Dagger

Vírus não detectado. A seqüência da destruição terminou.

  The warning sirens snuffed out.

  The destruction of the necklace had eradicated the virus and terminated the countdown.

  I set a deep breath free and slumped against the desk.

  Through the laser grid, I watched the bats writhe, limbs twisting, body hair receding, fangs retracting, until they molded into their human selves again.

  Carrot Top assisted Agostinho to his feet, and the two of them joined the others in their exodus down the hallway. They stumbled, clung to each other in their confusion, their bodies battered and bloodied. But at least they were still alive.

  Most of them.

  The Ghost Cop faded into the ether, taking its prisoners to whatever hell awaited them.

  It was all over.

  I picked up the package from the floor. All this destruction for what amounted to an old book. I read the inscription on the hermetically-sealed parcel.

  Il Evanidus: Poseidonis Project

  There was movement in the corner of the room. A silhouette stepped into view.

  My heart leaped.

  He stood there, looking different than I remembered. Taller. His face harder, more edgy. A scar ran down his left cheek. But it was him. Not a teenager anymore, but a man. He was clad completely in black, with a matching vest and boots. His brown hair pulled away from his face in a ponytail. A satchel hung across his shoulder, and a firearm was strapped to his pant leg. He wore a harness, connected to a long cord that trailed upward toward the vaulted ceiling and into a dark square opening where a panel had been removed. So that’s how he’d come in without my noticing. He’d bypassed the laser grid.

  “Phillipe,” I found my voice at last.

  “Hello, little brother. It’s been a while.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I blinked the moisture from me eyes. “Yes. Yes it has.” I couldn’t swallow. My heart was running a marathon. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

  A montage of my training at DUST, all the missions, all the death I’d faced, the lies to my friends, raced through my mind.

  But one question burned. The question I was terrified to voice, but couldn’t live without asking. The question that would decide whether I’d rush to embrace him or flee.

  Or kill.

  “Heinrich. He told me …” my voice choked. “Is it true?”

  He moved closer. “Dagger. It’s not that simple.”

  His words burned through me. He hadn’t denied it. I backed away. I was trembling. Rage and heartbreak coursed through my blood.

  I tapped my comlink. Still nothing but static. “You’re the one that jammed my coms,” I hissed.

  Phillipe nodded. “I needed to talk. Just the two of us. Like we used to.”

  “You mean before you betrayed our family and turned evil?” I spat.

  He raised a gun and pointed the barrel at the package clutched in my hand. “Give it to me.”

  My mind was officially blown. “You’re a part of this. The Reich. Everything. Heinrich wasn’t lying. I can’t believe I’ve wasted the last few years of my life, put myself through hell, for a scumbag like you.” The tears flowed freely now. My guts squirmed. I felt like I was going to throw up my very life essence. “I hate you.”

  “Do you think it’s a coincidence you can do the things you do? Take on ghuls? Faeries? Why do you think DUST recruited you? It’s in your blood, Dagger. In our blood. And you hold the key in your hands.”

  He moved closer. “Join forces with me, little brother. It’s the only real option you have left.”

  His hands moved toward the book. I didn’t resist. I was so tired. It would be so easy to let him take it.

  Something glistened around his neck.

  It was the amulet I’d found at the Treatment Center. The amulet someone had stolen after jamming a needle into me. It dangled from Phillipe’s neck, taunting me with my utter naiveté.

  “It was you. You’re the one who injected me with God knows what. You stole that from me.” I backed away, clutching the book against my chest.

  “I needed to prepare you first. Before I came to you.”

  I looked this stranger dead in the eyes. “My brother died five years ago.” I stepped back against the shattered arched window, ignoring the shards of glass cutting into my bare feet. I was numb.

  “Dagger, no” he yelled lurching forward to grab me.

  I let myself drop through the window frame, falling for what seemed like forever until I plunged into the blackness of the night sea. The dark liquid was soothing, and I curled into a fetal position, giving into the quiet solace of the ocean’s womb.

  Hands grabbed me and pulled me to the surface, hauling me onto the deck of a speedboat. The package fell from my hands and onto the floor.

  “You’re going to be okay, buddy, hang in there.” Aristede said, setting me down on a cot on the starboard side. He tapped his ear. “Base Ops, our asset has been retrieved. Package acquired. We’re heading home.”

  He swaddled me in blankets, pulled me close. “Dagger, stay with me.” His voice sounded like it was coming from a long tunnel.

  I stayed silent while Aristede rubbed my body, trying to stop me from shivering.

  But my tremors had nothing to do with the cold Atlantic.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “God, that feels great, Marco.” I sighed, cradled the back of my head in my hands, and fell back against the pillow.

  His warm hands enveloped my foot. “Reflexology is a great way to relieve tension.”

  “Mmm. I’ll say.”

  We’d spent practically the entire night lounging on opposite sides of his bed, cramming for a physics test. Just me and Marco. Cass and Alexei’d spent the evening at her dorm, having a cram session of their own. Though what they were cramming and how hard was anyone’s guess.

  Marco took hold of my other foot. “There are a bunch of pressure points in the feet that are connected to other parts of the body.”

  As if to demonstrate, he squeezed one part of my foot and rubbed it, sending a wave of bliss coursing through my legs. I closed my eyes, feeling the tension seep out my pores. No DUST. No Phillipe. And definitely no Alexei.

  No sooner had I pictured Alexei’s face then one of those pressure points Marco was triggering in my foot sent a pleasurable signal directly into my bad place. Uh-oh. My eyelids weren’t the only things popping up. “You don’t have to keep doing that, you know. I mean, I appreciate it and all, but you must be getting tired.” I folded my hands strategically over my lap.

  “That’s okay. I really enjoy it.” His hands continued to work my feet. Then his eyes met mine. “So why don’t you tell me what’s really going on? I know something’s bothering you. You haven’t been yourself for the past couple days.”

  My muscles tensed. More like a week, to be precise. Ever since the night I’d been blindsided in Brazil. I’d been on temporary leave from DUST since handing over Il Evanidus, my reward for a job well done. No one knew about my encounter with Phillipe and I planned to keep it that way. I wasn’t ready to deal, so I’d filed it away. Instead, I’d immersed myself in school, which gave me even more time to focus on Alexei and what his deal was. A no win situation all around.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I finally said. “Just the same ‘ole shit.” I propped myself up on my elbows. “My mom. School. The usual.”

  “Are you sure it doesn’t have anything to do with Alexei?”

  I glanced at my hands. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m not stupid, Dagger. I’ve seen the way you look at him. It reminds me of the way I— the way I feel when I’m around someone I really like.” Now he was gently kneading each of my toes.

  As uncomfortable as this conversation was making me, it was doing wonders in relieving some of the tension I was feeling in certain areas. I safely uncrossed my hands from my lap. “Cassie’s really into Alexei. And he looks like he’s really into her. That would make him off limits,
right?” Who was I really trying to convince here?

  Marco’s blue eyes darkened like the ocean reflecting a sudden intrusion of clouds. “Sometimes we want what we can’t have.”

  “Or what we shouldn’t want.”

  “What do you mean?” Marco’s eyes widened.

  “Take Alexei, for example. I mean, he’s hot, dark, mysterious, always keeping you off-balance, never sure where he’s coming from. It’s that whole wanting the bad boy thing, choosing excitement over what’s good for you.”

  “And you’re upset because you fell for the bad boy again, huh?”

  I suddenly felt naked. “No. Not me. I was talking about Cassie. She’s too good for him. He’s only going to screw her over in the end. They always do.” I took a deep breath. Talk about a case of projection, and not of the astral variety.

  Marco swallowed audibly. “At least you realize guys like that Reinaldo and Alexei aren’t the ones for you. Maybe you’ve been passing up a lot more suitable options.”

  Here it comes. The bullet I’d been dodging for years now.

  “Marco,” I sat up, pulling my feet from him into a cross-legged position.

  He sat up on his knees. “Dagger, I really, really care about you. I know we’ve been BFFs since we were kids, but, I mean, I think you’re awesome, you’re smart, funny, and great-looking.”

  “I think you are, too, but—”

  “Please, let me finish before I chicken out.” He took hold of my hands. “You’re everything I dream about in a boyfriend. And I know I can make you really happy, not like those jerks you’re into. The best relationships start out as friendships, and we have the friendship thing down pat. I know I’m not as good-looking as you are.”

  “Don’t say that Marco, you are totally hot. I mean that. You can snag anyone you want.”

  His eyes dropped away from mine. “Yeah. Except you.”

  “It’s me that’s not good enough for you, Marco.”

  He let go of my hands. “That’s complete cliché crap and you know it.” His lips quivered into a pout.

  I held him by the shoulders. “I know it sounds lame but I’m completely screwed up. Been that way ever since my brother died. Add in my parent’s breakup, dealing with my mother. You and Cass are the only non-screwed up things in my life and I don’t want to mess with that. I won’t.” My voice quaked, my body trembled. All those file drawers in my mind with their carefully compartmentalized data slid open, threatening to scatter my overburdened subconscious into my already overloaded brain.

  Marco reached out and hugged me, pulling me close. “I want to help you, if you’ll let me,” he whispered in my ear. “I know you’ve been involved in something serious, some secret you’ve been keeping from us. I’ve known ever since I came across something freaky during my research this past summer.”

  I froze. “You mean that conspiracy story you were working on for the school paper? The one Cass mentioned on the first day of class?” The one I’d forgotten about after breaking into your dorm and not finding any substantial proof?

  “Yep. Only it wasn’t for the school paper. That’s what I told Cassie when she accidentally caught a glimpse on my computer. I didn’t want her to be scared like I was. Like I still am. There’s something screwy going on with the standardized test scores all over the state, maybe even the country, including yours. I didn’t want to say anything to you until I had definite proof.”

  My heart might as well have been pumping embalming fluid through my veins. I broke free from Marco’s hug. “What did you say? What about my test scores?”

  He looked away, embarrassment etched all over his face. “I didn’t want to worry you until I was absolutely sure.”

  “Now who’s keeping secrets?” My grip tightened like a vice on his shoulders. “What did you figure out about my test scores? Tell me.”

  He tried to pull free. “Take it easy, Dagger.”

  I let go, ashamed of myself. “I’m so sorry, Marco.” I caressed his shoulders, massaging the blood back into them. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m just really stressed out. Please. Tell me what you’re talking about.” I seasoned my voice with calm, but I was scared shitless. This is what Price had warned me about. If Marco had discovered too much I’d never forgive myself.

  Marco nodded. “It’s better if I show you.”

  He hopped off the bed and scooped up his laptop case. The same laptop whose hard drive I’d had Aristede scan and had come up clean. Then he plopped back down next to me and unzipped it, taking out the computer and powering it up.

  “You know how I have this habit of bypassing firewalls and hacking into places which I probably shouldn’t, right?”

  “Yeah,” I whispered. I’d often smiled to myself when Marco’s innate ability to navigate past secure websites reminded me of Felanie. Only this time it made the acid churn in my stomach.

  Reaching around his neck, he pulled out the necklace he was wearing under his shirt. The necklace with a shiny little flash drive dangling from the end of it. No wonder the hard drive had come back clean. He’d had it with him all along.

  He plugged the flash drive into the computer. “Well. I was kind of curious about student files, past and present, including the standardized state tests we took before transferring to Montefuego.”

  “You hacked into Florida’s Department of Education?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” His fingers flew over the keyboard, punching in file names, accessing data. “Anyway, after hacking into the database, I started doing a little digging. I thought it might be interesting to track Cassie’s, yours, and my test results, compare the questions we bombed on, etc. I know, I know. Kind of Geeky.”

  “And very illegal. I’m surprised the Feds haven’t shown up at your door already.”

  “Don’t worry, Dag. I took plenty of precautions, spoofed the origin of my I.P. address, piggy-backed off other links, rerouted through countless servers, you name it. They’ll never be able to trace it back to me.”

  Unfortunately for him, Price had.

  The screen filled with several opened files, copies of exams with administration dates. I studied them closely. “So what exactly did you find?”

  “The entire reading, math, and science stats. The year Cassie, you, and me took the exam in eighth grade, there was a version given to selected students throughout the state that didn’t match the standardized version the majority received.”

  The screen shot split into two files, one displaying a list of questions marked Standard, the other marked Anomaly.

  I scanned the questions as Marco scrolled through them. “But isn’t it customary procedure for them to vary the exam questions to discourage cheating and all?”

  “Yeah, it is. But the version with the irregularities included questions that were not part of the curriculum. Complex questions on fringe science, psychic phenomena, in-depth personality profiles, you name it. I researched the questions and they’ve never been part of the test before, nor have they since. It seems they were seeded into the official exams as identifying markers.” He turned to look me in the eye. “Someone was looking for a student who fit a pre-selected profile.”

  “The proverbial needle in a haystack.” My eyes were glued to the screen.

  “Actually, make that two needles.”

  It took a moment for Marco’s words to sink in. “Two?”

  Marco tapped the keys again. Two columns of data appeared. “These scores represent the only students to get all the variant questions correct.” He clicked a link on the first column heading. A file with my name, photo, and social popped up. “As you can see, the first set of scores belongs to you. That’s why I’ve been so worried.”

  I forced myself to voice the obvious question. “And the second set?”

  The heading of the second column flashed in response to Marco’s click of the mouse. Another file overlapped mine, displaying an all too familiar photo.

  Phillipe.

  He looked young and fresh-faced, his eyes br
imming with future. It was the face of the brother I loved and worshipped, not the scarred stranger I feared and reviled. Heinrich’s voice echoed in my brain. You are just a puppet, and your life has been nothing but a predetermined sequence of events, starting with your brother.

  I looked away.

  “Your brother took the test the same year we did, except he was in the eleventh grade.” Marco paused. “Shortly after that, he, well, you know.”

  “He was gone,” I finished.

  “I don’t mean to dredge it up. But I’ve been thinking. All your flaky behavior seems to stem from that time.”

  “Flaky? Gee, thanks.”

  “Sorry. You know what I mean. The missing classes, disappearing acts, lame excuses. At the time I thought what happened to your brother had freaked you out, and I sympathized. I mean, you were just a kid then. But now I know they’re behind the exam questions. They singled out you and your brother. And they wanted to use you for something.”

  I felt lightheaded. “They?”

  With a few keystrokes, he brought up a long list of search terms and scrolled down it, highlighting one near the bottom.

  DUST

  The muscles in my face twitched. Electricity jolted down my arms, fading en route to my numbing fingers.

  So this is what a stroke feels like.

  Marco was oblivious. “I flagged this term Dust several times in the files I downloaded.” He cocked his head. “You can bet it’s got nothing to do with dirt or powder, that’s for sure.” He flipped the screen closed and set the laptop on the floor. “I haven’t quite cracked it yet, but my guess is it’s an acronym for whoever’s behind the testing project or something.” He leaned in real close. “Does this Dust mean anything to you?”

  Burning moisture coated my eyes. I didn’t know what anything meant anymore. But right now only one thing mattered.

  “Listen to me, Marco. Who else have you told about this? Cassie? Anyone?”

  “No one. I swear.” He entwined his fingers with mine. “This is really serious, isn’t it?”

  “Yes it is.” I squeezed his hand. “Promise me you’ll delete every trace of this info and make sure it can’t be recovered. I don’t care how you have to do it, burn the hard drive, melt the flash drive, whatever. I’ll get you a new computer.”