By the time Charlie regained consciousness, she was halfway to the back entrance of home base, being carried by her mom and her friends.
“Whoa,” she said, squinting in the sunlight. Her head and shoulder hurt. “Looks like that worked?”
“You’re a brute,” said Maria admiringly. “You dented the vault door enough to break it open.”
“Your starfish is working,” said Mac, “so hopefully you’ll be feeling okay soon.”
“Here’s hoping the starfish does magic on concussions,” Mrs. Wilde said grimly, eyeing the sixth-floor windows of their building. “We may have another fight on our hands if Prowl and Miko are still up there.”
Charlie felt her bruises gingerly. “I’m okay to walk,” she said.
They set her down in the alleyway as they hurried around the corner of their building.
As they reached the door, Mrs. Wilde paused and narrowed her eyes, looking across the parking lot. She pointed at someone running fast toward them. “Who’s that?” she said, alarmed.
Maria turned sharply. “What the—” Then she slapped a hand to her forehead. “It’s Kelly.”
“Kelly?” said Charlie, fearing her injury might have affected her hearing.
“How the heck would she know where to find us?” asked Mac.
Maria looked guiltily at the others. “I—I told her last week. Before she went to Cabo and started doing stupid things.”
“Oh,” said Charlie. She wasn’t happy.
“Maybe she can help us,” said Mrs. Wilde. “We could use it.”
Maria flagged Kelly down and they all quickly went inside the building.
Kelly’s clothes were torn, her hair was in tangles, and she had dirt and blood on her face. Tear tracks divided the dust on her cheeks, and she looked exhausted. Even her backpack appeared like it had been dragged through the mud. “Hi,” she said miserably between breaths. She bent forward, putting her hands on her knees to steady herself.
“Are you okay?” asked Maria. “What happened to you? How did you get back from Los Angeles?”
“Bus,” she said, still breathing hard. “Somebody on it recognized me and alerted the media, who were all there at the bus station waiting when we arrived. Then I ran into those two beefy goons from the warehouse with one other guy. I barely got away from them. I had to hide in an empty trash container until they left, and then I remembered where you were.”
Mac’s eyes almost bugged out at that last confession, but he didn’t say the obvious comment that had come to everyone’s mind: Kelly hid in a trash can? She must have been desperate.
“I’m afraid this isn’t a safe place anymore for any of us,” said Mrs. Wilde, hurrying everybody up the stairs.
“Thanks to Kelly,” Charlie muttered.
Kelly looked at her, shocked at first. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Oh, I get it. You’re mad I took credit for your burning house rescue. Well, a lot of good that did me.”
Anger boiled up in Charlie. “You put my dad and all of us in a lot of danger!”
Mrs. Wilde gave Charlie a warning glance. “We can talk about that later. Kelly, we’ll protect you if we can. But right now we need to hustle upstairs.”
Charlie pretended she didn’t see it. She wasn’t feeling generous at all after all the stress Kelly had put them through, and Kelly’s selfish attitude wasn’t helping. “You’ll help us fight if we need to,” she demanded. “And we need that envelope back. Right now.”
“Fine,” said Kelly. “Sheesh.” Her weariness showed on her face, and her chin began to tremble. She shrugged her backpack off her shoulder and pulled out the Talos Global envelope. She ignored Charlie’s outstretched hand and gave it to Mrs. Wilde. “I don’t need your stupid papers anymore, anyway.” Kelly swallowed hard and glared at the stairs.
Apparently Maria couldn’t hold in her feelings about Kelly either. “And you need to stop lying. Why did you do that to me? To us? That wasn’t cool.”
Kelly’s face cracked. “So you’re turning on me now, too, Maria? After all I’ve done to help you?” Her face turned red and she tried to say something more, but only an ugly sob came out.
“Nobody’s turning on you!” Maria said. “But we’re mad. You did some pretty crappy things.” Mac didn’t say anything, but he nodded in solidarity with Maria and Charlie.
“Kids, please,” said Mrs. Wilde, sounding exasperated.
“But they’re being awful to me!” said Kelly.
“Oh. My. God,” said Charlie bitterly.
“Stop.” Mrs. Wilde held up her hand, shutting them down. “We’re all hurting about this, but the fight’s not over! Right now we need to focus. Let’s go.” She reached the top of the stairs and started jogging to home base.
“Sorry, Mom,” Charlie muttered. She ran to take the lead, checking her bracelet as she went. Everything was still activated. She waited at the door while the others caught up and pressed her ear to it, wondering if she could hear anything.
It was silent inside. Maria and Mac joined her at the door. They waited an extra beat while Mac reactivated his scales, then Charlie placed her hand on the doorknob. Slowly she turned it, and Maria peeked in.
“Ay, dios mio,” she said under her breath.
In the reception area stood Miko and Prowl. “Welcome home,” Prowl purred. “We’ve been expecting you.” Between them they held Andy, who was gagged and tied up.