Chapter 4

Episode 10 - Whistle Down the Wind

“Still no movement on your side?” Rachelle massaged her taut jaw with the fist she was resting it on, and Brady wished he could think of a way to rub his forehead without calling attention to the signs of a building headache.

“Yeah, nothing.” Marcus sighed, and Brady instinctively braced himself for a crash somewhere before remembering the sudden shift in the teen’s baseline. “I mean, I can’t be a hundred percent without Brady’s x-ray specs, but I’ve had eyes on this place the whole time, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have missed a whole white cat.”

“Same from my side,” Car chimed in, and Brady glanced toward Dash and Harper, hoping against hope that one of them was holding onto a brilliant idea that they’d somehow neglected to share.

“So…” Harper trailed off blankly, and Dash remained silent with his arms folded hard across his torso. Realistically, they’d already gone over every possible angle at least twice, along with a few that weren’t even remotely possible. But unfortunately each one had ended in a metaphorical brick wall, leaving them no closer to a solution than they’d been when they first started working the problem.

“Guys, this cat isn’t coming.” The tension was ramping up in Marcus’s voice, and alarm bells began to sound in Brady’s brain, but before he could open his mouth, Car’s voice came back urgently.

“It’s not, but your other little buddy is. Coming straight back to us. I’ll try to intercept.”

“That’s it—I’m going in.”

“Marcus, don’t!” Brady sat up straight, panic spiking in his chest at the younger boy’s determined tone.

“Hey, hey, hey, hold up!” Car interrupted faintly through her distant phone. “Back to the corner, little man. My friend’s working on the cat, but you gotta give him space, okay? Be a shame if you scared it back in when we’ve almost got it.”

“Really?” The kid’s voice was just audible through the speaker, and Brady winced, but Car answered without hesitation.

“Really. Let’s get you back over to that corner, okay? Tell me about where your cat likes to hide at home.”

The little boy’s answers faded to a garbled background hum, and just as Brady’s shoulders started to relax, Marcus’s whisper came back on the line.

“Brady, I’m doing this! If I don’t go in, he will, and I’m not swapping out my chance to help to play guard dog all day instead. I’ll crawl on my stomach if you think it’s safer. And I won’t breathe hard. I won’t even breathe at all! But I’ve got to do something!”

“Pretty sure I remember you taking on a place you knew was coming down any minute—when you thought you had a good enough reason.” Harper’s voice held a softer note than usual, and when Brady glanced over, she was watching him thoughtfully through her blue bangs, her head tipped curiously to one side.

“That was to save your life, Harper. Not a cat.”

“Yeah, but it’s not just a cat here either,” Marcus interjected before Harper could answer. “I don’t care if we lock him in his room; this kid is going to come back for it. And next time, he’ll wait till no one’s watching.”

“You’re not wrong even a little bit,” Car murmured, and Brady swallowed hard.

“Marcus, it’s too risky.”

“And if it’s too risky for me, what’s it supposed to be for a little kid that’s not even trying to be careful? What if it was Zay or Dymon—or Grace—scared to death for a pet, and you knew they’d end up going after it anyway? If you were out here with your powers—or without them—tell me you wouldn’t go in.”

“That’s—” The word slipped out before Brady could stop it, and he bit down hard on the rest, but Dash finished it for him after only a beat of silence.

“Different.”

“But—”

“Because it’s you, not him, rookie. That’s complete easy mode.”

“You’re not wrong.” Harper snickered a little, and Brady groaned and looked pleadingly toward Rachelle. She grimaced in sympathy, but after a second, she slowly shook her head.

“I’m with you, Brady, honest. But I’m not sure how to argue with that. If you find a way, I’ll back you up every inch, but…” Her words trailed off, and she offered a helpless shrug.

“Brady, please!” Marcus’s voice caught. “I won’t breathe hard. I won’t breathe at all! I’ll be extra super careful. Please?”

“And what’s the plan if you get in trouble?” The words left Brady’s lips on a whisper, and Marcus’s quick intake of breath held way too much hope.

“I’ll blow my way out! If I can almost destroy the whole lab, I’ve got to be able to blast a hole in a place like this—big enough to keep the ceiling off me anyway. Promise I can!”

Brady closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, trying to relax the tension in his neck. Why or when he had somehow become the authority on what Marcus was allowed to attempt, he wasn’t sure, but for some reason, everyone seemed to be looking to him. He offered a silent prayer, then waited a moment for any kind of clear direction before swallowing hard.

“I need you to promise me you’ll be careful, bud. If stuff starts shifting, you get out, okay? No pauses, no excuses. Hear me?”

“Promise! I promise!” The excitement in Marcus’s voice made Brady’s head spin for a second, and the older boy sucked in a hard breath before forcing out a warning.

“Careful, bud! If you’re going in there, you’ve got to have your head on straight. Or you’re not going. Hear me?”

“Got it! I get it.” Marcus pulled in an extra-long breath and let it out slowly. “I’m going in. Anything else? Want me breathing or not breathing?”

A flicker of recognition of how ridiculous the question would be in any other circumstance flitted through Brady’s mind, but he brushed it to the side and gave the issue serious thought. It was beyond nerve-racking to listen on the line when the teen’s breathing cut out completely, but if the place was as rickety as everyone seemed to think, one hitch in his lungs could bring the whole place down on top of him.

“Think you can hold it long enough to search the whole place? Who knows where it could be hiding in there.”

“Quick search on the surface with no breath as a first step, then? Get the lay of the land, grab it if I can, get out and regroup if I have to?”

“Sounds solid to me.” Dash answered before Brady had finished considering, and Rachelle murmured her agreement.

“Agreed.” Harper propped herself up on her elbow and blew her hair out of her face. “We’ve got you, Micro. Ready to do this?”

“Brady?” Marcus hesitated a little, and Brady closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

“Yeah. I don’t have any better ideas. Go ahead. Just—take care of yourself, okay? Don’t push it too hard. Rather you cut things too early than too late.”

“On it!” The teen’s enthusiasm bounded back like a rubber ball, and Brady wasn’t sure he wanted to know which part of the derelict house could be heard creaking through the earpiece. “Car, can you stick there and make sure the kid doesn’t follow me in?”

“You got it.” Car’s capable tone calmed Brady’s heart a bit, and he closed his eyes and tried to rest back against the couch as Marcus’s breathing cut out, replaced with the distant sounds of echoing footsteps on groaning floorboards.

Brady’s hands clenched into fists as the seconds ticked by, and he couldn’t help attempting to picture Marcus’s movements in the scuffs, scrapes, and shuffles on the line. The threatening headache began to tighten its grip on his skull, and Brady sent up a silent prayer for help, hoping more than anything that the stress of the situation wouldn’t send him into a state where he couldn’t help anyone.

“Got it.” The barely whispered words brought Brady bolt upright again, and his eyes snapped open just in time to see Dash lift his head.

“Don’t move too fast. Tightest grip you can. Cats are slippery like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Yeah. Got it. It’s wriggling, but—” Marcus pulled in a sharp breath, and Brady sat forward.

“You okay? Everything safe? How quick can you get out of there?”

“In the basement.” There was something off in the teen’s voice, but Brady couldn’t lay his finger on it. His heart rate kicked up a beat, pounding in his ears. “Working back to the door. Ow—man, this thing has claws! I’m on my way. Just need to—to—” He broke off with another quick, sharp breath, and horror crashed over Brady as he suddenly recognized the sound.

“Marcus, don’t—”

Before he could even finish the sentence, the earpiece exploded with the force of a tremendous sneeze. In what felt like slow motion, Brady heard Rachelle’s gasp, saw Harper’s eyes go wide, registered the turn of Dash’s head toward him with a look of undeniable concern. Brady had no idea what his own face was doing, but he was positive it wasn’t good.

What had been a soft background hum of groans and squeaks became a terrifying cacophony of cracks and crashes as the gale-force blast slammed into the rickety structure that couldn’t have taken a tenth of its force. Marcus had never actually sneezed when he was on the injection—at least not to Brady’s knowledge—but the sound was every bit as terrifying as he could have imagined.

“Get down!” The command was entirely instinctual, and paralyzing doubt struck him in the next instant, but there was no time to think of a better one.

“Micro, blast!” Car’s shout came barely a beat behind his, and Marcus gasped desperately.

“Trying! I’m—” The words cut off in a sickening roar that took Brady back to the abandoned hotel with the walls crashing around him and an utterly helpless Harper.

“Marcus!”

There was a stifled gasp and a weak cough from the teen, then a deep rumble like rocks being mixed in a blender, then finally a deep, eerie silence.