Sneak (17 page)

“It’s horrible in here,” Grandma had said when Mr. Langly

showed her the space three weeks ago. “You people are sick.”

But Grandma had respected the room all the same. She’d not

moved or changed any part of it; she’d not touched a thing. And she never intended to.

Grandma stood by the mirror that hung over the chest of

drawers, leaning close to see herself, but careful not to bump any childhood trinkets or pictures still resting on the dresser top. She primped her hair and made herself up, alone in the dim light and the quiet, just thinking.

There was something about that article . . . something about

Hailey’s disappearance so soon after Logan’s, so soon, in turn, after Dane’s . . . that struck her as too strange to ignore.

Grandma walked over and pressed the intercom on Lily’s

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bedroom wall, calling down to the kitchen where Mr. and Mrs.

Langly still sat.

“I’ll be taking a nap,” Grandma said. “Don’t bother me.” And

Mr. Langly acknowledged that he was happy to oblige.

But when Grandma turned from the intercom, it wasn’t to

the bed that she walked. It was to the outside stairway door. She’d made up her mind.

Grandma was sneaking out.

4

There was a room at the tip of the DOME Umbrella, above the

central intelligence disk and above even the smaller floor of offices on top of that. It was small—spacious enough only for the most private of meetings—and empty, save for a single round table at its center. The only way in was through a spiraling staircase in the top section of the Umbrella’s spire, which Erin’s father was ascending now.

He climbed alone to a small platform at the top of the stairs

and swiped his Mark at a scanner. The platform rose up through a hatch, lifting Mr. Arbitor into the room above.

One man sat at the table, looking over a few documents

dis played on his tablescreen, paying no attention either to the 360- degree view of the distant New Chicago skyline and surrounding suburbs or to Mr. Arbitor as he approached and sat down.

Director Michael Cheswick was the head of DOME’s entire

Eyes & Ears Bureau west of the Mississippi River, and had been since its inception over ten years ago. This made him Mr. Arbitor’s boss’s boss’s boss. He stood six and a half feet tall, but couldn’t
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have weighed more than 140 pounds. His nose hung from his face like a long, slender beak, and a thick set of black bangs shadowed his face. To Mr. Arbitor, looking at him was a little like looking at a vulture with teeth.

After a moment, Mr. Cheswick leaned back, adjusting his

glasses, and spoke slowly to Mr. Arbitor.

“I’ve read the reports,” he said. “But I wanted to hear it from you.”

Mr. Arbitor cleared his throat. “Well,” he began. “First of all, I’d just like to say—we made real headway last night. Major strides toward the apprehension of Logan Langly and Peck and their gang of Dust.”

“Is that right?” Mr. Cheswick said.

“Johnson and I and our team downstairs came closer than we

ever have to the full, definitive capture of—”

“That’s twice, now, Charles, that this gang has evaded DOME.

Twice. Teenagers. In one month.”

Mr. Arbitor cleared his throat nervously. “A little more than

one, actually.” He made a teeter-tottering motion with his hand.

“Six weeks. Give or take.”

Mr. Cheswick laughed, his chin down and his smile not visible

to Mr. Arbitor. “Do you have any idea how this looks?” he asked.

“I’m honestly curious. Do you have any sense at all of what Markless throughout New Chicago must be thinking? What
Lamson
must be thinking?”

“Surely General Lamson won’t need to know about—”

“Charles, you were brought here from Beacon because of the

unique promise you showed in tracking down Markless.”

“And I will make good on that promise, sir. I will—”

“
Twice
.
One
month
.”

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“Sir, to be fair, we did manage to apprehend a known Markless

organizer, Meredith Hayes—”

“I didn’t want
Meredith
Hayes
in my Center this morning, Charles—I wanted
Peck
. We’ve
had
Meredith here before—she refuses to speak to us, and you know it.”

“Well, sir, yes, but we were hoping—”

“Oh, you were
hoping
, were you? You were
hoping
? Charles, from what I gather from this morning’s reports, we can’t even

prove whether or not Meredith was
aware
of the Dust’s presence in that barn!”

“I don’t buy that, sir.”

“And
who
, in the name of Cylis, was the idiot who shot this woman’s husband? I want a name.”

Mr. Arbitor stuttered for a moment.

“Sloppy, Charles! This is sloppy, miserly work. Unacceptable.

You couldn’t even track them by satellite once you had them in your sights! How is that possible?”

“Sir, by the time we’d—”

“Save it.” Michael sighed angrily. “It was a mistake bringing

you out here. I can see that now.”

“Mr. Cheswick, sir, please—”

“You’re a family man, Charles. We knew that. To be away from

your wife, watching over your daughter here alone . . . better men than you would be distracted by it.” He frowned. “This is our error.

I blame myself.”

“Mr. Cheswick, I’m really close to a breakthrough here. I just need a little more time—”

But Michael flicked at the glass of the tabletop before Mr.

Arbitor could finish, and a virtual document slid across the

screen of the table’s surface. It came to a stop in front of Mr.

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Arbitor, and he read it, disbelieving, mouthing the words to

himself as he did.

“Transfer? You’re transferring me back . . . already?”

“It’s been three months,” Michael said. “In that time we’ve had kidnappings, we’ve had DOME equipment stolen from right under

our noses, we’ve had an escape from the Pledging Center, and we’ve come no closer to catching any of our prime suspects among the Dust.” He laughed under his breath. “In fact, Charles, our prime suspect list has managed to
grow
.

“Three months
is
enough time. It’s enough time to know when you’ve made a mistake as big as this.”

Mr. Arbitor looked again at the document in front of him.

“I didn’t call you in here for an update, Charles. I called you in here for your swipe.” He held his hand out, expectantly. “Please, if you would. Just swipe right there on the line. The sooner you do, the sooner we can put this big, failed experiment behind us. And the sooner I can forget about the whole miserly thing.”

5

Logan woke up with the sun on his face. He was lying up to his neck in a tunnel carved into a mound of snow, his fleece blanket wrapped around him, and he was shivering.

“Lips are still blue,” a voice whispered above him. “Not a good sign.” It was Dane. Logan squinted up at him, into the sun.

“Well, look who’s awake,” Hailey said.

“Where are we?” Logan asked. His head ached violently,

and immediately he felt himself fighting back a powerful wave of nausea.

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“Still in the woods, a few miles downstream from the farm,

I’d guess.” Hailey was whispering. “We should keep moving now

that you’re awake. There’re sure to be DOME agents around here looking for us.”

“Where’s everyone else?” Logan asked.

Hailey looked at Dane uneasily, then back at Logan. “We don’t

know,” she said.

“You don’t
know
?”

“We never found the raft. It looks like . . . like they left without us. It was lucky enough that Dane and I found you.”

Dane nodded. “You were stuck on a log in the stream. Just

lying there unconscious when we swam by. You’d’ve died, dude.”

“And DOME never caught up with us?”

“Well . . . we don’t know for sure about the rest. But no, they didn’t get near the three of us. I guess the agents weren’t too keen on jumping in the stream after us, and there was no way they could keep up on foot.”

“They’re out here, though, right now,” Logan half asked and

half stated. He rubbed his eyes. Blurry vision. Headache. Another wave of nausea.

“Most definitely.”

“Then let’s go,” Logan said. But as soon as he stood up, he

regretted it. Outside the shelter of the tunnel, the wind cooled his still-wet clothes, and immediately he was overcome with a para-lyzing shiver. Hailey stepped forward and touched his neck.

“He’s freezing,” she told Dane.

“I can see that.”

“Logan, how do you feel?” Hailey asked.

As if in response, Logan suddenly lurched forward and fell to

his knees, resting his hands on the ground and propping himself
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up, but just barely. “Not great,” he said. “Sick, I think. I’ll be fine in a minute.”

But the expression on Hailey’s face said otherwise. “Logan,”

she said. “I’m not sure you will . . .”

“What are you talking about?”

“You have hypothermia, Logan.”

Logan squinted at her, confused.

“We’re losing him,” Hailey said to Dane. Then she took Logan

by the shoulders and began quickly rubbing his arms. “Logan,

you were in the water a long time last night. When we dragged

you out, you were unconscious. You’ve been in those wet clothes all night. Your body’s past the point of being able to keep itself warm.”

“That’s okay,” Logan said, closing his eyes. “I don’t mind.”

Without another word, Hailey took Logan’s wet jacket and

sweater off and wrapped the fleece blanket tightly around him.

She led Logan back to the enclosed space of the snow tunnel, putting her arms around him and shielding him from the wind.

“He needs help,” she told Dane, already sensing how un-

comfortable this made him. “I don’t like it any more than you do.

Just . . . be useful, okay? Please?”

“We gotta find the River,” Logan said.

“No, Logan. We need to stay away from the river. The river’s

too cold.”

“Not the river. The River. We need to find the River.”

“He’s delirious,” Dane said.

But Logan shook his head. “Papa Hayes,” he told them, slur-

ring his words a little and closing his eyes with a frightening in differ ence. “He told me. About the River. We’re gonna make it to Beacon, you guys. I just know it.”

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6

Grandma knocked softly on the house’s front door. When there was no answer, she walked to the ground floor window, peeked into it, and knocked on that too. Several minutes passed with no sign of life.

“Come on,” Grandma said aloud. “I know you’re in there.”

Then Grandma heard the coughing.

Mrs. Phoenix opened the door.

“I knew I recognized you,” Mrs. Phoenix said. “It’s been years, though. Three? Four? I’ve lost track.”

“About that,” Grandma said.

Inside, the house was filled with an oppressive, wet heat. A hot shower was running upstairs, and the kitchen faucet was turned on to as hot as it would go. The humidity hung in the air and condensed on the walls and countertops.

“Who’s here?” Grandma asked, pointing up.

“Oh. No one,” Mrs. Phoenix said, waving a sponge she held in

her hand. “I’m just cleaning.” And she set upon the kitchen table, scrubbing it with soap that spilled off the sides and dripped onto the floor.

Grandma frowned. “Not any kind of cleaning I’ve ever seen.

Feels like a rain forest in here.”

Mrs. Phoenix coughed a few times. “Uh. Sonya? Can I get you

anything? I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer in the way of food or drink . . . perhaps a glass of water, though?”

“No.” Grandma stood where she’d entered, making no attempt

to get comfortable.

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Mrs. Phoenix smiled uneasily.

“I assume you know why I’m here,” Grandma said.

Mrs. Phoenix shrugged, politely.

“You read the news this morning?”

“Oh.” Mrs. Phoenix laughed nervously, and this made her

cough again. “If you’re referring to the article about Hailey—the whole thing is a big misunderstanding. She’s running some errands today, that’s all—I’m sure she’ll be back in just a matter of—”

“Then why aren’t you at work?” Grandma asked. “You work

at the nanomaterials plant, don’t you? They run a pretty tight ship over there.”

Mrs. Phoenix didn’t answer.

“I’m not a stupid woman, Dianne.”

Mrs. Phoenix stopped scrubbing.

“And I think you know a lot more than you’re letting on.”

The two of them moved to sit at the kitchen table, the humid

air sparkling strangely around them. “DOME bugged the house,”

Mrs. Phoenix whispered. “Surveillance powder. Get this place

humid enough, though . . . the stuff shorts out pretty quick.” Mrs.

Phoenix was fiddling with a ball of clear tape that she’d crumpled up and soaked in soap. “And this, too—bug tape. Sends anything it hears straight to them for record keeping.” She laughed. “Unless it’s been submerged in water, of course.”

“Sounds like you and the little one got these moguls pretty

riled up,” Grandma said.

Mrs. Phoenix smiled. “Hailey,” she said. “She deserves all the credit. I’m just the proud mom.”