Seconds Away

CHAPTER 9

There was still ten minutes until lunch ended. I headed outside to shoot some baskets. The same two flyers were posted everywhere. The first-the one most of the students were getting all excited about-had a surprisingly sexy photograph of Angelica Wyatt on it:

AUDITIONS FOR EXTRAS

TWO DAYS ONLY!

MAYBE YOU’LL MEET ANGELICA WYATT!

Be a Star-Even for a Few Seconds!

Pass, I thought.

Plus all my attention-all my focus-was locked in laserlike on the second flyer:

BASKETBALL TRYOUTS MONDAY!

3PM

MEET in GYM 1

Juniors and Seniors ONLY will try out for Varsity

Freshmen and Sophomores will try out for JV

Funny. Despite what happened the past few days, I still cared about basketball. I guessed that I would start off trying out for JV, but at the risk of sounding immodest, I didn’t plan on staying there very long.

I took a few shots by myself. I didn’t want anyone at my new high school to see me play before tryouts. Don’t ask me why. I traveled almost every afternoon to play pickup games in a tough section of Newark. That was where I’d been honing my game.

As I mentioned before, my uncle Myron was a great player-the leading scorer in this school’s history, a first-team collegiate All-American, a first-round NBA draft pick by the Boston Celtics.

But according to my father, I was better.

We would see. That was the beauty of basketball. It wasn’t about talk. It was about what happened on the court.

I was about to head back inside when I saw the now-familiar black car with the tinted windows pull up. I stopped and waited. That car. That car with the weird license plate. The car that had been following me since this all began. The car that held that mysterious bald guy. The car that had taken me yesterday to see Bat Lady.

It was back.

I waited for the bald guy with the freshly shaved head to get out. He didn’t. The bell would ring in another minute or two. What did they want now?

I started toward the black car. When I got closer, the back door opened. I slid inside. The bald guy was there. The divider was up so once again I couldn’t see who was driving.

“Hello, Mickey,” Shaved Head said.

I had had enough of him and his sudden appearances. “Would you mind telling me your name?”

“How are you feeling?” he asked me.

“Fantastic. Who are you?”

“We understand Rachel was shot.”

I waited for him to say more. He didn’t. I studied his face. He was younger than I’d first thought. Thirty, thirty-five at the most. He had strong hands and sharp cheekbones, and he spoke with an accent I usually associated with snooty prep schools.

“Wait a second,” I said. “Is Rachel getting shot related to you guys?”

“You guys?” he said.

“The Abeona Shelter.”

I had recently learned that my parents were not merely fun-loving nomads who traveled the world and did the occasional good deed. They ran covert operations to rescue children in danger as members of a clandestine organization called the Abeona Shelter.

Abeona was the Roman goddess who protected children. The organization’s secret symbol was the Tisiphone Abeona-a rather exotic butterfly with what looked like eyes on both wings.

I found the butterfly in that photograph of the hippies at Bat Lady’s house. I found another in one of Ema’s tattoos. And I found yet another at my father’s gravesite.

Bat Lady seemed to be the leader. Shaved Head worked for the organization too. And now, it seemed, the Abeona Shelter had recruited my friends and me. Two days ago, we rescued a girl from a terrible fate. But it hadn’t been easy.

“It seems apparent,” Shaved Head said, “that you’ve become very fond of Rachel Caldwell.”

“So?”

“So how fond?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Has she given you anything?”

I made a face. “Like what?”

“A gift. A package. Anything.”

“No. Why would she do that?”

Shaved Head said nothing.

“What’s going on here?” I asked. “Why was Rachel shot?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

“Believe what you will. These are the risks we all take.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You take risks. She warned you about that.” She. He meant the Bat Lady. “But you can walk at any time.”

“I don’t understand. Why were we chosen to join you?”

He shrugged and looked out the window past me. “Why are any of us chosen?”

“That’s deep, really, but you’re avoiding the question. Spoon, Ema, Rachel, me-why us?”

“Why you?” He continued to look out the window. His jaw clenched and for a moment, he looked totally lost. Then he added something that surprised me: “Why me?”

The bell rang. He opened the door.

“Hurry back to class,” he said. “You don’t want to be late. And, Mickey?”

“What?”

“Whatever you do, don’t talk to your uncle about us.”