Hey guys, so so so sorry for the delay. I think I'm going to not do the whole POV thing for now since things are getting more action-y and it's best to use third person omniscient. But when there are Kaynie moments, and there will be, I'll do POVs.
Enjoy and review!
"Cleo?" Sticky asked in disbelief. Looking distressed, she opened her mouth to say something, but Mackenzie quickly elbowed her, saying sharply,
"Don't talk." She turned to the kids and said in a flat, insincere voice, "Nice to meet you."
"S.Q.?" Kate looked back anxiously, but he'd disappeared.
Constance opened her eyes, beginning to recover; when she realized that Reynie was holding her, she squirmed crossly out of his arms. Dusting her hands off, she stood up and froze, eyes narrowing at McCracken's daughter.
"You must be Constance." Mackenzie turned to Cleo. "Make sure she doesn't read my mind." Cleo nodded helplessly. "Let's see where my father is, shall we?" She pressed the button at the top of a radio at her hip and spun the volume dial all the way up. Through the static, sounds of a battle were apparent, and from what the children could hear, they weren't winning.
Sticky watched Cleo, mind spinning. He had liked her, really liked her. What was she doing, being involved with their worst enemy? She didn't look thrilled; in fact, she looked downright terrified. Had they dragged her into it against her will?
Reynie, for his part, was already scheming. Mackenzie's demeanor was unusually cool, which meant that if they could somehowmake her excitable or catch her off guard, she might become vulnerable. Similar to Ledroptha Curtain, her weaknesses would become apparent once she was agitated in some way.
He looked over at Kate, who nodded curtly at him. She had come to the same realization. They held eye contact for a moment, both of them grasping the seriousness of the situation. This was no game; this was a reprise – a carefully-schemed, well-planned ambush. And unless they did something, the bad guys might win permanently this time.
But how were they going to distract Mackenzie enough so that they could run away, or carry out whatever brash plan they might formulate in desperation? If they could just create a sound diversion…
Before Reynie or Kate could make a move, Sticky blurted out, "Cleo?"
"I'm sorry!" wailed Cleo. Mackenzie glared at her. "I'm sorry," she repeated meekly. "Sticky – I wasn't – I didn't mean to."
"I don't understand," said Sticky, wildly pacing back and forth. "What – why are you with them? I thought we were friends!"
"Oh, we were, we were," said Cleo plaintively. "I mean – my parents are friends with the McCrackens and when they asked me if –"
"Enough," snapped Mackenzie. "You're irritating me. Just be quiet."
"Okay." Cleo stared at her shoes, sneaking a doleful glance up at an outraged Sticky.
"I can't believe it," he said frostily. "My feelings are legitimately hurt. You realize that, right?"
"I'm sorry! I had no idea you were involved in this, I thought it was a mission, and Kenzie's dad is paying us for –"
"I don't care," muttered Sticky.
"If you follow me," Mackenzie said monotonously, allowing a thin, satisfied smirk at the way things between her minion and prisoner were transpiring, "you'll be fine." She gave a wide, eerily saccharine smile. "If you don't, well…" She flicked the radio on and spun the volume all the way up again. "I would say that my darling father is winning this one, guys. Sorry." She tilted her head for a moment, strangely engrossed in the sounds of the battle. Was that wistfulness Reynie glimpsed on her face? Was she upset? Did she want to be in the thick of it, in the midst of the fight?
Why was it still waging, anyways? It'd been a long time – too long. Kate thought swiftly of Milligan. He'd jumped off the building to save her life. He was her idol, her hero, everything she wanted to be someday. He was her dad. She too had caught the longing glimmer in Mackenzie's strangely blank eyes, and couldn't suppress a marginal amount of empathy. Sides notwithstanding, Mackenzie and McCracken were as much a father/daughter duo as Kate and Milligan, and it would not be surprising for Mackenzie to share the same yearning to join him in battle.
The radio was making a lot of noise. It hit Reynie and Kate simultaneously. Without a spoken word, accustomed as they were to the delicate maneuver of thwarting an enemy, they moved subtly closer to each other. Mackenzie remained absorbed in the radio, and while she kept a close eye on the others, her mind was elsewhere. "Tell Sticky to start yelling," Reynie murmured to Kate.
She nudged Sticky, gesturing to the two girls before them. "Make a distraction."
"What are you doing?" barked Mackenzie, coming out of her reverie. "Be quiet."
Sticky, to everyone's surprise, had balled his hands into tight fists and, as scrawny as he was, mustered up all the power he could and looked positively furious. Mackenzie took a step back, momentarily alarmed as he began shouting. "I can't believe you did this! You are the most repulsive young women I've ever met! Your stratagem was ineffectual, and when we are done with you you'll be sorry you ever contrived to overthrow and bamboozle the Benedict Society!"
"Listen here," snarled Mackenzie, quickly recovering. Her eyes had turned almost reddish, nostrils flared. Kate gave Reynie a thumbs up. Constance, eyes alight with childish hope, shuffled closer to the other two as Sticky continued to rage at Mackenzie and Cleo in as affected and noisy a manner as he could muster.
"If we run," whispered Kate, "she's going to run after us. And chances are, there are Ten Men – or whoever these people are – waiting around the corner."
"There are," said Constance shakily. "I – they're there, they're waiting, they have weapons. They're… excited." She groaned. "They're loud."
"Okay," said Reynie hastily, before Constance had to endure any more of this, "they're probably assuming that we'll either go with Mackenzie or put up a fight. They've got us cornered right now. That's okay. We'll come up with an alternate plan. Kate, is there any way you can get inside?"
She contemplated the wall behind them. "There's a tiny bit of a pipe sticking out of the plaster up there," she speculated, "and I might be able to make it to the roof if I could be quick enough."
"You'll be quick enough," said Reynie confidently. "Right. If you can get Constance up to the roof, Sticky and I will stay behind to fend off the others. You get away from here, from the house. We'll try to find out where Number Two was taken, and –" Kate kicked his shin, hard. "Ow!"
"Are you an idiot? I'm not leaving you guys behind! And we aren't abandoning Number Two or Mr. Benedict! They're our family! This is our house!" She had that blazing, lioness look in her eyes that made it abundantly clear that any argument on the matter was futile.
Reynie felt a broad grin spread across his face. Kate was so… great. So fiercely independent. She was – he stopped himself. "Okay, okay." Sticky hadn't run out of steam yet, and he'd broken through Mackenzie's aloof facade, but Cleo made eye contact with him. She faltered; he held his breath. All she had to do was bring attention to them and it would be over.
But she didn't. Sticky was right about her: she was a good one. Allied with the enemy against her will. His frustration with her betrayal mollified for the moment, Reynie spoke hurriedly.
"New plan," he said. "We'll all get onto the roof. I know that the Ten Men will follow us up there in a heartbeat, but if we're quick enough, we can evade them. There's a ladder stuck to the back outside wall of the house that they don't know about. Kate and I found it a couple days ago. If we can get down there…"
"We've got to loop back and save the ones inside," Kate said stoutly. "Miss Perumal, Mr. and Mrs. Washington, Rhonda? Milligan? Oh, Milligan." She buried her face in her hands, allowing herself a split second of worry before returning to the task at hand. Constance was eyeing Cleo, an unnamable expression of pain glistening in her gaze. "We've got to get Constance out of here," she muttered to Reynie, both looking at the girl. "Can you –"
"Kate, I'm not going to leave you," Reynie said firmly. "If you're going to go back, I'm going with you."
She bit her lip, torn. "Reynie…"
"Hey!" shouted Mackenzie, finally noticing them. "What are you doing?"
"I – nothing – we aren't doing anything," stammered Reynie.
"Oh, I see." A sinister leer grew on her face. "You shouldn't have done that." She gave a shrill whistle, and all of a sudden Kate had her rope around the pipe and, seizing Constance around the waist, scrambled up it in no time at all.
"Reynie!" she called down as, sure enough, five well-dressed men ambled over. "Sticky!"
Reynie was right on her heels and pulled the rope up quickly before the men could follow. "Where's Sticky?" he asked in alarm.
"Sticky!" yelled Kate, peering over the edge. He was surrounded by them, trembling.
"Kate! Reynie! Constance!" he cried out. "Help me!"
Kate resolutely reached into her bucket. "I'm going down," she said.
"No – Kate – you're putting yourself in danger!" said Reynie desperately.
"Since when has that bothered me?" she asked, winking at him, and, grabbing a miniature pick axe Milligan had contributed to her new and improved inventory, she notched it into the flat wall below them and climbed down in no time at all.
"She's going to die," Constance said conversationally.
"Don't say that!" said Reynie angrily. Then, grudgingly, he asked, "Are you alright?"
She made a face. "I was considering using my talents on Mackenzie. Wouldn't it be amusing to watch her eat slugs?"
Reynie gave a tight smile. "I'm sure."
Constance shot him a resigned look, acknowledging somehow that she was no longer a petulant three-year-old, and that these circumstances were… dire at best.
There was a loud thump and they both raced anxiously to peer down at the situation. Kate had landed on the ground like a cat, lassoing one of the men and shooting a marble at another with her slingshot. She'd seized Sticky's arm, poised to fend off more.
Mackenzie snapped her fingers casually. "Reinforcement!" she called. To Reynie's horror, she pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one, exhaling smoke rings through her nose.
"Yuck," said Constance.
Sticky, appalled, couldn't resist starting, "Do you have any idea how detrimental to your health one cigarette can be? Your lungs are rotting as we speak, and –"
Rolling her eyes, Mackenzie snapped her fingers again impatiently. "We haven't got all day," she said drily.
Five more men materialized, nonchalantly whistling as they ripped Sticky out of Kate's grasp in one fluid movement. His struggle against their arms, which were as impenetrable as steel, was futile.
"Take him away," Mackenzie ordered. One of the men dragged him off.
"Sticky!" cried Reynie. "Kate!"
Kate was trying to make her way through the men to grab Sticky, but they had her pinned down and were slickly withdrawing the pencils that the children had hoped never to see again.
She punched one of the men in the face and, scrabbling inside her bucket, wrapped her hand around a heavy, smooth paperweight she'd intended to give to Miss Perumal for her birthday but had misplaced and forgotten about until now. She tucked this into her left hand, taking a blow dart gun in her right, and just as they were advancing, she spun around, aimed and blew five darts out, each of which neatly found its target. It took the men only a little time to recover, at which point she had wrestled herself out of their grip and, sprinting backwards, hurled the paperweight at the remaining, uninjured two. It knocked them both out; the second man was unable to get out of the way fast enough.
She gave a satisfied nod as she scampered up the wall. It took her a second before she realized that she'd only taken out seven out of ten. One had Sticky, which left two more…
"Reynie!" she screamed as two sets of hands appeared on the edge of the roof, cuff links clinking. In what seemed like excruciatingly slow motion, Reynie grabbed Constance and scrambled down the ladder on the back, followed by Kate. A barrage of pencils followed her, but she'd prepared for this and strategically employed the metal of her bucket as a shield, rotating to meet each one. With a mock apologetic look, she followed Reynie and Constance out of sight.
With no time to think or process anything, Kate instinctively heaved Constance up onto her back and reached for Reynie's hand. They ran for it, street after street, turn after turn, block after block, until their lungs – well, Reynie's; Kate wasn't sweating a drop – were about to explode, and suddenly they were at a dead end.
"Kate – what are we –"
"Relax," said Kate. "Constance, you know what you're doing?"
Constance nodded solemnly.
"What are you talking about?" asked Reynie, bemused. "Sticky's – they kidnapped Sticky!"
"I know, I know," said Kate shakily. "I – Constance, explain. I'll set up back here." She set off into the woodsy area that the road dipped down into.
Reynie started after her. "Kate – what's – you can't leave!"
"I'm fine," she reassured him, patting her bucket confidently.
"I – Constance?"
Brow knotted, she sighed, suddenly sounding much older. "Mr. Benedict's been teaching me a lot the past few weeks," she said, "and most of it is stupid. Actually, all of it." She cocked her head in contemplation of precisely how stupid all of it was. "It's a complete waste of time. But… well, one of the things we've learned is that I have a similar memory to Sticky. That's part of my intelligence. So, like, I can remember places… and things."
"What does that mean?" asked Reynie agitatedly.
"It means, I can use my sixth sense, or whatever, to find… locations. And remember them."
He looked blankly at her. "What?"
She rolled her eyes. "Reynie, think about it. Have you ever been here before?"
"No…"
"Exactly," she said, as if it should be perfectly obvious. "I directed us here."
"What do you mean, 'directed'?"
"You know I can talk into your mind, or – or send messages, or whatever."
He nodded.
"So I told Kate where to go. I had a place in mind and I… sent her – us – there."
"Wait a minute. You're telling me that you entered Kate's mind and became a GPS?"
She scrunched up her nose. "What's that?"
He shook his head. "Forget about it. So… why this place?"
"Well, Mr. Benedict has been making me memorize all these old maps, kind of like treasure maps, only for runaways and… people like us, I suppose. They'd marked off all these complicated winding roads and hideout spots. I was supposed to memorize it, just for the sake of his dumb exercises. I didn't realize until now that he'd intended for me to actually use that knowledge. It makes sense, though, right?"
"Right," said Reynie, his mind spinning. "So this is one of the places on those maps? A safe spot?"
"As far as I know, yes."
"You're growing up, Constance," said Reynie, smiling at her.
"Shut up," she said, sticking her tongue out at him and scowling.
"So where's Kate now?" he asked, climbing up on a large stone block and nervously attempting to see where she'd gone.
"Setting up," said Constance brusquely. She did not like being told that she was growing up. After all, she was still only a little child and "growing up" seemed to put much more responsibility on her shoulders than she was comfortable with.
"Care to elaborate?"
She'd just opened her mouth, having cleverly composed a poem simultaneously insulting Reynie's intelligence and explaining what Kate was doing when there was a scream.
Kate's scream.
Kate Wetherall never screamed unless it was really, really bad.
"Wait!" shouted Constance, but Reynie had already sprung into action, sprinting into the woods. "This is bad," she said to herself, turning away and trying desperately to reach Sticky through her mind. Before she could summon the concentration to do this, there was a hand on her shoulder. Despite herself, she emitted a fearful squeak. Looking up, she recognized the girl from earlier. What was her name?
"Come with me," said Cleo. "Please, if you just come with me… no one will get hurt."
So that's that! Sorry I took so long. Thank you for your suggestions/entries to my contest!
I decided Constance should be a little more involved this time around, and I believe someone asked for that in a review, so yeah. I'm super psyched to hear what y'all thought of this chapter because it took me ages and I really do suck at writing action scenes. Hope you liked it!