Mayhem and Madness by J. A. Dauber

Author:J. A. Dauber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2019-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

I got the shakes on the way back, once the adrenaline wore off. I even let myself cry a little bit. Not for the terrorist, at least, I don’t think so, but for…well, for whatever it all meant. I was sure that the Bloody Front were going to take it out on my dad. And the only person I could talk to about any of this was Mr. Jones, and there was definitely something weird going on there.

I kept going over and over it, long after I’d landed, gotten to the May-cave, caught my breath. I knew the attack couldn’t have been a coincidence. Mr. Jones must have been monitoring the Front’s communications and knew they were planning something in the area. But why send me there? And not tell me about it?

There’d been warning signs: he was keeping other things from me, he wanted more money, he still hadn’t shown me his face…. But this was a different level. Someone had died. It was a terrorist who had been totally fine with murdering innocent people, but still. I wasn’t a soldier. I wasn’t a killer. Not intentionally, anyway. Never.

I finally managed to get ahold of him. I said a lot of things, but I wasn’t sure exactly what they were. And then he was talking, totally calm. “It was a final test,” he said. “You see? I couldn’t tell you they were going to be there. If I had, I wouldn’t be able to observe your reaction to unforeseen conditions. And when you go on your rescue mission, those are the only conditions there are going to be.”

I have to be honest: I wanted to believe this. It did seem like a pattern of his. First the Golden Gate Bridge thing, where I’d—he’d—blown Mayhem’s cover wide open, now this.

“But that guy—what happened to him—”

“He did it to himself,” Mr. Jones said, and his voice was calm, sympathetic. “You have nothing—nothing—to feel bad about. I’m proud of you. You’ve come a long way.”

Maybe I should have stayed skeptical. Maybe I should have gotten more skeptical. I mean, it seems like Emotional Manipulation 101, right? You’ve come a long way. It sounds like the end of one of those sports movies where the kids from the wrong side of town get revved up by the coach. But I was caught up in the moment.

Mr. Jones was patient, and he listened to me sniff and snuffle, and made the right soothing noises. And then he said, “Let’s change the subject. What did you get for Rebecca?”

I hadn’t had a chance to check while flying back, but I was safe in the May-cave. The Mayhem suit’s gauntlets are more suited to big, rough work like smashing concrete than to opening tiny blue boxes, but I managed. It was a thin silver bracelet, maybe platinum, I wasn’t sure, supporting a tasteful, but not what you would call small, diamond, set off by tiny blue stones—sapphires, I think, but I wasn’t sure about that, either.

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