The Masked Truth(31)

I ask Max to double-check. I know he won’t find anything, but I can’t take the chance that in my growing anxiety I missed a bag of meds or a cell phone stuffed at the back of a drawer.

When he comes back, his mouth is a tight line, and when I say, “Are you all right?” I don’t get the standard “Right as rain” and jaunty grin. He nods, but it’s curt, and his gaze is distant.

“You really need those meds, don’t you?” I whisper.

“We need a mobile more,” he says.

Which is true—if we had a cell phone, he could get his heart medication as soon as we escaped. But he’s worried about those meds too, meaning the situation is more dire than he’s letting on.

“You’re worried you’ll need them,” I say.

“I always need them,” he says, and there’s a sharp note of frustration there, deep frustration and bitterness and even something like shame, his gaze downcast. I understand that—no eighteen-year-old guy wants to admit to a physical weakness, especially one usually associated with senior citizens.

“Should you rest?” I whisper. “I can find you a room to wait in while I hunt for the back door.”

“No,” he says, adamant, that shoulder-straightening again, as if he’s gearing up for battle. “I’ll be fine. It wouldn’t help anyway. It’s more a matter of timing. The faster we get out of here, the better. We’ll get out faster if we stick together.”

“Are there signs? Anything I can do or not do or watch out for?”

He hesitates, and his shoulders slump, as if it’s a struggle to keep that battle-ready face on.

“I’m not prying,” I say. “If there’s nothing I can do, okay, but if there’s a sign, maybe one that you won’t notice, and it means you need to rest …? My grandfather has heart problems, and I know there are signs for him.”

“It’s … different for me. But … yes, there are signs. If I start acting … odd, tell me.”

I’m about to say, “Odder than usual?” Tease him, lighten his mood, but discomfort jumps from him like electrical sparks, so I keep it serious and say, “Okay. Anything more specific?”

He shakes his head. “Just odd. If I say or do something that doesn’t seem right. I get lightheaded and it affects my brain.” He hurries on, “Nothing to worry about, but just … be aware and don’t be afraid to say, Hey, you’re acting a bit mad.”

I smile at that, and he tries to return it, but there’s a weight there, so heavy I feel it. He shakes it off and looks over at the desk. “Before we go, we should see if there’s anything we can take.”

“Weapons or door knockers. Right. Maria had a letter opener …”

We’re armed now. If you can call a letter opener and a pair of scissors “weapons.” The scissors are safety ones. Max took them, but they’re in his pocket, acknowledgment that they’re more a tool than a weapon.

I have the opener in my hand as I walk, held like a saber, which gives me some comfort, though I keep looking for something bigger, maybe a piece of wood I could wield. I don’t waste time searching for one, though. I know a piece of wood—or even an actual sword—won’t help against men with guns.

I think back to when I started fencing. I was seven, and my dad came home one day and declared that Sloane and I were going to the Y on Saturday to check out martial arts classes. I thought little of it at the time, though I realize in retrospect that it must have been prompted by a case, something he’d seen that made him decide his daughters needed to take self-defense lessons, starting immediately.

Sloane settled on karate. She was already taking dance and this felt the most familiar to her, with its graceful moves. I tried karate and judo and kickboxing, and hated them all. They felt weird and unnatural. Then, after a session, we cut through the main gym to see a fencing class in progress, and I stopped, enthralled, and said, “I want to learn that.”

Dad signed me up, intending for it to complement my martial arts, but after a couple of months I begged to quit karate. I’d already progressed to the next level in fencing and I absolutely loved it.

“She’s a natural,” Dad said to Mom one night, when he thought I was asleep. “I absolutely want her to continue. But I don’t want her giving up karate. What’s she going to do if some boy grabs her behind the school? Hope there’s a stick nearby to whack him with?”

“Neither a stick nor a throw-down is going to save them from a real threat, Jim,” Mom said. “You aren’t teaching them how to protect themselves as much as you’re giving them the confidence to do it. Fencing gives Riley that. Just look at her. She’s already standing up to her sister. Not whacking her with a stick, but standing firm and saying no. She’s also learning how to handle herself against a threat. How to stay calm and focused and plan—whether it’s fighting back or knowing she can’t and that she needs to get out of that situation as fast as possible, and keep her head on straight while she does.”

Dad had agreed Mom was right and let me drop the karate, and he became my biggest cheerleader, rising at any hour to take me to private lessons or driving for half a day to get me to a tournament.

And Mom was right. I might long for a saber in my hand right now, but what I have is even better: the ability to deal with this situation. My confidence has taken a beating in the last four months, but even at its lowest, it’s enough to let me believe we can get out of this, to keep going, not curl up and pray for rescue, divine or otherwise.