Needless to say, Izzy and I had a lot to talk about that night. The two of us took a long walk near the mall after I changed clothes and got back to her, going over everything that had happened. I told her about Peyton, about Deicide calling in her favor and what exactly she wanted, about the whole Paige situation and how that was suddenly a much bigger priority than I had thought, all of it. It was a huge dump of information, obviously, and I wanted to get all of it out before we went home. Besides, walking around helped me think a bit, and God knew I really needed to think.
There was one good thing about Paige’s situation being so dire, at least. It meant that everything else had to wait. She was the priority. Seriously, my feelings about the girl might be complicated considering the years we’d spent at each other’s throats, but logically I knew that wasn’t her fault. It didn’t entirely help my subconscious feelings and emotions and all, but still. And after everything she’d done to try to avoid carrying out her father’s orders, I owed her. So, I was going to do this whole virtual reality thing, see inside that computer core of hers, and save her from this evil virus double. Or, well, that was the goal, at least. Here was hoping we actually pulled it off.
In any case, talking about it with Izzy helped organize my thoughts about the whole thing. There was nothing else we could do about Paige until tomorrow evening.
While we were walking around, I’d also texted Pack to tell her that I had to ask something important that had to do with ‘the girl we took to the shop’, and her first response had been to ask what was going on and if it was an emergency. So, I sent back a bit about the situation and said that it was important, but that we couldn’t do anything about it until the next evening. She, in turn, asked to meet me the next afternoon on the roof of some old tire shop to get details.
So, with that much done, Izzy and I had gone home. We ate a snack in the kitchen while making a point to talk about the movies we had supposedly both seen (she told me about them while we were walking so I’d know what to say) in front of the household staff before heading to our rooms. And, once again, the two of us ended up talking even more, long into the night before falling asleep together in the same bed. All in all, it could’ve been a much worse day.
The next morning, we were up and talking some more before it was time to get up. I’d already gotten so accustomed to splitting my sleep, getting only a few hours at night and a few here and there during the day, that it was weird sleeping almost all the way through. I was newly refreshed even before the sun finished rising. Which was probably a good thing, because I was pretty sure this whole situation with Paige tonight was going to end up being a doozy.
Sitting cross-legged on my bed, Izzy asked, “Do you really think this umm, Pack is going to want to go in and help you save Paige? I mean, she doesn’t really know her, right? And it’s not like she’ll get anything she wants out of it. There’s no reward or anything.” She shifted a bit, clearly feeling uncomfortable just bringing it up. “I just mean, yeah, she likes you or whatever. She’s been nice to you and helped and all. And she wants to do something about the Ministry–”
“That’s why she’ll help,” I put in. “She knows that Paige knows more about the Ministry, and that she can help us do something about them. Or at least get her a better deal. I’m pretty sure that’s what Pack’s leaning toward…” Trailing off, I sighed before adding, “So yeah, I think she’ll help, because her reward is getting more info about the Ministry and being in a better position overall.”
“And Peyton?” she immediately asked. “Do you think she’s umm, you know, ready for this?” Once again, the younger girl looked awkward. She clearly felt weird about questioning how ready a girl several years older than her was to do this sort of thing. But it was completely fair, considering Izzy had been using her powers and working alongside a team to help people for awhile now, much longer than even I had. And Peyton, meanwhile, had been doing this for… well, about a day. Despite the difference in their ages in one direction, there was a big difference in experience in the other.
Of course, thinking about that made me realize something that I really should’ve thought about before. Biting my lip, I looked over to the other girl. “Izzy, do you… feel bad that you’re not involved in this? I mean you are, you help me just by talking about this stuff, seriously. You make me feel like my head’s not about to explode. But… I mean, do you feel left out because I’m not taking you to help with stuff like this? I um, I mean, in some ways you’re in an even worse position than me. You have to go play good little Minority teammate and pretend you don’t know anything. It’s… it’s gotta be hard. I know it’s hard. And I’m really sorry about that. I wish there was something I could do–I mean something we could do. It’s just, you know, really complicated.”
For a moment, Izzy didn’t say anything. She seemed to be considering, her expression pensive. Finally, she gave a very slight nod and quietly spoke. “Uh huh. It’s really complicated. And yeah, part of me feels a little… bad that I don’t get to be there, and that I have to keep pretending not to know anything. It’s hard. But I know why I have to, and I know why I can’t be involved with, like, actually helping. Physically helping. I know, I get. I just… I wish I could do something. And I wish we could find my mom. I know, I know she’s bad and all. I just… I wanna make sure she’s okay.”
Wow, yeah that was rough. Wincing, I reached out to take her hand. “I know. I get it. Believe me, I do. Look at my parents, my whole family. We know what they are. But if they were missing, I’d still be worried about them. I’d be out of my mind. I’d still want them to be okay.”
Izzy, in turn, shook her head, voice firm. “It’s not the same. Your parents love you. They didn’t try to sell you into slavery, or get pissed because they couldn’t make enough money off you, or–or hurt you like that. They’d never hurt you, Cassidy. Not on purpose. They–they really love you.”
Oh boy. Yeah, I knew what the implied bit of that was, that her own mother didn’t love her. And why shouldn’t she think that? After everything that piece of shit had done, after what she’d tried to do to her own kid, she deserved–yeah. She deserved a lot of bad things that I shouldn’t think about.
Still, I swallowed back all those thoughts, managing a quiet response. “I know. I know my parents love me and that it’s not the same as your situation with your mom. But I still get it. You love your mom and you want to know that she’s okay. You don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”
A very slight blush of guilt crossed the other girl’s face then, before she held up two fingers close together and whispered, “Maybe I’m okay with a little bit of a bad thing happening. I mean, prison. Jail. I think she should go to jail. She tried to do bad things to me and she might’ve done other bad things, I dunno. I think she should go to jail for it. Maybe… maybe if she does, she’ll realize what she did was wrong and umm… get better?” There was a small, very faint hint of hopefulness to her voice that really tore at me. Wow, that hurt.
For a few seconds, I had no idea what to say. I didn’t want to tell her that her mother wasn’t likely to change, especially not from being in jail. Who was I to crush that tiny little hope she had? Especially considering all the private hopes I had about how things with my family might end up turning out. I’d be a gigantic fucking hypocrite of the worst caliber.
So, in the end, all I could do was squeeze Izzy’s hand and quietly reply, “I’ll help you find her as soon as we can. I promise. We’ll figure out where she went and… and what happened. And if we can get her back here and make her go to prison, we’ll do that, okay?”
Izzy, in turn, met my gaze. I could see a lot of different emotions working their way through her before she finally nodded, her own voice barely audible. “Okay, Cassidy.
“And thanks. I’m really glad I have you to talk to. Because you help me too.”
********
School that day seemed like it would never end. It was impossible for me to focus and I even blew it more than once when a teacher wanted me to answer a question. I kept zoning out, watching the clock and imagining what the whole trip into Paige’s computer thing was going to be like. And, of course, worrying about what would happen if we couldn’t save her. Not to mention everything that was going on with Deicide’s favor and finding this Amanda girl.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The point was, I had a lot of stuff to be distracted by. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell my teachers the reasons I was distracted, so I just had to deal with their annoyed or disappointed looks. Oh well, I supposed I would try to make it up later when I took a few of these things off my plate.
Hah, listen to me trying to pretend that I didn’t know full well that more things would land on the plate just as quickly as I cleared them off. It almost sounded like I was that optimistic, didn’t it?
Either way, the school day couldn’t literally drag on forever, no matter how it felt. Eventually, classes were over and I bolted, with a few quick words toward my friends on the way out. Someone said something about a party that weekend, but the best I could manage was a noise acknowledging the invitation before hitting the doors almost full-speed. There was no way I was going to be able to hang out and chat just to look sociable. Yeah, I wasn’t actually doing the Paige thing until that evening. But I still had to meet with Pack to find out if I was right about her being willing to go on this little trip. And talk to her about Peyton coming along too. I had the feeling that was going to be a fun conversation all on its own. Especially when the possibility of eventually telling the girl about the whole Ministry situation inevitably came up. I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do about that. I couldn’t worry about it right this second. There was too much else to focus on.
Including, apparently, catching myself from plowing straight into San as I jogged down the front walk of the school. He was looking the other way and I barely managed to skid to a halt, comically flailing my arms in the process, right before I would have planted my face right into his shoulder. The hopeful part of me wanted to say I’d knock him down, but the truth was that I’d probably bounce right off.
Noticing my flailing, last second stop, San turned my way. “Dude, what is with the girls in this school running all over the place? First I try to have a nice conversation with Dani about how awesome Amber is before she practically runs over me saying something about her aunt calling home, and now my good, wonderful, oh-so-polite friend Cassidy tries to turn me into road pizza too.”
Barely paying attention to what he was saying, I stopped just long enough to apologize and added something about needing to get home so I could take my parents’ call from their hotel. Whatever San’s response was ended up being lost in the wind as I ran all the way off the school grounds. I’d already told Jefferson that morning that he didn’t need to pick me up because I would be hanging out with friends for awhile. So all he had to do was take Izzy home, which I was sure he was thrilled by, considering how much time it shaved off his route. Yeah, he didn’t like his schedule being unexpectedly changed. But as long as he was told early enough, I was pretty sure the prospect of saving time outweighed the annoyance of change. At least, that was the impression I’d got. Telling him in the morning or the night before that he wouldn’t have to wait around for me tended to go over a lot better than if I tried to call and cancel when he was literally on the way, or even waiting. I’d found that out the hard way.
So, he wasn’t there waiting for me, thankfully. Instead, I simply ran off the school grounds, cutting my way through all the other cars (including a fair number of dark SUV’s and limousines) that were lined along the front waiting to pick up their own passengers, and continued across the street. My backpack bounced with each pounding step, reminding me of the heavy weight of my helmet in the very bottom. I really needed to find a better, safer way of going around with this stuff. I was probably pushing my luck every time I went to school with it. But I wasn’t sure what else I could do besides always going home to my closet to change. At times like this, when I had to change and get out there as soon as possible, I had to take the risk of carrying it. Or, again, find another way. But I couldn’t think of what that could be.
Getting myself out of sight, making sure I wasn’t being followed or spied on, and quickly changing into my costume, I headed on my way. I had to double-check the location of the tire shop that Pack had asked to meet at. Thankfully, it was in the same general neighborhood as Wren’s place, so I had a good idea of how to paint my way there.
Apparently I had such a good idea of how to get there that I completely beat Pack. Seriously, I was there and lounging around on the roof for a solid ten minutes before finally hearing the sound of someone climbing the ladder. I was back on my feet and facing that way, ready just in case it turned out to be someone else randomly climbing onto the roof of a closed tire shop in the middle of the afternoon. Hey, stranger things had definitely happened in my life.
But no, it was Pack. She had the cage with her lizards in it strapped onto herself like a backpack as she climbed the rest of the way up, huffing a bit before shrugging it off and setting the cage down. Only then did she look at me. “You’re lucky… your school… gets out early.” The girl panted in between every couple words. “And you’re lucky you’re one of the good guys.” Finally, she straightened. “Because that means you can run and jump around all willy nilly through the sky and let everyone see you, no problem. I mean yeah, I’ve got Scatters here.” With that, the tiny neon-colored lizard poked her head around from the back of her neck where she was perched. “And she is amazing for getting around. Aren’t you, buddy?” Pack raised a gloved hand and let the little lizard crawl into her palm before nodding to her own question. “Yes, super-amazing. Seriously, you think your way of getting around is fun? You should try riding a lizard-deer that can jump thirty feet and stick to the walls. It’s… exciting.”
Sobering after taking a moment to let me picture that, the girl pointedly added, “But, I couldn’t exactly ride her all the way here. You know, laying low and all. So I had to hoof it about four blocks, with my friends here. All of which is to say, why exactly am I here, Paintball? You said a little bit last night, but let’s go with details this time, huh?”
So, over the next few minutes, I did just that. I went into detail about everything I knew as far as the new Paige situation went. I told her about Wren’s proposed virtual reality rescue mission, and how that was supposed to go. Actually, I had little to no details there, because we all had no idea how it was going to go. All we knew was that it would make us feel like we were inside Paige’s computer system, in her brain, whatever that would look like. And I told Pack about Peyton going in with us. Or rather, about Alloy going in.
By the time I finished getting all that out, Pack had released the rest of her lizards to crawl all around the roof so they could explore. Meanwhile, the girl herself was staring at me. Yeah, her mask covered her entire expression. But I could tell she was staring.
“You seriously don’t ever take a break, do you?” she managed in a soft mutter before sighing. “And you already picked up a sidekick. I heard about that, but I was half-convinced they were making it up.” For a moment, it looked like she was going to go on about that, before focusing. “Well, I guess we’re going in this robo-chick’s brain, huh?”
Letting out the breath that I hadn’t even realized I was holding, I managed a smile that the other girl wouldn’t see. “So, you’re in? You’ll help with this?” Damn it, I sounded like a little kid. Wait, was that a good thing? It helped my cover and all that, right? So why should I care that it–never mind, I wasn’t going to think about that. Too many other problems.
Pack was nodding even as I shook all that off. “Yeah, yeah, I’m in. Like hell am I gonna let our best non-Mall-related chance of finding out more about this whole Ministry thing disappear just because her psycho Daddy hit control alt delete or whatever. But seriously, you think the two of u—sorry, the three of us can deal with whatever this virus thing is?”
I shrugged. “We’re gonna have to. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have an army I can call in to help. And I’m pretty sure Wren can’t make that many virtual reality links.”
Pack was looking at me again, making a thoughtful sound in the back of her throat before simply asking, “What about Way? She knows what’s going on. I mean yeah, she doesn’t know exactly where the kid’s place is or anything, but she’s still involved in this. And you’ve trusted her with other things. If Wren says it’s okay, I think you should see if Minority girl wants to jump in.”
Jeez, maybe I really was just super-accustomed to keeping secrets and compartmentalizing. I hadn’t really thought about asking That-A-Way. Still, even as Pack suggested it, a dozen thoughts of what could go wrong went running through my head. Maybe I was also a little bit paranoid. Forcing those thoughts aside with more than a little effort, I finally gave a short nod. “We can ask Wren. Then… well, it’s up to her. But if she’s okay with it, and if she has an extra slot, we can see if That-A-Way wants to go play Tron tonight.” Pausing, I added, “Does that sound as weird out of my head as it did inside?”
“Weirder,” Pack assured me. “But yeah, if we’re doing this, let’s do it right. We’ll go see Wren, find out what the deal is, and try to call in the Minority Babe if she doesn’t already have a date with some other Touched stuff tonight.”
Curiously, I tilted my head. “You sound jealous about that possibility.”
Yeah, Pack definitely shot me a dirty look at that. I could tell even through her total-face covering mask. “Let’s just do this before something more interesting comes along to distract me, huh?”
“Well hey,” I started while moving toward the edge of the roof to head down, “if you’re looking for something interesting and this isn’t enough, I should tell you what Alloy and me are supposed to be doing for Deicide.
“Now that’s a real doozy.”