Indelible (40 page)

“Reconsidering our offer now?”

I swallowed. As much as I want to save Brent, I couldn’t bring myself to agree to their terms. “No, I’m not spying on any judge. I’m not stupid enough to think you wouldn’t gather this same sort of blackmail about me.”

“You know,” Mr. Crosby said closing his laptop. “You’re more level-headed than your counterparts.”

“No need to try to butter me up.” I grasped the arms on the chair. “I’m not doing anything illegal for you.”

“Well, then perhaps you’d consider doing something for us that is in no way illegal.”

“In exchange for what?” I looked up in surprise.

“The recipe for the cure, and all of our videos on you and your friends.”

It sounded too good to be true. There had to be strings I didn’t see. “And what do you want me to?”

“It’s simple. We still want the key, of course, and one other small thing. We want you to remove the barrier around school. The magical barrier that keeps ghosts trapped here.”

“Why would that matter to . . . oh, you want to be able to leave campus while projecting.” I shivered as I thought about all the damage they could do to the world if I let that happen. “You don’t need me to do that. Couldn’t anyone do that?”

“If we hadn’t read your journal notes, we might never have known that you are the key to our plan. We didn’t know until then that your grandfather put it up, and we might never have realized it requires one of his descendants to take it down.”

“Why?” I picked at the polish on my nails and noticed the veins at my wrist. That’s when I realized something. “He used his own blood in the ceremony, didn’t he?”

Mr. Crosby didn’t answer but it was easy to see I guessed right. “If you don’t do it,” he said after a moment, “we’ll track down another relative and bring them here to do it. They’ll eagerly agree, because they’ll be well paid. And we can be persuasive.”

I had little doubt he was right. If I didn’t do it, eventually someone would. I knew that didn’t make it right, but if it was going to happen anyway, shouldn’t I at least be able to save my friends with it?

“I need time to think this through.” Sadly, this time I wasn’t bluffing. I really needed to consider his offer. We shook hands and it felt like something inside me died. I wiped my hand on my skirt as I left.

v

My grandma came to visit me the next day. I passed her a small sample of the cure. She planned to send some of it off to a lab, keeping some for herself and sending some back to her friends in Brazil.

I dropped to my bed and hugged my pillow to my chest. “Do you know how the barrier was put around campus?”

“Why?”

I studied the dust motes dancing in the sunshine that streamed through the windows, not able to look at her.

“I need to know, because I might need to destroy it.” Her stare felt heavier than a ton of bricks and I cracked under the pressure, telling her everything.

“What a heavy burden to bear.” She clucked her tongue. “You know why the barrier was put up don’t you?”

“Yes, to keep Thomas from escaping.”

“Do you think Thomas was the only evil thing at Pendrell back then?”

“No, the Clutch were probably part of it too.” I tucked my hands under my legs. “Do you think it isn’t wrong of me to try and break the barrier?”

Vovó smoothed back the loose tendrils of her hair into her bun. “Do you?”

“Yes, I think it would be wrong.” I gulped down the sob rising out of my throat. “But if I don’t, they’ll find someone else to do it. Why not do it myself and help my friends?”

“Oh, Querida.” She held out her arms to me and I scrambled into them. “You’re right. They will find someone else to do it. And you can help your friends by doing it. But what would that do to you? You would be compromising part of yourself and what your family has done to protect the world. They have forced you into a situation that is beyond black and white.”

“I know, but how can I not do it?’

She kissed the top of my head. “Do you trust these men to keep their word?’

I shook my head. “No. Not at all . . .”

The edge of her glasses poked my scalp as she held me tight. “You know this may not turn out the way they hoped. They are tampering with things they weren’t meant to.”

“This must have been what Kalina warned me about. She told me not to take the deal.”

Vovó hesitated for a second like she was unsure of her next words. “Maybe. Just know that I will love you no matter what.”

Usually I felt centered and clear minded after talking things through with Vovó, but not this time. My mind was as murky as a mud puddle. Basically, she had acknowledged that I had a hard choice to make, and trusted me to make it. If this is what it meant to grow up, I suddenly understood Peter Pan a lot more.

v

The next morning I woke up to find Sophia in my room.

I bit back a scream.

“I thought you had crossed over.”

She shook her head. “No, I’ve just been exploring campus, and enjoying happy memories of my husband. I am sorry for vanishing so quickly after you released me. I should have been more help to you. You found the key, yes?”

I nodded. “We know what it opens, too.”

“I know you are the right person to take over keeping it safe.” She sighed. “I wish that I had been kinder to Christopher when he gave me the key, that I would have reacted better.”

She shook her head. “I have been using my time wisely. I heard that man Mr. Crosby say something about Modesto and drought when talking about the cure. They were using words I didn’t understand but I did make those out.”

“Modesto. Drought,” I repeated to myself.

“I also discovered a device hidden under the statue on Mr. Cosby’s desk. The lion statue has a false bottom. I’m not sure what it is, but he treats it as if it were important. I felt I should tell you. I will let you know if I find anything else.”

With that she disappeared.

I dressed and headed for breakfast. DJ waited for me at the end of the food line. “Hey Cupcake.”

I didn’t even bother to acknowledge him as I walked by.

“Okay I get that you’re angry, but did it ever occur to you that maybe we have the same enemy?”

“Yes.” I whirled around to glare at him. “I pointed that out to you a few days ago. Did it ever occur to you that you’ve already picked your side?”

His cheeks flushed. “Look, this is bigger than that. You can’t take down that barrier. You don’t know what they’ve got planned.”

“And you do?”

“I do.” His emerald eyes shone with stone-cold honesty.

I grabbed my breakfast and found a table for us to sit at. “Go ahead.”

“They’re after the same thing the original Clutch wanted.”

“Which is power and control. Mainly mind control, right?”

He blinked a few times. “How did you know that?”

“It doesn’t matter. Tell me how they do it.”

He peeled his banana in three long strips. “When they work together they make people do stuff, they plant ideas in your mind impossible to overcome.”

It sounded like a demented version of what Vovó could do with ghosts.

“It’s awful,” he said in a quiet voice.

“They’ve done it to you?”

He flinched and nodded. He cleared his throat. “Right now they’re limited to campus. Their mind control only works while on Pendrell property. They’ve been experimenting on . . . people. They know what they’ve figured out isn’t as strong as what the Pendrell sons could do, but it works.”

I didn’t know they already had a working version of the mind control power. It was enough to make me lose my appetite.

“Once that barrier is gone, there might not be any way to stop them.” DJ shoved his banana in his mouth and chewed.

“So all they really want is to be able to do their mojo off campus.” I pushed the oatmeal in my bowl around with my spoon.

“That’s part of it. The other part they want is some old research journals Christopher Pendrell stole from his sons. It had some other instructions on powers and stuff.” DJ started drumming his fingers against the table. “You can’t do this. Can you imagine what else could be hidden in those journals? You can’t take down that barrier. At least at this rate it’s controlled.”

“If I don’t, they’ll get someone else to do it. I bet they already have people finding some of my relatives.”

“They do,” DJ confirmed.

I shrugged. “Then it doesn’t matter if I do it or not. If I agree, then my friends will be helped.”

“Let your relative do it.”

“Why?” I slid my oatmeal away, unable to eat.

“Because then you’ll be spared the guilt.”

The depth of caring in his voice caught me off guard. “If you’re so worried, you can do your part by not giving them the key.” I frowned at him. “Is all this because now that I have a key, you’re afraid that yours is less valuable?”

He slunk back and his spine slumped. “It isn’t that. You were the ones warning me away from making deals with them. Does your advice about not trusting them go both ways? Do you really expect them to just hand their blackmail evidence over to you?”

“No, but I have to do what I can to save Brent.”

“You love him that much?” I didn’t realize while we’d been arguing we had drifted closer together. His face was so close I could feel his breath on my cheek and his eyes stared into mine.

I leaned back from him. “I do. And it’s about more than just him now. There are others I need to help.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Look, I’ve changed my mind. You can borrow my copy of the key. If you promise to let me have them both when you’re done.”

“I promise.” I folded my napkin over my uneaten breakfast, trying to pretend that his promise to let me use his key wasn’t a huge deal. Those journals were likely hidden in the old pool room, and if I could remove them and keep that information out of the Clutch’s hands, then letting them have the key wouldn’t be a big deal. One of my agonizing choices had practically vanished, and a heavy weight lifted from my chest. Thanks to DJ. “Why are you willing to help me now?”

“Because I know the lengths to which you’ll go to protect the people you love. And I can respect that.”

I reached out and grabbed his hand as he started to leave.

He stared at our hands for a second before looking up at me.

“Sophia told me last night that Crosby keeps something hidden under the statue on his desk. It has a false bottom. I figured you might want to know about that.”

He gave me a grin. “Yeah, I would.”

I let go of his hand.

“You know, giving us that key is going to stop the Clutch from getting their hands on the journals. We’ll give them their precious keys but what they’re after will no longer be there.”

He gave me a bright smile. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m glad to help.” He knocked against the table. “You’ve got to let me in on this. I need to help take them down.”

I didn’t say anything for a while as I considered the ramifications of his offer. Finally I nodded. “You’ve been hurt by them just as much as we have.”

“Thank you. Let me know the details. Think about what I’ve said.” He pulled out his mp3 player. “If you help them, how will you be able to live knowing what you’ve done?”

“I honestly don’t know.” I swirled my straw through my orange juice. “It’s one of the reasons I haven’t agreed to do it. Why I’m still thinking it over.”

“Think it over as long as you need, because I speak from experience when I say it’s not as easy as you think.” He shoved his ear buds in his ear and strolled away.

Chapter Twenty

“But the senior prank is tomorrow night,” Steve protested after I told him that DJ was letting us use his key.

“Actually that will be perfect.” Cherie leaned across the dinner table. “We’ve planned the party so well anyone could run it. And it will be the perfect distraction for us. Who will even notice us when there’s a major party going down at the same time?

Steve sighed. “That’s true enough. Alright, so what is the plan for tomorrow night?”

Brent gave Steve a fist bump. “It’s real big of you to miss it, man.”

Steve laughed. “Yeah, it was a real tough choice. Do something that will save the world from an evil secret organization, or host the school’s most incredible party.”

“Okay, so this is how it’s going to go,” Cherie said arranging the salt and pepper shakers like game pieces on a board.

v

Steve picked Audrey and Travis to oversee the party in his absence. The senior party/prank was well underway and hugely successful—though the faculty hadn’t discovered it yet—when DJ met Steve, Cherie, Brent and me outside the Alumni House. The sounds of the party reached us through the trees. The clear night was chilly and I shivered in my sweatshirt.

“Hey. How are we going to do this?” DJ asked.

“No details yet.” I held out my hand. “The key.”

DJ pretended to look offended. “You don’t trust me?”

“No, I don’t.” I wiggled my fingers.

“Fine.” He slapped the key into my outstretched hand. I closed my fingers around the key and pulled my hand back. I knew it was a mirror image of the other key, but its texture was smoother, probably because it hadn’t been subjected to bronze and blow torches.

Cherie led our little group over to the tree we had climbed up the night we talked to Sophia. We climbed through the window I had once again left open during my internship. Once inside, we formed a line and pulled out our flashlights. We didn’t say a word as we made our way through the building. Aside from our breathing, the squeak of Brent’s shoes, and the frantic beat of my heart, it was quiet.

The pool room was exactly as we had left it. The piles of broken tiles surrounded the now visible door. We made our way single file down the steps. The dust our footsteps stirred made me sneeze.

When we were in front of the door, I handed the keys to Steve. He knelt down and slid them in place. They each had a tab that overlapped, interlacing the two keys. They turned in unison and the lock unlatched with a rusty pop. The door squeaked open and a puff of stuffy air burst from the room along with an intense wave of grief. Staggering under the weight of it, I brought my hand to my mouth and fought the tears threatening to form in my eyes.