll be right there.

I slipped on a pair of flats, grabbed my jacket and hurried down to the building. He was sitting in a patch of sun in the outside courtyard. He didn’t look any better than he had at Miguel’s Jr, but at least he didn’t look worse. He was wearing a thick sweater to keep out the chill of the day.

“Do you need to go in? It’s a little cold out here.”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “My mom never lets me outside. I’ve missed the sun and fresh air.”

I pulled my thin jacket tight around me and sat down in the chair across from him, waiting for him to shower me with gratitude.

“I thought I made it clear at the hospital I didn’t want you to do anything stupid on my behalf,” Brent said in an angry voice.

Not the reaction I was expecting.

“I didn’t want you involved,” he continued. “I was so glad you told them no—once I really thought about it.” He bit at the nail on his thumb. “What did you have to do to get this?”

“They just asked me to talk to Sophia and get some information.”

Brent didn’t speak for a full thirty seconds. “That’s it?”

“That’s all they asked for.” He didn’t look like he believed me so I held up my hand over my heart. “I swear.”

He smiled then and it made me wonder what exactly he had done for them, but I pushed that thought aside.

Brent swirled the liquid around in the glass container before opening and smelling it. He winced at the fragrance and gagged. “This smells worse than the last batch.” He lifted the vial to his lips.

For some reason Sophia’s warning about what the Clutch would really give him made me reach out and stay his hand.

“Maybe you shouldn’t take it. We don’t know for sure what it is.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m a dead man anyway.” Before I could reply he tipped his head back and swallowed the contents in a big gulp. His eyes went wide and he gagged again, louder this time, and dug in his backpack until he pulled out a half-empty bottle of water, which he promptly guzzled down.

Brent licked his lips. “That was absolutely disgusting.”

“Do you feel any better?”

Brent’s face took on a look of concentration as he mentally felt his way through his body, looking for changes. “No, I feel exactly the same, but it took a while for the last sample to work too.”

I smiled. “Oh, okay. Good.”

“Yara, once I was thinking straight I didn’t want you involved with the Clutch and I still don’t. I’m not happy you dealt with them but . . . thank you.” He spun the water bottle around on the table. “I can’t tell you how lucky I am to have you.

I pretended not to notice the tears in his eyes. We held hands and talked about anything and everything until he had to go.

I called Brent first thing the next morning but he said he felt the same. The third morning after he took the cure I called but there was no answer. My panic went into overdrive as I pictured everything that could have gone wrong. Was Brent in the hospital again? Had Sophia been right and they had poisoned him? My phone beeped and I nearly toppled over from relief as I saw a text from Brent. “Eating breakfast in the school cafeteria. Come down.”

I quickly got ready and raced down to the cafeteria. Brent was sitting at our normal table eating his usual French toast and hash browns, no eggs in sight. He looked good. Healthy. His skin had its normal brown tinge, his brown eyes were like chocolate, and his hair was perfectly coiffed. He looked amazing, better than I had seen him look in weeks. I would have taken on a thousand paranoid ghosts and every member of the Clutch to see him look this good again. I felt tears of happiness well up in my eyes but I forced them away as I ran toward Brent. I dropped my backpack on the ground and hurled myself into his arms.

I kissed him long and hard, wrapping my arms around him. He chuckled when I finally stopped and rested my forehead against his.

“Good morning to you too,” he said with a slight pant.

“How are you feeling?”

“I was feeling good but after that kiss, my morning just shot into amazing territory.”

I rested my hands on both of cheeks. “Really? You feel good?”

“Yes, better than I have since last year.”

I thought my face would split from the wide grin I couldn’t contain.

“Thank you Yara.”

“I would do it again,” I said, meaning it.

DJ slid into the chair next to Brent. “That’s how they get you, Cupcake. It won’t be that easy. Just wait and see.”

“Since when did you start eating here?” Brent glowered at DJ. “What do you want, DJ.”

“I’m trying to prepare the two of you. There’s no happy ending here. They own you.”

“Brent has the cure. They don’t have anything else I need.” My voice was firm and steadfast but my instincts said otherwise. Would they really have given us the cure? The line Sophia gave me didn’t even really answer the question they’d asked. Had it been too easy?

DJ stole a piece of toast from Brent’s tray, and took a bite. “You’ll see. There are threads to whatever you did that they’ll grab hold of.” DJ turned his green eyes onto Brent. “I told her not to do it, but she had to save you. I hope your health is worth it.”

“Of course it is,” I snapped, taking the stolen piece of toast.

“We’ll see,” he said ruffling my hair and winking at me before standing up and walking away.

Brent’s eyes looked troubled and my insides felt just as worried.

“You’re worth it,” I asserted again.

“I’m glad you think so, but I wish you hadn’t had to get involved. He’s got me worried.”

“Brent, don’t let him ruin this.” I shook Brent by his shoulders and ordered him to smile. “For now, aside from finding out the Clutch’s end game, there isn’t much else to do, except enjoy your new health.”

Brent gave me a tentative smile. “You’re right.”

But my nerves didn’t fade; if anything they grew more intense. I wanted to trust in the cure and believe that our dealings with the Clutch were over, but deep inside, I knew better.

Chapter Seventeen

I had just returned to my room after class, when I heard a knock at my door. Actually it was more like a tap. I headed toward it but before I could turn the knob, Sophia appeared in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. She stood there smiling. The sight of her still made me tense up a bit but the warm look in her eyes made it loosen. I had almost forgotten that Cherie had de-jeweled that mirror.

“Hey,” I said to her. “It worked.”

“I knew it would.” She gave me an appraising look. “Will you keep up your end of the bargain?”

To my shame, I hesitated for a moment.

She noticed and her smile tightened. “I’m ready to be freed.”

“Of course.” I walked over to my chest of drawers and rummaged through my sock drawer until I found the plastic tube that held the concoction my grandma had made for her. It looked and smelled like Italian salad dressing to me. I tuned back to her and found she looked scared. “Are you alright? I don’t think this will hurt.”

“I’ve felt my husband’s presence here more than I have in years.” Her light brown eyes shone with tears. “I’m afraid once I step out of the mirror I’ll cross over and lose this peaceful feeling.”

I poured some of the liquid into my hand and slid it over the glass. “Maybe he’ll be waiting for you.”

“He won’t be. The last time I saw him was in the hospital. I said horrible things to him. I told him I never wanted to see him again. Then he died. I waited for his spirit to visit me, but he never did.”

I smoothed more of the basil and oregano scented solution along the mirror. “What did he tell you that left you so angry?”

“That he was the reason Evan had gone crazy. That is why I broke up with him you know. He had become violent, with horrible mood swings. He was an addict with a rotting brain. The pankurem had done it to him.”

“Oh, that’s awful.” I poured more of the liquid into my hand.

“I wish I could have explained to him that I said those things out of fear for my son, Lee, not out of anger about Evan. After I really thought about it, I realized the exposure had been very small. I had only taken it for a few weeks, because I hated the way it altered my prophecy dreams. It jumbled them together and I couldn’t understand them. So I stopped. I went to the hospital the next day to apologize but he had died. He died thinking that I hated him.”

“And that was the last time you saw him?” I spread the mixture to the edges of the mirror. “You said you never saw a glimpse of his spirit?”

She didn’t have to answer; her stricken expression said enough.

“That was a long time ago. I’m sure he’s had time to think about things. I’m sure he understands.”

Her brown eyes shone with a timid hope. “You do?”

I nodded. “My boyfriend and I had a huge fight recently. And we hurt each other, with our words and our actions, but after some time, we both came to understand each other better. We had both made assumptions based on fear in the moment. We talked it out and realized we were both sorry, that we still loved each other.”

“Truly?”

“Yes, and we’re together now.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s been waiting for me all these years. Maybe he understands how much I love him.”

I placed my hand against the slick mirror. Sophia did the same and my fingers dipped into the mirror and connected with her ghostly ones. I murmured the words Vovó had taught me, tugged, and she stepped from her prison.

She pulled me into a hug. “Thank you.”

Her eyes were bright with tears as she pulled away. Her image rippled and then vanished. I could still smell her Jasmine perfume and the warmth of her hug. I didn’t know if she had crossed or simply disappeared but I did know I had helped and it felt wonderful.

v

“You’ll never guess what I found today,” Cherie said as she and Audrey came into our room a few weeks later.

“What?”

“The original blueprints to the school. They were misfiled. Someone sent a request to the Historical Society months ago, asking if they had a copy, but no one could find them. Apparently the city’s copies of it are missing and they were hoping we’d have one. I’ve seen the request; it was from Mr. Crosby. So when I found them, I didn’t tell anyone. If he wants them so much there has to be a reason. Now we can study them before the Clutch has a chance.”

“You think they’re trying to figure out what the key unlocks?” I asked.

Audrey sat on Cherie’s bed. “I thought you said the kids who stole the key tried it on every door on campus and it didn’t open any of them. So why are we looking at blueprints of the school?”

“I’m guessing it opens one very special door. One that only Christopher knew about. Which means it would probably only be shown on the original blueprints.”

“Like a secret room?” Audrey asked.

“Yep.” Cherie started unrolling the prints. “I also brought the most recent prints so we could compare.”

“That is going to take hours,” I said.

Cherie nodded.

“But what good will it do to know what the door opens if you don’t have the key?” Audrey asked.

“Well,” Cherie said reasonably, “we’re eventually going to get the key and we’ll need to know where to use it.”

For the next few hours we all pored over the plans, and I told them about freeing Sophia from the mirror.

“Sophia was smart to break it off with Evan. He died broke, jobless, and in some serious debt. The only reason the school didn’t go under is Christopher left it to his grandson and not his son.”

“Grandson?”

Cherie nodded. “Yeah. Jesse never got married, but Evan got married about a year after he and Sophia broke up and had a couple of kids. Evan and Jesse were both kicked out of their respective colleges after their grades went from straight A’s to failing. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but people started avoiding the Pendrell boys, like they were afraid of them. They had complaints filed against them from faculty and students. Sadly for Evan’s wife and kids, no one would hire him. The same went for Jesse.”

“Wow.” I closed my eyes but still saw the outline of building plans behind my darkened lids. “Sounds like they lost their ability to control people, huh?”

“That’s what I thought,” Cherie said. “It gets more grim. They started becoming paranoid and insane. Evan was killed running into traffic, screaming like a mad man, and Jesse died weeks later, after he jumped from a moving train, yelling about being followed.”

“It all fits really. My grandma told me that if people ingested pankurem it was like a poison for the mind.” I crossed my legs. “We already know they sabotaged the car in the Grand Avenue race to win bets. What did they need all that money for? They’d already taken a lot of their dad’s.”

Audrey spoke up. “Well it’s never cheap to get things from other countries. Maybe they needed the money to support their habit. Especially if their dad had cut them off.”

“You’re probably right,” I said. “A telepathic steroid must have cost a lot of money. Thomas and Sophia made it sound like they had been researching other things too. According to Thomas, that’s why Christopher was haunting the Clutch, to get them to stop trying to continue the research.”

“You know.” Cherie rolled out the kinks in her neck. “I’m still upset that I never realized the old sports house was rumored to be haunted before the fire. I’m usually better at catching details than that. In my defense I—”