Midnight on Strange Street, page 23
But you’re not his daughter, a sullen side of her countered. You’re a freak. He never believed you. That’s why he didn’t take your side last year. It’s why Katelyn Sumner stopped being your friend. They both saw you for what you are. They saw you didn’t belong.
“No,” Avery whispered, anger pooling inside her. “No.”
Still, the raging blue flame inside refused to grow.
Watch out!” Dani screamed as the man—Nando—took hold of Zander.
The next moment, bright blue light filled the room. A magnificent pop resounded in Dani’s ears, and she staggered back, shielding her eyes until, as instantly as it had appeared, the light vanished. When Dani lowered her hands, she saw Zander on his feet, flushed and breathing hard. Nando was lying on the ground, knees to his chest, groaning. That’s when his eyes met hers.
“D-Dani?” he said.
Nando looked as stunned to see Dani as she was to see him.
“I’m s-sorry,” Zander stammered, backing away. “But you grabbed me, man, and—”
“I get it,” Nando grunted, getting to his feet. “No sweat.”
He felt around his chest, then surveyed his arms and legs. From what Dani could tell, Nando seemed unharmed. With that fear dispelled, she instantly turned suspicious.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, edging toward Bastian’s window. If things got bad, she decided, she could make a jump for it.
“I’m looking for my family.” Each of Nando’s words was slow and deliberate. Because he was lying? Dani couldn’t tell.
Don’t trust him. Dani pushed the thought toward Zander.
Then she made a grab for something—anything—off Bastian’s desk and ended up with a box of watercolor paints. She held it in front of her, like a shield. “Don’t come near us!”
“Dani,” said Nando, still deliberate. “It’s me.”
“Yeah,” said Dani, “and we know all about you. You’re working with them—the silver suits. You’re on their side.”
“If you let me—”
“WE DON’T NEED YOUR EXPLANATIONS!” Dani tossed the box of paints at Nando. It missed him completely and hit the wall, bursting open, little circles of color flying out.
“Uh, Dani?” Zander glanced her way. “We kind of do need an explanation.”
In the frazzled silence that followed, Dani considered. Even though Nando might be the enemy, he might also have the answers they needed. If Dani was smart about it, maybe she could get those out of him.
Stiffly, Dani pointed at Nando. “Okay. Talk. But keep your distance! You’ve seen what Zander can do.”
And what I can do, Dani thought, in sudden realization. Instead of throwing a box of watercolors, what could she have done with the blue light inside her?
She could think about that later. Now she had to focus on Nando.
“Where are they?” Dani demanded when Nando didn’t speak. “What are you people doing to my friends?”
“I’m not doing anything,” Nando said slowly. “And I understand why you don’t trust me, but I swear, I didn’t take them. I had nothing to do with that.”
“You’re working with the government, though,” Dani said. “That’s what your secret project is, right? It’s us.”
Nando released a fatigued sigh. He sank to sit on Bastian’s bed, resting his head in his hands.
“We’ve been monitoring GARs—glow activity readings—in Callaway,” he said. “The Department of Glowhost Engagement, that’s our job. The enemy’s already found others like you in their territory, and they’re weaponizing them for the war. Our government wants to do the same thing.”
“Weapon…what?” Dani asked.
“It’s tied to the glow,” said Nando. “When the Jensens found the first deposits here, Component G seemed like an anomaly. But then the glow started showing up in different places across the globe. And wherever the glow appeared, strange things began to happen. Reports of electrical disturbances, an inexplicable blue light. Glow was unusual, the government knew that early on. At first they thought they could harness it for big technology.”
“But they couldn’t,” said Dani.
“They couldn’t,” Nando confirmed. “Decades of testing, and all the best glow was good for was…” He motioned to the glowboard jutting out of Dani’s backpack, and she grimaced at the reminder that it was broken for good. “During all that time, the government was working with private businesses.”
“Like Gloworks,” said Zander. He was standing at a distance, holding his hands behind his back, as though to stop himself from doing more damage.
“Gloworks has never been just about the toys you kids use,” Nando replied. “They used that sales money for the labs, the experiments we outsourced there. So when the disturbances here in Callaway got worse, and when we got more reports of unusual GARs, we—the DGE—came to investigate. We concluded that the glow was a deposit, an alien substance. And these deposits, spread across the world, affected certain humans born nearby. The DGE calls these humans glowhosts.”
Dani looked to Zander, feeling suddenly uncertain. He looked back, his eyes wide, hands still hidden away. Dani’s idea that the incident somehow connected the Sardines, Bastian’s guess that “elixir” might be glow—it was all true. They’d guessed right.
“Nando,” Dani said. “How long have you known it was us?”
“I just found out, I swear. Jensen and his people have been keeping all the details under wraps. They claimed they had a master plan, and we agreed to give them jurisdiction for a while. Then we got news of the fire on Hazard Hill. The GARs went off the charts; there’s been nothing like that before. That’s when Ira told me everything she’d learned, and what she suspected.”
“Who’s Ira?” Zander asked.
“My coworker.” Nando looked embarrassed. “And…also my girlfriend.”
Dani raised her eyebrows.
“See,” Nando went on, “she’d been working closely with Mr. Jensen, as our departmental liaison. She had concerns when she found out glowhosts were just kids; we both did. But she didn’t know at first that I was Bash and Lola’s brother. The photos of them weren’t great, and she’s never met them, not even on video chat. She didn’t recognize their names, either, because they were listed by their full names: Dolores and Sebastian. Around her, I call them Lola and Bash. And I use the last name Jones at the DGE for security measures.”
“So,” said Dani, crossing her arms. “You only decided to help us when you figured out Bastian and Lola were involved. Shouldn’t you have cared that we were kids, period?”
Nando sighed loudly, rubbing a hand down his face. “I know what it looks like, and I’m not proud of myself. But you have to understand: It’s a high-pressure job. Ira and I have been training for this work for years. I always felt conflicted about it, but tonight, when Ira shared your names, we knew what we had to do. She stayed there, to monitor things. And I left the lab and came here first, on my way out to Hazard Hill. I hoped maybe Bash and Lola had gotten away. That if they had, they’d be hiding here.”
“But they didn’t get away,” Dani said, narrowing her eyes. “I saw the silver suits take Bastian. They kidnapped him, right off the street.”
Nando’s features slackened.
“And that’s your fault,” Dani went on. She turned to Zander. “Come on, we’ve heard enough. They’ve taken them to Gloworks.”
“Wait,” Nando said—not a shout, but a plea. He looked between Dani and Zander, entreating. “We’re on the same side. I promise, we both want to save my brother and sister.”
“And Avery?” asked Dani. “What about her? What about me and Zander? Or do you only care that Bastian and Lola ended up being the glow kids you’re trying to hunt down?”
“You don’t get it,” Nando said. “I’m not trying to capture anyone. I started working for the DGE because I wanted to make a difference in this war. I thought, when we found glowhosts, they’d be…I don’t know, but not kids. Not you. I don’t want to use you as weapons. And Ira doesn’t, either.”
“Oh yeah?” Dani’s voice dripped with disdain. “The one who’s been working with Mr. Jensen? Your departmental lasagna, or whatever?”
“She’s on your side, too,” Nando said heatedly. “We’d been talking about it, even before we found out who you were. How the DGE is handling this all wrong, and how we don’t like Jensen. Ira told me she got so upset about it yesterday, she tracked you all down to your clubhouse and left a note.”
Dani started. The note. The note from a friend. How could Nando have known about that? Was he telling the truth?
She shook her head angrily. “A little too late for notes now, huh?”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Nando said. “Ira’s still stationed at Gloworks. She has inside access. You have to trust me.”
Zander looked to Dani. I think he’s telling the truth, he told her mind.
“No,” Dani said, for Nando to hear, loud and clear. “No way.”
Nando looked exhausted. “Look, don’t trust me. Fine. You two could leave now, skate out to the factory, and try to save your friends on your own. But I’m telling you, if they’ve been taken, they’ll be in the lab under heavy surveillance. You don’t know Gloworks. You don’t have someone on the inside. I do. And I’m telling you, I want to get my brother and sister out of there as much as you do. Get everyone out,” he added loudly as Dani began to protest. “You don’t have to trust me, but you’d be better off working with me.”
Dani stayed silent, thinking. Whether she liked it or not, what Nando was saying made sense. Maybe she and Zander needed him right now. She just wished she didn’t. What if this was a trap? If Nando took her and Zander, and if the silver suits had captured all the others, as Dani feared they had—who would be left to save them?
And midnight was less than two hours away.
If the Sardines didn’t make it to Hazard Hill…
“We have to get them out,” she said. “And when we do, all five of us have to go to Hazard Hill, no questions asked. We have to be there by midnight.”
“What—”
“No questions asked!”
Nando licked his lips. Then he nodded. “All right. Deal.”
“But we’re keeping our eyes on you,” Dani told Nando, glowering.
He looked at her quizzically. “You know you’re the ones who have the upper hand, right? You set a whole hill on fire. This kid”—he waved at Zander—“threw me to the ground with his mind. If anyone should be scared here, it’s me.”
Once again, Dani wondered why she hadn’t thought of her powers. Maybe it was because she’d never considered that they could be used to protect herself, even to hurt other people. The memory of Mitchell dangling upside down flashed in her head. Dani shook it out.
“Yeah,” she said to Nando. “Well, you stay scared.”
Nando turned to Zander and said, “Sorry I grabbed you, kid.”
Zander shrugged. “It’s fine. We kind of broke into your house.”
“So,” said Dani, “are we going to save the Sardines, or what?”
A paper bowl sat before Bastian, and in it was a single scoop of ice cream. Chocolate coconut fudge. His favorite.
“No doubt you need nourishment after such a big night.” That’s what the silver suit had told him before leaving Bastian alone in this room.
Bastian knew better.
He sat in a swivel chair, eyeing the ice cream but not touching the spoon that rested beside the bowl. The cameras were obvious, mounted in every corner of the room. A boardroom—that’s what this place was. It was nothing like the bare white room he’d been kept in before. This place had color. There was a wooden table, surrounded by a dozen orange swivel chairs—all of them empty except for Bastian’s. A chipper piano melody piped in from an overhead speaker. Posters lined the wall featuring photographs of soaring eagles and mountainous terrains, with words like Perseverance and Teamwork printed beneath them in big black letters. At one end of the room hung a whiteboard. At the other, letters were painted on the wall in bright yellow:
GLOWORKS, INC.
Bastian didn’t trust any of it. He vividly recalled the moment that rough hands had pulled him into that van and slammed the door. He reached inside, to where the blue flame burned, but he couldn’t coax it to grow. They had done something to him when they’d jabbed him in the neck. These were bad people, and he was their prisoner, and somehow this all had to do with Gloworks, Inc.
“Bastian.” A man’s voice came through the overhead speaker, interrupting the music. “We know you must be hungry.”
Bastian folded his arms.
He could guess what the people were doing on the other side of that speaker. They were watching him through those cameras, marking down observations, talking about him like he was an animal caged in the zoo. Maybe Mr. Jensen was one of them. Maybe even Mitchell was there, too, watching and laughing.
For the second time that night, Bastian remembered his brother’s words: You don’t play by their rules. You make your own.
Bastian smirked as the idea came to him. They may have found a way to stifle his powers, but he still had his own two hands.
He had his art.
And he was great at that.
Bastian stood up, ignoring the bowl of ice cream, and walked across the room to the dry-erase board. There were several markers sitting there. He picked up the red one, uncapped it, and began to draw. Then the green marker. Then the black. Minutes passed, and Bastian’s strokes grew bolder. When he was finished, he stepped away, surveying his work.
He had drawn a cartoon UFO—a flying saucer—with a ray of light beaming down. Bathed in the light stood four figures and a barking dog. Satisfied with the final image, Bastian uncapped the black marker and wrote the caption: Take us to your leader.
The music cut out once more. “Very funny, Bastian,” said the man on the speaker. “But this would go better for everyone if you would eat your meal.”
Bastian looked up, straight into the lens of the nearest camera. He said, “No way.”
“As you wish,” the man’s voice replied.
The music came on again, twinkling piano arpeggios.
Bastian returned to his chair, sat, and swiveled slightly, pushing back and forth off the floor. He had stopped trying to use his mind to call for the others. Without control of the flame inside, he couldn’t reach out to find them. All he knew for certain was that he was trapped in this prison. Alone.
There was a sudden commotion at the boardroom door. Locks slid from their places, the door opened, and a woman walked inside.
She wasn’t a silver suit. She looked like a perfectly normal businesswoman, wearing a finely tailored gray pantsuit, her curly black hair tied up in a high ponytail. She was young—Nando’s age, maybe—and she looked at Bastian kindly.
He didn’t trust her.
The woman drew out the chair directly across from Bastian and set down both a thin folder and a plastic cup on the table between them.
She studied Bastian first, silent. Then she said, “You really should eat.”
Bastian said nothing. He glared fiercely ahead, past the woman, pretending he could bore a hole through the wall using his eyes alone. Maybe he could have, if they hadn’t injected him with whatever poison was suppressing his flame.
“We know you like this flavor, Bastian,” said the woman. “Would it be more appetizing with a lemonade, perhaps?” She nudged the plastic cup toward Bastian, and pink liquid sloshed out, splashing onto the table.
He didn’t move.
“No,” said the woman after some time. “I can’t say I blame you, Bastian. You’ve been through a lot today.”
“Stop saying that,” Bastian mumbled, eyes fixed to the table.
“Excuse me?”
“Stop saying my name.”
The woman raised her eyebrows. “Yes, I understand. That’s very rude of me, considering I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Ira Mehta.”
Bastian frowned. Why did that name sound familiar?
“So what,” he said. “You work for Gloworks?”
“No, I’m with the DGE. That’s the Department of Glowhost Engagement.”
“Who’s been talking to me on that speaker?”
“That…” The woman named Ira hemmed, scratching at her neck. “That would be Carl Jensen. You see, my people are working in tandem with his organization to—”
That’s when Bastian realized: “You work with Nando.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“You’re dating Nando.”
“I…that isn’t…” Ira touched her hair. “I think it’s best we focus on the task at hand.”
“Nando knows I’m here?” The flame burned hot inside Bastian. He kept his shaking hands hidden beneath the table. “He knows what you guys are doing to me? To us? Where’s my sister? Do you have her, too?”
“I’m very sorry, Bastian, but I can’t answer those questions.”
“Then I don’t have anything to say to you.”
The woman named Ira didn’t seem deterred. She opened the folder before her, turning one page and then another.
“Why aren’t you wearing a silver suit, like the rest of them?” Bastian asked. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll get freak germs?”
Ira looked up. “I’m not afraid of you, Bastian.”
“That’s why they sent you in, huh? They thought I’d talk to someone who seems nice.”
“We’re trying to help you,” Ira said. “I wish you’d understand. We want to help both you and your friends. Now, Danielle Hirsch and Zander Poxleitner—do they have favorite places in town? Places they like to hang out?”
“I’m not friends with Zander,” Bastian said, on instinct.
Then he realized what Ira’s words meant. The silver suits hadn’t caught Dani yet. And Zander…
“Please, Bastian. We only want to help.”
“If you really wanted to help us, you’d let us go. You wouldn’t kidnap us and keep us locked up here.”
“This is for your safety.”
