I pause.
The man with the onion stares at me, basically flabbergasted. That’s a word my mom would use, but it’s perfect: flabbergasted.
“Oh my glory.” The lady taps my wrist to make me stop wiping at the gooey batter. “We have to call the police.”
“No. We … His dad is a cop.” I am turning into such a good liar.
“That doesn’t matter,” she says. The pancake batter oozes into a pumpkin shape.
The guy with the knife goes, “Oh, yeah, it does, man. Those cops protect their own.”
Nobody says anything. Something on the grill sizzles. The room smells of onion and grease and eggs. It’s a comforting smell. I gently move my wrist out of her grip and stand up. “I am so sorry. I am really super sorry about the mess. I just, I just have to get out of here. Is there a back door or some window I can go through?”
The woman nods and stands up, too. The man gestures toward the back of the room. There is a tiny metal door squished next to the giant stainless steel refrigerators and some piled-up cardboard boxes. “Right through there. You want me to go out there and talk to him, honey? A guy who hits don’t deserve a looker like you.”
“A guy who hits doesn’t deserve anyone,” the woman says. She blows hair that has escaped out of her bandanna, trying to move it off of her face without actually touching it. “And no fighting, Billy. You’re on probation.”
He brings the knife down, slicing the onion into two parts. “It’d be worth it.”
“No,” I say. “I’m good. Thank you, though.”
I start through the kitchen and almost get all the way to the door, rushing without rushing, if that makes sense, before I remember to say, “Thank you for being so nice. I am so exceptionally sorry I broke the ceiling.”
“No big,” Billy says. “Stuff happens.”
Yes, it does.
CHAPTER 15
A couple minutes later and I’m fast-walking down River Street, getting sicker and sicker to my stomach with every freaking step I take. Aliens. Mom is missing. Probably my dad is missing, too. Someone—something—was impersonating my best friend, or has brainwashed him, or whatever. And I have nowhere to go. I check my cell phone. Nothing. No signal.
The world is dreary, and suddenly way more dangerous than it seemed two days ago, when I was just trying to deal with crappy classes and a computer-science question that was totally beyond me because it was about binary and I missed school the day we originally did binary, which should be the easiest lesson of all. That doesn’t matter now.
The guy on the roof said to trust Lyle and not China. Was that because they had already done something to him or with him? Was it all just a big trap, and was Pierce in on it? What the heck?
I wish there were still pay phones around. I could call Seppie, even though Lyle and I didn’t want to put her in danger by involving her—if that was even Lyle. Wait. When did Lyle stop being normal? Did he eat pizza with me as normal Lyle? Did he run through the compound? Comfort me at Dad’s apartment? Because I totally thought we had a moment there. Was that even him in the back of China’s truck? I think … I think it was … Right? I try to remember when things started to seem off.
It doesn’t matter. Or, it does, but I can’t dwell on it. Right now I need to figure out a way to get help. Seppie will think I am completely whacked at first, but I’m sure she’ll believe me eventually, and she’ll have advice. She always has advice. So how to reach her? My cell is obviously being blocked. Probably traced, too. Okay … I need a stranger … a random, nice stranger who would loan someone covered in ceiling dust his or her phone.
Today in Nashua, New Hampshire, seems like the kind of day when families and single people sort of straggle about and do errands. They go see movies and buy groceries for the week. They do home-improvement projects and make trips to the hardware store. They go to dance lessons. These are the people I pass by as I trot away from the diner and deeper into this little city. Normally, I would trust any of them. Just locate a sweet-seeming mom type person and ask for help. But how do I know who is one of them?
People stare at me funny. A man in a yellow windbreaker lifts his chin at me like I will contaminate him somehow. These guys in skater clothes jostle each other with their elbows and whisper. Their eyes are right on me. I must look like a survivor of a zombie apocalypse.
I round the corner, shivering, and come out onto Main Street, and there he is, standing by the entrance to Apple Tree Books. His hair is all mussed from the wind and his cheeks are red. Lyle? Not Lyle? Crap. I pivot and run back the way I came, but he’s seen me. His feet pound on the sidewalk behind me.
“Mana! Wait up!”
I do not wait. I rush forward, sprinting as fast as I can. My arms pump to get up speed. Lyle races after me, yelling, “China! I found her! I got her!”
Don’t trust him. The memory of the warning echoes in my head.
Don’t trust who?
Lyle gets my arm, because he’s always been a faster runner, the fastest runner ever. I whirl around, angry, scared. I pound my hands into his chest. “You are not Lyle.”
“What?”
“You are not Lyle,” I scream. “Get away! Get away from me!”
He wraps his arms around me, pushing me against him, for some reason. Maybe to keep me from hitting him, maybe to keep me from running away. His chest is hard against my face. His T-shirt smells a little sweaty but not like pine—more like mint. The zipper of his coat pokes at my ear.
People have stopped walking. A twentysomething woman in a camouflage coat has whipped out her cell, which I totally could have used three minutes ago. She’s probably calling the police.
“Mana. Mana! She’s—it’s okay,” he says as I flail. “It’s me. It’s Lyle.”
Stopping the struggle because I’m not getting anywhere, I still myself and say softly, “How do I know?”
“What?” His voice is an exasperated confused question.
“How do I know? How do I know you’re Lyle?” My heart pounds against my chest—a thousand beats a second, it feels like.
He loosens his hold a little bit so we can really examine each other. His eyebrows lift high. “Mana. What is up? You know I’m Lyle.”
I shake my head hard, over and over again, like I’m trying to get it off my body. Then I realize I’m doing it and how weird it must seem. “No, you’re not. Lyle is a vegetarian. Lyle does not try to impress people with big words, because he is not pretentious like that, and Lyle knows that his mother is not mellow, and he doesn’t get winded, and he smells good.”
“Of course I’m a vegetarian.”
Footsteps pound up behind Lyle. I peek. China’s face is ruddy and worried. His eyes close a little as he glowers at me and demands, “What is going on?”
“She doesn’t think I’m me, or … I’m not sure what it is,” Lyle says to him. “She ran from me.”
I struggle against him, try to force my way out of his arms.
“Let her go,” China commands him. “People are watching.”
At the same time that Lyle lets go, China opens his arms up like a man surrendering. His voice comes out solid and calm. “Can you tell me what happened?”
I back up a step, scrutinizing him for clues. “How do I know you’re China?”
“You don’t.” He says this like it is totally normal, all flat-toned and passive. I have no idea how Mom can stand to work with him—he’s so blah and cocky all at once.
“Great,” I mutter. A siren starts up again. A bus rumbles down the street.
A woman yells, “Miss! You okay?”
I can’t think of how to answer her, the nice woman who wants to help but can’t. Nobody can. I’m alone.
“She’s fine!” China uses his authoritative military voice. He walks toward the woman and flashes his wallet. There must be a badge in there. “She’s a runaway. All fine now. No worries. Move on. Thank you for your concern.”
The woman and a couple other people stare at him, then nod and walk away
slowly, checking over their shoulders as China returns to Lyle and me. A UPS truck rumbles by. Some cars slosh up the wet rainy-snow mixture on the road. It splats on the sidewalk.
“I can prove I’m Lyle,” Lyle says. His arms cross over his chest and he hops on the balls of his feet. Everything about him appears, quite frankly, adorable. But so did Not Lyle. And this could still be Not Lyle. But he’s not winded, this one. Whichever one it is says, “I have no idea why I have to prove it, but I will.”
I nod. “Go ahead.”
“Okay…” He thinks for a second. “I love Doctor Who.”
“Anyone who has gone in your room knows that.”
“Okay…”
“We need to hurry up,” China says. He checks all the windows above us, then the alleys, just like a cop in a TV show would. “It’s not safe out here.”
Lyle snaps at him. “I’m thinking! Shut up. Give me a second. Okay. Oh! I used to sleep with my sonic screwdriver, and one day you came up to me and asked if you could be my TARDIS.”
“What?” China snorts. “Who is that?”
“Doctor Who’s time machine thing,” I tell him, but I am studying Lyle. “You remember that?”
He blushes. “I remember lots of stuff about you.”
“You do?”
“Absolutely.”
China grabs Lyle’s arm and mine. “Great. Let’s play violins and sing the love song later. I’ve got to get you two somewhere safe.” He points at me. “And you have to figure out where your mom would hide that chip.”
I lock my knees so he has to drag me along Amherst Road. “Nope. No way. I am not going with you. How do I even know you’re good?”
“What?”
“I’m serious. How am I supposed to know if you really are my mom’s partner? She never mentioned you.”
Lyle cocks his head. “Mana?”
I can feel the anger coming off of China. It is waves of heat and impatience. It is a clenched fist, a kicked-in door.
“What?” he manages to sputter.
“Mana,” Lyle starts. “He hid us from the Men in Black. He brought us to the headquarters and everything.”
“I know … but maybe those Men in Black aren’t bad.” My voice falters. “Um … although one did actually shoot at me on the roof. Then he warned me about China. So shooting me would not be a nice-person thing to do, and he probably wouldn’t just change his ways to be nice and warn me, so the warning was probably a deception to tell me not to trust China and to trust Lyle instead, because they had already made a duplicate you or brainwashed you, and um … okay…”
Crap.
Lyle swears and China whips around to take both my arms in his. “Are you managing?”
“Yes,” I say. “I think so. It’s just…” I sigh. “Agh … This is so strange. My head hurts from thinking. It just hurts so much.”
Lyle moves China out of the way and pulls me into a Lyle hug, which is what Seppie and I always call them. It’s like a bear hug but skinnier. “Okay, Mana. You’re going through a lot, but think about it this way: Dakota Dunham was a total ass who shot acid at you, right?”
“Right.”
“So, you don’t trust him. China captured him. That’s a bonus point for China’s trustworthiness. Right?”
I say it again. “Right.”
Lyle keeps on hugging me. “And then the Windigo thing in your house obviously wanted to kill us. Bad. China helped get us away.”
“Sort of after the fact.”
“True, but still,” Lyle says persuasively.
It makes sense. “But we never saw the Men in Black do anything.”
China grumbles like this is all getting on his nerves. “Your mother said you were smart.”
Lyle lets go of me. “She is smart.”
“Then why isn’t she acting it?”
“Because it’s a lot to handle!”
They square off. Lyle does a lot of finger-pointing and China’s hands are loose and fluid, as if he’s not really threatened at all, or is trying hard to seem superior and too macho for any of this. But that muscle twitching in his jaw is pretty revealing. I’m sure that he’s at least a little pissed. Even though he isn’t puny at all, Lyle is so much smaller than China in the muscle-mass department—runner body versus steroid body—but right now he gives the impression that he is just as dangerous and angry. He’s angry for me.
“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s … I’m not telling you something.”
Even though my voice is quiet, they both hear me, and they both turn to face me. Lyle’s face softens, but it’s China I address. “Before the man on the roof shot me, I heard a voice in my head telling me not to trust you.”
“You did?”
“Yes. And he told me to trust Lyle, not you, but the voice sounded exactly like Lyle’s voice. And then in the restaurant…”
I don’t finish. I wasn’t supposed to tell China about the voices. That’s what Pierce said.
China doesn’t even flinch. He just says, “What happened in the restaurant?”
I tell them about Not Lyle. I even tell them about the workers in the kitchen. I tell them everything except for what Pierce said.
When I’m done, China grimaces. “This is my fault.”
We’re still standing on Amherst Road, but we’ve moved to a doorway. Its granite recess blocks us from most of the cars that go by. You would have to really be studying the entire area, and possibly squinting, in order to see us.
“How is it your fault?” I ask.
“I went to the wrong roof.” He sighs, rubbing a hand through his hair.
“The roof next door,” Lyle elaborates. He shudders in the cold and runs his hands up and down his arms. “The original roof at your dad’s apartment building. He went there and realized we were both missing. Then he backtracked and found me in your dad’s bathroom.”
“Wait. What were you doing in there?” I take this information in. “Why did nobody call me?”
“They blocked your cell signal.”
“So they can do that.” I was right about that, at least.
“Half the time you get ‘network busy’ signals, that’s them. I knew we were in trouble when I couldn’t get through. They obviously wanted you to doubt me and trust Lyle, because they had already copied him.”
“Copied him?” I stutter. “Not just brainwashed? I mean, I know I sort of understand this, but part of my brain is just imploding as I try to think about it.”
“Didn’t you two read the alien species files? You sat there for hours.” China’s lips are thin.
“How did they copy me?” Lyle asks. “I wish I could have seen that.”
“With perception filters and a shape-shifting alien. They’re the Wores. Very dangerous. They knocked you out in the bathroom, copied you, must have tried to use telepathy on Mana here,” China explains. “You read the file.”
My jaw tightens. I feel like there’s iron in my bones. “I hate them.”
China nods. “That’s normal.”
“We have got to get that stupid chip,” I say. “We have got to get it now. This is bigger than just my mom, and it has to end. We cannot have eight hundred million Lyles running around and my cell blocked so nobody can text me.”
China starts laughing.
“What?”
“You.” He snorts. “Texting … Eight hundred million Lyles … You crack me up. Bigger than your mom.”
Whatever.
CHAPTER 16
I basically know three things at this point:
1. We have absolutely no idea where the chip is.
2. It is impossible to not worry about your missing mother, especially if she has been abducted by aliens or their minions. Add your dad into the equation and your heart rate increases to twenty-five thousand beats per minute.
3. Being with China and Lyle is driving me absolutely insane.
Oh, sorry. There is another thing I now know:
4. Once you see a hot guy spit acid, get
chased by a Windigo, read aliens’ thoughts, leap around like a parkour hero, and meet an evil doppelgänger of your best friend, it is easy to accept that anything is possible.
* * *
China buys a new car at a local dealership, hauling out a massive wad of cash from some inner pocket of his leather jacket.
The Jeep salesman basically drools all over his bright yellow tie, which is way too short to be professional-looking. Poor guy. He flips through the cash. “Is this legal?”
“Absolutely,” China says. He flashes a confident-man smile, like he’s some sort of movie star or real estate tycoon. The Jeep salesman totally buys it, although, to be fair, he does keep giving me these peculiar side glances.
“It’s because your pants are soaked,” Lyle says. “Are you cold?”
“Uh, a little…”
“You’re not okay, are you? You’re just trying to be okay.” Lyle cocks his head to the side, seeming very much his normal, attractive self.
“Pretty much.” I’m glad he was still him at the compound and at my dad’s, at least before the bathroom altercation. And I’m glad he wasn’t actually hurt, just unconscious. I’m glad that China found him. I’m glad he was the one who chose to hug me so many times, to hold my hand, to … Are those stress responses? Or does he like me? Like me in a way that’s not as a best friend?
I wonder for a minute what he would do if I just tried to kiss him. If I just took his hand, instead of him grabbing mine.
We prop ourselves against the chilly wall of the showroom while China and the salesman bend over a big, iron desk, filling out paperwork in a tiny side office. There’s a giant window, so even when the worker is at his desk he can see the cars on the showroom floor, and any potential buyers. The cars are so shiny compared to the dingy, gray, wet world outside.
Lyle takes my hand in his just as I’m thinking about taking his, which feels awkward and perfect. His fingers are much thicker than mine and they bend so that his fingertips touch the skin on the back of my hand. I shiver.
“See?” he says. “You are cold.”
That’s not actually the kind of shiver that I was shivering, but I don’t say anything because he keeps right on talking.