Secrets (19 page)

“Floaty,” Yana finished for her.

“Yeah,” Rae agreed.

“I feel like I could just float through the ceiling. Except I really have to pee,” Yana said.

“Again?” Rae still felt too separate from her body for hunger or thirst or having to pee.

“What do you mean, again? I haven’t been able to go since they grabbed us. The cords are too tight for me to even
stand up,” Yana told her.

“Did they give you food?” Rae asked.

“You got food?” Yana replied.

Rae frowned, and the movement reconnected her to her body. Every bone felt jagged. Her muscles were like
sandpaper. Every place where the cords touched her skin burned and itched.

“I don’t get it. Why’d they let me eat and-” Rae began. The answer came like a hammer blow to the head. “It’s
because they only care about me,” she said. “There’s something they want from me. You just happened-”

Rae stopped herself before she finished speaking the thought aloud. But she couldn’t keep the truth from herself.

The men didn’t care about Yana. They wouldn’t care if Yana died right now.

“God, Yana, I’m sorry,” Rae burst out. “If I didn’t get you to come with me-”

“Oh, shut up,” Yana snapped. “It’s not like you knew this was going to happen.”

“Everybody I let get close to me gets hurt,” Rae insisted, thinking of Anthony, thinking of Jesse.

“Oh, poor you,” Yana said. “Instead of wasting time feeling sorry for yourself, you should be helping me come up
with some kind of plan.”

“Except that we’re pretty sure they’re listening,” Rae reminded Yana. She tilted her head from side to side, trying to
crack her neck. “What time do you think it is? Could it be morning already? Do youthink my dad will already be
looking for me to be back from the concert?”

Saying the word
dad
killed the rest of the floaty feeling. Rae shuddered, the cords digging tighter, as the reality of
the situation slammed into her, the fear as fresh as when the man grabbed her and blindfolded her and-

“My dad…” Yana began.

“What?” Rae asked when Yana didn’t continue.

“I was just trying to remember the last time I actually believed my dad gave a crap about me,” Yana said slowly. “I
think I was about seven. Yeah, the first half of my seventh birthday. By the end, I knew he couldn’t care less.”

“Why? What happened?” Rae asked.

“Forget it. Doesn’t matter,” Yana muttered.

“I’ll tell you something if you tell me,” Rae bargained. There was no response from Yana. “Okay, something about
me. I used to be a total dork back when I was Rachel.”

Yana snorted. “You’re still Rachel.”

“Oh, no, no, no. I’m Rae.”

“Big difference,” Yana commented.

“Huge. Rachel, when she was in the sixth grade, I’m talking the
sixth
grade, used to pretend she was an alien from
the planet Gloopus, an alien named Princess Tamasela.”

“Catchy,” Yana said.

“Dorky,” Rae corrected. “Mockage worthy.” She could almost see herself hopping around the baseball field of her
school, pretending to be on one of the giant kangaroos that populated Gloopus. “So seventh birthday,” she
prompted Yana.

“Seventh birthday,” Yana repeated. She sighed, loudly enough for Rae to hear from the next room. “Okay. Possibly
hard to believe, but I was the ultimate girlie girl when I was a kid.” She paused a second. Two. Ten.

“What, no tattoos?” Rae gently teased, trying to get Yana going again.

“No way. Ballerinas didn’t have tattoos, and that’s what I wanted to be-a ballerina. For my birthday my dad got a
pair of tickets to the local ballet company-we were living in Buffalo back then. I was ecstatic. I picked out what I was
going to wear two weeks in advance. I picked out what my dad was going to wear.”

Yana spoke faster and faster, like someone had pulled out a stopper inside her. “I practiced putting my hair in one
of those really tight, slicked-back ballerina buns. I mean so tight, it would give me a headache. And I went to the
school library and read about the history of the ballet so I’d have interesting stuff to tell my dad at intermission.”

She sucked in a breath and rushed on. “So my birthday gets there. Finally. And my dad’s late getting home. No big
deal. Except that it gets later and later, and he still doesn’t show. He doesn’t get home by the time the ballet starts.

He doesn’t get home by the time the ballet ends. He gets home at two-sixteen in the morning. And he yells at me for
still being awake.”

“God,” Rae murmured. She could see little Yana as clearly as she’d pictured little Rachel. She imagined Yana with
one of those rings of little plastic flowers around her bun. She saw Yana’s hair as light brown back then before Yana
got into bleaching it. “Did he just forget?” Rae asked.

“Didn’t ask,” Yana answered, her voice tightening again, returning to the usual brisk tone.

“I’m taking you to the ballet when we get out of here,” Rae promised, hurting with the desire to do something for
her friend.

“Can you see me at the ballet now? I don’t think so,” Yana told Rae.

“It’d be fun,” Rae said.

“Just forget about it, okay?” Yana’s voice was harsh now, like she was mad at Rae. “I don’t know why I told you in
the first place.”

“I’m glad you told me.” Rae hesitated, then decided to tell the truth. It was stupid not to whenthey might not ever
get out of this room alive. “I know we haven’t been friends for that long, but you’re my best friend, Yana. That
probably sounds dorky, like I’m still that dorky Rachel girl. Who actually says ‘best friend’ past elementary school?

But it’s true. You are my best friend. And what you told me, that’s exactly the kind of stuff best friends tell each other.

”

Yana was silent for a moment. “You’re my best friend, too, Rae,” Yana finally answered. She sounded so strangely
serious about it.

“I wish you weren’t in here with me,” Rae told her. “But I’m really glad you are, you know?”

She pulled in a deep breath. There was a big secret she’d been keeping from Yana. Huge. Anthony knew. And
Jesse. But Rae’d wanted one person in her life who just thought of her as normal.

You should tell her,
Rae thought. But what if it made Yana sick? What if it made her think Rae was a total freak?

What if she started treating Rae like one of the really delusional patients in the hospital?

What if, what if, what if. What if they never made it out of this motel alive? At least she would have come clean with
the one person left she could totally trust. And even if someone
was
listening to them, she and Anthony had already
figured out that whoever was after her knew what she could do.
You’ve got totell her sometime,
she told herself.

How can you really call her your best friend if you don ’t?

“Pizza delivery,” Anthony called loudly. He gave two loud knocks on the motel-room door, resisting the urge to put
his fist through the freakin’ thing. This was the last room to check. If Rae wasn’t there, she wasn’t anywhere in the
place. “Pizza delivery,” Anthony called again.

There was no reply. He didn’t hear anyone moving around in there, not one tiny sound. “Where is the next Motel 6?

” he asked Jesse.

“On Sherman. The one near the car dealership,” Jesse said.

Anthony threw the empty pizza box on the floor. Jesse picked it up. “We might need it. There might not be one in
the Dumpster at the next place.”

What if she ’s not at the next place?
Anthony wondered as he led the way down the stairs to the parking lot.
What

if I was too big an idiot to figure out what she was really telling me on the phone?

“Anthony,” Jesse said loudly. “You just passed the car.”

Great. He’d walked right by the Hyundai, for chrissake. And he was supposed to be finding Rae? Anthony pulled in
a deep breath, turned around, and strode back over to the car. He got in and forcedhimself to close the door without
slamming the hell out of it. He had to get in game head. Get calm. Get focused. For Rae.

“Put on your seat belt,” he told Jesse. Then Anthony pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. He wanted to
floor it, but that wasn’t smart. If he got pulled over, it would take time, and he didn’t have any time to spare. He
wasn’t sure he even had any time left.

It took about twenty minutes to get to the Sherman Avenue Motel 6. Longest twenty minutes of Anthony’s life. He
swung the car into the parking lot and felt like he’d been struck by lightning. “That’s Yana’s car!”

“At least this time we’re sure that they’re inside,” Jesse said.

“Yeah,” Anthony answered. “But how do we get them out?”

I’m so close now. I can feel it. Soon I will know everything about Rae, including who else is so interested in her.

And then she will die. And I will be the one to kill her.

I can almost hear her screams now. I can almost see her blood. I can almost feel her last breath leaving her body.

Soon I’ll be able to make it happen. Nothing will stop me. No one can stop me. I will not allow anyone to take the

revenge that belongs to me. Rae is mine.

-v- -v- -v-

What was Yana thinking? What was she going to say? Did she think Rae was a disgusting freak? Rae twisted her
hands together, even though it made the cords feel like they were sawing their way down to her wrist bones.

“It’s almost impossible to believe,” Yana finally said. “But I believe you,” she added quickly.

That doesn’t tell me anything,
Rae wanted to scream. Even Yana’s voice hadn’t given a hint of how Yana was
feeling. It had been flat, neutral. Sort of like a nurse talking to a ranting patient.

“You don’t really believe me, do you? You think I’m getting sick again,” Rae demanded. Her own voice was full of
emotion-quivering, making it clear she was about to cry. God, why couldn’t she have asked the question in the same
tone Yana had used?

“If I could reach you, I would smack you on the head,” Yana answered. This time Rae could hear irritation in Yana’s
voice, and it made Rae smile. Yana wasn’t treating her like some poor sick girl. “I said I believe you, and I believe
you,” Yana continued. “It’s just…”

“Overwhelming,” Rae finished for her.

“Yeah, I feel like my head’s been injected with novocaine or something. No wonder you ended up in the hospital.

I’d probably still be in there if I were you.”

Rae didn’t hear any disgust buried in Yana’s tone. Or any fear.
I could have told her a long time ago,
she realized.

But she hadn’t been sure. She didn’t want to lose the one girlfriend she had left. The one person she could hang out
with and feel actually normal.

“Does your dad know?” Yana asked.

“No. He wouldn’t-he’d put me back in the hospital. He’d think he was doing it for my own good,” Rae answered.

“But you could prove it to him, right? You could prove it to anybody,” Yana said.

“I guess. I never actually thought about it like that. It’s weird, huh?” Rae answered. “I still think my dad would want
me in the hospital or someplace even if I did make him believe. He’d probably want tests and stuff to be sure that I’m
okay, and then everybody would know. I’d be this
abnormality
for life.”

“So that’s your biggest secret, huh?” Yana asked.

Rae laughed, relief spiraling through her body. “You already know about Gloopus, so, yep, that’s it. I’m a fingerprint
reader.” Telling Yana had been the right thing to do. Rae felt like she’d just dropped a bag full of bowling balls, a bag
she’d been carrying around for a long time.

“I think that’s why we’re in here,” Rae continued.

“At least part of the reason. Whoever did this knows about my… my
ability.
They found out when they kidnapped
Jesse.” She thought about adding that she’d recognized one of their kidnapper’s voices as that fake meter reader
guy, but didn’t-just in case he really was listening. She knew their chances of getting out of here were small, but
somehow she had a feeling that letting the man know she could ID him would be a bad move either way.

“Maybe they want to use you for, I don’t know, terrorist missions or something,” Yana suggested. “Like in that
show
La Femme Nikita.”

“Never saw it. TV is a tool of Satan in my house, remember?” Rae answered. “But why keep us here if that’s what
they wanted? I don’t get it. What are they waiting for?”

Not that Rae wanted them to do anything. But eventually they would, and she’d rather know what they had
planned.

“Do you smell something?” Yana asked.

Rae pulled in a deep breath. Her heart began to race. She pulled in another breath just to be sure. “Smoke,” she
told Yana. “I… I think the motel is on fire.”

She wrenched herself to her feet, the cord tying her hands to her feet keeping her head low. Was there a window in
this place? She had to find it. She and Yana weren’t going to die in here.