The Calling Read online

  "Guys!" Hayley shouted outside. "Wait up! Please, don't leave me here."

  Corey ran for the side door. Daniel caught him, hauling him back. Corey took a swing at him. Daniel ducked and wrenched Corey's arm behind his back.

  "She did this for us," Daniel hissed. "Don't blow it or she's given herself up for nothing. She'll be okay. We'll get her back."

  Corey hesitated. Then he dropped his chin, and let Daniel steer him toward the trapdoor. Sam and I followed. I won't say I didn't glance over at that side door. I won't say I didn't feel like a heartless bitch, listening to them chase Hayley, knowing they would catch her and hold her captive, like Nicole. But Daniel was right. She'd made this sacrifice for us, and she hadn't done it hoping we'd all be taken captive with her.

  TWENTY

  DANIEL OPENED THE trapdoor leading into the crawl space, then prodded us inside, whispering "Move, move!" Sam and I burrowed past the boxes. Corey was right behind us. Then the front door opened, bell jangling.

  Daniel jumped in, still holding the broken latch, and closed the trapdoor as one set of footsteps circled the shop. They stopped at the storage room door. Daniel tensed, ready to leap if the trapdoor opened.

  "Clear!" Moreno yelled.

  The steps crossed the store. The bell sounded again.

  "Get in farther," Daniel whispered. "We need to hide better."

  "Didn't you hear him?" Corey whispered. "We're clear."

  "They'll look outside some more. Then they'll come back in."

  The guys shifted the boxes, then we crawled in behind them. It was far from an ideal hiding spot. The crawl space wasn't even three feet deep. Dirt floor. I didn't want to think about what else was alive--or dead--down here. I twisted around and stretched out on my stomach. Sam huddled beside me, hugging her knees.

  The guys wiggled backward to us, as they moved the boxes and cases of beer, stacking them so we were hidden.

  How long should we wait? That was the question. Finally Sam asked it out loud

  "Until we think it's safe," I whispered.

  "Then twenty minutes more," Daniel said. "To be sure."

  When it finally seemed as if anyone searching for us had to be gone, I told Corey to check his watch. He was just doing that when I heard the sound of the front doorbells.

  Footsteps followed. Still only one set. Again they circled the shop.

  "Definitely empty," Moreno said. "They've got to be out there."

  A voice came through his radio. Then the door bells jangled again.

  "They're trying to use the dog." It was Antone. "But she's not cooperating. She just lays down and growls at anyone who touches her."

  Good girl.

  "Well, there's no one in here," Moreno said. "What we really need is the Enwright witch's sensing spell and a werewolf tracker."

  "Preaching to the choir, buddy. I've been hounding head office for two days now. They finally agreed to send the witch. No chance on a werewolf, though."

  The door to the back room opened.

  "What have we here?" Moreno murmured. A creak as he opened the trapdoor. Light filtered past the stacked boxes.

  "Got something?" Antone called.

  "Nah, just storage for the booze."

  "Well, check it out."

  Moreno chuckled. "Happy to, boss."

  We held our breath as he pushed aside a beer case. I glanced over at Daniel. He had his eyes closed. Sweat shone on his forehead. His lips moved as he tried to mentally persuade Moreno that he'd looked hard enough.

  Let it work. Please let it work.

  Moreno hesitated. Then he backed out and yelled. "Just boxes. You want a beer?"

  I didn't hear what Antone said, but Moreno laughed and let the trapdoor fall shut. The bells over the door jangled a few minutes later. Daniel checked his watch. After twenty minutes, he helped me crawl forward, open the hatch, and listen.

  "Nothing," I whispered.

  "Give it another five minutes."

  We did. Then I insisted on going first to check. I crept to one of the broken front windows, listened hard, then peered out.

  The yard looked empty. I checked the side window. Same thing. I glanced back toward the storage room.

  Hayley had made her sacrifice. Time for me to do the same.

  I went out the side door. Looked around. Circled the building. Nothing. I took a deep breath and walked to the road, shoulders up, gaze forward, tensing for the first shout. Or the first shot.

  When nothing happened, I looked around for Kenjii. Even whistled softly. They'd taken her. I pushed down a stab of panic. She'd be fine. If that man wanted to prove he was on my side, he'd take good care of my dog.

  I looked both ways along the road. Empty.

  When I went back into the store, Daniel was out of the crawl space.

  "All clear," I said as I walked in.

  "You shouldn't have gone outside."

  "Yes, I should have. Better one gets caught than all of us. That's how it has to be from now on. As long as one gets home, we all have a chance."

  He nodded. I gathered supplies from the store as he got the others. I took two incredibly overpriced backpacks, too. And, no, I didn't pay for them. Daniel didn't mention it, either.

  It was one thing to worry about that when we thought we were nearly to safety, but another when it looked like we still had a very long journey ahead of us.

  We hadn't talked about Hayley yet, or what we planned to do. For now, we just needed to put some distance between us and the store, in case they returned.

  As we walked, I pulled out the newspaper I'd found.

  "Getting caught up on current events?" Sam asked.

  "No," Corey said. "She's doing her research for that essay we have due next week. You know Maya. Escaping a forest fire, helicopter crash, and crazed would-be kidnappers is no reason to ask for an extension."

  "I'm sure she brought it for fire-starter, guys." Daniel glanced over. "Maya..."

  My gaze was glued to the article as I read. When I tripped over a fallen branch, Daniel grabbed my arm and steered me to the side. Then he read the headline over my shoulder.

  "Is that...?"

  I nodded. I tried to explain, but the words wouldn't come. I handed him the paper. He finished reading it.

  "That's not...?" he murmured when he finished. "How...?"

  "Okay, what gives?" Corey said. "Personally, I wouldn't care if the U.S. declared war on Canada. Doesn't seem relevant under the circumstances."

  "This is relevant." I passed the paper to him and Sam.

  They read the first few lines.

  "How can they...?" Sam began. "That's not possible."

  "Well, apparently, it is," I said. "They lost contact with our helicopter shortly after takeoff. Our flight disappeared. Search crews found the wreck last night."

  "South of Vancouver Island?" Corey said. "Okay, my sense of location can be a little screwy, but that's not where we went down."

  "It was found by a private search party," I said. "Hired by our parents' employer. Someone retrieved enough wreckage to move there and convince people that's where we went down. They recovered the bodies of the pilot and Mayor Tillson."

  "I get that. But this?" Sam jabbed her finger at the middle of the article. "This is not possible."

  Wreckage and two corpses wasn't all they found. They'd recovered Kenjii, too, apparently. That wasn't tough to fake--no one's going to test a dog. But the article said they'd also recovered DNA evidence that confirmed the death of the seven teenagers on board.

  "But how the hell do you pull off something like that?" Sam said.

  "They have our DNA," I said. "They must have made it seem like the crash was worse than it was, that there wasn't..."

  "Much left of us," Daniel said. "Enough to provide DNA, but not enough to show our parents."

  "Hold on," Corey said. "Isn't there one massive flaw in this logic? The search team belonged to the St. Clouds. They have our DNA. They could convince our parents we were dead. But the
y aren't the ones we're running from and they aren't the ones who found the wreck."

  "They've cut a deal," I said.

  "And cut us loose," Daniel murmured as he worked it out. "There are other kids in this experiment. Probably our whole class. This Nast Cabal discovered the experiment. The St. Clouds realized it. So they negotiated."

  I nodded. "We 'die' and the Nasts get to keep us, if they can find us. The St. Clouds get the rest of the kids. They already had one project blow up on them. They weren't about to lose another."

  "So they negotiated?" Corey said. "Using us?"

  "Apparently that's all we are to them. Assets. Valuable ones, but not worth sacrificing the whole experiment for."

  "So we can't go back to Salmon Creek," Sam said. "If we do, they'll just turn us over."

  "The St. Clouds will. Our parents won't." I looked around. "Does anyone doubt that?"

  Daniel said, carefully, "I'm not sure my dad wouldn't ... let them have me."

  "I don't believe that." I wasn't so sure, but I certainly wasn't saying so. "But he won't be the one we'll approach. My parents would be best--I'm sure they knew nothing about this. Corey's mom is fine, too. And Mrs. Tillson isn't going to hand over Sam and Nicole to the people who killed her husband."

  "Okay, so we still go back--" Corey began.

  He stopped, wincing.

  "Headache?" I said.

  "Yeah, just hold--" He doubled over with a sharp intake of breath.

  I grasped his arm. "Corey?"

  "Bad one," he panted. "Okay, just--"

  He let out a howl, his head dropping forward, his hands clutching it. Then he retched. Another heave, and a geyser of Coke sprayed the bushes.

  I gripped his arm and tugged him until he was sitting, knees up, head between them, panting hard.

  "Well, that's new," Corey muttered between gasps. "And I don't think I like it."

  He winced again, face screwed up against the pain as he doubled over.

  "Okay," I said. "Just breathe and keep your eyes shut. The sunlight's probably making it worse."

  "That would help ... if I wasn't seeing light even with them shut."

  "What?"

  "I'm getting flashes of--" A few panting breaths. "Light. Color. Could use a sound track."

  "You're seeing things?"

  He shook his head. "You get visions. I just get random--" Another curse as the pain hit again. "Flashes. Boring flashes."

  Daniel knelt and held out a bottle. I thought it was pop, then saw the label.

  "Beer?" I said.

  "It helps. I knew his meds had dissolved, so I grabbed a few from the store."

  Corey took it and twisted off the cap. A few gulps. Then a deep breath as he relaxed. Another long drink, then a sidelong glance at me.

  "Yes, I'm self-medicating with booze and I know that's not smart. I wouldn't do it if I had the meds."

  "So beer ... helps?"

  He shrugged. "Not as good as the meds. I've still got a killer headache. But it doesn't feel like an icepick driving into my skull."

  I looked over at Daniel. His eyes were dark with worry. If these weren't just migraines--if they were linked to the experiments--we had no idea how to handle them. No idea if they were a normal part of Corey getting his powers or a sign that something was wrong.

  Corey finished the bottle, then closed his eyes. "The puking was new. And the pain was worse. The flashing lights are a recent symptom." He opened one eye. "See, I said I get all the cool powers. Raging migraines cured by booze. I really will be that guy in a bar--"

  The sound of a revving engine made us all look up. We'd been walking parallel to the road. but deep enough in the bush not to be spotted by anyone driving past. This noise sounded like an ATV. We hid, and it passed, went a little farther, then stopped.

  "Moreno to base. Moreno to base."

  Someone answered.

  Moreno gave his coordinates, then said, "Still no sign of the Morris girl. She can't have run far, though. I'll keep looking."

  The ATV started up again.

  "Hayley escaped," Corey said.

  "You heard that?" I said.

  "Um, yeah. We all did."

  "Because we were supposed to," Daniel said. "He was talking too loud. He even turned off the ATV so his voice would carry better."

  "Because he's talking into a radio," Corey said.

  "I bet if we keep going, we'll hear him do the same thing a little farther down. It's another trap."

  Corey looked at me.

  "It ... sounds like it," I said. "But if it's a good trap, then they really did let Hayley go. She's out here as bait."

  "So you think you can outsmart them and rescue her?" Sam said. "No, the smart thing to do is keep going."

  We argued about that, of course.

  Finally I said, "I'm going to look for her. Just me."

  "We can't--" Daniel began.

  "I've got the super-powered hearing, and I can move quietly. I need to try."

  TWENTY-ONE

  AS I MADE MY way through the forest, I'll admit I was also straining for a familiar bark or whine. I hadn't said a word about Kenjii since leaving the store. How could I without making it sound like I put her on the same level as Hayley.

  I love animals, but I know they aren't people. I can't value them the same way. But that didn't mean I wasn't sick at heart over Kenjii. So as I walked through those woods, I was listening for her as much as I was listening for Hayley.

  It was Hayley I heard, though. Stomping on dead leaves. Muttering under her breath. Kicking aside fallen branches.

  Signs of a trap? Or just Hayley, pissed off because she'd escaped and there was no one around to rescue her?

  A few days ago, I'd have gone with option two. Now, though, I couldn't see Hayley being so careless.

  I shimmied up a tree and waited for her to pass my way. But once she got close enough for me to see her through the branches, she sat down to rest. When she didn't come closer, I started crawling along a branch, planning to cross to the next tree.

  She started to look up, then caught herself, waited a moment, gave a loud sigh and slumped back against the trunk, giving her an excuse to look up.

  I waited until she looked up, then bent to catch her gaze. She held mine and mouthed "trap," ending it with a yawn to fool anyone watching.

  I looked around. I might still be able to rescue her. Whoever was watching couldn't be too close.

  Hayley rose a couple of inches from the ground, rubbed her butt, and scowled, as if she'd sat on a root or a rock. She got up and made some noise, kicking the ground then shaking a young oak, dead leaves rustling. In other words, assuring her captors that she was trying to attract our attention. Then she walked beneath my tree and sat down again.

  She picked up a stick and began idling poking around a patch of bare earth. Then she wrote "Don't be stupid." She erased it, doodled a bit, then wrote, "I'm fine."

  I hesitated, but she was right. It was a trap and my chances of foiling it were slim to none. If I got caught, could I trust Daniel not to come after me? No. Could I trust Corey and Sam to make it to safety alone? No.

  Finally, I shimmied back along the branch to the trunk. As the needles rustled, Hayley nodded. Then she wrote, "Thanks for trying," rubbed it smooth, got up, and walked away.

  Hayley had sacrificed her freedom so we could escape. She'd refused to let me try to rescue her. If someone told me a week ago that Hayley Morris would do this, I'd have said he was crazy. Or naive, because clearly she had an ulterior motive.

  Had she changed? I didn't think so. The answer was simpler: I'd been wrong about her.

  If I'd had a nemesis at school, Hayley was it. Always insulting me. Always challenging me. Always doing her best to run me down, while I'd stood firm and refused to stoop to her level.

  Clearly, she was the aggressor and I was the victim. Only ... well, it hadn't started out that way. Back in grade five, I'd caught her cheating. I hadn't tattled. Maybe, in retrospect, that would
have been better, because what I did instead was make it very clear that I wanted nothing more to do with her.

  When you accept a leadership role, you take on extra responsibility for your actions toward others. If you shun someone, the effect will trickle down through those who value your opinion. It wasn't as if Hayley was an outcast. She had her friends, and she was the queen of the "pretty girl" clique. In a bigger school, that would have been enough. In Salmon Creek, it wasn't.

  I remembered what she said about flirting with Rafe to make Corey jealous. I remembered, too, what Rafe had said. That Corey might make out with Hayley at parties, when he could claim he was just drunk and horny, but he'd never actually date her, because his friends--namely Daniel and me--didn't get along with her. I'd told myself Hayley had been using Corey, too--he was her backup when no summer boys were around. Now, knowing she'd wanted to make him jealous, I realized I'd been wrong.

  I'd been wrong about a lot of things. Not just Hayley. I'd misjudged Rafe. Nicole, too. I'd been so sure of my judgments that I'd never questioned them even when the evidence suggested I was wrong.

  I'd always thought of myself as an open-minded person. I had no patience with anyone who put down other kids because of their race, religion, or sexuality. But that's just one kind of open-mindedness. There's another kind, too, the kind that's willing to see people for who they really are and admit when you were wrong about them. That's the part I still need to work on.

  I climbed down the tree and started making my way back to the others. I had to put aside my worries for now. Our pursuers could be anywhere. I needed to be careful.

  When I was almost back, I heard branches snap as someone barreled through the woods.

  I ducked behind a fallen tree. A dark shape sprang, then stopped short, just out of sight. A whine.

  Kenjii.

  I nudged aside branches until I could see her. She was still wearing the muzzle. A length of rope trailed behind her.

  I closed my eyes to listen for the sound of anyone else. More twigs snapped as Kenjii caught my scent and raced around the fallen tree.

  I grabbed her and held her close, whispering, "Shhh," as I kept looking and listening.

  Kenjii nudged me, as if to say, That's no welcome.

  I pulled the rope in. The end wasn't broken, as I'd hoped, but as I ran it through my fingers I saw red smears. I took a better look. Blood. Someone had been holding her and Kenjii had wrenched so hard she'd scraped the skin from his hands as she broke free.