Runaway (Airhead #3) (6 page)

Wow. Maybe Christopher was right. Maybe I really
was
turning into one of those stupid heroines from Frida’s books.

The thing was, I’d just felt so
happy
when I’d woken up and found him in my room. Everything had seemed so great. I wasn’t all alone anymore…

…except, it turned out, I was.

And thanks to my own stupidity.

TSTL. Too Stupid to Live. That’s what Frida said they called the heroines of her books who made choices that put their own lives at risk.

And those heroines aren’t just in books, either. They’re in horror movies, too. Like when the heroine of the movie hears a noise in the basement and thinks to herself that she had just better go check it out. Even though all the electricity in the house has blown out. And her flashlight is broken. And there is an escaped convict loose in the neighborhood.

Really, she deserves what’s coming to her.

But did I? I mean, did I deserve to have my brain pulled out of my body
again
and have to learn to adjust to being a whole new person all over?

I texted Christopher an
I’m sorry. Can we talk? Where r u?
message, which I fully didn’t expect him to reply to (he didn’t), then took a shower and got dressed in a pair of designer jeans and a ruffly top the boutique had sent over, pulling on the boots I’d brought with me from New York.

As I blow-dried my hair, I tried to think about something other than myself. Like how Brandon’s father could possibly be hoping to profit from storing all those people’s data on Stark Enterprise’s mainframe. Obviously, he wasn’t going to use their credit card numbers himself. He was a billionaire. What did he need with a JCPenney card?

And most of the people buying Stark Quarks were college and high school kids. I mean, the Quarks only cost two or three hundred bucks, tops, and they came in colors like lavender and lime green.

So why was he collecting all that data?

I was still trying to figure it out when Brandon rattled my doorknob again.

“Hey,” he called. “Are you coming to breakfast, or what?”

I strode over to the door and threw it open. Brandon was standing there, his hair sticking to his head because he’d just showered. He was wearing, of all things, another Ed Hardy shirt, jeans, and a thick gold chain around his neck. A waft of Axe assailed my nostrils.

Really, Brandon? I swallowed hard against the barf that rose up in my throat.

“I’m coming,” I said, not smiling. “Is the doctor here?”

Brandon stared down at me blankly. “What doctor?”

I’d always suspected Brandon had been allowed to eat way too much sugar as a child.

But this was a bit much, even for him.

“Dr.
Fong,”
I said, enunciating clearly so he couldn’t misunderstand. “To perform the
brain transplant.”

“Oh,” he said. “Uh… not yet.” He glanced down the hallway to make sure Nikki wasn’t around, then put one arm up against the wall behind me, leaning in close enough that I could smell the toothpaste on his breath. “Listen… you don’t think…I mean, you didn’t think I was actually going to go through with that crazy plan of hers to let you swap brains, or whatever. Did you? I mean—” He reached out and lifted the pendant I was wearing, some kind of crescent moon or something. “She’s crazy. And you…you’re the one I want.”

I just stared at him. I would no sooner believe anything that came out of Brandon’s mouth than I would believe something I saw on the cover of
Star
magazine about Jennifer Aniston’s current state of pregnancy.

“Uh,” I said. “You seemed pretty into the idea last night when you were talking about it with Nikki.”

“How else was I going to find out what she was blackmailing my dad about?” he asked with a laugh. “I had to lead her on, you know.”

I plucked the necklace out of his hand. Seriously, his cologne was so strong, it was making my eyes water.

“How do I know you’re not leading me on?” I asked. “You two did used to go out. So you didn’t always think she was so crazy.”

Brandon stared at me with his mouth hanging open a little, giving me ample opportunity to observe his veneers.

“That was just,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing, “for sex.”

“Charming,” I said, wanting to throw up more than ever. “So what happens now? To Nikki, and Steven, and their mom? Are you going to go on keeping them forever, like your pet shark?”

“Well,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “No.”

“Then where are they supposed to go? They can’t go back to their normal lives. Your father will find them. Do you want their deaths on your conscience?” I stabbed an index finger into the middle of his chest. “Do you? Well? Do you?”

“No,” he said. He’d been backed up against the wall behind him. “Of course not. But that’s not going to happen. Because your computer geek friend is gonna help me figure out how to use the information Nikki got about my dad and turn this all around to get back at him—”

“My computer geek friend?” I knew exactly who he was talking about. “And just why do you think he’s going to be willing to help me, after what you made me do to him the other day?”

I didn’t mention the part about Christopher’s problem with my “trust issues.”

“That’s not my deal,” Brandon said with a shrug. “You’re the one who’s supposed to figure out how to make that work. Or Nikki might end up exactly where you’re so worried she will….”

I don’t know why I was so surprised. Everything in Brandon’s life was disposable. Last night after he’d gotten off the phone with his lawyer he’d already begun making calls to purchase a new car to replace the one I’d burned up.

Why shouldn’t he consider people disposable, too?

Just as he was making this casual threat, Nikki appeared in the hallway from her room, wearing a lantern dress that was exactly the wrong color green for her new complexion and patterned tights that made her legs look chunky. Her hair, as usual, was a disaster, and it looked like she hadn’t even tried with her face. Maybe because there was no makeup artist around to do it for her.

“Good morning,” she said. “Ready for breakfast?”

I gave her a tight smile. “Can’t wait,” I said, dropping my finger from Brandon’s chest and brushing past him to head down the stairs. Behind me, I heard Nikki purr, “Hello, tiger.” She was apparently speaking to Brandon. I hadn’t any doubt from the slurping noises I heard next that she’d wrapped her arms around him for a big good morning kiss.

Was it everyone’s intention to make me throw up before I’d even had my breakfast?

What I saw when I got to the dining room, however, made me completely forget what I’d just heard.

And that was my little sister, Frida, pouring orange juice into glasses at our place settings.

Seven

OH, SHE WAS WEARING A DISGUISE. OR what I suppose she considered a disguise: red plastic-framed glasses, black-and-white checkered pants, a white chef’s coat, and her hair was stuffed up into a tall white chef’s toque, like the kind they wear sometimes on the Food Network.

But other than that, she was very definitely Frida, a freshman in high school, who was supposed to be at cheer camp over winter break.

There were any number of things I could have said or done at that particular moment. Blurted out,
What are you doing here?
Fainted. Stomped up to her and demand she get back home this instant. Didn’t she know how much danger she was in…how much danger she was putting the rest of us in?

I didn’t say or do any of those things. Instead, I just sank down into my seat— I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have remained standing even if I’d wanted to— and sat there, staring up at her. I couldn’t figure out what was going on for a minute or so. It isn’t often you see someone from one part of your life in a completely separate part of your life and have to meld the two together, then try to make sense of what you’re seeing.

Then slowly— more slowly than I would have liked to admit— I put two and two together.

It was all starting to make sense, though. The fact that Christopher had shown up last night, then left without me?

The fact that Frida was standing there in ill-fitting catering clothes, ladling out food to us— she was serving us scrambled eggs from a platter— trying not to make eye contact with me through the lenses of the red plastic-framed glasses?

I could see that she’d caught on to the fact that I’d recognized her. There were bright spots of color blossoming on either of her full cheeks, even though she was resolutely not looking my way.

My heart had begun to thump hard inside my chest. Not only was I afraid for Frida— afraid that Brandon (thick, dopey, dangerous Brandon) was going to show up any minute and recognize her— but I’d realized if Frida was out here, Christopher was in the kitchen. He had to be.

What was he thinking, letting my baby sister come here, of all places?

Worse, just the idea that he might be nearby was making my pulse speed up. How could I be so weak?

But I quickly put this thought out of my head. More important than that— more immediate than that— was the danger that Frida was in. My palms had gone slick with sweat. Didn’t she have any idea how risky what she was doing was? If Brandon caught her…

…well, I didn’t know what he’d do.

But I knew it wasn’t exactly going to go over very well.

And what about Mom and Dad? Did they know where Frida was at this very moment? I very much doubted it. Because if they did, they wouldn’t have allowed it.

She would be so, so dead when I got through with her.

“Is there anything other than eggs?” Mrs. Howard, already seated, asked politely, looking down at the yellow lumps congealing on her plate, her forehead slightly wrinkled, as if she were worried about actually tasting them.

Mrs. Howard, of course, had never met Frida. She had no idea my baby sister was the one serving her her breakfast.

“Pancakes,” Frida said, in the fakest Southern accent I’d ever heard. She sounded like a bad Paula Deen. Did she really think just because she’d tucked her hair into a chef’s toque and had on glasses that anyone was going to believe she was over fourteen? “I’ll be right out with them, ma’am.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Howard said, moving bits of egg around with her fork. “That will be lovely.” She didn’t sound convinced.

Seated across the vast glass table from Mrs. Howard was Steven, who’d risen early to work out in Brandon’s private gym, as he did every morning. I stretched out my legs as far as I could and tapped his foot, lightly, I thought…

…forgetting I was wearing pointy-tipped stilettos.

“Ow,”
Steven said, reaching for his injured leg. He gave me an aggrieved look, like,
What did you do that for? Aren’t things bad enough? We’re imprisoned in this guy’s beach house mansion. Do you have to stab me in the leg with your shoes, too?

I jerked my head in Frida’s direction. Steven glanced at her, then gave me an annoyed
so what?
look, still rubbing his leg.

When I jerked my head back at Frida, Steven looked at her again. Recognition dawned.

When Steven glanced back at me one more time, his expression was one of alarmed disbelief.

I know,
the look I gave him said.
What are we going to do?

“What the hell is this?” Brandon wanted to know.

Brandon had disentangled himself from Nikki, and the two of them came over to sit down at the table.

“Is this juice fresh-squeezed?” Nikki wanted to know, before she gulped some without waiting for an answer.

“This doesn’t look like waffles,” Brandon said, glaring down at his plate.

“That’s because it’s eggs, sir,” Frida said, giving him a slight bow.

My heart was now thumping so hard, I could barely breathe. Would Brandon recognize her? He had just seen her less than a week ago at the party Lulu and I had given at our loft— he’d danced with her, for Pete’s sake! How could he not recognize her?

And if he recognized her, would he have one of his security people rough her up? Over my dead body would any of them lay a hand on my sister….

Of course, given the fact that I already was dead, this was sort of an empty threat.

“Eggs?” Brandon looked perturbed. “Since when were eggs ever on the menu? I hate eggs.”

My shoulders sagged in relief. He hadn’t recognized her. Of course not. Brandon paid no more attention to the help than he did to…well, Nikki, if he could help it.

“There’s been a slight change, sir,” Frida said. “Chef trusts you’ll still find the food to your satisfaction.”

Geez! Where had Frida learned to say all this stuff? She actually sounded like a real caterer. I couldn’t believe it. My baby sister was all grown up!

Brandon looked down at the yellow goo on his plate. “No Belgian waffles?” he asked, now sounding slightly forlorn.

“This is disgraceful,” Nikki said. “You really can’t find good help anymore.” She threw her napkin down beside her plate and started to get up. “I’m going to go give that chef a piece of my mind.”

“No.” I hastily threw my own napkin down, feigning indignation. “I’ll do it. There’s no reason why the rest of you can’t stay here and enjoy yourselves.”

I got up and made my way across the slick black marble floor toward Frida, with Cosabella, who had followed me downstairs, trotting behind me, her claws making familiar clicking noises on the marble. The whole time my heart was clattering along with my heels and Cosabella’s claws. I was a little ashamed about what my heart seemed to be saying:
Chris-to-pher,
my heart beat in rhythm to my footsteps.
Chris-to-pher.

It was ridiculous, I knew. Now was no time to be thinking about boys. Especially boys who’d abandoned me because of my alleged “issues.” My sister was the one I had to concentrate on. My sister who had stupidly, foolishly, amazingly put herself at risk because of me.

In a way, I was incredibly proud of her (not that I had any intention of letting it show while I was beating the crap out of her). How had she gotten here, all the way from New York City? She was only a freshman…a kid, after all. It seemed like only the other day she’d been begging me to go with her to see Gabriel Luna in concert at a Stark Megastore.

Or begging me not to go with her, actually, since she hadn’t wanted me to be seen with her and embarrass her in public because I looked and dressed so badly. That had been before I’d become Nikki Howard, of course. God, how time flies.

“Come with me, young lady,” I said, grabbing Frida’s arm. “Let’s just have a word with this chef of yours.”

“Um,” Frida said. She could barely keep up with me on her much shorter legs as I hustled her toward the kitchen. “Whatever you say, ma’am.”

He wouldn’t be there. I knew he wouldn’t be there. I’d seen the look on his face last night when he’d told me he was done with me.

Not to mention the look he’d been wearing that morning by the limo outside Dr. Fong’s house when I’d told him that things might have been different if he’d just liked me the way I was before the surgery.

But he hadn’t, and so now it was too late.

No wonder he was so unwilling to forgive me…

…and was so convinced I had issues.

And okay, what I’d said to him by the limo had been a lie, though I’d told myself at the time that I believed it. I’d had to, in order to make myself say it.

The expression I’d seen on his face when I’d said it hadn’t been the expression of anyone who seemed like he might later give me another chance.

Except…well, Frida was here. I never in a million years thought I’d see her. Miracles, it seemed,
did
happen.

So maybe…just maybe…

When I hit the swinging door to the kitchen with all the force I could, trying to give the impression, for Brandon’s sake, of a billionaire’s angry girlfriend, Lulu, in a white coat and toque that matched Frida’s, let out a shriek.

My heart gave a deflated
zzzzzzzt
like a balloon some birthday clown had stepped on with his stupid giant clown shoes.

Christopher wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Instead, Lulu, letting out a sigh of relief, smiled like I was Ryan Seacrest telling her she was the new American Idol.

“Oh, thank God,” she said, flattening a hand to her chest. “It’s just you two. Oh, and Cosy! You
scared
me. Did you have to sneak up on me like that?”

My mind staggered as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing in front of me: my roommate, Lulu Collins— not to mention my sister— was in the kitchen of Brandon Stark’s tropical beach house.

Of course. Of course they were. Where else would they be?

“What,” I demanded, when I’d finally caught my breath from the lunacy of it all, “are you doing here? How did you get in? And where’s the chef who was supposed to be here?”

“I don’t know,” Lulu said, answering my last question first with a shrug. She’d gone to turn off the stove, where she’d been frying something in a pan. It actually smelled delicious, like pancake batter. When had Lulu learned to cook anything but her signature dish, coq au vin? “I slipped him a check to take the day off. And we just borrowed his stuff and walked in. Well, drove in, actually. No one checked our IDs or anything. Em, are you okay? We’ve been so worried about you. You’ve been acting so weird! Cute top. Don’t hug me back, I don’t want to get pancake bits on you.”

Lulu went to hug me. I stood there with her skinny little arms circling my neck, glaring over the side of her toque at Frida, who stood there smiling at me sheepishly.

“Do Mom and Dad know where you are?” I demanded, even though I knew the answer.

“Mom and Dad think I’m at cheerleading camp,” Frida said. “And before you can get even more mad, Em, let me remind you that they put off their trip to Grandma’s to stay in the city to be with you. But then you just took off to be with your new boyfriend, Brandon Stark. They’re not exactly happy with you.”

I blinked at her. “But—” I started to protest.

“Yeah,” Frida said, nodding. “I know. But I couldn’t tell them you weren’t here of your own choice, could I? Or they’d start flipping out. So I had to be all
Oh, no, she’s in love with Brandon now.
And go along with what all the tabloids were saying, just like everybody else. Even though I knew you didn’t give a rat’s butt about Brandon Stark. I could see it in your face, even if Mom and Dad couldn’t. But just so you know, you’re basically killing them, a day at a time. Happy?”

I blinked at her. So my boyfriend thinks I have trust issues, and I’m killing my parents? This wasn’t exactly something I wanted to hear. Especially before breakfast.

“So when Lulu called me at camp— because Mom flipped out and said I was going to cheerleading camp, because, I think, she doesn’t want me to turn into a boy-crazy freak like you, Em— to say she wanted to stage an intervention on you,” Frida said, “I jumped at the chance. Because which do you think is more important: saving a beloved sister or learning to do a ball out to high splits?”

Since I had no idea how to answer this question— a ball out to high splits had to be some kind of cheerleading move— I blew some of my hair from my lip gloss and glared at them as Lulu let go of me and stepped aside to move the heavy iron frying pan she’d been using off the heat of the stove. There was, I saw, a pancake in it.

Lulu really had been planning on serving pancakes.

Then, pulling herself up to her full height— which was more than eight inches less than mine— Lulu said, “Really, Em, you shouldn’t be mad. We’re here to rescue you.”

I just stood there staring at them. I couldn’t believe they’d done what they’d done— come all this way, just to bring me home.

“Come on, Em,” Lulu said, making a little beckoning motion. “Get Steven and his mom and Nikki and let’s go. Are you ready? That’s a fantastic top, by the way. Did I say that already?”

“You guys,” I said. I felt tears pricking the corners of my eyes. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t believe how sweet they were being, especially after I’d been so sure no one cared. Well, except my mom. And Rebecca, my agent.

But my mom only cared because she had to…she was my mom. And Rebecca… well, she needed me for the money I made her.

At the same time, there was a hurt in my heart that I couldn’t deny, and it had to do with the fact that, while they might have been there, a certain other person was so conspicuously absent.

Frida and Lulu, noticing the sudden tears in my eyes, exchanged glances.

“Uh,” Lulu said. “Okay. Christopher was right.”

My heartbeat sped up a little.

“You talked to Christopher?” I asked. “What did he say? Did he… tell you?” If he had told them about my alleged trust issues, I was going to kill him.

“Yes,” Frida said. “He did. And don’t worry. I’ve got this. We covered it in my Psych class. Em.” She turned toward me, put her hands on my bare shoulders, and started speaking in an exaggeratedly slow voice. “What you’re experiencing right now is called
Stockholm syndrome.
It’s when you begin sympathizing with your captor because he’s shown you kindness. I know Brandon might be hot, and he gave you that nice shirt. But he’s still a bad guy. Just because he hasn’t killed you doesn’t mean he’s your friend.”