Chapter 8
Ever a Ray of Sunshine, I Love Me a Good Underdog Story, Better Than a Sob Story, No Matter the Oscar
After a cumbersome half hour of role-playing for the invisible spies keeping tabs on us—we had a megalomaniac to kill and no time to waste!—we’d resorted to more meditating-cum-
telepathic-communication. By the time we’d talked through our plans for attack, along with how to cover our tracks—there was no good way—and how to protect ourselves—again, there was no good way—we were twitchy.
All of us, even Layla, yearned to go for a nice, long run to work off some of our pent-up energy.
But it was dinnertime, and through all the many ruses, dinnertime remained a sacred event for the Rafferty household.
The Celia Rafferty persona hadn’t let up on her demand that her two children be present for a family meal every evening.
Unwilling to separate with tensions so high, and too dark out for a run through the woods anyway, Griffin, Hunt, and I crashed dinner.
Ever the chipper, fake hostess, Celia appeared delighted, trilling as she claimed she’d fortuitously made enough for leftovers so she’d have plenty of her spaghetti Bolognese for all of us despite the lack of warning.
I couldn’t help but wonder if she, one of the world’s foremost brain function experts, had somehow listened in on our thoughts and what we believed was a private conversation to receive notice of our arrival.
It was still possible we were chipped. We hadn’t been able to research the science as planned.
Hunt had been as careful as he knew how to be when he’d hacked into the lie-rents’ computer system.
Even so, that night while we slept, we’d been drugged and moved, and almost certainly a reboot had been attempted.
Was it because Griffin was finally healed enough to rejoin us?
Or was it because Hunt’s hacking had been detected?
Or perhaps both? Without any way to know, we had to be even more cautious, which meant no easy internet searches about chipping, dreamwalking, or anything else we might need to learn about.
And if they were monitoring everything about us, they were surely tracking any visits we might make to Ridgemore’s library.
It also ruled out our idea of finding a used computer at an off-the-beaten-path electronics repair shop.
It was becoming frighteningly apparent that, somehow, Magnum and his peons were staying several steps ahead of us at all times.
We clung to the few advantages we did have like they were lifelines, a rope thrown to us on the open sea, able to lead us back to safety—whatever the concept would look like to us after this was all over.
I needed it to be over. I needed my crew to make it out of this alive, healthy and whole at my side.
In the hours after dinner while we waited for the lie-rents to go to sleep, we built a blanket fort in Hunt’s sleepover room, much as we used to do when we were children.
Inside, hidden from cameras, we wrote ourselves warnings, in the tiniest scrawl possible, that life wasn’t at all as it seemed—in case we died tonight and the next reboot took.
Even though every one of us had died and returned to life, the thought of any of us dying again remained terrifying.
The idea of having our memories wiped was almost as awful.
It was bad enough to be knowing pawns of a psycho with too many resources and lacking a moral compass; it was another to be unwitting.
At least now we could fight. We could look our lie-rents in their phony-ass faces and know they were lying fucks.
There were no absolutes in life—or in death either, it turned out. I’d learned that already. Death meant at least a chance that one of us wouldn’t come back. The label of immortal didn’t come with any guarantees.
My note was rolled into a tight scroll half the size of a cigarette and shoved through a double seam of my panty’s waistband.
Every time we’d been rebooted that I could recall, when I’d woken to find myself in PJs I hadn’t dressed in myself, my underwear had remained the same.
Now, if I were murdered and my memories overridden, I was hoping the unfamiliar bump in the elastic would be enough to draw my curiosity.
But my note could also just end up in the wash.
It was far from foolproof, but it was the best I could come up with so the note would remain on my person.
Layla concealed her note inside a tampon applicator.
There was as much a chance that she’d find it as there was that it’d end up shoved up her vajayjay.
Brady buried his in plastic in the woods behind the treehouse in a spot he claimed was special, though I’d never heard him mention it.
Griffin sliced open the tongue on one of his Vans and slid the note inside.
And Hunt laid his note flat beneath the endpaper of his favorite edition of Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
The risk that we’d never come across our cautions was as significant as that of a lie-rent finding them instead. And if what we knew were to be discovered … well, we were majorly fucked. We all knew it. The odds weren’t particularly in our favor.
Not that it would stop us from fighting. We’d always fight for one another.
Layla said into our group chat as, just past midnight, we rolled up to the manned gate of Magnum’s newly constructed mansion.
Even though he was, as far as we knew, single and without dependents, his new house was as big as the one he’d built us on campus that was for five people. Big money sure could buy a lot.
Layla added with a nervous bite of her lip, glancing out the passenger-side window of the back seat. She sat next to me and Griffin.
No one responded. We were all piled inside Bonnie. We’d deliberated about the benefit of driving Clyde as well to give us two getaway options, but in the end, if we were forced to separate and we didn’t all escape together, we would have failed anyway.
The tension inside the Mustang’s cabin was tangible enough to slice with a knife—which we didn’t have.
This had been another point of contention, with Brady arguing that we needed weapons, of course we did, to kill a mofo who used rent-a-soldiers for his security.
But if we didn’t arrive laden with knives Rambo-style and shit went sideways, we could maybe still talk our way out of it.
We’d also left Bobo behind, and Brady’s Ninjas R Us getup.
Brady had straight-up pouted about having to dress in plain ol’ jeans and a hoodie when he could “kill it, ninja style.”
We had our story worked out and we had to stick to it.
Bonnie’s headlights lit up a tall black gate crowned in spikes as a man in black paramilitary gear stepped out from the gatehouse. He wore a severe buzz cut, a sidearm, a tactical baton, and a Taser. Plus, the pockets of his cargo-style pants bulged with who knew what other goodies. I was jelly.
I could sense Brady’s grimace from the back seat as he muttered,
But then the guard was at the driver’s-side door. Brady plastered an amicable smile on his face and rolled down his window.
“Hey there,” he said while the guard’s brow furrowed in glaring disapproval.
With open suspicion, the soldier dipped his head to peer into the car. Layla waved at him.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” he demanded, without acknowledging either of the twins’ greetings.
Hunt said into our chat.
Everyone in Ridgemore does. They’re in Magnum’s pocket and out to get us, I wanted to say. But Brady needed to focus.
“Yeah, sorry, I know it’s late. But we’ve got a bit of an emergency on our hands.”
“Is Mr. Chase expecting you?”
As we’d rehearsed, Brady ran his hand through his hair and cast heavy eyes in Hunt’s direction.
“No, man. We probably shoulda texted first though. We were too overwhelmed to think of it. Hunt here …” Brady shook his head in theatrical lamentation. “He just found out he knocked up his girl. He’s pretty shook about it.”
Layla slid forward on the bench seat and leaned over me so her head popped between the front seats. “We’re all shook about it. A baby’s gonna totally change his life. It’s so messed up.”
Hunt didn’t have to fake the anguish etched across his face as he fiddled nervously with his earring. It was the same silver hoop with a dangling turquoise gemstone he’d believed belonged to his dead dad and had worn to feel closer to him. Now, he wore it to best play a part.
“We can’t talk to our parents about it,” Brady continued. “They’re totally lame.”
“So lame,” Layla echoed.
“But we really need some help, ya know? And Uncle Magnum’s always been so cool with us.” Brady sailed smoothly over the uncle endearment that made me want to gag. “And he always tells us he’s here for us if we need him, anytime.”
The guard’s scowl didn’t so much as waver at our sob story.
“Damn, we really shoulda texted him first,” Layla said. “And now I forgot my phone.”
We’d all “forgotten” our phones. A lie-rent or another of Magnum’s minions had probably placed a tracker in Bonnie. But we knew for a fact our phones were being tracked. No point making things any easier for them than they already were.
The guard arched a single brow, likely wondering how many groups of supposed teenagers would willingly leave their phones behind.
I leaned forward next to Layla: “We like taking regular tech breaks. Staring at screens too long’ll mess with your head. They’ve proven it leads to addictive behavior and can even affect intelligence levels.”
The guard’s one brow remained arched.
“Can’t you just call him?” Brady asked. “Tell him his nieces and nephews are here to see him?”
At the “nieces and nephews,” the guard’s lone brow lowered to join its companion.