The Darkest Legacy (Darkest Min - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,72
photos—to stay planted right where you are until I get there. Don’t send the files anywhere. I don’t care how secure their network is, we can’t risk anyone tracing them back to Haven.”
“I want to do something more than sit here and wait…” I began, frustrated.
Suddenly there were voices crackling in the background on the other end of the line.
“I didn’t realize stupidity scorched retinas, Murphy,” Vida snapped at someone. “It’s a personal call. Give me a goddamn second. Yeah, to my dead mother. No, I don’t give a shit—”
“Vida?” I said. “Vi?”
“You still there?” Vida’s voice sounded thin, so unlike her. “I have to go, I’m sorry. Listen, I love you, okay? Don’t do anything stupid. Just stay where you are, and one of us will be there soon. Okay?” She paused. “Okay?”
Nothing about that was okay.
“I’m not going to just hang out while the killers are out there and Ruby’s—”
The line went dead. The shock of the dial tone wormed through me, hollowing out my core.
“I love you, too,” I whispered. I leaned against the kitchen counter for a moment, pressing the receiver to my forehead. Just as I set it down, I noticed a stack of newspapers on the counter.
The top one was from a month ago, and featured a bold headline: CEO in Chief? I picked it up, reading the first lines: As corporate fixer Joseph Moore purchases another shipping company to add to his empire of cable, cars, and containers, his supporters make the case for him to fix the highest office in the land.
I threw the paper down in disgust and turned back to the Batcave, where the three of them weren’t figuring anything out so much as arguing about it.
“It’s not the craziest idea, if they’re trying to frame her—”
“Frame who?” I interrupted.
Jacob swung around, the hands he’d been using to emphasize his words falling back to his side.
Miguel jerked his thumb toward him. “This adorable clown thinks we should bring in the two from the hole and see if they’re willing to tell us anything about the Psion Ring.”
“The only problem with that is that I don’t think they were ever actually in the Psion Ring,” I pointed out. “I really believe their story was made up on the fly.”
“I could question them,” Jacob offered. “See if they’re willing to ask me to stay, or about whoever Lana is?”
“No,” Miguel interrupted, looking unhappy about the risks associated with that. “If they lied to Zu, they’ll lie to you. I can’t keep a secret from you, but, unfortunately, that superpower only works on me.”
“We can’t keep them in there forever,” Jacob argued. “And while they don’t know exactly where the house is, I’m pretty sure they could figure it out now.”
“I’m sorry,” I told them. “I thought Ruby might be able to help with that.”
“You didn’t know.” Miguel shrugged.
Lisa passed by his chair, bringing her face close to one of the monitors. She pointed to it—to the image of Roman waving his arms and Priyanka shouting something. “They wrote something on the ground….”
Miguel swiveled back to the screens, sending the footage to the largest screen at the center. The film was grainy, but the words were still clear.
TURN OFF THE PHONE
“Shit,” Miguel said, unmuting the feed.
“Turn off the phone!” Priyanka was shouting. “Turn it off!”
“What phone?” Lisa said. “What are they talking about?”
Miguel seemed to figure it out a full five seconds before the rest of us. He swept the cell phone I’d brought in off the charger. Its face glowed as it was turned over. He only needed one look at it to start breaking it apart. “Shit!”
“Wait!” I cried. “The photos—!”
The walkie-talkie on Jacob’s belt suddenly flared to life with crackle of static. “Jay? They’ve been going on for ten minutes—”
I felt it then, the flare of sudden heat against my nerves, the electricity moving through the nearby wires as it intensified from a hum to a scream.
A second later, Haven’s power shut off.
IN THAT MOMENT, IN THAT darkness, no sound could possibly have been more terrifying than the clang of bells as the old-fashioned trip wires surrounding the house were set off.
But then I heard a little girl scream.
Miguel shot to his feet and started for the door that led outside. I caught him, holding him in place.
“The generators—” he began.
He was so much taller and heavier than me, I struggled to keep him in place until Jacob helped me. “We don’t know what’s out there.”