Dangerous (22 page)

178

Dangerous

I wanted, I had to earn, just like he did. So I started side busi-

nesses. His approval seemed to increase the more creative I got.

He wanted me to make myself wealthy and successful, no mat-

ter how I got there.”

“So you tried to become a criminal to follow in his foot-

steps.”

“I guess. And because it was funny. And because I was

bored.”

“Is that why you suddenly didn’t like me anymore after they

announced we would both visit the Beanstalk? You were bored

with me?”

His exhale was so heavy, I couldn’t see his eyes behind that

puff of breath.

“No, I just—I panicked. We were getting close fast, and I

was afraid after the week of training alone together—”

A door opened down below. Three people exited the build-

ing just as a black SUV pulled up for them. Two were bundled

up in the cold, but one was hatless. I could see his short, curly

hair.

“Go,” Wilder whispered.

I pushed the power button on my earpiece, put a hand on

the ledge of the roof, and leaped over. It was five stories down. I

tried to keep straight, my legs fighting the air to keep my body

from twisting. I landed feet first, and the sidewalk cracked be-

neath me. My bones seemed to vibrate, and never had the soles

of my feet been so aware of the ground.

GT stumbled away from me. The other guy had pulled out

a gun, but I heard GT say, “Don’t bother.”

“Jacques,” I said. “Please come back.”

Jacques looked up to where Wilder sat hidden.

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Shannon Hale

“The
bleeper
returns,” Jacques whispered. He swept back

his brown leather trenchcoat. He was wearing a gray turtleneck,

jeans, and silver-studded motorcycle boots. And I was pretty cer-

tain that underneath it all were his bulletproof long-johns.

“We need to be a team again.”

“A lot’s changed, One-Arm.”

“Wilder says we’re strongest together. We need each other

to figure out—”

“I’m not going back with Wilder, are you crazy? It was hard

enough to pull myself away from that spider’s web the first time.”

“Take her out,” GT said.

Jacques’s eyes seemed uncertain.

“Like you told me, the fireteam should be together,” I said.

“Me, you, Mi-sun . . .”

Jacques’s laugh was as bitter as a sob.

“Mi-sun’s gone. Wilder took care of that himself. Now I

have a new directive.”

Blades of sharp havoc grew out from Jacques’s hands and

his armor extended over his head, everywhere but his eyes.

I went for his eyes.

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C h a p t e r 2 8

Jacques ducked, rolled to the side, and came at me with

arms windmilling. I jumped back, just missing his attack. So, it

would appear he’d spent the past months training.

I heard the car start behind me.

“Ignore GT,” Wilder said in my earpiece. “Keep Jacques on

defense, push him away from the car.”

I threw a garbage can at Jacques, and he sliced it in half

with one of his arm blades.

“Are you going to let GT treat you like his pool boy?” I said.

Jacques emphatically lifted one of his blade hands, and I

was pretty sure he was giving me the bird.

I ran in for a tackle, and he dodged to the side. The force of

my run sent me sprawling into a building. Now he was behind

me and running toward the car. GT had just climbed inside,

the other guy getting into the driver’s seat.

“Knock him down!” Wilder’s voice cried in my earpiece.

I threw half the steel garbage can, striking Jacques in the

back. He fell face forward, quickly regaining his feet and turn-

ing to block my punch with one of his blades. It sliced through

my sweatshirt and grazed my arm.

“Ouch,” I said. “You’re prickly.”

His eyes smiled. I had a weakness.

He attacked with vigor, slicing at me with his razor arms. I

grabbed the half garbage can and used it as a shield, but Jacques

carved it up. One of his blades found my shoulder, coming

down hard.

Shannon Hale

“Ow!” I said, backing away. Nothing had ever hurt my

brute hide before. And the increased sensitivity of my skin made

it ten times worse.

His eyes glittered with pleasure, but instead of slicing at me

with those havoc blades again, he got excited with his fancy new

skills and tried to roundhouse me. The arrogant little bacteria farm.

“Grab him,” Wilder said in my earpiece as Jacques’s ar-

mored leg caught me in my gut. I snatched his ankle and threw

him against a wall.

“His armor,” Wilder said.

I was trying, but I couldn’t get my hands on him, let alone

crack it and pull it off. I went in for a punch to knock him down

at least, but Jack Havoc was both nimble and quick, and I ended

up punching bricks.

“Come on, Jacques! This is silly. Just come talk to us.”

His response was to try to slice my leg.

“Getting stuffy in there?” I said. “Doesn’t that bacteria poo

make you sweat?”

Jacques’s eyes narrowed and he tried to stab me, but I was

not letting that thing get me again. I grabbed his arm at the

wrist, twirled him above my head, and threw.

He rolled across the pavement and stood up, releasing the

armor over his mouth.

“You think I’m the bad guy? You’re the one who
bleeping

left. You left, Maisie, just like Ruth.”

I felt struck, and I just stood there when he came at me

again, blade arms swinging.

“Maisie!” Wilder shouted.

I moved, just ducking under a swipe, grabbed his arm, and

threw him again.

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Dangerous

“Wrong way!” Wilder said, but too late. I’d thrown Jacques

toward the SUV.

Jacques sprang to his feet, and GT pulled him inside be-

fore I caught up. The car peeled out as I grabbed a handful

of bumper. I threw the bumper like a spear through the back

window, but the car didn’t slow.

“Chase it, Maisie. Grab the first big thing you find and

throw it at the car!”

I was chasing. I bounded as fast as the car could drive, but

no faster.

They turned a corner, and the first thing I saw that wasn’t

bricked and mortared to the ground was an empty minivan. I

grabbed the chassis, getting it up on my left shoulder to fling it

forward. The vehicle groaned like a robot in pain.

In less than a second, I did the calculation. I could hurl the

minivan and smack it right on the roof, but not beyond. I throw

this two-ton car onto that two-ton car, and most of the people

inside are crushed.

Ruth’s token throbbed in my chest.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Do it!” Wilder said.

“I can’t . . .,” I said, trembling to defy the thinker. But I let go.

Two seconds later, the SUV was out of sight.

I began to chase it, but Wilder crackled in my ear. “Forget

them. You can’t catch up now.”

It had taken Wilder weeks to find Jacques, and I let him

get away. If the techno token was still working, I could have

built something to tap into Jacques’s tracking device. By taking

Ruth’s token and losing access to the techno token, I’d weak-

ened the team.

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Shannon Hale

I jogged back to the building and met up with Wilder as he

came down the fire escape.

“I managed to throw a tracker onto the roof of their SUV at

least,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Wilder. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t . . . do

something that might be fatal. I should have realized earlier, so

you could plan for that.”

He paused, as if the most important thing in the world

right then was just to look at me. “Maisie Danger Brown, you

are—”

His hand rose, and for a moment I thought he would touch

my face or my hair, but his hand paused at my shoulder. He

examined the cut in my shirt.

“Jacques marked you. He left a wound. I didn’t know he

could . . .”

I opened the rip wider and traced the thin, red welt made

with a havoc blade. It stung to the touch.

Wilder was so close to me, the air warmed between us. He

frowned, took a step back, and turned away.

Back in our car, Wilder tracked their movements on his

tablet. Sometimes he’d stop and rub his hands together.

“Are you cold?” I asked.

He paused to think. “No. Must just be habit.”

“Or else you’re practicing your evil genius hand rub.”

“Mwa-ha-ha,” he said unconvincingly.

“Jacques said Mi-sun was gone, that you took care of that.”

“Gone . . .” he said, tasting the word. “I wonder if Mi-sun

got away from GT, and Jacques thinks she’s with me. Maybe

she’s with Howell.”

We followed the signal into another neighborhood and

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Dangerous

found the tracker in a gutter on a tree-lined street, the limbs

heavy with ice.

“Probably knocked off by a branch,” Wilder said. “Where

are you, Jack Havoc?”

We drove around the rich, dusky streets, houses hidden far

behind walls, parks open and empty.

“Have you always given nicknames?” he asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?”

“Ruthless, Jack Havoc, Code Blue, Speetle, HAL. You

name things, and they stick.”

“I don’t know. I’ve always just called you Wilder.”

“Should I be hurt?”

I didn’t nickname Luther either, or Mom and Dad. It was

the rest of the riffraff, the huge teeming world. My brain want-

ed to remember it all, so it invented shortcuts.

But I didn’t need any help remembering Wilder. I didn’t

tell him that.

“Do you wish Ruth were your partner instead of me? Some-

one who would have hesitated to crush GT’s car?”

“Maisie Danger, I don’t want anyone else—” He stopped.

“Sorry, I . . . I’m trying not to talk like I used to.”

I turned away to watch the world darken outside my win-

dow. Wilder cleared his throat.

“I should have been clearer, told you to throw it
past
the car,

blocking their escape.”

“No way I could have thrown the car that far. Since getting

this token I can usually tell how far I can throw, how much I

can lift.”

He squinted at me a moment before returning his gaze

to the street before us. “Ruth could have done it. Maybe the

185

Shannon Hale

nanites are more potent when it’s one token per person. I hadn’t

realized . . .”

He parked in our little garage. I’d just pulled the garage

door down when Wilder grabbed my hand and pulled me at

a quick but casual pace to the side of the building behind the

stairs. Across the street was a man in a suit, brown coat, and knit

cap walking, scanning the buildings. A black SUV drove by, the

driver slowing to talk to the man.

“Is that them?” I whispered.

“I don’t sense Jacques, but they could be some of GT’s guys.”

Wilder still hadn’t let go of my hand. I pretended not to

notice.

“Do you want me to capture them?”

“No . . . see, the guy’s talking on an earpiece. If Dad’s on the

other end, he’ll find out where we are and have the advantage.”

“They must know where we are, or they wouldn’t be here.”

Wilder shook his head, his eyes tracking the man. “They

wouldn’t be so obvious. If they’re looking for our lair, they don’t

know they’ve found it.”

He rubbed his thumb across the back of my hand. My

heart responded, thudding out frantic Morse code messages. S-

O-S, S-O-S.

We stayed pressed to the wall, watching through the breaks

in the stairs as the man looked over our building, the one next

to it. Wilder’s fingers intertwined with mine. And though my

gaze never left the guy, I barely noticed when he climbed into

the SUV and drove off. Ninety percent of my brain power was

focused on that touch. I took a deep breath, and my breath

shuddered.

“I think they’re gone,” I whispered.

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Dangerous

“Maybe,” he said, though he didn’t move either.

I could hear his breathing speed up too, though all we did

was stand there, our hands touching. I had to get away or my chest

would explode with the increasingly violent beats of my heart.

“We should go while it’s clear,” I said.

So we ran up to the apartment. Wilder still didn’t let go.

He fumbled with the key while I watched the street. We closed

the door and locked it. The broken blinds were partially open,

the light on in the bathroom, and I felt visible to the whole

world. Another man walked the sidewalk outside. He turned,

looking up, as if noticing our window. Wilder ducked, diving

onto the mattress and pulling me beside him.

Calmáte, tonta
, I scolded myself.

I felt so aware of Wilder, his weight on the mattress, his

warmth, his hand. Aware too of my own body. I was way over-

reacting to a harmless touch.

“Maisie?” he said.

Don’t answer, I told myself. Pretend you’re not here. Even

though you’re holding his hand, feeling his palm with your

thumb, timing your breaths to his, lying beside him—just pre-