My acting was bad on a good day. In the third grade, I was cast as a peach in the school play. I had one line in the entire show—the farmer asked, How ya doing?, to which I responded, I’m just peachy—but even that was cut when I got so nervous each time that I literally wet my pants. I prayed the chancellor was too self-absorbed to notice.
He flashed me another sparkling smile—yep, he was definitely too self-absorbed—and ran his fingers through his silky hair. “I think you’ll find,” he said, sliding his gun back into its holster, “that I’m really a generous man at heart.”
“Too generous,” I agreed. “Far too generous.” His promises might’ve been dog shit, but so were his brains.
The soldiers who were waiting on the beach, eager to shoot me down, stood baffled when the chancellor walked away from the fort empty-handed. They exchanged looks: he was letting a Lost Boy get away? But the chancellor merely waved them off, and I heard him mutter something about him having a larger brain—among other organs.
I was left standing in the fort’s ruins as the copters took off from the beach. The chancellor may have left my hands empty, but he left my heart full of a yearning for vengeance.
Phoenix’s instincts had told him this would happen. He knew the chancellor would betray me. He knew I’d want revenge. And he knew I’d come to save them—and Charlie.
There was still time to act. There was still time for one final raid.
Chapter 39
Both Kindred and Sparky were surprised when I woke them—the Dummy Darts had made them forget the entire incident. Tim, however, looked moderately pissed. Apparently the solution wasn’t nearly as effective on sloths.
When I explained what happened, neither Kindred nor Sparky were very happy—unsurprisingly. Kindred wept when she heard the others had been taken prisoner, and Sparky actually punched me in the cheek. Hard.
“What the hell were you thinking, KB?” I let the force of his blow carry me to the ground. I’d never seen him so angry before. I guess I’d have been just as mad if he’d done the same. I shut my eyes tight and lay there for a minute. Tim crawled onto my chest and slowly slid his claw across my cheek like a slap.
“That’s enough, Tim.” Sparky pulled him off my chest. “C’mon, get up, KB. Get up already. We don’t have much time.”
“So you’ll go with me, then?” I asked. “To save them?
Kindred dabbed tears from her eyes with a tissue. “It’s not like we really have a choice, dear.”
“But it’s a suicide mission.”
She straightened the edge of her floral dress. “They’re all suicide missions.” She had a point. “Once in a while,” she continued, “I’d like one less risky. Something simple. Like getting a stick of frickin’ butter. We’re almost out,” she added. It seemed that Sparky wasn’t the only one who’d been slightly unhinged by the news.
Sparky typed something on the computer, then shook his head. “It looks like they’ve beefed up Light House security since the Ministry of Health raid. From what I see, it looks like they’ve got guards guarding guards. They know you’re coming. The entrances are impenetrable. There’s no way we’re getting in.”
“I’m not planning on getting in,” I said. “I’m planning on getting under.” Sparky looked confused. “Never mind, just—do you think you could get us to Newla?”
“Affirmative. Only trouble is getting us back.”
“We’ll have Phoenix by then. He’ll figure it out.”
Sparky smiled and stared at the screen. “I admire your optimism.”
“Optimism’s all we’ve got at this point, isn’t it?”
“Affirmative.”
Kindred had insisted we all wear black. “It’s the proper thing to do,” she’d said matter-of-factly. Sparky and I had come out covered in matching black tracksuits to find her in yet another floral dress, topped with a speck of black in the form of a beanie. Even Tim wore a black sweater.
An extra set of Wet Pockets got us to Newla. This time we set them to take us to the Sewage Treatment Facility. I doubted the Feds expected to find me in the same place twice.
It was nightfall when we arrived. The drainage pipes had been covered in scaffolding since my last visit—the fire drill floods appeared to have damaged them badly.
We used the scaffolding to pull ourselves from the water, then ran through several of Newla’s neighborhoods. The news of our capture was everywhere, blasted across the city’s bubbling screens: LOST BOYS DOWN—THE FEDERATION IS SAFE! The captured vigilantes’ mug shots accompanied the news. Mine, however, was conspicuously absent. The only evidence that I’d ever existed was an occasional variant on the usual headline: LOST BOYS CAPTURED—ONE DIES DURING RAID.
To the press—to the world—Kai Bradbury was a dead man. It seemed incredible, but evidently the day the press declared someone dead was the day the world stopped looking. It had taken less than a day for the Hawaiian Federation’s entire population to learn my face, and it would take even less time than that for them to forget it. People just didn’t have time for things that weren’t of the utmost urgency. They never had time.
We were lucky that neither the Feds nor the public had ever come to know the faces—or even the existence—of Sparky Stratcaster and Kindred Deer. It was fortunate that they had always stayed back at New Texas.
The Skelewick district’s yellow lights welcomed us with open arms, the denizens with their familiar blank stare. It was only now that I realized the poles’ metal feet were rusted, the haunting light not the only thing betraying the neighborhood’s age. I saw the gates of the Morier Mansion looming at the end of the street, and then, on a nearby corner, I saw the man with the trench coat and the glowing watches, gazing at a street lamp from atop his barrel.
At this point, my soul was as lost as anyone’s had ever been. I gestured toward my wrist. “You got the time?”
Kindred pulled me toward the mansion. “I think he’s a bit busy, dear.”
The man’s eyes turned from the lamp and stared me in the face, the yellow light catching in his blue irises. Before turning away, he tossed me a silver watch on a chain.
Kindred eyed it suspiciously. “Uh—dear,” she hissed, “what is that for?”
“It’s for the lost soul,” I answered.
The man nodded from his barrel. I threw the chain around my neck and ran toward the mansion.
Kindred panted behind me. “Care to explain what just happened?”
“I—I think it’s a metaphor,” said Sparky.
“Oh,” she sighed, “well—in that case—don’t bother. I haven’t the head for that sort of thing. You only have so much gray matter, you know. I’ve got to save all of mine for the recipes.”
“Because those muffins won’t bake themselves,” I said.
She smiled. “Neither will the poisons.” It seemed there was still much about Kindred I didn’t know.
I was somewhat surprised to see that the Feds had set the gates and fence back up after knocking them down in the earlier raid and fire. Signs had been posted as welclass="underline" “WARNING—TREPASSING IS A FELONY.” I guessed this was government property now.
I quickly clambered over the iron gates. Kindred and Sparky both struggled to follow, and it was clear why Phoenix had never brought them in the field. Tim bested them both by several minutes in a true testament to their speed.
The smell of smoke still wafted from the building’s charred remains. Only the outside shell of the place remained, and that hadn’t escaped unscathed either. It was like the building had become a red apple—rotten to the core.