Numbered: Episode One of the Sister Planets Series Read online

  Naomi and Esau have a ten-foot head start on us. Naomi turns around, and I see her shoulder is bleeding. Her jaw drops as she places her hands on her head.

  I turn to see the old hotel up in flames. White-hot fire bursts out of every window. The entire street is lit up like the middle of the day.

  I realize I’ve entered the In-Between. Like a cat being coaxed out from under the sofa, I emerge at my own pace. My brain tunes back in to my physical condition, and I feel warm blood streaming down my arms and off my fingertips. I look down to see I’ve lost most of the skin on the backs of my forearms.

  “We need to get moving,” Jacob says, his eyes still fixed on the hotel. “Where are we going?”

  I look at him and pause. Blood and sweat cover his face. Against the blaze, Jacob looks like an ancient warrior fresh off the battlefield. I know this is the worst time in the world to be turned on, but I am. And I’m not going to stop it.

  I figure I can stare at him for roughly five seconds without it being weird. So I take the full five before answering.

  “It’s not far. Come on.”

  It takes hours to maneuver our way to the east part of the city. We each take separate cars to avoid being seen together. Thank goodness the brothers have paper money.

  I feel and look like I’ve been hit by a dump truck. Blood cakes my arms, my clothes are torn, and soot from the explosion coats my skin. I can only imagine what my hair looks like. Thankfully, Jacob gave me a hat and jacket before we separated. I’d pulled the hat down low so the driver wouldn’t ask any questions.

  My car pulls up in front of the old house. I take a deep breath. What waits for me on the other side is a lot of memories, but it’s the safest place I can think of to go.

  The driver, an older overweight guy, turns and gives me a look. “Is this really where you want to be?”

  “No, but when has wanting something ever made a difference?”

  He shrugs, I hand him some bills, and I get out.

  The car drives off, and I wait. I’d promised to stay outside for everyone. I know if they try to locate this wreck of a house by themselves, they’ll never find it.

  The house is a one-story clunker. Most houses built around the turn of the century are in great shape, but this one was either built with secondhand parts or by a drunken foreman.

  I see Jacob walking up the sidewalk. He whistles as he approaches.

  “Wow. You weren’t kidding. This is bad.”

  “It’s the safest place in the whole metro area, I can promise you that.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “It used to be my grandmother’s. She said she’d haunt the place when she died so no one would want to live here. Scarlet was nothing if not a woman of her word.”

  “Scarlet? That’s your grandma.”

  “Yeah, and she made me call her Scarlet, too. Not Grandma. She used to say, ‘I may be a grandma, but you ain’t gonna talk to me like one. I didn’t ask your stupid mama to bring you into this world.’”

  “She sounds nice.”

  “She was what I like to call ‘a real piece of work.’”

  I get a laugh on that one. “Did you live with her?”

  “Until I was fifteen. Then I ran away.”

  “Hey, I ran away when I was fifteen, too.”

  “Look at us. Two emotionally-stunted peas in a pod.”

  “Speak for yourself,” he said with another smile full of brilliant teeth. “I’m perfectly well-rounded in my emotions.”

  “Sure you are. All emotionally satisfied people run away from home at fifteen. It’s the step right before overdosing on drugs and getting married to a felon.”

  “It is. And Denise is finishing up her thirty-year sentence as we speak,” he jokes. “We’re going on the honeymoon we never had once she’s out, since we spent our wedding night in a conjugal trailer.”

  “That sounds comfy.”

  “Not really. Budget cutbacks meant there was only one trailer, so we had to share it with a lesbian couple. Good old Patty and Nan.”

  “Oh God. Patty and Nan? Worst couple names ever.”

  He laughs again. “What do you want from me? I’m making this up as we go along. So was it your mom or your dad?”

  “What?”

  “Was it your mom or dad that made you run away from home?”

  I’m surprised he would be bold enough to ask, but I hear myself answering his question anyway.

  “I never knew my father, and my mom left me here when I was seven.”

  “You didn’t run away then.”

  My neck prickles. “How do you figure?”

  “It sounds to me like you were in a holding pattern for eight years and left when you felt like it. Am I right?”

  “Well, you’re putting your psychology degree to work tonight, aren’t you? Where did you say you graduated from?”

  I stare daggers, but his charming grin and cocked head deflect them. “Put your claws away, Maverick. I can’t help it you’re obvious.”

  His response catches me off guard enough that I can’t speak. Me? Obvious? What’s that supposed to mean?

  A car pulls up, and Esau steps out. His once-crisp clothes are now dirty and torn. His pocket square is missing, and his shirt has a small blood stain on the front. Somehow, his hair still looks perfect.

  “For someone who survived an explosion, you sure look nice.”

  “I don’t like to be dirty. Or untidy. It interferes with my process.”

  “Your process?” I mock. “Wow. I thought you were going to be the suave, sophisticated type. Scratch that.”

  Esau ignores me and takes a long look at the house. “This place is infested with vermin. I’m sure of it.”

  I growl and rub my hands through my hair. “Get inside. Where’s Naomi?”

  “She decided not to come,” Esau answers. “It’s just us.”

  We all three hurry down the sidewalk and up the front steps of the porch. Esau points to the keypad to the right of the door. “A bio-reader? On a house this old?”

  “It wasn’t original to the house. Scarlet had it installed. She wasn’t a big spender. Just fearful on a crippling level.”

  I tap on the IronClad door. It gives off a satisfying gong. It’s holding strong, though it’s covered in graffiti and dent marks. Someone even tried to put a hole through the wall next to the door.

  Hitting the electric barricade on the inside must have been a shocking experience for that person.

  I laugh internally at my terrible joke as I type in the key to unlock the bio panel. There’s a satisfying beep, and the panel slowly extends from its hiding place in the wall. I place my palm on the scanner and look through the door’s peephole to have my retinas scanned. The panel lights up blue for a moment, then flashes red.

  “Ah, Scarlet. You never disappoint.”

  “You can’t get in?” Esau asks.

  “No, good old granny removed me as a user.”

  “How are we supposed to get in?”

  His constant questions are like a rubber band flicking at my soul. “I’ve got it covered, Esau. Give me a minute.”

  “Are you sure? Because unless you know the override code and how to enter it, there’s no way we’re getting in. Override entry isn’t a basic user function. You have to know how—”

  I turn to face Esau. “Listen, I know we just met and all, but your lack of basic confidence in me is getting tiresome. That and the overwhelming number of questions you ask makes me what to hit you in the face hard enough to break your glasses.”

  “That’s not a nice thing to say.”

  “That’s the point. Do you understand I’m not joking when I say I’ll break your nose if you continue to be an asswipe?”

  I take his silence for an answer. I turn and start the process of entering the override code.

  I can feel Esau wanting to ask a question behind me. I enjoy the fact he won’t let himself.

  Jacob pipes up. “Hey Maverick, out of curiosity, how
do you know the access code?”

  I hear Esau exhale behind me like some four-year-old who has needed to pee for hours and finally found a toilet.

  “Scarlet may have taken me off the house as a user, but she had a terrible memory. She used the same access code for everything.”

  “That’s bad practice,” Esau says.

  I turn around and punch him square in the chest. He gasps like a fish out of water. When I turn to Jacob, he raises his hands. “Don’t look at me. I don’t want to get hit.”

  Esau recovers. “Why—”

  “I swear to God, Esau, if that’s a question coming out of your mouth, I’m going to punch it back down your throat.”

  Esau snarls at me but shuts his mouth and keeps rubbing his chest.

  I turn back around and enter the eight-digit pass code. There’s a metallic clunk, and I reach over and start hoisting up the door. Both Esau and Jacob assist. We lift the gate and enter the dusty entryway.

  Jacob whistles. “Charming.”

  It’s not. The place looks like the 2010s threw up all over it. Birds stitched on pillows, knotted wool blankets, and mismatched furniture fill up the living room. A stained white rug lies on the floor.

  “I never understood why anyone would buy a white rug,” I comment.

  “It’s been my experience that people who buy white rugs either hate themselves or hate other people,” Jacob says.

  Esau doesn’t say anything. Instead, he walks to the old wireless router and the ancient flat screen TV.

  “I haven’t seen either of these devices in ages. Why hasn’t—I mean, I’m surprised no one has taken them yet.”

  “Oh, there’s a reason,” I say.

  “What the hell?”

  The shout comes from the dining room. It’s Jacob. Esau runs past me to see what’s wrong, but I already know.

  Esau turns the corner. “What’s going—oh my.”

  I join them but not quickly. It’s more fun for me to let people sit in the shock of what they’re seeing. Liberating them too soon takes all the amusement out of it. I round the corner and take in all the glory of my crazy family.

  There, standing upright before us in a hermetically-sealed glass coffin, is an old woman’s mummy.

  10

  “I see you’ve met Scarlet.”

  “What the hell is this?” Jacob asks.

  “Remember when I told you my grandmother swore to haunt this house? Well …”

  “Fascinating.” Esau steps closer to observe Scarlet’s sunken face and dried skin. A soft light shines up on the glass like she’s some sort of museum piece.

  Jacob tears his gaze from the vacuum-sealed freak show and looks at me.

  “Your grandmother’s body sits here?”

  “Yep.”

  “This house is literally a tomb.”

  “I never thought of it that way before. I guess it would be. That’s cool.”

  “No, not cool. We have to go.”

  Esau turns and gives his brother the incredulous look he’s given me all night. “Why would we leave?”

  “I’m starting to agree with Mav about what we should do when you ask stupid questions.”

  “No, I legitimately don’t understand. This is perfectly sealed. Nothing gets in or out. We’re being exposed to as many germs or toxins as if the coffin weren’t here. There is no reason based on health that we should leave. I’m the germaphobe, and even I know that much.”

  I grin and try to make eye contact with Jacob. “You hear that, Jacob? We’re staying.”

  He’s having none of it. He gives me an ugly frown and walks back into the living room.

  “If we’re staying, I’m not spending any more time in there.”

  We all go back into the living room and sit. Jacob and I grab the couch, and Esau sits on the floor.

  “Now that people aren’t trying to blow us up, what else do I need to know?” I ask.

  Esau rotates on his butt until he faces an open wall. “Hang on. You’ll probably overwhelmed with the amount of information I’m about to go over.”

  He taps the side of his glasses, then waves his fingers in front of him like a blind idiot. A beam of light bursts from his spectacles, and an image takes up the entire wall in front of us. My body tilts backward to take it in. Before me is an image of the senator’s mansion.

  Esau starts. “This is Senator Greenstreet’s mansion.”

  “Yes, I’m familiar with it.”

  Esau turns and gives me what I assume is another one of his looks. I can’t tell for sure because the projection coming from his glasses nearly blinds me.

  “I’m trying to be thorough. Please allow me to finish,” he says.

  Jacob, shielding his eyes, intervenes. “Whoa, whoa, let’s all settle down. Esau, how about I talk about the plan, and you insert commentary when I’m not being clear. Fair?”

  Esau turns and faces the wall. “Fine.”

  Jacob rubs his eyes, looks at me, and smiles—none of which Esau can see. I smile back.

  “Like my brother was saying, this is Greenstreet’s mansion. We’ve been patrolling it for months now trying to find a way in. It’s proven tricky. There isn’t a way to get in unless the senator asks, and those kinds of invitations aren’t given out to new people.”

  The wide view of the mansion disintegrates into a technical readout of the house. “This is a mockup of what we know exists. The place is a labyrinth of rooms and tunnels, not to mention everything that’s underground.”

  The screen zooms in on the front entry, now a green-lined sketch on a black background. “There are the less obvious reasons why it’s impenetrable, though. I’ll let Esau explain.”

  Esau pushes up the bridge of his glasses with his finger. “The doorway is equipped with a 360-degree bio scanner. Unless your DNA is designated for approved entry, alarms go off and security is notified. Electrical currents are sent through the walls and floor to incapacitate anything touching them.”

  As he speaks, the projection demonstrates where the scanner is, the alarms going off, and what an electrical current will do to the human body.

  Jacob takes back the conversational reins. “The next thought would be to break in through an exterior wall or window. Again, not going to happen. The walls are reinforced with electrical mesh that will send ten thousand volts of electricity into anything that tries to bust through it.”

  “Not to mention the snipers and security personnel who will shoot you if you’re deemed a threat,” Esau says.

  “I’m hearing a lot of electricity. Why not shut down the power?”

  Esau takes off his glasses and looks at me, surprised.

  “Yeah, I picked up on that without needing it spoon fed to me, Esau. I have a brain between my ears.”

  Esau puts his glasses back on and keeps talking like I never said a word. “All the electricity is generated below the house. To sabotage the entire electrical system, which is something we’re hoping to do, someone has to already be on the inside.”

  “And that someone is me, right?”

  Jacob smiled. “Yes and no. We need you on the inside, but not to shut down the power. The next time you walk into the senator’s mansion, you won’t be Mav the Musician. You’ve got to convince everyone you’re now Maverick the Socialite.”

  11

  I snort. “I’m sorry. Maverick the what?”

  “Esau’s right,” Jacob says. “We need you to spy on Greenstreet for The Red Hand before we can plan out the specifics of killing him. Esau already connected you to the low number of a dead billionaire named Don Merkatz. Now we have to concoct a story that explains why you have it. You’ll be a relative or a secret love child. Whatever it is, the story has to explain why you never told the senator who you were.”

  I wave my finger in his face. “No, no. I’m here to let you in the front door. No one said anything about taking on a second identity.”

  “That’s the only way this is going to work,” Jacob says firmly. “We have t
o tie Don to you somehow. When you present yourself to the senator, you need to have an air of control. We’ll feed you information so you can fake knowing about their political relationship.”

  “Present me? What am I, a geisha?”

  “More or less,” Esau says.

  “Wait, you’re literally going to whore me out to Greenstreet?”

  “Oh, calm down,” Jacob says. “You’ll be in control, believe me. It’ll play right into the drama and political firestorm people love to gossip about. A secret Merkatz lovechild who’s been keeping tabs on the senator to ensure his loyalty? It’s too good not to believe.”

  “Why that angle? Why not his reject niece or something?”

  Jacob waves me off. “Eh, the final details are up in the air. But yes, that’s how we’re framing it. We have today to put you together and get our story straight. Tomorrow, you’ll show up at the senator’s mansion in a Bentley wearing some smoking-hot dress.”

  “No. I’m not some puppet you can yank around.”

  “That’s too damn bad. You either work this the way we say to work it or you’re out.”

  “Then I’ll go tell the senator.”

  “We’ll kill you before it comes to that.”

  We stare at each other for a solid ten seconds before Esau taps his glasses and plunges the room back into a twilighty darkness. “The plan is to kill him, Maverick, but we need to know some things before we can do that. You can’t go rogue now that we’re involved.”

  I cross my arms. “What kinds of things?”

  “The location of a room,” Esau says.

  “A room?”

  “A particular room that isn’t on any of the stolen technical readouts of the house.”

  “And what’s special about this room?”

  “It’s got information inside that’s particularly valuable to our cause. That’s all that needs to be said.”

  “Fine.” I pause. “For people with such airtight plans, why haven’t you kidnapped someone close to him before now?”

  Jacob sighs. “It depended on too many things going right.”