The 39 Clues - Rapid Fire: Crushed by Riley Clifford

Author:Riley Clifford [Clifford, Riley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Action & Adventure, General, Historical, Other
ISBN: 9780545451994
Google: eYdv8BH5jfIC
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2011-12-28T21:19:53.880000+00:00

41/59

But if he stopped her, she’d go back to prison. There would be no more parole, no more Isabel loose in Boston.

Amy would be so happy. She’d be so proud.

He’d never have to worry that Isabel would show up again.

She’d never show up again. For a birth-day, a polo match . . . anything.

Perhaps his conscience was too new; he hadn’t used it enough yet to know how to use it properly. Perhaps he just wasn’t good at doing the right thing.

Ian stepped away from the door.

Isabel smiled again, and swept past him.

“Thank you, darling.”

She opened the door, stepped through, and shut it behind her.

42/59

Shame swept over Ian like a tidal wave. He stared at the garden door, and it was hard to breathe. The realization of what he had done smacked him in the face and it was cold, like a block of ice. He jerked the door open and stumbled out into the street.

But there was no one there. Isabel had gotten away.

No. He’d let her go.

Ian looked back at the house. For the first time in his life, he didn’t feel worthy of living there. He didn’t deserve it.

Ian Kabra would never cry. But he did sit down on the ground, something else he thought he would never do, and put his face in his hands for just a moment. Somehow, he remembered to breathe. It was funny, how you could keep breathing when you just made the biggest mistake of your life.

In the mansion, he found Natalie in the library.

43/59

“What on earth happened to you?” she gasped. “Your trousers!”

“I went into the . . . the Lucian wing.”

Natalie’s head jerked backward like he’d just told her he’d be wearing flannel and denim from now on. “Why?” she asked.

“I thought I heard someone in there.”

“Did you?” she asked, gripping the arm of the chair she sat in. Natalie could be a nuisance; she could be tiresome and petu-lant. But she looked so small and scared, like an actual little sister, that he couldn’t bring himself to let her know that her nightmares were coming true.

“No,” he said. “It was nothing.”

“Then why do you look like that?”

Natalie asked.

Ian looked down at his clothes. He was covered with tiny bits of glass dust. The toes of his polished leather shoes had been re-duced to unintentional suede. His sweater was gashed through across his stomach, and 44/59

his polo shirt was stained an ugly greenish brown.

“I took a walk in the gardens,” he said.

“All of that happened from a walk in the gardens?”

“You know I’m not the outdoorsy type.

Good night.”

He left the library and wandered to his room.

He could never tell Amy, and he couldn’t go to America. It would be too much to bear, a secret too heavy for the airplane to lift across the ocean.

And the more he thought about it, the angrier he grew with himself. Making the right choice — the good choice — should have been so easy. He could see that now. All it would have meant was saying no to Isabel.

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