SAGE
“Big day today,” Dallamore said as I stepped out onto the front porch. He remained a few paces away, clad in his too-tight suit, holding a bagel wrapped in a napkin.
The morning sun was beautiful, shining through the giant maple trees of the mansion’s front lawn. I found a spot on the front porch where the sunlight hit my whole body. The cotton dress they’d supplied didn’t offer much warmth, and the temperature couldn’t be more than sixty degrees this morning.
“You’ll want to take this.” Dallamore attempted to hand me the bagel. “You didn’t eat dinner last night, and you won’t be getting anything else until lunch.”
Grudgingly—and mainly due to my growling stomach—I took the offer.
“People will begin arriving for the gala tonight as early as five o’clock. Lots of preparation to be done this morning,” Dallamore said. “Keep your eyes open at headquarters for Vasterias board members. Many of them will tour the newly renovated research wing before attending the gala tonight.”
As if to prove the truth in Dallamore’s comment about a busy day, a lawn mower rounded the side of the mansion, driven by a middle-aged man. Several other mowers could be heard in the distance.
The same Mercedes I’d rode in last night rolled up the circle drive and parked in front of us. Surprisingly, Sven exited the driver’s seat and walked around the front of the car to pull the passenger door open for me. We made eye contact. I didn’t move. What was he doing here? Where was the driver from last night? Something didn’t feel right.
Dallamore frowned at me. “Get going, then,” he said. He turned back toward the mansion, checking his watch and mumbling to himself about the arrival time of Russia.
“We’ll be back this afternoon,” Sven called to Dallamore, and Dallamore waved without turning around again.
My steps toward the car were hesitant. Sven noticed.
I ignored the open front passenger door where Sven stood. Instead, I pulled open the rear door, climbed into the back seat, and slammed it shut. Sven said nothing about this. He closed the passenger door calmly, strode around the car again, and slid inside.
He didn’t speak for the first ten minutes of our drive, but his eyes trailed to me every few minutes in the rearview mirror. Every time he did this, the car pulled slightly into the lane of oncoming traffic.
“If you’re on my side,” I finally said, exasperated, “and we have a car, and we’re on our own, and we’re already fifteen minutes away from Vasterias mansion, how come we’re not escaping, like, now?”
Sven looked back at me, steering us through a sharp curve but drifting into the opposite lane again. My bagel slid off the leather seat to the floorboard on the opposite side of the car.
“It’s not that easy,” he said. “This car has tracers. The wheel has remote control capabilities. The audio system is wired with recorders. Right now, they could hear everything we are saying if I weren’t drowning it out with radio interference.” Sven draped his hand over the wheel and shifted in his seat. “They can’t hear us, but they could hunt us down. Which is why we have to wait. Beckett is coming. You’ll be escaping with him during the gala tonight. Everything will be put into motion then.”
“Everything?” I said. “What do you mean, everything?”
“Your reunion. With your father. That’s what I mean. But for now, we play along. We’ll arrive at headquarters in the city in a few hours.” His eyes caught my gaze in the rearview mirror and held it, his expression penetrating. “Remember. Just stay calm. We’re waiting for tonight.”
“How, exactly, are we going to escape?”
“Well, assuming all goes according to plan, your friend Beckett will come in first and confuse things up a bit by pretending to have a change of heart. Jack will follow four hours later with a shock and awe package.”
“Shock and awe package?” I tensed as Sven sped up around a curve and passed a sedan, getting back into our lane just in time to miss hitting an oncoming minivan, who honked loudly as we flew past.
“Everyone will get a nice display of Jack’s physical capabilities,” Sven said. “Something meant to distract people, so they’re no longer watching you.” Sven turned his head to look at me directly, perhaps to gauge my response to this. The car swerved.
I gripped the door. “Would you watch the road, please?”
Sven turned forward again.
“And what will you be doing?” I asked. “During all this shock and awe?”
“A bit of this and that,” he replied. “Putting people on the wrong trail, adding to the general confusion, that sort of thing.”
“And why are we going to headquarters now?”
“A physical examination. Nothing serious.”
“But they’re planning to take my eggs. I can’t let them do that.”
“This morning, they don’t have intentions to do anything more than take your blood.”
“They could have done that from the mansion,” I said.
“Dr. Stanstopolis doesn’t like to go out of her way to accommodate people. She wanted to see you herself, in her lab. My other hypothesis is that Dr. Adamson is arriving at the mansion later this morning, and I’ve heard he’s none-too-happy he got left behind at the switch-over with you on the plane. I think Vasterias didn’t want you on the premises when he arrived.”
Sven glanced at me in the mirror. “They’re a bit possessive of you, aren’t they?”
I didn’t really care who was fighting over me. There were more important things to consider.
“What if they do take more than my blood?”
“Calm down. It’s not like they can extract your eggs right away,” Sven said. “They have to plump up the follicles in order to do it. That would take a few days of hormones and tests. A moot point, because you’re leaving tonight.”
My head turned away, and I willed my face not to flush.
I couldn’t believe I was talking about the plumping of my follicles with this man.
I didn’t even know what follicles were, really.
I refused to say another word the entire drive to headquarters.