The Conspiracy by K.A. Applegate

Author:K.A. Applegate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2017-11-23T05:00:00+00:00

We met in Cassie’s barn. All of us but Ax and Rachel. They were watching my house. My dad would be safe with those two.

Tobias calmly, without blame, related what had happened that day and afternoon.

“Stupid,” Marco said.

“I can’t believe you took a chance like that, Jake!” Cassie said angrily. Cassie doesn’t get mad, but she was mad. “Were you looking to get shot?!”

“Obviously not,” I said, meeting her gaze. “But what else was I supposed to do? Let them kill my father?”

“That’s not the point,” Marco said, as angry as Cassie, but colder about it. “You demorphed in plain view. And Tobias says it was a matter of a split second whether you ended up machine-gunned on your own lawn.”

“The alternative was letting them gun down my father.”

“So you figured to let them kill you, too?”

“It worked!” I raged.

Marco threw up his hands in disgust. “Why didn’t you have backup? Tobias says you told him and Ax to get lost. And not to get any of us,” Marco said. He was leaning back on a bale of hay. Leaning back, but not at all relaxed. “We’re supposed to be in this together. If you needed help, you were supposed to ask for it.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But you guys were in school during the surveillance and tonight, well, I didn’t exactly expect Chapman to do a drive-by shooting, you know.”

“A mistake on your part,” Marco said.

“Yeah. A mistake.”

“And today, earlier? Tobias says you froze up when he asked for an order.”

“I didn’t freeze up, I —”

“We can’t afford you freezing up,” Marco said.

I glared at him. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? This is payback for when I doubted you over your mother.”

“I was ready to do what had to be done,” Marco said.

“So am I!”

“No. You’re not. You endangered all of us. You demorphed on your roof! On your roof! In daylight. With your brother in the house! If Tom had seen you do that you’d be head down in the Yeerk pool right now, and the rest of us would be standing in line behind you!”

“What’s the matter with you all?!” I cried. “That was my father! My father! I’m supposed to just stand by and do nothing?”

Tobias answered before Marco could. <Is it worth exposing ourselves and risking everything, all of mankind … literally all the human race … just to save one person?> he said quietly. <I’m sorry, Jake. I know he’s your father. I know what you’re feeling. But it’s something we have to think about.>

I looked away. My face was burning. “You know, we talked about this and we decided on surveillance. We watched my father in case he needed protection. Well, he did and I reacted. What did you guys really think I was gonna do?”

“Just what you did,” Marco said. “You’re too close to this. You can’t make this call.”

I barked out a laugh. “What, you’re going to decide whether my dad lives or dies?” I looked at Cassie.

“Jake …” she said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.