This choice: Tell Lucy about your suspicions about your father. • Go Back...Chapter #29Parental Issues by: Nostrum   You can't help flinching under Lucy's hard stare. But you stubbornly stick to your guns.
"Look, we can't just throw this stuff away," you tell her and Taylor. "The professor still has the book that made it all, you know, and—" You falter. "Fight fire with fire," you lamely conclude.
Lucy's expression curdles into a glare. "Face it, Will, you just like getting off on this stuff. You're as bad as the the professor."
Maybe it's her accusation, maybe it's the sneering way she makes it, maybe you're just sick of her treating you like shit. But something inside you cracks. You feel the heat welling up inside you even before you start screaming back at her.
"Take a look around, you fucking cunt!" you explode, and Lucy's eyes nearly pop from her head. "I've been busting my ass to help you, and Taylor, and everyone else who's been mixed up in it!" You jab a finger at Taylor, whose mouth has fallen open. "I helped get him out that mask he was nailed up inside! I got him talking to his brother again! And I helped get you out of one stinking basement"—spit flies from your lips, but you're too wound up to care—"and I'm fucking sorry if I didn't have a better place to take you except here! But I even went up to the college and managed to bag your evil twin, so you can fucking go home whenever you fucking feel like it! And by the way, thanks for being so grateful! But in the meantime, what have I done for myself? What have I done about the thing that's back at my house pretending to be—!"
But you choke on the accusation even as it's about to come rushing out, and you feel your eyes bulging as you gasp and try to catch your breath.
Lucy has turned white and is openly gaping at you. Taylor is also staring, but his voice is hard when he speaks. "What thing?" he asks. "Pretending to be what? What are you talking about?"
You clamp your jaw shut and hunch your shoulders. You twist on your feet, regretting how close you came to confessing the fears you have about your father, and also regretting that you choked before you could. But Taylor steps forward, bearing down on you.
"My dad," you tell him in a half-strangled mutter.
"What about your dad?"
Ever fiber of every muscle tightens into a knot, and your hand shakes as you raise it to point at the thing that's still tied to the chair. "I think he's one of those things."
Taylor and Lucy turn in unison turn to look at it; then in unison still they turn back to stare at you. "What makes you say that?" Taylor says.
"Feeling I've got," you mutter. "Feeling I've had ever since you and me started hanging out." You take a deep breath.
"Since that first day when you followed me home," you continue, "'cos you wanted me to get the book for you. But he made me sell it back to the professor, you know, which isn't like him. And he also agreed to let me off on my promise to work on Salopek, something he was always nagging me about. I didn't even know there could be, like, these clone things out there, but I just had a feeling there was something off about him." You glance over at the notes you've been compiling. "And the feeling's just gotten worse since then."
You're exaggerating your suspicions, but Taylor doesn't challenge you, except to ask, "How could the professor kidnap your dad?"
"I don't know," you admit. "Except he went out to talk to him before. He was helping me with the book. You know he's an engineer out at Salopek, where your brother works," you remind Taylor, "so he was interested in it. He didn't understand what was going on, so he told me he tracked down an expert in, like, alchemy or something. He went out to see the professor. And when he came back—"
A hard shiver runs through you. Saying it out loud makes it sound far worse than just thinking it. "When he came back, he was different."
A heavy silence falls in the school basement. It makes you self-conscious, and you have to hang your head when you feel yourself blushing. Suddenly, without intending it, you are rushing up the stairs and outside.
--
You're slouched against your truck, your back against a front wheel, when you hear footsteps. You look up. It's Lucy, coming out of the basement. She looks properly whipped. Shame-faced. And that makes you feel ashamed for having screamed at her.
"Hey," she says as she shuffles up to you. "I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry," you growl back at her. "I shouldn't have yelled at you, I—"
"No, it's alright." Her voice is very soft. "You know, carrying that kind of fear around, it has to be awful. I mean—" She rubs her arm. "It was awful for me, but at least I knew what was happening. But if I thought the professor, or anyone, had done that, like what you're scared of, to someone in my family—" She breaks off. "And at least I had you and Taylor helping me. I am really grateful for that. Thank you," she says in a tiny voice.
It makes you wince. What a hero I am, you reproach yourself. To get the girl to thank me all I had to do was scream at her and make her feel guilty.
"And I'm sorry I've been so short-tempered with you," she continues. "I hate all of this, you know. And watching you get all excited with it, like it was something in a movie or—"
"We'll get rid of it all when this is over," you tell her.
Lucy catches her breath. "Promise?" she says.
Instantly, you regret what you said. "Sure," you reply. Silently, though, you add, And if I don't, what you don't know won't hurt you.
"Thanks," Lucy says. "I guess I should help. I mean, I want to," she hurriedly adds. She glances back at the basement. "I'm going nuts without something to do, you know. That's one reason I've been so pissy."
I bet you're not pissy when you're off with Taylor, just the two of you, you think.
"So if you want to come back inside with us," Lucy says, "we can talk about how we can help you out with your dad."
You look up and hold her eye. She doesn't blink. So with a shrug, you get up and follow her back into the basement.
--
Taylor is perched on the conference table when you rejoin him. He's thumbing a text into his phone, and he gives you a sharp look when he glances up, but doesn't say anything until he's set his phone down.
"So, Sean's on his way out here, gonna pick us up something to eat," he announces, and looks between you and Lucy. "He can give us the lay of the land out at Salopek."
"What lay of the land?" you ask.
"To deal with your dad," Taylor says. "I remember him only a little from when I was working out there, and maybe work arrangements have changed since I was there. Sean can tell us if we can get to him, deal with him."
Deal with him? The phrase alarms you. "My dad? Deal with him how?"
Taylor's brow furrows. "Didn't you say you think he's one of these magical clones? So we deal with him. So we grab him like we grabbed Lucy's clone. We'll get the mask off him, put Scott's on him, walk him down here like we did Lucy."
"I said I only think he might be a clone," you protest. "I don't know for sure."
But Taylor only shrugs. "You wanna be sure, don't you? The test is the same as the cure. We grab him and try to pull a mask off him. If it comes off, we do the face swap thing. If he isn't, no harm done."
Now it's time for you own jaw to drop open. "No harm done?" you exclaim. "You don't know my dad, if you think you can just try tearing his face off and get away with it by saying 'No harm done'!"
"It's no biggie, Will," Taylor says with a shrug. "How am I gonna get in trouble? I'm supposed to be dead!"
"So then how are you gonna—?"
The upshot is a long wrangle during which Taylor comes up with an idea for ambushing your dad in his office at Salopek. It goes like this: While Sean is establishing an alibi for himself elsewhere in the Salopek plant, Taylor (in his own face, but pretending to be Sean) will go find your dad in his office. If your dad is a clone, he'll replace the mask with Scott's mask and walk out with him. If your dad is really himself, Taylor will run out and escape. But your dad won't be able to blame the attack on the guy who looks like Sean Mitchell, because Sean will have that alibi, and Taylor can then slip back into hiding under the mask of Scott Bickelmeir.
"Best part is," he concludes after hashing out the details of this harebrained scheme, "is that it leaves you in the clear. Your dad can't blame anything on you. Which he would if you tried doing this thing at your house."
"But it wouldn't give me closure." You retort in a quavering voice. "Taylor, we've done everything together so far. We do it, we do it together. In fact...", you say as you turn desperately to the door, the tone of your voice changing to a resolute one, "let's do it right now."
"And let your mom know?" Lucy's words stop you. "She doesn't know about this. Your brother, maybe, but... Will, for once in your life, don't try to solve everything yourself. Let them do it."
This is the first time Lucy has shown some concern for you, and is enough to make you pause. Should you let Taylor go with his plan, even if your gut instinct's telling you it's a bad idea? Maybe if you were there, you'd make sure everything's alright. Maybe it doesn't have to wait until tomorrow.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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