Banished

“There isn’t much time,” I insisted. “Isn’t that right, Kaz? How much time between your visions and what happens?”

Kaz looked from me to Prairie. “I don’t know. Maybe a day or two. Maybe… less.”

“There still might be time,” I pleaded.

“I’ll help,” Kaz said, pushing his chair back from the table. “The three of us will go. Mom can take care of Chub. You will, won’t you, Mom?”

“What do you mean to do?”

“Whatever needs to be done to stop that bastard.”

“Kaz,” Anna snapped. “There is no need for that.”

“No need for what, Mom? No need to call Prairie’s boss what he is? She’s right-he has to be stopped. We have to destroy everything.”

“What is this we?” Anna demanded sharply. “There is no we-”

“I’m going with her,” Kaz said. “She can’t do it alone.”

“Do not talk crazy.” Anna was shaking with fear or anger or some combination of the two emotions.

“I’m not crazy,” Kaz said. “Prairie is right. We have to destroy the research and stop this guy.”

“This man is dangerous, Kazimierz. He hired people to kidnap Hailey. They kill all those others.”

“Papa went to war,” Kaz said. “There was killing there, but you didn’t stop him.”

I saw that he wouldn’t back down, and I had a feeling no one was going to be able to tell him what to do. I could relate: no one was ever going to tell me what to do again either.

“Anna,” Prairie said softly. “I understand. I’ll go alone.”

“You can’t!” I protested. “You can’t go alone. Bryce will kill you.”

“Not if I plan,” Prairie said, but I could tell she was grasping at straws. “Not if I come up with a strategy-”

“Strategy is not enough,” Kaz interrupted, his voice hard as steel. “You need help. I can see things. Especially if I’m there, if I’m close. It might make a difference.”

“I can’t ask you that,” Prairie said. She raised her shoulders and let them fall. Her arm, I saw, moved easily, bandage or no bandage. “It’s my fault all this happened, and-”

“I’m not letting you go alone,” I said.

“We’re going with you,” Kaz said. He turned to Anna. “Mom, you didn’t raise me to be afraid. My father was brave, you tell me that every single day of my life. You can’t deny that.”

“Your father is gone, Kaz. I can’t lose you, too… I can’t.”

Anna’s face reflected a mother’s agony. Prairie, too, looked uncertain.

But I knew. I knew that Kaz would not be stopped.

“If something happens, if Kaz gets hurt, we’ll be there too,” I said urgently to Prairie, praying she would understand. We could heal him-he’d be safe with us there.

Anna looked at me carefully, her eyes narrowed. Then she looked at Prairie again. “What do you think?” she asked softly.

“I cannot ask anything more of you,” Prairie said. “Even this, even taking me and Hailey in, this is so dangerous.”

She was right. Bryce didn’t care about the innocent people who got in the way.

He wouldn’t stop. He didn’t care how many people died for his research, for the chance to study Prairie and me and learn how to use our gifts to turn people into killing machines. Everything this man touched seemed to be about killing.

He wanted to use me as a tool, a way to make him stronger and richer and more powerful while other people died.

There was silence in the room. Kaz went to the picture window and stared out into the dark streets with his arms folded across his chest, tense and ready.

After a long moment, Anna nodded slowly. I could tell the decision had been made.

We’d won this round, Kaz and me.

We were going with Prairie.

“I’ll guard him like my own,” Prairie said softly. “Hailey too. I will do everything I can to bring us back from this unharmed.”

Anna nodded. And then we were gone.

Kaz drove. Prairie sat up front with him, not saying much. She had slicked her hair back into a ponytail and was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, with an old pair of Anna’s sneakers. Dressed that way, she looked more like a college student than the elegant woman who had first appeared in Gram’s kitchen.

Kaz drove smoothly along Lake Shore Drive, the way we’d come only last night. Tonight the moon-nearly full- hung over the water near the horizon, its reflection shimmering beneath it. When we got to Evanston, I suddenly wished the drive had been longer. I didn’t feel ready.

Prairie murmured instructions. She took us through a neighborhood of stately old homes that got smaller as we drove farther from the lake, until they were mostly squat little bungalows. We crossed the commuter train tracks and I could see Evanston’s downtown ahead.

On the next block there was a cluster of low-slung modern office buildings. “Pull in,” Prairie said. “Park over here, by the Dumpsters.”

Kaz did as she directed.

We were shielded by a row of trees, the Civic nosed in under low-hanging branches. There were plenty of cars in the lot, customers of the Thai restaurant and the Laundromat across the street.

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Prairie said. “The data is on computers in the secure lab. The prox card will get us in the main part of the lab-”

“Do you think Bryce could be in there?” I asked.

“Possibly… but what’s more likely is he’s got extra security guarding the place, with instructions to bring me in if I come poking around. By force, if necessary. Although I doubt there would be anyone here in the middle of the night.”

“Let me go,” Kaz said. “Alone. They won’t be expecting a man.”

Prairie shook her head. “No. I have to go with you.”

“What about me?” I demanded.

Prairie closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, they were clouded with doubt. “There will be a guard in the lobby,” she said. “A night guard. Unless they’ve hired someone new, it will be an older man who likes to nap on the job. Still, he’s a danger. He can trip an alarm that will shut the whole place down and bring security running from off-site. And Bryce may have paid the guard to contact him first.”

“You want me to distract him?” I asked.

Prairie looked uncomfortable. “I don’t see any other way. I thought maybe you could pretend to have some emergency, I don’t know, like maybe you’re hurt or something. As soon as we’re in, you get out. Figure out any excuse, tell the guard you were mistaken, whatever you need to do. And then you come back and wait where you can see the car.”

She dug into her pocket and handed me a cell phone. “This is Anna’s. Kaz’s number is on it. Press and hold the three key and it will dial him direct. Call if you see anyone coming in the building after us-anyone at all. Or if there’s any kind of trouble.”

I didn’t like being left behind, but I didn’t see an alternative. “What are you going to do to the computers?”

“I have full administrative access to all the servers. Paul gave it to me, along with the master keys. We’ve got to hope that Bryce never found out. I’m sure he locked me out, but he might not have changed the admin log-in. I just need to get in and start the wipe-disk program.”

“How much data is there, anyway?” Kaz demanded. “Because it takes hours to wipe a big disk.”

“I-I’m not sure.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kaz said, his voice edgy and low. “It’s going to be fire.”

We both looked at him.

“What do you mean?”