* * * * *
An hour later, we all sat at the counter while Jerry strangled a bunch of receipts in his fists. “If I ever see A. Gist again, I’m going to have a baseball bat in my hands. I had no idea he was doing that to people. What are Dan and Sean’s parents going to think?”
I’d been wondering about that myself. At that moment I would’ve given anything to go back in time and take back that stupid toilet paper prank. Dan and Sean would still be here right now. But the portals in the Shadow Home World didn’t go back that far. I felt ready to pound the counter in frustration, and the now-familiar electricity raced down my arms. I shook them out before I accidentally set the Kool Spot on fire or something.
“Do you think they’ll come back after us?” Ryan asked. “We know too much now. We know what happened to Dan and Sean.” He choked up and stared down at the counter, unable to say any more. I couldn’t blame him. He’d known the two of them way better than I ever had and hung out with them a lot since his dad left.
I remembered something just then. “Penny—do you still have that book?”
She stood off the stool and stuffed her hands in her jeans pockets. “It’s here. Somehow it came back in time with us. Gabe said it was safe to look at it as long as we were human again. I guess that’s now.”
Ryan gripped the counter so hard his knuckles turned white. “Then we can see why Dan and Sean were stuck.”
Penny fished out the Book of Rules and Regulations. The blue A on the cover shined in the orange sunlight coming through the window. The four of us leaned forward to see. Dark blue print took up the whole inside cover. You couldn’t miss it or anything.
By Order of A. Gist
ALL NEW MEMBERS OF THE SHADOW REGIME ARE REQUIRED, ON OPENING THIS BOOK FOR THE FIRST TIME, TO READ THROUGH THE ENTIRE TEXT AND MEMORIZE ALL RULES, POLICIES, AND PROCEDURES, AND TO FOLLOW ALL RULES, POLICIES, AND PROCEDURES IN THIS TEXT. YOU ARE FORBIDDEN TO STOP READING THIS BOOK UNTIL YOU HAVE MEMORIZED ALL RULES.
“So that’s why we couldn’t open the book!” Penny stood up on the stool and flattened her hands on the counter. “If we had when we were Shadow Ones, we would have seen this order and been forced to follow it. You heard how Gabe said they don’t have any free will when A. Gist orders them to do something.”
“That’s—” Ryan clenched his fists in fury, “That’s just horrible. It’s a trap. When people get transformed they wake up and they’re scared, so the first thing they’re going to do is reach for this book, and then—”
“I almost opened my book,” I said. A chill swept over me at the thought. “I would’ve been totally doomed if Gabe hadn’t run in right then.”
Penny flipped through the Book of Rules and Regulations. I spotted rules about everything from dress codes (which was limited to jumpsuits and armor) to gum chewing and how much electricity could be used per day. I even saw a law forbidding Shadow Ones from dating humans. Wow, they had less freedom than the people they were trying to take it from. “So this is how A. Gist controls his minions,” Penny said. “Here’s something else.”
I leaned forward again, trying to read the shiny blue print in the sunlight.
Portal Usage
ALL SHADOW ONES ARE FORBIDDEN FROM USING ANY PORTAL FOR ANY PURPOSE, OR FROM OPERATING ANY PORTAL CONTROLS, UNLESS ORDERED TO BY A. GIST HIMSELF. ALL VIOLATORS WILL BE SUBJECT TO PROCEDURE NUMBER THIRTY-SEVEN (SEE PAGE 88.)
At last I understood. “That’s why Gabe couldn’t tell us anything. That’s why he said he couldn’t touch the controls.”
Penny’s eyebrows rose. “Exactly. We were able to break the rules because we didn’t know them. Gabe did find a loophole!”
I felt lost for words. I could only sit there at the counter and feel more grateful than I ever had towards Gabe Cruz. Which was an understatement.
“What’s Procedure Number Thirty-Seven?” Ryan asked in a shaky voice. “How many procedures do they have?”
“Imprisonment.” Penny turned another page in the book. “That’s just horrible. That prison that we saw—that’s for Shadow Ones that break rules somehow, or make A. Gist mad.”
“Gabe,” I said, balling my fists. “I hope he doesn’t get thrown in there. It’s bad enough he’s trapped in the Shadow Home World.”
“I wish there was something we could do.” Penny sniffed and closed the little book. “A. Gist is going to keep doing this to people. He won’t stop his war. I feel pretty sure he’ll be back after us.” She faced me. “And you still have that tracker on you.”
My heart sank. I rolled up my sleeve to take a look at it. “Yeah. It’s…gone?”
The blue A had disappeared. My skin looked bare, like it had never been there.
“How?” Ryan asked.
“No clue,” I said. “Maybe it wore off. Or maybe that—power—I had got rid of it.” Either way, I wasn’t going to complain.
“He’ll still come back,” Penny said, shaking her head. “I don’t know how long it’ll take. But I doubt he’ll be shut in the Shadow Home World forever.”
She was right. A. Gist would keep terrorizing people like us and keeping his cruel system in place. And he was going want revenge. We knew too much now.
“Maybe we can do something.” I said. “I don’t know what, but we have to try. If A. Gist is right, we’re the only three people to have ever escaped Procedure Number Twenty-Eight. We might be the only people in the world who know what’s been going on.”
“Except whoever put Gabe’s videos on the Internet,” Ryan added. “So we might not be the only ones.”
“Yeah, Rita, and we’ll have to find out why you have powers,” Jerry added, leaning back in his chair. “And yes, your parents did adopt you when you were about three months old. My Aunt Beverly found out years ago she couldn’t have kids, and she always wanted a daughter to do girl stuff with.”
Uh, oh. Major guilt trip. “So…so that’s why she always pesters me to get into fashion and makeup,” I said.
Jerry glanced down at the counter. “I think that’s it. Now that I think about it, maybe you should do something like that with her once in a while, even if you hate it. Humor her a bit. But don’t mention the adoption thing to her. They told me never to mention that fact to you. I don’t know from where they got you, though. We’ll have to find out all that stuff.”
I stood, overwhelmed by it all. The last Guardian, whatever that was. It was why I always had to stand up for my friends, and stand up to just about everything else. Maybe it even explained my big mouth. I sure didn’t get it from my parents. Well, the ones I had now.
I felt as if a mountain stood on my shoulders. The last of my kind. Gabe’s words swirled through my head. I know you can do something, Rita. But how was I supposed to make sure Procedure Number Twenty-Eight didn’t happen to anyone else? Or stop A. Gist’s war on teens? Still, I had to try. I couldn’t sit by, knowing what was going on.
“We have to end what’s happening,” I said. A slight electric thrum ran through my arms again. “I’m going to fight. I don’t know when he’s going to come after us again, but he will. I think this was just the start.”
Penny and Ryan stood too, deadly serious. “We’re in this with you,” Ryan said, looking back and forth. “We’ll help you fight him. I just lost two of my friends today, remember?”
“And we’ll help you find out where you came from,” Penny added. “We swear.”
Penny extended her hand, and Ryan put his hand over hers. I nodded to Jerry and slowly placed my hand over Ryan’s.
And right there in the middle of the Kool Spot, we swore on it.
# # #
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Also by Holly Hook
*Destroyers Series*
Tempest (Destroyers, Book One)
Inferno (Destroyers, Book Two)
Outbreak (Destroyers, Book Three)
Frostbite (Destroyers, Book Four)
*Rita Morse Series*
Rita Morse and the Sinister Shadow (Rita Morse, Book One)
Rita Morse and the Treacherous Traitor (Rita Morse, Book Two)
After These Messages (A Parody)
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