The Eternity Key (10 page)

“Her?”
Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, what has he done?

“Ta-dah,” Joe says, sweeping his hands out as the elevator door opens into the garage. I half expect to see a very pregnant saleswoman standing there or, like, a puppy or something
living
, but, instead, in front of the row of his six different sports cars sits a teal green Vespa with a bow as big as my head tied to the handlebars.

“What is that?” I ask.

“Your Christmas present. You and I didn’t celebrate together, so I thought …”

“You’d buy me a motor scooter? You know I don’t even have a regular driver’s license yet, right? Let alone a motorcycle one? I can’t drive this thing.”

“The saleswoman told me that most scooter drivers never even get their license. I bet you could drive this all around Olympus Hills without getting pulled over once.”

“I don’t feel like taking my chances,” I say. “What possessed you to buy me a Vespa?” I have to admit that the scooter is a thing of beauty and just happens to be in my favorite color, but I also know that Vespas costs thousands of dollars. My mom and I have a fifty-dollar budget for Christmas. I mean, I hadn’t even gotten Joe a Christmas present. I’d planned on bringing him back something from Ellis Fields, like a T-shirt, but number one, I’d never got the chance because my Christmas plans had been completely derailed by an Oracle’s declaring that I’m a Cypher and my finding out that there’s an impending apocalypse that only I can stop—and number two, what exactly do you get for the man who sold your soul so he could become a rock star?

“It’s not as grand as a Ducati—your mother would murder me—and scooters are much safer, and since purchasing something made it easier to get the people at the dealership to talk, I thought maybe you’d appreciate something nice from your dad. You know, with all we’ve been through lately, I thought you might like it.…”

And there it is. The reason I’m not jumping up and down with joy over my pricey new gift. Because it isn’t a present. It’s a bribe. I’d learned the hard way, promises and presents from Joe—my tuition for school, living in this mansion with him, the starring role in his rock opera—always came with strings attached. My
Christmas present
is no different. He’s trying to buy my forgiveness.

“I got us matching helmets,” he says. “Let’s take her for a spin around the lake.”

“No,” I say, backing away.

“Come on, Daph. I’ll teach you how to drive it in the school parking lot.”

“I don’t want to take it for a spin. I don’t want to learn how to drive it. I don’t want it. Take it back.”

“But, Daph. I thought you’d—”

“What, that I’d love it so much that I would forget what you did to me? I’d forget that being famous was more important to you than having a kid? That you lured me to Olympus Hills with the promises of a world-class musical education—the chance to make all my dreams come true—when you knew what was really waiting for me?”

“I had no choice,” Joe says with a pleading urgency.

“Yes, you did. You just made it seventeen years ago.”

“Daphne, please. I’m so sorry—”

“No, Joe. I’m done. I don’t want your apologies. I don’t want the Vespa. I don’t want the lead in your play—I’m quitting! And I don’t want to live with you anymore.” I pull a packet out of my tote bag and shove it at him.

“What is this?”

“I was waiting to tell you until I got the verdict, but you might as well know: I’m going to apply to live in the dorms with the scholarship kids.” It’s a cruel card to play, and I know it. The packet had been sitting in my bag for days, and I hadn’t even decided if I was going to use it until this very moment.

Joe blanches. “Your tuition was contingent on you living here!”

“I picked up a packet for a scholarship, too, if you decide to stop making my payments. I bet Mr. Morgan will write me a recommendation.”

“You’re really going to leave me?” Joe’s whole face crumbles. “I am so sorry, Daphne. You have to let me say it. You have no idea how sorry I am. That’s why I started drinking … just something, anything, to try to drown out the guilt. I wanted to tell you, I
should have
told you, but even if Simon hadn’t been preventing me, I still don’t know if I would have … because I knew you’d hate me even more.… You wouldn’t want me.…” The notes of pain wafting off him are palpable. They snake around him, wrapping him in a coil of hurt, and my anger makes me happy that I’ve wounded him.

And that’s when I realize it: that I could eviscerate him right now with my words. Unleash the full brunt of my anger onto him. Hurt him more than he ever hurt me. Cause more damage than he ever caused himself. Make him feel so unwanted that he would need to drink himself into oblivion. Or worse …

So I go. I leave. Before I
allow
myself to hurt him more.

I turn back toward the elevator and hit the up button. It opens, and I step inside.

“Where are you going now?” Joe calls desperately as the door closes between us. “Just tell me where you’re going.”

“I don’t know,” I say.

Anywhere but here
.

chapter eleven

As far as Mom is concerned, I’ve been coming home straight after school every day this week—but that’s only because I make it a point to be home by 6:25 p.m., because I know she pulls in at 6:30 on the dot every evening. That usually gives me enough time to kick off my shoes and set up my homework in the great room before she walks in the door. However, I make it home today just before 5 p.m. only to find two Olympus Hills security vehicles, with lights flashing, in my driveway. They’re parked right behind my mother’s Lexus.

The front door of the house stands wide open.

Oh no
.

The only other time I’ve seen security cars in my driveway like that was when Abbie had gone missing—just shy of six years ago—and my first thought is that something equally terrible has happened. Like maybe Dad had another heart attack. Or Mom came home early to check on me and had a bad fall.

My anger and frustration are replaced by fear as I jog to the open front door. “Mom?” I call as I launch into the front hall—only to literally run right into one of the security guards. He’s hefting a large box in his arms that I almost knock out of his
grasp. “Sorry,” I say when he steadies himself, and I grab a stack of papers that slides off the top of the box.

I recognize the top document in my hand—it’s from my mother’s files in her office. The ones I’ve been snooping through for the last couple of weeks.

“I’ll take that,” the security guard says as he indicates for me to put the documents back on top of the box.

As I do so, two more guards enter the hallway from my mother’s study. One carries another box of files while the second guard, Travers Johnson, head of OH security, is cradling a glass case that holds one of my mother’s prized antiquities from her collection.

What is going on here?

“Be careful with that vase, Johnson,” my mother’s voice rings out as she comes around the corner. “It’s over two thousand years old, and your yearly salary wouldn’t begin to cover it if you drop it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Johnson says, but I catch the roll of his eyes as if babysitting a crusty old vase isn’t worth his time.

“Oh, Toby!” Mom says when she sees me in the hallway. The relief in her voice almost startles me. “I was so worried when you didn’t come home,” she says, clutching me to the lapels of her ruby red power suit. “First, my office, and then you not being here. I was beginning to fear the worst.”

“I got waylaid with a project after school,” I say, not quite lying, as I extricate myself from her grasp. “Did something happen?”

“We’ve had a break-in,” she says, waving her manicured hand toward the boxes the security guards carry out of the house. “Either that or one of our house staff has sticky fingers. But I think someone must have come in my office while you were at school. A few of my government files are missing.”

“Oh,” I say. I take a step back, keeping my eyes from meeting
hers. I don’t know whom she suspects, but I know exactly who stole those files.

“What are they doing?” I ask, referring to the guards.

“The thief only took a few files this time, but I can’t risk them getting the idea to come back here and take something from my collection. I’m having everything moved to my office at town hall where the security is much tighter, in order to remove the temptation for our burglar to return. My antiquities are too precious to be left vulnerable to undesirables.” She squeezes my arm. “And so are you, Toby.”

Her voice drips with concern. I swallow hard, trying to gulp back the anger that rises inside of me. My mother wasn’t the one who had called security when my sister had gone missing all those years ago. It was me. When three days had passed with no word from Abbie, I’d been the one to call the police—only to have my call rerouted to OH security. My mom had been angry that I was making such a big deal out of it. She claimed Abbie had simply run away from home and there was nothing we could do. I imagine she didn’t know yet that she really had run away rather than go to the Underrealm, as was my mother’s deal with King Ren. No, that realization had come later and had resulted in my mother acting as if Abbie had never existed. Even having her scrubbed out of our family photos.

Where had been her concern then? Where had been her desire to protect her precious things? My hands begin to shake like they had when I’d been watching Marta. From my feeble memories of my sister and from reading her journal entries, it was plain to me now that my mother had never loved Abbie. My sister had merely been a commodity for my mother to barter with. A means to an end.

And if the roles were reversed, she’d see me that way, too. Hell, she’d taken steps to secure her collection today before thinking of sending someone to come look for me.

To make matters worse, I have no idea how much my dad is involved in all of this. He has always been the quiet, overly-involved-in-his-scientific-research type, while my mother takes care of business. He walks out the door looking like a normal human being only because my mother dresses him each morning as if he were a dapper little Japanese doll. Or puppet. My father didn’t need to know anything about what happened to Abbie; he’d just think and react to Abbie’s disappearance however my mother told him to.

“Tobin, are you okay?” Mom asks. She reaches out like she’s about to test my forehead for a fever. I must look pale.

I step away from her touch and head for the front door.

“I need some fresh air,” I say, and put some distance between us as quickly as possible.

chapter twelve

Dax and I managed to duck past the security guards at the Motorcycle Man’s former apartment complex and take a roundabout way back to our residence. I sit at the kitchen table, typing out a message to the others, informing them that the lead was a dead end—that we’d lost the trail on the Motorcycle Man, maybe this time for good—and then delete it before pressing send. I know I need to tell them, and I know his getting away wasn’t my fault, since he was gone before we even got there.

However, it still feels like a failure on my part. If I’d thought of tracking down the Motorcycle Man myself, if I knew more about things like motorcycles in the first place so I didn’t have to rely on Lexie’s intel, or if I’d gone to the dealership on my own instead of waiting for Joe, maybe I would have gotten there soon enough. Maybe I’d have the Compass in my hands right now.

I decide to grab the hydra by the tail. I type out the text and finally hit send. Now they all know that I’ve failed.

“We’ll figure something else out,” Dax says, looking at his phone, which just beeped with my text. I looped him in on it even though he’d already witnessed what happened firsthand.

“As in what?”

“I don’t know. But if Sarah, the Oracle said that we’ll find the Compass, then we’ll find it.”

“You expect it to magically appear out of thin air?” Garrick says sarcastically from where he’s been perched in front of the Xbox. The amount of disrespectful comments I’ve been getting from him lately makes me wish I still had the authority to put him in his place. I contemplate smacking the controller out of his hand, but I’m trying to show more restraint when it comes to Garrick.