The Curse of the King. Peter Lerangis

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ ICU. “Wait. Jack? Cass? What are you doing here? Why am I in a hospital? Why is Mom on the floor?”

      I rushed over. Dad and I both lifted Mrs. Black to her feet. Her eyes puddled with tears. As she hugged her daughter, the place was going nuts. Cass was screaming, pumping his fists. The hospital staff high-fived each other like middle school kids. Dr. Karl looked bewildered. I thought I could see some tears on her cheeks as Aly’s mom hugged her, too.

      “You are a miracle worker, doctor,” Mrs. Black said. “Thank you.”

      “I—I’m not sure what did it,” Dr. Karl said. “I guess … the pads?”

      Aly pulled me closer. “What happened?” she whispered. “I had an episode, right? And you guys flew out to see me.”

      “Um, yeah,” I whispered back.

      “So how did the doctor figure out—?” she asked.

      “She didn’t,” I replied.

      “Wait—so you did it?” she said. “You saved my life?”

      “It’s a long story,” I said.

      Aly smiled. Her eyes moistened. “Backsies.”

      “What?”

      “About what you said,” she said, “into my ear …”

      I felt my face heating up. “That’s because I thought you were dead!”

       Doofus. Idiot.

      She was looking at me like I’d just slapped her. But before either of us could say anything, the crowd of medical people began elbowing me away. Dr. Karl was shouting orders. All kinds of tubes were being hooked up to Aly’s arms.

      I backed away, standing with Cass. “Boj emosewa,” he said.

      “Thanks,” I said.

      I took a deep breath. I felt a million things. Happiness. Relief. Embarrassment. Pride. I could finally feel my body relaxing. That was when I opened my clenched palm and looked at the shard.

      It was the size of a quarter.

      And the only thing I felt was scared.

       * * *

      “What if it just … vanishes?” Cass paced back and forth in our hotel room. Behind him was a huge picture window. The sunset looked like an egg yolk spreading on the Pacific Ocean. “We use up its power, it gets smaller and smaller, and then, poof, it’s gone?”

      “I wasn’t expecting it to shrink like that,” I said.

      “Jack, it’s been getting smaller all along,” Cass said. “I tried to tell you that back home. It must be like a battery. You and I used up some of its power. Aly used up a lot more.”

      “We have to preserve it somehow,” I said. “But we can’t exactly hide it away. It’s buying us time.”

      “I wish we could contact the KI,” Cass said with a sigh. “I wish we hadn’t been cut off like that. Don’t you think that’s weird—they take Torquin away and then … radio silence?”

      “Maybe they’ve given up on us,” I said.

      Cass flopped on one of the double beds and stared out the window. “Now you sound like me.”

      I could feel my phone vibrating in my pocket. Aly was calling. “Hello?” I said.

      “I’m bored,” Aly’s voice piped up.

      I put her on speaker. “Hi, Bored. I’m Jack. Cass is here, too. How are you feeling?”

      “Good,” she replied. “Too good to be sitting here in the dark in a hospital room. The doctors have finally stopped coming in and gawking. They’re talking about releasing me tomorrow. I’m like the Miracle Girl. I feel like an exhibit at the Museum of Natural Hysteria, and I’m tired of talking. So it’s your turn, Jack. You know what happened to me, and I want you to tell me now.”

      I explained it all—the shards, the shrinkage, the healing power, the trip to LA, and my stunt with the Loculus of Invisibility.

      When I was done, the phone fell quiet for a long moment. “Um, are you still awake?” I finally said.

      “That silence,” she said, “is the sound of my mind being blown. Do you realize what this means? If your two shards fused like that, we may be able to put the whole thing together again.”

      “Like Humpty Dumpty!” Cass added.

      “Which means we have to get to the other pieces,” Aly went on.

      Cass hopped off the bed. “Yes!”

      “Whoa, hold on—the Massa took the other pieces,” I said. “They’re probably back on the island right now, trying to fit them together.”

      “Exactly,” Aly said. “So there are two possibilities. They manage to do it, and they realize there’s a piece missing. In which case they will be coming after us.”

      “Or?” I said.

      “Or they won’t be able to do anything with those shards at all,” she said, “because you guys are G7W and they’re not. Don’t forget, the Loculi get their power from us. Without us, there’s a good chance those shards will just be shards.”

      “You are a genius,” Cass said.

      “How do we get to the island?” I said. “My dad can get us anywhere from Chicago to Kathmandu in a private plane. But even he can’t get to an island shielded from detection. Torquin’s the only person who can get us there, and he’s gone.”

      “It’s findable by the KI, and by the Massa,” Aly said. “If they can do it, so can we.”

      “How?” Cass asked.

      “I’m thinking,” Aly said.

      I was thinking, too. I was thinking about Brother Dimitrios and my mom, heading across the ocean. Dimitrios was probably happy to have the Loculus pieces. Maybe the Massa couldn’t fuse the shards, but they could try to fit them together like puzzle pieces. Would Dimitrios find out that Mom had dropped one? What would happen to her if he did?

      I began to sweat. Even now, I wasn’t sure which side Mom was on. She seemed to want to help us. Which would make her a mole inside the Massa organization. But she had left Dad and me to join them—faked her own death and kept it secret all these years. How could I trust her? How could I not trust my own mom?

      My mind was firing in all directions. I pictured Mom on a plane with the Massa, staring out the window, scared.

      “The Massa,” I said. “Somehow we have to get the Massa to take us there.”

      “Are you crazy?” Cass said. “We just risked our lives escaping them!”

СКАЧАТЬ