When Charlie came downstairs in her pajamas, Mrs. Wilde looked up from her coffee and the newspaper. “Good morning,” she said. Her face was drawn and her eyes weary, but she smiled.
“I fell asleep before you finished,” Charlie said, feeling anxious. “Did you watch all of it?”
“Yes. That was pretty horrifying. Are you okay?”
Charlie nodded. “I think so. Did you notice that Kelly mentioned the bracelet and then you could see her use it to activate the spikes in her heels? I’m worried about Dad. Do you think Dr. Gray watched it? What’s he going to do to him?”
Mrs. Wilde held her hand up to stop the barrage of questions. “First, do you really think Dr. Gray watches LIVE, TONIGHT?” she assured her. “Chances are he won’t hear about it until today. And second, like your dad said to Dr. Gray the other day, this still doesn’t mean Kelly can lead anyone to him. She doesn’t even know his name, does she?”
“Well, no,” Charlie admitted. “I don’t think so.”
“And we’re not going to tell Kelly where they are, are we?”
“No,” Charlie said again. She felt a little bit better.
“I’ve already talked with Ms. Sabbith this morning. She agrees we should stick to the plan. She said Dad is good at talking to Dr. Gray. He’ll calm him down if anything happens. Remember, Dr. Gray needs your dad—he’s not going to hurt him as long as he still needs him.”
Charlie sighed, relieved. “Okay.” She got some breakfast and sat down at the table. “What about that show host guy, Silas—he didn’t, like, die or anything, did he?”
“No, he’s stable in the hospital. Sounds like there’s nothing they can do for him but have him ride it out.”
“What are the LIVE, TONIGHT people going to do to Kelly?”
“I don’t know. But it’s pretty clear to me from the footage that they were handling her roughly before the encounter, which made me really angry. She was acting in self-defense. Besides, she’s disappeared. They’ll have to find her first.” Mrs. Wilde leaned over and smoothed Charlie’s hair out of her face. “Do you have any idea what sort of animal the spikes came from?”
“Mac thinks it’s a platypus.”
“Those cute little things? It’s hard to believe such a friendly-looking creature could do that much harm.”
“You just never know with animals,” Charlie said.
“That’s for sure.” Mrs. Wilde stood up. “I’m going to get ready. Alejandra texted that they’re on the way home.”
“I’ll get ready in a minute.” She gave her mom an impromptu hug.
Mrs. Wilde smiled and held Charlie tightly. “Thanks, kiddo,” she said. “I needed that.”
“Me too,” said Charlie.
As she got ready, Charlie thought about the interesting week—not only the drama but also her relationship with her mother. Charlie felt closer to her than she’d felt in a long time. The resentment she’d had over how much her mother was working had dissipated. All this craziness had forced them to be together so much . . . and they’d found they actually really liked it. But would it last? Once Andy was home and her dad was safe and her mom went back to her crazy hospital schedule, things would go back to normal. It would almost feel bittersweet if Charlie didn’t want her dad back so badly.
Andy, wearing an extreme tan and smelling like a campfire among other things, couldn’t stop talking on the way to Maria’s. He told them all about his trip, even the parts he’d mentioned before, and about his favorite adventures they’d done. “There’s way cooler stuff in Arizona than in Chicago,” he declared.
Charlie tried to listen to everything he said, but her mind kept going back to the now familiar worry about Dr. Gray. She really just wanted to hurry and pick up Mac and Maria and get to home base so they could see if anything had happened.
Mrs. Wilde filled in Andy on what was going on with their dad. Then she asked casually, “Did you hear what happened with Kelly?”
“No,” said Andy. “What?”
“She sort of became famous overnight.”
“For what?”
“She used her device’s powers to save some teenagers from drowning, and she got interviewed, and that went viral, and then she went on some late show and now the world knows about her.” Mrs. Wilde left out the violent parts.
“Why did she do a dumb thing like that? We’re not supposed to talk about the bracelets!”
Charlie smiled and reached behind her to pat her brother on the leg. “Exactly.”
“Besides, I thought she threw the bracelet out,” said Andy. “Why did she lie?”
“We’re not sure,” said their mom carefully, and glanced at Charlie. “But maybe she’ll come back and explain. She’s sort of . . . on the run, I guess you could say.”
“Oh.” Andy grew silent. “I hope she makes it back okay.”
“Yeah,” said Charlie.
They stopped to pick up Mac and Maria, then ran into the grocery store to get some food supplies for the day. It was almost eleven by the time they got to home base.
When they got out of the car, they proceeded with an abundance of caution as usual, looking right and left as they made their way into the building, knowing that home base was still the safest place they could hide in case things went crazy. They saw no one.
Unfortunately, they forgot to look up.