The Tower (41 page)

Frisking me for weapons, the pyroid said severely, “I can’t drain you in there, Adrian Howell, but if you attempt to use your power in any way, I will be forced to kill you.”

“No problem,” I answered. I suspected that the guard was afraid I was going to try to kill Terry, either in vengeance or because I was also in league with the Angels and needed to silence her. I remembered Mr. Baker’s stirring spoon. Perhaps Mr. Baker had only agreed to let me see Terry because he wanted to know what I would do.

“The child will have to wait outside,” said the guard.

I shook my head. “I need her with me.”

“The memo is only for you, Adrian. She must wait outside.”

“Alia,” I said, turning to her, “I need you to stay here.”

My sister gripped my hand tightly.
“No, Addy.”

“Alia, wait here for me,” I said firmly, pulling free of her. “I’ll need you soon.”

I didn’t wait for her answer, but quickly followed the guard into the holding block. The guard closed the door in Alia’s face, locked it and, crossing the room, sat down on a stool next to the control panel that operated the cell doors. My sister made just one more telepathic protest in my mind, and then became quiet.

I turned toward Terry. She was locked inside the same cell that the Angel spy had been in.

“I trusted you, Terry,” I said, looking at her sadly. “We all did.”

Terry didn’t reply. She just stared stonily back at me.

“Where are they taking her?” I asked.

Terry still said nothing.

I walked up close to the bars and looked into her eyes, saying, “They’re going to come down here with a delver, Terry. They’re going to torture you until you think the truth.”

“I know,” Terry said calmly. “Did you come to watch them do it?”

“Where is she?!” I shouted, banging my fists on the bars. “Answer me!”

Terry just shook her head silently.

Steadying my breathing, I said, “Last year, when you took me with you to release the spy, you didn’t know they were going to overwrite my memory, did you? Did you really think that getting me drunk would keep me from remembering anything at all about what happened that night?”

“I suspected you’d remember bits of it in time,” said Terry. “But I also thought you would understand. The original agreement was just for the Angel spy.”

“I would have understood about the spy,” I said. “I would even have understood what you did to me. For your brother, I would have understood. But you helped them kidnap Cindy, and you dragged my sister into this as well. I take that very personally, Terry.”

Terry’s voice remained emotionless as she said, “Well, we all have our personal issues.”

I shook my head. “We spent so much time down in the dojo together. Sometimes I couldn’t even feel my limbs in the morning. And yet all that time, I never really knew you. I never asked you the most important question, Terry. I never asked what you would be willing to die for.”

“Now you know.”

“Yes,” I said, “now I know. Maybe our worlds aren’t that far apart after all.”

We stared at each other for a moment. I wondered if perhaps Mr. Baker was right. Would Terry really tell me where the Angels were taking Cindy? Would she risk her brother again, after all the unspeakable things the Angels had done to him?

Terry broke the silence, asking, “What would you have done, Adrian? What if it was Alia? What if it was Catherine?”

“I don’t know, Terry,” I said. “But we don’t have time for this. You can still do the right thing. It’s not too late. Just tell me where she is.”

Terry turned away from me, facing the concrete wall as she said quietly,
“The Knights want to delve it from me, Adrian.
It won’t make any difference what I tell you.
”

“I will make the difference, Terry!” I said furiously. “Tell me where she is and I’ll go after her myself! This is what you trained me for!”

Terry didn’t reply, silently staring at the concrete wall.

I knew I was being unrealistic. Alone, I had no chance against the Angels. I knew I was talking like a little kid. But I was too desperate to care. “
Please, Terry!” I begged her. “
I don’t care what Cindy means to the Angels. I don’t even care what she means to the Guardians. I only care about what she means to me, and to Alia.
Cindy is the only mother Alia has.
She’s all we have! Please, Terry.
Please don’t let it end like this!”

Terry still kept her back to me, but I saw her shoulders quiver slightly.

Calming my voice, I said softly to her, “You once said that we are what we choose, Terry. So tell me what you are. Tell me what Gabriel is.”

Bowing her head, Terry mumbled feebly, “We’re Guardians...”

I waited, breathless.

Terry slowly turned back around and faced me. She took one deep breath and then said in a resolute voice, “We’re Guardians, Adrian. My brother and I are Guardians. I know that now. And I would help you get Cindy back if it cost me my life.”

“Then
tell me where they’re taking her, Terry!”

“No,” said Terry. “I won’t let Alia lose you as well. All I can do now is tell the delver when he gets here. I swear I’ll tell him everything I know.”

I scoffed. “And by then, Cindy will be long gone, won’t she?”

“Yes,” Terry answered miserably, “she will.”

I had known that before I came down here. It was time to ask Terry the one last question that truly needed to be asked.

“What if I could get you out of here, Terry?” I said quietly.

“What?”

“What if I could get you out right now? Would you help me get Cindy back?”

Terry gave me a wry smile. “You’d never convince Mr. Baker to let me out.”

“Would you help me?” I pressed. I knew the pyroid guard was listening carefully to our conversation. I didn’t care. I needed to know. “Terry, if I busted you out of this prison, would you help me go get Cindy?”

Terry looked at me in stunned silence. I sensed the guard bristling as he stood from his stool, watching my every move.

“Answer me, Terry!”

“Of course I’d help you!” Terry spat vehemently. “You saw what Riles did to me! They’re never going to release my brother and you know it!”

I glared at her. “How can I trust someone who’d betray both the Guardians and the Angels in one night?!”

Terry gave me a pained look. “If y
ou got me out of here, Adrian, I swear I’ll lead you to Cindy. I swear I’ll help you get her back.”

“You swear on your life?” I asked, looking deep into Terry’s eyes. “On your brother’s life?!”

Looking straight back into my eyes, Terry nodded. And with that, I had my answer too.

I stepped back from the bars.

“No, Terry,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re lying. You’re a betrayer. Mr. Baker was right. You’d say anything to get out of here now.”

“Don’t act so high and mighty, Adrian!” said Terry, her voice rising in fury. “You’re just like me. You would have done exactly the same if it was your family!”

“Maybe,” I answered quietly, turning away from her, “but we will never know.”

I called to the guard, “I’m done here. Let me out.”

Smirking, the pyroid guard walked back to the steel door and inserted his key as Terry called after me in a desperate voice, “Please, Adrian! Please believe me. I had no choice! Just like you with Alia. I just had no choice!”

Placing my right hand lightly on the back of the guard’s head, I blasted him unconscious. As he limply slid down the side of the door and onto the floor, I turned to Terry, who was wide-eyed and staring at me.

I gave her a half-smile. “There’s always a choice, Terry.”

I telekinetically pulled the lever that opened Terry’s cell door.

Terry stepped out, saying slowly, “I thought you didn’t believe in choices, Adrian.”

“I don’t,” I replied. “But you do.”

Terry looked at me for a brief moment, and then nodded, saying, “I take it you have some kind of plan?”

I lifted my left arm to show her my tracer band. “Simple plan. You take me to Cindy, and I’ll call in the Knights.”

“We’re going to have to hurry,” said Terry. “They might have moved her by now.”

We had to move the unconscious guard’s body away from the door so that I could open it for Alia.

“I was right about you, Adrian,” said Terry as she helped me drag the guard across the floor. “For all your pacifist nonsense, you really are dangerous.”

I didn’t reply. Once the guard was out of the way, I finished turning the key that had been left in the keyhole.

“Ali, I need you to heal this man,” I said as my sister stepped into the room. “Make sure he doesn’t die. I’m in enough trouble already.”

“Okay,” Alia said aloud as she crouched next to the guard’s bleeding head. Her attention focused on the man’s injury, Alia decided not to try sounding out any more words with her mouth.
“Just give me a minute, Addy,”
she said into my head.
“Then we can go.”

“No, Alia, you’re staying here with the guard,” I told her.

I turned toward Terry to ask her to open the escape tunnel, but she was a step ahead of me. Pulling the lever that opened the farthest cell, Terry said, “Adrian, Alia, let’s go! Ali, just make it a quick fix so he doesn’t die.”

As my sister stood up, I shouted to Terry, “No! Alia is staying here.”

“Like hell she is!” said Terry. “We might need her.”

“Addy...”

“You’re not coming,” I said firmly to Alia. “I just needed you to heal the guard!”

“We don’t have time for this, Adrian!” said Terry. “The Knights could be here any minute. We need Alia with us, and she has as much right to save Cindy as you do. Maybe even more.”

“That’s not the point!” I shouted, realizing angrily that Terry did have a very legitimate point. “She’s too–”

“Young?” asked Terry. “So are you! So am I, for that matter. So was my brother, and your sister! Alia is no different!”

Alia kept looking back and forth between Terry and me.

Terry walked back over to Alia and, crouching down in front of her, said, “I’m sorry for what I did to you. Right now, we’re trying to save Cindy. Your call, Alia. Are you coming or not?”

Alia answered Terry aloud in her slow and comically awkward voice, but I knew by her eyes how serious she was. “I want to come,” she said.

“Good girl,” said Terry. “Let’s go.”

I was still very conflicted about letting my sister join us, but there was no time for further discussion. Opening the secret entrance to the escape tunnel, Terry took the lead with Alia in the middle and me bringing up the rear. Once the entrance closed behind us, it was pitch-black in the tunnel, but nevertheless we ran the full length of it. When Terry suddenly stopped at the end, Alia and I smashed into her from behind.

Disentangling herself, Terry found the lever to open the door into the sewer pipe, and from there we quickly climbed the ladder that led to the manhole behind the large apartment building. At the top of the ladder, Terry easily lifted the heavy manhole cover from below and slid it aside.

“Don’t push your tracer button yet, Hansel,” said Terry as I pulled myself out of the manhole. “I don’t want the Knights catching up with us until we’re at the Angels’ hideout.”

“Where is it?” I asked.

“No time. Just follow me.
We need a car.”

“You know how to hotwire a car?” I asked, looking at the cars parked in the lot next to the apartment building.

“Sure I do, but it’ll be faster if we take one that’s moving,” said Terry, picking up a largish stone as she walked briskly toward the curb.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered, following with Alia. I realized that Terry was about to bash open a car window and pull the driver out. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to see this.