Dangerous (18 page)

his hand going into his suit coat. “Want me to shut up the mutt?”

I pulled the guy to me by his lapels and stuck my hand into

his jacket. I was aware of his tender ribs that could break with

a flick, of all the tiny bones in his hand as he tried to push me

away. But I got my fingers on the gun I’d suspected was there

and yanked it free from its holster. It took two squeezes of my

left hand to squish it into a ball, careful to avoid pressure on the

bullets. The steel made a nice grating sound, satisfying, like

popping packing bubbles.

The guy’s eyes lifted in alarm above his sunglasses frames,

and he stepped back, falling down three steps to the cement

walk.

I put the metal ball into GT’s hand. “Maybe we should just

talk on the stoop.”

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Shannon Hale

GT laughed, his smile crinkling his eyes. “Maisie Brown,

you are extraordinary. Your fearlessness, your decisiveness. If I

had twenty employees like you, I’d own the world. I have to

speak honestly . . .” His voice lowered, he leaned against the

doorjamb, and he gave me a crooked smile. “I am
enchanted
.”

Laelaps was still barking.

“You are
so
your son’s father,” I said. “I have to know—do

you, um, surf or is this a fashion choice?”

He winked. “I have an opportunity that could be worth a

great deal of money to you.”

I wrinkled my nose.

GT’s expression shifted, and I thought he could tell that

he’d gotten me wrong. “But of course you’re not interested in

money. You want . . . protection for your family.”

“Are you threatening my family?”

GT chewed his gum. “No. Not me, of course, but—”

“I understand that the police are interested in your general

doings, GT. Maybe I’ll let them know you’re trying to blackmail

a minor.”

GT looked down at his flip-flopped feet. “Detective Brand . . .”

The man who had fallen down the steps was on his feet

again. He flashed an FBI badge.

“The officers and agents I don’t own will be happy to ex-

ploit you for their purposes,” said GT, “only they don’t pay as

well as I do.”

I felt sick. I started to shut the door, but GT put a hand on

it. I could have broken his hand off, but he must have known I

wouldn’t.

“You think Howell is content losing her treasure to a bunch

of kids? Her people will discover a way to extract them, and

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Dangerous

then she’ll come for you. Maisie, I
want
you to keep what’s

yours, and you can use it to your full potential in my employ. I

can help you, and I’m the only person who can.”

Howell’s warnings were still pricking goose bumps on my

skin. Dad would be home soon. I wanted to crouch over my

parents, protect them. I wanted GT gone.

“Look, you seem like a
really
nice guy,” I said with a fake,

toothy smile. “But you’re way too old for me.”

I shut the door. And I watched through the blinds. If any

of them had touched Laelaps, I would have jumped through

the front window and gone Hulk on them. But they just looked

around the side of the house and went back to their expensive-

looking black car.

After GT got in, someone else got out.

I opened the door. “Jacques!”

He waved at me, his cheeks full of dimples. I still wasn’t

used to his face without his thick black glasses frames. His eyes

looked smaller, his face thinner.

“Maisie, Maisie, one-armed crazy,” he said, strolling to my

stoop.

“Get off my lawn, you pesky kid,” I said happily.

“Go
bleep
yourself.”

“Go teach evolution in Tennessee.”

“Go . . .” He squinted. “Go . . .”

Pre-token Jacques would have countered with “go wear a

fur coat to a PETA fundraiser” or “go wear a thong on a nude

beach” or something. But now he just rubbed his forehead.

“Jacques, what are you doing with
him
?” I whispered.

“Seeing what the tide brings in.” Jacques fished a pack of

peanuts out of his pocket.

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Shannon Hale

“If you want to get away from him, I’ll help you.”

“No thanks,” he said, crunching on peanuts. “I’m in the big

time, baby.”

“Are you sure? Has he threatened your parents?”

Jacques made an expression of disgust. “I went home yes-

terday. Mom said hi, I missed you, and by the way, an honorable

businessman has offered you a
bleepload
of money to start work-

ing for him immediately. Told me it’d do me some good to work

for a guy like that. Do
her
some good. She’s getting sick of work-

ing two jobs to pay for my private school.
Bleep
her, I don’t care.”

I couldn’t imagine my mom pushing me to go with GT.

“What about your dad?”

“
Mon père
? Oh, you mean the guy who calls on my birth-

days and sent me a
bleeping
Lego set at Christmas? No. It was

GT who got me away from HAL and . . . and the thinker.”

I knew why he stumbled. Just a few days ago, leaving the

thinker had been unthinkable. I wondered if it’d been as hard

for Jacques to run away from Wilder as it had for me. I won-

dered if his heart still hurt.

“Wilder made some mistakes with Ruth, but GT can’t be

better. Is Mi-sun with him too?”

“What if she is? Think of it—you, me, and Mi-sun. The

fireteam, on tour and ready to conquer!”

“You and Mi-sun should come here. My parents are cool,

they’ll take care of us.”

He dropped the empty bag of peanuts to the ground and

rubbed his nose, his eyes never leaving mine.

“How.
Bleepin
’. Tender. Okay, fine, you stay here in your

shoe box of a house. Does it feel good, imagining yourself smart

and superior and cozy with your very special mommy and dad-

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Dangerous

dy? Does that feel extra fine?”

He started to the car.

“Jacques,” I said.

He turned back. “He won’t stop trying to own you. Neither

will Howell or Wilder or any of them. We’re too valuable.” He

smiled. “Pick a side, Peligrosa.”

147

C h a p t e r 2 2

When Dad got home, we sat in the family room, too ner-

vous to eat dinner. Laelaps took up half the couch, his head on

my lap. I stroked his ears.

“What do you think the techno and brute tokens are worth?”

“Hundreds of millions,” said Dad.

“More.” Mom rubbed her neck. “This isn’t a safe place for

you, Maisie.”

“We need to stay together or I can’t protect you,” I said.

Perhaps we were falling into GT’s Plan B. He intimidates

us, Dad stops going to work so I can watch over him, we get des-

perate for money, and GT’s “business proposition” starts sound-

ing really good.

The phone rang. Laelaps sat upright.

Mom glanced at us then answered. She listened for some

time before saying, “Thank you, we’ll consider that,” and hung

up. “GT offered to hire Maisie as a consultant and pay her a

one-million-dollar signing bonus. He implied . . .” She faltered

and then finished in Spanish. He’d implied that if I didn’t, there

would be consequences.

Things fall apart
, I thought.

A breeze came in through the open window, rattling the

blinds. The evening warmth was distilling into the coming dark.

I could feel the cool promise of it on my skin, raising the hairs

of my arms. The world was softening toward autumn. I put my

hand on my mom’s knee and was aware of her heartbeat, fast

as a rabbit’s.

Dangerous

The phone rang again. Mom stiffened.

“Don’t answer it,” she said.

Dad said, “It’s better to know as much as we can.”

I said, “From now on, no one gets to you guys without going

through me.”

I answered.

“Do you know where Mi-sun is?” It was a woman’s voice.

“Is this Mrs. Hwang?”

“Bonnie Howell said Mi-sun left. She said to call you.”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t seen Mi-sun since I left Texas.”

“She never came home,” said Mrs. Hwang. She had a mild

Asian accent, her tone frantic, breathy. “Bonnie Howell took her

to the airport, but Mi-sun must not have gotten on her flight.

She called me from somewhere, said she didn’t want to come

back. I have two other children. How can I handle a daughter

who runs off?”

I really wished my mom had answered the phone.

“Mrs. Hwang, if I see Mi-sun—”

“Tell her not to come home if she’s too good for us now.”

She hung up.

I put down the receiver, almost missing the cradle because

my hand was shaking. I made sure for the tenth time that the

blinds were shut. It felt like the whole world was peering in.

“GT or Howell took Mi-sun. Or the police or FBI or some

token hunter . . . I don’t know who is safe.”

“Do you trust Dr. Howell?” Mom asked.

“I want to, but—” I tapped my chest. I didn’t need to say

it—Howell had discovered perhaps the most valuable treasure

in the world, a bunch of teenagers ran off with it, and who knew

what she would do to get it back.

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Shannon Hale

“We have to go,” Dad said.

“They can’t hurt me,” I said. “I won’t make Ruth’s mistakes.

And . . . and I could fight them, I think.”

“No,” said Mom. “Don’t fight them.”

“But I can—”

“I’ve seen people live a fighting life,
nenita
. I don’t want

that for you.”

Dad nodded. “We go. Together.”

“No. No! Just . . . just abandon our house and your jobs and

everything?” I started pacing again, and I could hear the floor-

boards protest beneath me. I felt a bone-deep anger, a boiling

that made me want to punch something. “This sucks. It
sucks
. I

didn’t even do anything wrong.”

“Maisie . . .” Mom started.

I didn’t want to hear it. Guilt was a knife in my gut, twisting.

“It’s partly your fault,” I said. “You gave me this stupid mid-

dle name, so I had to prove that I’m not a joke.”

I stepped too hard. There was a crunch of wood, and my

leg was knee-deep through the floor. I stomped again and again,

feeling strong and mean enough to break the entire earth and

let the rocks bury me. And that was where I wanted to be—down

and far away, hidden from everybody.

Laelaps whined. I was hip-deep in a hole in the middle of

our living room. I glanced up. My parents didn’t look mad or

scared. Just sad.

Mom said, “
No es culpa tuya, nenita
.” It’s not your fault.

I put my hands over my face and cried. I felt Mom and

Dad pulling me in, and I let them hold me. Because if Mom

hadn’t said what she did, I think I would have run through the

front door. I would have gone into the night and never stopped

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Dangerous

running.

“Luther,” I said through my hands.

“The best protection we can give our friends is if they know

nothing at all,” said Mom. “We pack up what we need, and we go.”

“Where?” I whispered.

They hesitated, and I snapped my mouth shut. What if the

house was bugged? Anyone could be listening.

We stood in silence for a couple of minutes, full of thoughts

that didn’t need speaking. I could see the pencil marks on the

doorjamb measuring my height every birthday, the dent in the

wall where I’d knocked over a chair, the lighter bit on the hard-

wood where Dad had sanded away the purple splotch from my

spilled grape juice.

Everything felt slippery, life too slick to hold, tipping for-

ward fast. Hadn’t I ached for change? What a huge joke the

universe was playing on me.

There was a knock at the door. We all startled, my own

heart thumping. Why didn’t Laelaps bark?

“Don’t answer it,” I whispered. But the door started to open

on its own. I tiptoed closer, my hand in a fist.

“Is the residence occupied?” Luther called out. He froze

midstep, seeing us standing in the dark. “Um, inconvenient

time?”

My mom took his face in her hands and kissed both his

cheeks.
“Mi hijo,”
she said. My son. She often called him that,

but this time she said it with such affection, my eyes watered.

Dad and Mom left the room, and I knew they were going to

pack.

Luther looked at the hole in the floor. “Whoa, what’s

going on?”

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Shannon Hale

“Groundhogs.”

He squinted at me. “What happened?”

I’d never talked to him about GT, Ruth’s death, or told

him much of anything about Wilder, Mi-sun, and Jacques. If

questioned, he could be genuinely ignorant.

“Dad’s taking a sabbatical,” I said. “We’re going to be trav-

eling, doing research. For the semester. And maybe the entire

year.”

“Where?”

“All over,” I said, my expression hard.

“And I’m coming too?”

“Luther . . .”

He looked at me with a pleading expression. I shook my

head.

He sighed and sat on the couch. “Happy birthday,” he said,