Firespell (26 page)

“We can’t worry about that?” I repeated. “She’s one of you! You can’t just leave her . . . wherever she is.”

When no one spoke up, I glanced around the room, from Paul, to Katie, to the twins, to Jason. Guilty heads dropped around the room. No one would look me in the eye.

I put my hands on my hips, the fingers of my right hand tight around Scout’s phone, my link to her. “Seriously? This is how you treat your teammates? Like they’re disposable?”

“Getting dramatic isn’t going to solve anything,” Katie said, crossing her arms over her chest. For a cheerleader type, she managed a bossy, condescending stare pretty well. “We appreciate that you care about Scout, but it’s not that simple.”

I arched my eyebrows. “The hell it’s not.”

“Katie’s right.” Those words from the boy I’d almost decided to have a crush on. As Jason stepped forward, I was glad I’d stuck to “almost.”

“If we go after her,” he said, earnestness in his blue eyes, “we put ourselves, the city, the community around us, at risk. Being a member of the team means accepting the possibility that you’ll become the sacrifice. Scout knew that. Understood it. Accepted that risk.”

My heart tumbled, broken a little that this boy was so willing to give up our friend for the sake of people I wasn’t sure were worth the sacrifice. And that included him.

“Wow,” I said, honestly surprised. “Way to play well with others. Your whole existence is about saving people from Reapers, but you’re willing to let her be a ‘sacrifice’? I thought being Varsity, being Junior Varsity, being an Adept, was about being part of something bigger? Working together? What about all that talk?”

Smith shook his head. “It’s just talk—only talk—if we dump our current agenda—the kids who need protecting—to find her. Think about it, Lily—they’ve managed to lure Scout into their clutches. They’re probably using her as a lure for the rest of us. To pull us in.” Smith shook his head. “If we’re lucky, they’d just try to indoctrinate us. If not”—he glanced over, green eyes slitted shut—“the Reapers would be setting us up for a nasty night. In which we play the role of toast.”

I couldn’t argue with the logic—it probably
was
a trap.

But still. It was
Scout
.

I shook my head. “I can’t believe you. I can’t believe this. All that talk, and you bail when someone needs you. Trap or not, you make an effort. You make a plan. You
try
.”

Smith looked away. There might have been a hint of guilt in his eyes, but not enough to force him to act. “I’ll call the higher-ups and alert them,” he said. “But that’s all we can do. We aren’t authorized to send out a rescue team. It’s not done.”

“It can’t be,” Katie put in, this time quietly. “We just can’t do it.”

Guilt—and maybe grief—hung in the silence of Enclave Three.

“You should probably go,” Jason said. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You know your way back?”

It took me a minute of staring daggers at all of them, a minute to overcome the disappointment that tightened my throat, before I could speak. “Yeah.” I nodded. “Yeah. I can find my way back.” My way back to the school and straight into Foley’s office. If the Adepts wouldn’t act, I’d go back to the principal. She’d know something—a source, a contact, a meaty guy with an attitude who could push through surly teenagers to rescue my BFF.

“It was nice knowing all of you,” I said, slipping Scout’s phone back into her bag, and putting the bag on my shoulder, then heading for the door. “No,” I said, glancing back and arching an eyebrow at the blue-eyed werewolf in front of me. “I take that back. It actually wasn’t.”

I walked out and slammed the door shut behind me, its hinges rattling with the effort.

Time for Plan B.

I was roasting—not because of the heat (the tunnels were rocking a pretty steady fifty degrees or so), but because emotionally, I was livid.

Seven people had the power to help Scout—better yet, the
magical
power to help Scout. What had she called them? Elemental witches? A reader? A warrior?

So far, I wasn’t impressed. Granted, I didn’t know them very well, and their reticence to help her could have been the impact of poor, emo-inspired leadership, but still.

I stopped in the middle of the corridor, water splashing beneath my feet. These guys—these guys who wouldn’t put their butts on the line to save her—they were the best we could do for good and justice? For rebels, they were pretty picky about obeying the rules. Even Smith’s first reaction had been to tell me that I wasn’t one of them—a rule that meant I didn’t have the right to talk to them, much less make demands.

I stopped.

No way was I going out like this.

I turned around.

I went back.

After I pushed open the door, I opened with a biggie. “I can turn on lights.”

Silence.

“You can what?”

“I can”—I had to stop and clear my throat, my voice squeaking nervously, and start over—“I can turn on lights. Dim them, turn them on, turn them off. I’m not sure if that’s it, or if there’s more, but that’s what I know now.”

Smith, standing before his troops, crossed his hands behind his head. “You can turn on lights.” His voice could hardly have been drier—or more skeptical.

“I can turn on lights,” I confirmed. “So you can pretend I’m an outsider, look at me like I’m crazy, but I’m not just someone off the street. I am”—I had to pause for a minute to gather up my courage—“an Adept like you. So you might want to pack away the attitude.”

“Whatever,” he muttered, as if I’d lied about the power thing just to win points with him. Seriously—if I’d been faking it, wouldn’t I have faked something a little more interesting?

The rest of these repressed Adepts might have been intimidated by the floppy hair and attitude, but as they’d so recently reminded me, I wasn’t one of them. And he wasn’t the boss of me.

I held up an index finger. “Yeah, I may be an Adept, but I’m not a member of your enclave, so I’m not really here to talk to you.” I turned my gaze to Paul, then to Jamie and Jill, then to Michael, then Jason. “My best friend—your fellow Adept—is missing. Although I’m not entirely full up on the details, I’m betting you all know what could happen to her out there if she’s with
them
. She said something about siphoning spells, right? So even if she’s only with the teenage Reapers, the ones that still have power, they could be stealing her energy—her soul—for the rest of them to use.” I shook my head. “Unacceptable.”

They looked at one another, shared glances.

“This is your chance to step forward,” I said, my voice low, earnest. “The chance to do the
right
thing, even if it’s the
hard
thing.”

“The rules—,” Katie began, but Jason (finally!) shook his head.

“It’s too late for that,” he said. “For rules. We’re losing this battle. Today, we risk losing a spellbinder. We can’t afford that.” More softly, he added, “Not as Adepts, not as friends.”

He walked to me, then reached out his hand and slipped his fingers into mine. A spark slid up my arm at the contact, and I squeezed his hand. He squeezed back.

“He’s right,” Michael said, then glanced around from Adept to Adept. “They’re both right, and you know it. All of you know it. It’s time to do things differently. To do the hard thing. Who’s with me?”

Soft sounds filled the room as Adepts looked around, shuffled feet, made their decisions.

“I’m in,” Paul said, then smiled cheekily at me. “And, for the sake of having said it, it’s nice to meet you.”

I smiled back.

Jamie and Jill exchanged a glance, then stepped forward. “We’re in,” Jamie said.

Hands on my hips, a satisfied grin on my face, I glanced back at Katie and Smith, who now stood together, eyes narrowed, fury in their expressions.

“This is not how we operate,” she said. “These are not the rules of the game.”

“Then the rules need to change,” Jason said, then looked over at me. “Let’s go get your girl.”

20

“I was going to find you,” Jason whispered, his fingers still laced through mine as we left the enclave, two angry Varsity Adepts in our wake. But instead of walking toward St. Sophia’s along the Millie 23 path, we moved deeper into the tunnels.

“As soon as I could get away, I was going to find you so we could get Scout together. But I couldn’t say that in front of everyone else.”

“Mmm-hmm,” I vaguely said, not entirely sure I was ready to forgive him for not taking my side the first time around. Of course, I wasn’t so unsure that I let go of his hand.

“Okay,” he said, “then how about this—if you don’t believe me, then consider this my one screw-up.” He looked down at me. “I should have—we all should have—stuck up for her like you did in there. So let me make it up to you now. To both of you.”

I squeezed his hand.

When we reached a crossroads—a union of four tunnels, the ceiling arched above us—we stopped.

“All right,” Jason said, “we’re here, and we’ve got a goal. Now we need a plan.”

Paul snorted. “You mean now that we’ve thoroughly pissed off Varsity?”

“He’s right,” said the slightly taller of the twins. “We’ll get a lecture supreme when we get back.”

“If we get back,” Michael muttered, then lifted worried eyes to Jason. “How are we going to manage this?”

“I’m still trying to figure that out.”

I held up a hand. “First things first. Where are we going?”

“There’s a sanctuary,” Michael said, hitching a thumb toward one of the tunnels. “It’s near here—the Reaper lodge for this part of Chicago. It’s also where they store their vessels.”

“Vessels?” I asked.

“The people—humans or Adepts—the older ones feed from. The ones the younger Reapers siphon energy from.” So a sanctuary was a room of would-be zombies, their lives dripping away because members of the Dark Elite were too self-centered to let go of their magical gifts.

“My God,” I muttered, my skin suddenly crawling. I glanced behind me in the direction of the tunnel we’d come from, suddenly unsure if walking into a trap was a good idea, rescue mission or not.

But then I looked down, my fingers skimming the fabric of Scout’s messenger bag, and got an idea.

“The Reapers probably think we’ll come for her,” I said, looking up at Jason, spring blue eyes staring back. “That we’ll storm the castle, this sanctuary, to get her back.”

“Probably,” Jason agreed, then tilted his head, curiosity in his expression.

“Well, if that’s what they expect, then we should do the thing they aren’t expecting. We flank them—create a distraction. Pull them out and away from Scout. And when they’re distracted, we send in a team to sneak her out again.”

There was silence for a moment, and I had to work not to shuffle my feet.

“That’s actually not bad, Parker,” Jason said. “I’m impressed.”

“I ate a good lunch today.”

“So who does what?” Paul asked.

“I can read the building,” Michael said. “I can read it, figure out where she is.” I guessed that meant Michael was preparing to use his powers.

“In that case, how about Jamie, Michael, and Parker go in, find Scout, get out.” Jason looked at Paul. “You, me and Jill will play the distraction game. Are you guys up for a little snow and ice?”

The twins looked at each other and broke into precocious grins. “Absolutely,” said the taller one, her aqua eyes shining. “Snow and ice are right up my alley.”

Jason nodded managerially. “Then let’s talk details.”

Like the enclave, the Reaper sanctuary was housed underground in the cavelike innards of a former power substation, still connected to the tunnels beneath the city. We’d use two entrances—the main door, where Jill, Paul, and Jason would create their distraction—and the back door, where Jamie, Michael, and I would sneak in, hopefully undetected, find Scout, and get out again. I was solely support staff—Michael and Jamie would handle any Reapers, while I’d help take care of Scout and get her safely from the building. We’d all rendezvous in the crossroads again, hopefully with one additional—and healthy—nose-ringed Adept in tow.

The plans and our cues established, we prepared to split up.

“Are you all right with this?”

I looked over at Jason, my heart quickening at the concern in his eyes, and nodded. “Turning on lights isn’t much, but it’s something. Maybe I can figure out a way to contribute.” Assuming I could learn to control it in the next ten or fifteen minutes, I silently added.

He tilted his head at me. “You were serious about that—the lights?”

I smiled ruefully. “Turns out, the darkening wasn’t a fake.” I raised my hands and shook them in faux excitement.
“Yay
.”

“All right,” Michael said. “Everybody ready?”

“Ready,” Jason said, then leaned down and whispered, his lips at my cheek, “You take care, Lily Parker. And I’ll see you in a little while.”

Goose bumps pebbled my skin. “You, too,” I whispered.

“All right,” he said, his voice echoing through the tunnels. “Let’s do this.” He nodded at Paul and Jill, and they started on their way, moving through the tunnel to the left.

Michael, Jamie, and I shared a glance, nodded our readiness, and headed to the left.

The walk wasn’t short, but the tunnels allowed us to move swiftly beneath the hustle and bustle of downtown Chicago to find the place where Reapers conducted some of their soul sucking. A few turns and corridors, and then the tunnel opened onto a platform, a set of stairs of corrugated iron leading up to a rusty metal door.

We stopped just inside the edge of the tunnel—Michael signaling quiet with a raised fist—and stared at the platform. No movement. No sound. No indication of surly, magic-bearing teenagers.

“Let’s go,” Michael whispered after a moment, and we crept toward the stairs—Michael in front, me in the middle, Jamie behind. Since Jill was going to be making ice for Jason’s distraction, I assumed Jamie was the twin with fire powers. I still wasn’t sure what a reader or fire witch could do, but I hoped that whatever it was could help us find Scout.

We took the steps to the door, but Michael, in the lead, didn’t open it. Instead, he pressed his palm to it, then closed his eyes. After a moment of silence, he shook his head.