“Miles! Graham!” I’m immediately on my feet and running to them as they touch down in the grass. Miles scoops me into a bear hug. Graham stands there awkwardly. We don’t do hugs—we barely do friendly nods. “What’re you doing here?”
Miles sets me down. “Oh, you know, just seeing what our little sister is up to.”
“And by that he means making sure you don’t do anything stupid,” Graham says with a glare. “Mom told us about The Phantom and your deal.”
Bea’s jaw drops. “You made a deal with Juan’s guy?”
That one sentence gets everyone up and surrounding us. Hector, Carlos, and Brady pummel me with questions about if I’m working for Juan or if I paid them off and what the hell is going on in Madison.
“Whoa!” I hold my hands out, pushing them back. “Give me some space and time to answer.”
Hector folds his arms, in full defensive mode. “You better answer quick, because I don’t want to think of you as a traitor.”
“Keep your pants on.” I look from side to side, figuring now is as good a time as any to tell them what Seth and I discussed. I lower my voice. “Hector, do you hear anyone in the area that shouldn’t be here?”
“Hold your breath.” Hector pulls his plugs out. I’ve never asked how far he can hear, but I figure he’ll pick up on any breathing around the house. After The Phantom telling me Juan’s been watching us, better safe than sorry. He shakes his head. “Just Mom and Dad inside.”
“Okay, in the living room.” We shuffle inside, and that’s when I notice something. “Miles, you’re limping. What happened?”
He looks down at his leg, as if he didn’t even notice. “Oh that? Just had a run in with some stairs. Twisted my ankle. It’s not that bad.”
I’m not sure I buy it. “Since when did you get clumsy?”
“I was late to class and miscalculated some steps.” He shrugs as he claims the single recliner for himself. “Should I report all my injuries to you from now on?”
“Only ones that immobilize you,” I say.
Everyone crams onto the couches except for Graham, who floats on his permanent pillow of air. I stand before them, but it feels odd. Like I’m the leader. Since when? “Juan thinks Mom and I are still working for my dad, so The Phantom wanted us to ignore our orders in exchange for money. My mom told him we’d ignore our orders—because, of course, we don’t have any—and we didn’t take the money.”
The Pack lets out a collective sigh.
“Still doesn’t explain why they’re all here, though,” Hector points out. “And from the grilling we got from the Army at school, seems like it has to do with Radiasure.”
I nod. “You remember what I told you that night we went to the factory?”
“You mean when you ruined my brilliant plan?” Graham says.
I wish he could see my glare. “Yes, that night. If only you’d explained you had a decoy store of Radiasure here to throw Dad off the trail sooner.”
Graham rolls his eyes, but says nothing more. I don’t like him being here—and I’m sure my friends are still wary of him—but he knows about Rosa’s ability, the Navarro’s greatest secret, so he’s in the group whether we want it or not.
I clear my throat. “The Phantom implied that the real Radiasure formula has been leaked to all the syndicates. So basically it’s a race to find something out in the desert that will allow them to produce the pills again.”
They nod, as if they were expecting as much. Maybe I don’t give The Pack as much credit as I should. Even if they’ve never been part of a syndicate, it almost seems like their efforts to avoid Juan have taught them all they need to know.
Seth puts his elbows to his knees, his face serious. “The Army held me for an hour because I knew stuff about the desert. Fiona and I were talking about whether or not we should cover our tracks out there.”
“It wouldn’t be good to have the Army poking around,” Carlos says, more concerned than I expected. “Who knows what they’ll do if they know we not only know about the factory, but that we’ve spent time exploring it?”
“They’ll detain us until we give them answers, that’s what.” Hector puts his hand over his mouth, like he just caught himself talking too loudly. We definitely don’t want their parents knowing about this. “Then we’d get attention from Juan and the Army. Not good.”
“We just got out of trouble—I don’t want to get back in,” Brady says. “Once they start sweeping the area they’ll figure out those are my footprints all over the place.”
Bea bites her lip. “What if we’ve been other places they don’t want us to know about? We don’t know how big the original factory site was.”
“Exactly.” I put my hands on my hips, this conversation only proving what we need to do. “If we don’t want them digging into our business, we need to make sure nothing can be traced to us.”
Graham sits up from his relaxed floating position. “Just what, exactly, do you know about that desert anyway?”
We all look back and forth at each other, no one seeming particularly interested in answering him. This piques Miles’ interest. “Are you implying you know the location of what they’re looking for?”
“No!” I blurt out, though it feels like a half truth. “I mean, we don’t even know what they’re looking for except that it has to do with Radiasure.”
“But it’s possible that you’ve come across it.” Graham is practically salivating over the idea. “You could have actually seen what they’re looking for and not known it.”
Miles swears. “That’s not good. Is there any particular place you’re worried about?”
“Besides the factory? Maybe.” Seth tips his chin up. “Not sure I trust someone in here enough to talk about it.”
“Who could you be referring to?” Graham asks sarcastically.
Seth stares him down. “You.”
Graham flies right up to Seth’s face, and I immediately get flashbacks of him grabbing my neck and squeezing so hard I thought I might die. “I’d start trusting me, because you’re stuck with me.”
“That’s enough.” I shove myself between them. “Look, Graham, we could have made you leave and we didn’t. You made us trust your plan without explanations—guess you get to see how that feels now.”
Graham’s nostrils flare, but it’s the first time I don’t shake in front of him. The Pack would never let him get away with hurting me. After what seems like an eternity, he finally relaxes. “I’m only going along with this because I don’t want you to get hurt. These soldiers and thugs could jeopardize everything we made here.”
The sincerity in his expression takes me off guard. Part of me still doesn’t want to believe it, but Graham’s changing. Being free from Dad has done the same thing for him as it has for Mom and me. For the smallest moment, it feels like we’re family again. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” He looks down, seeming embarrassed.
“So we all agree on this?” I ask. Everyone nods. “Good, this is what we’re gonna do.”
Chapter 10
We split up into two teams—one to destroy any possible evidence around the factory, and another to obscure the trails we run south of town. I purposely put Graham on the factory team so he doesn’t get near the pools, along with Carlos to guide them in the dark with his night vision. Miles insisted on going with Graham, though I didn’t think he should with his twisted ankle. I couldn’t argue when he said he’d keep an eye out for anything suspicious from our older brother.