Chương 71: 69: Okay

I took all 8 ability stones. Did I feel greedy? Maybe. But I did it anyway. And then I asked Principal Nakamura where the second-grade classroom that Katie Mercer was hiding out in was located and headed straight there. The classroom was crowded because the whole damn school was crowded, but it wasn't hard to pick Katie out. She was the dark-haired girl who looked like Danny, seated with her back to the internal wall, motionless in a room that was chaotic and noisy and an introvert's version of hell.

An adult at the front of the room was interacting with children, one at a time, and a few other adults were present, but mostly it was over-excited, stressed-out seven- to ten-year-olds. Honestly, if I hadn't told Danny I'd meet him at the rift, I might have bailed immediately. Instead, I braced myself and wove through the children to the spot of silence in the corner. I sat down, cross-legged, on the floor in front of Katie. She was staring into space, but her eyes focused on me briefly, then drifted away.

Not to be unkind, but the girl needed a shower. Danny was obviously right, and she was getting up to use the toilet, because she didn't stink of, you know, bodily waste, but her hair was greasy, her make-up beyond smudged, and… yeah, she needed a shower. This one? Zelda asked, appraising Katie with a cocked head.

"I think so. Yeah, it would probably be a good idea." Katie barely blinked at my words despite the fact that it probably looked like I was talking to thin air—to people who didn't talk to their dogs anyway—but Zelda stuck her nose next to Katie's face and licked, dog saliva running from chin to cheekbone. Katie inhaled sharply and sat a little straighter. She did not immediately jump up and say, "Oh, my God, I need a shower," so her boost in Resilience wasn't miraculous, but she did focus on me.

"What was that?" she asked, her voice hoarse. She cleared her throat, obviously surprised at the sound.

"Not important," I said.

"Talk to me." She looked away.

"Okay. I'll talk to you. My name is Olivia Thorne and when the System arrived, I was working in my yard. The first bad thing that happened to me was a mana-crazed squirrel attacking my dog." I reached for Z and stroked her wiry fur, remembering that moment. The shock, the fear. The surprise when the goddamn squirrel didn't run. The feel of smashing it with my shovel. I almost wanted to get Warden's Edge out of my pouch just for its security blanket comfort.

"The second bad thing was when a kid threw a fireball at us. That sucked. The third bad thing was when we were attacked by goblins. Sixteen of them. We killed sixteen goblins together, and I'd… until that squirrel, I'd never killed anything in my life." Katie's eyes were focused on my face now, her stare intent.

"I'll jump to the punchline," I said, keeping my eyes locked with hers.

"A man came to my house today. His name was Ezra Barrow, and he was not a good man. He came to my house intending to kidnap me, and I—" I hesitated, the memory tightening my throat. I wasn't going to throw up. But I also didn't want to linger on the memory, in case my body decided differently.

"I killed him," I said, my voice completely even.

"His head exploded. Brain and blood and little bits of skull went everywhere. It wasn't the worst thing I've seen in my life. But it wasn't far off." Katie blinked.

"A man kidnapped me," she said, voice still hoarse.

"He killed so many people first. The blood ran down the stairs like water. Like somebody spilled one of those big buckets for mopping floors. It just… it flowed."

"That sounds bad," I told her.

"Like a waterfall. A waterfall of blood on the stairs." She wasn't looking at me anymore.

"And then what?" I tried to gently break her out of the memory.

"He put us in handcuffs and took us to a house. He locked us in a room and then… we waited. We just sat there, waiting. People cried, Kelly cried, but I just… sat there. Waiting."

"And then what?" I prompted again.

"Danny came. My brother. He told us we had to be quiet and… we were so quiet."

"Mmm-hmm. And?"

"We have to be quiet," she told me earnestly.

"Yeah, no, we don't." I shook my head.

"Danny didn't want to admit this to you, because he thought you might feel differently about him if he told you, but he killed the guy. Dead as a doornail."

"What?" she breathed, a little life coming into her eyes.

"Yep. Stabbed him in the back while he was sleeping. He feels sorta guilty about it, although I've done my best to talk him out of that, but the guy who kidnapped you? Super dead. Completely, one hundred percent, out of this universe, probably burning in hell, dead." Katie deflated. Not in a bad way, but as if something holding her rigid had just collapsed.

"You're sure?" Her voice was so quiet I could barely hear the words.

"Yeah." I gave her a minute. Well, okay, thirty seconds. And then I said, "Here's the thing: right now, your brother is the second toughest person in San Celeste." Zelda, who was somehow managing to stay invisible to all the small children running around, snorted, and said, Third.

"Third toughest," I corrected myself.

"But if you would like to be sure that nobody else ever gets to kidnap you, not ever again, then you need to be just as tough yourself." If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. She looked at me.

"He was so… nobody could stop him. Guns didn't stop him. He just laughed and…" I gave her a wry smile.

"I could have stopped him. The guy who tried to kidnap me today could have stopped him. The System changes the math on our capabilities. But…" I gently touched her bent knee.

"You have a crazy advantage. The kind of advantage that most people could only dream of having." She didn't bite right away, but I waited. Finally she said, "And what's that?" I liked the snap in her voice. It was a good sign.

"Your little brother. He's waiting for us at a place where you can get a lot of experience, quickly. And if you pay attention to him and do the work, you could be tougher than Mr. Bloody Waterfall by tomorrow night." Katie gave a little disbelieving huff. She looked up, staring at the ceiling. Some kids ran by, yelling, accompanied by the voice of a tired adult saying, "No running in the classroom. No running!" I just waited. This time I needed to give her the chance to process, to consider, to decide.

I did start plotting how I might scoop her up and carry her. The real problem was the people who would object. I didn't think the adults in the room would sit still if I tried to kidnap a teenager. But it was also gonna be really awkward to lift from her current position. I'd have to sort of haul her up from the shoulders, I guessed, and then maybe… yeah, no, it was going to be a pain. Katie looked at me again, then at Zelda. And then she nodded.

"Okay." She shoved herself to her feet, and I had a mild twinge of jealousy for a teenager's ability to stay motionless and then get up in one sweeping movement. Did none of her joints hurt? And then I stood up myself and realized that none of my joints hurt either. I kept forgetting how the System had changed me. How long would it be before I started taking it for granted? It was cold outside, and I shivered as soon as we stepped out of the school's front doors. Wasn't California supposed to be sunny?

A deep, penetrating fog was drifting across the school yard, the type that looked romantic from the outside and from the inside felt like a damp shroud of soggy air. I should have thought about the weather before I came. One of the perils of living in Florida is forgetting that weather exists. Sweaters, jackets, warm hats, even socks. It's so rarely truly cold that I take going outside without outerwear for granted. Mistake.

"Brr," I said, huddling into my shirt's collar.

"It'll be dark soon," Katie said.

"Maybe we should wait until tomorrow." I shot her a look.

"You okay letting your brother wait for you in the redwood forest in the dark?" I kept my tone casual. Her return look was disgusted.

"No."

"Didn't think so." I kept my smile small. We both acknowledged Mr. Marino on our way out the gate. He was looking less stressed than before as he nodded politely and even said thank you to Zelda.

"She did something to me, didn't she?" Katie asked as we began walking back to the rift.

"A Resilience boost," I told her.

"With any luck, by the time it wears off, you'll have leveled up a couple of times. What class do you think you want to take? We should make sure you've got some sort of weapon." We talked about her possible class choices for the next couple of blocks, but when we reached Seabreeze, I paused. I knew Jules wasn't home. I knew she hadn't miraculously appeared back in her house in the short time that I'd been at the school. But… I couldn't walk by without checking. Just in case.

Also, I was freezing, and I wanted to steal a sweater from her. Also, I could leave her a note, letting her know that I'd be back and if she got the note to stay put. Mostly, though, I couldn't go home without making sure. I gestured down the street.

"I'm going to check my friend's house one last time. It'll only take a few minutes." In a different world, I would have said, "You go ahead, I'll catch up." In this one, I said, "Come on, it's not far." Katie didn't have the levels to be outside by herself, and we both knew it. We were quieter on the way to Jules' house. It was becoming noticeably darker, and Katie was nervous, scanning our surroundings with wary eyes, staring too long at the obvious signs of disaster.

I wanted to reassure her, but I didn't know how, so we walked in silence. Nothing had changed at Jules' place. It wasn't a surprise. It was a disappointment. I could probably kick open the door, but that felt rude. I'm not sure why, since anyone who wanted to break in could step inside via the broken front window. In fact, what if someone had? Or what if the thing that had broken the window was still lurking inside? I caught Zelda's eye and tilted my head toward Katie, silently asking her to guard.

Agreeably, she turned and sat down next to the top step, keeping watch on the approach.

"The door's locked, so I'm going to go in through the front window. I'll let you in as soon as I'm sure it's safe. Zelda will wait with you." Katie was looking at the front window.

"That looks like earthquake damage."

"What makes you think so?"

"Oh, you know." She made a throwing motion with her arm. Or maybe it was supposed to be a hammer hitting.

"No impact pattern. The glass broke from shifting, not from a blow."

"How in the world do you know that?" I looked at the window. I could sort of see what she meant; the glass was broken, but it hadn't shattered inward from a point. The breaks ran in long irregular lines, like something had twisted rather than struck. Katie smiled, her resemblance to Danny immediately much stronger.

"My dad's a cop, my mom's a lawyer. Dinner table conversations at our house can get pretty weird." With a sigh, I admitted, "I checked for the smell of decomp when I was here before and there was none, so I don't think it was a monster attack. But let me check the house, anyway. I'll go quick." She nodded, moving over to the door and putting her back to it as I stepped through the window, twisting to avoid the broken glass.

It was darker inside the house, of course, so I gave my eyes a moment to adjust, but there was no motion, no sense of life. I felt a little like a character in a movie, though, just waiting for the jump scare. The silence of the apocalypse was more noticeable here than it had been before. Usually, houses have a constant faint melody: the whir of the air system cycling, the hum of the refrigerator, a buzz of electrical noises so constant and pervasive that we don't even notice it. The absence was eerie.

Fortunately, the house was small. The living room, two bedrooms off to the side, the kitchen in the back. As soon as I was sure it was empty, I let Katie and Zelda in. Jules' bedroom was in front, so I headed straight for her closet, wanting to grab something warmer to wear before the light was gone. I paused once I'd opened the closet door, though.

"Hey, cop's daughter," I called over my shoulder.

"How could you tell if someone packed before they left?"

"Look for the luggage," Katie answered promptly.

"Check the underwear drawer. Toiletries, hair brush, make-up. What's missing? If everything's still here, they should be, too, but if the basics are gone, they probably walked out the door."

"Can you check Toby's room?" I said. I wasn't sure whether my heart was sinking or soaring. Was this good news or bad? But there was a gap in Jules' closet, a space where things ought to be hanging, and no luggage on the shelf. I looked under the bed. No luggage there either, but one of those plastic sweater storage bins. I pulled it out and opened it up. It didn't hold sweaters. It held memories. Scrapbooks, photos, loose letters, and journals. I touched the cover of one journal I recognized.

She'd been writing it that crazy year, oh, so long ago. And then I took my hand away, and picked up one scrapbook, then the next, then the next, tucking them all into Zelda's pouch. There were twelve of them, and I took them all. I wasn't going to take Jules's journals. The temptation would be too much, and the betrayal if I ever saw her again—when I saw her again, I corrected myself—would be agonizing.

(Besides, a tiny voice whispered in the back of my mind, you can come back for them later, if—when—you know for sure.) But the scrapbooks? Yep. I'd give them back when I found her, and I'd leave her a note telling her I'd taken them, but they were mine now. For the moment. I slid the box back under the bed and resumed searching. No toiletries in the bathroom, no luggage anywhere to be found. Katie stuck her head in the door.

"It felt pretty weird to be searching a kid's bedroom, but unless his mom did laundry all the time, someone definitely packed for him. He's got less than a week's worth of underwear in his drawer."

"They were on a trip." I didn't know what to do with that information. They could be anywhere. But at least they hadn't gone to the grocery store and never come home. They might still be okay. It was probably a good thing it was getting dark, or I would have spent forever on the note I left on the kitchen table. But we didn't have that kind of time. Instead I wrote: I took your scrapbooks. Find the Mercers. They can keep you and Toby safe until I can get there. Love, love, love. —O