Tremble (Denazen #3)(61)

I sucked in a deep breath. “I think Ben should get the blood.”

“Of course you do,” Alex hissed, flicking a hand in Kale’s direction. “But what good is Rain Man’s memory going to be if Domination kills you?”

“Ben can’t do anything to help Kale—try to keep up. This has nothing to do with that,” I snapped. “He’s the worst off. He should get it. If not him, then Brandt.”

“I’m not taking anything till I know you’re okay,” Brandt said. There was no argument in his tone. Only simple resolve. It was fine. He didn’t need to agree. I’d cram it down his throat while he slept if I had to. “Besides, I don’t need it. We went over this, remember? Technically I can’t die.”

“No, you can’t,” I shot back. “But who exactly are you going to jump into? Feel like picking someone from this room?”

Brandt’s eyes widened and he didn’t respond.

“You’re being stubborn,” Alex interjected.

“Stubborn? What gives me the right to take it? I’m no better than any of the rest of them.”

Alex looked like he wanted to argue, but he locked his jaw and turned away. He had to know I was right. I wasn’t any more important than the others. The guaranteed cure should go to the one furthest along. Right now, that was Ben Simmons.

“This isn’t the issue right now,” Mom said. “We need to get our hands on both the blood and the drug before a decision can be made. Not to mention Franklin Wentz will need to produce a working cure.”

“How is he, anyway? I still haven’t seen him.”

Brandt stretched. “He’s locked away in a lab Ginger had set up for him. I saw him this morning. He’s trying to come up with an alternative cure. Something that doesn’t need Penny Mills’s blood. Not having any luck, though.”

Mom turned and swiveled her gaze between Kale and Brandt. “How do we get in?”

Brandt hesitated. I didn’t like the look in his eyes. I was all too familiar with it. “I have an idea—but I don’t think Dez will like it.”

“Not a good way to start,” I mumbled.

“I’ve been gone a while now. I don’t know where they’re keeping it, and my contact is only on the outside edge of the inner circle. But…”

I narrowed my eyes, willing him to stop right there. I knew exactly where he was going with this, and he was right. I didn’t like it.

“Kale could go back,” he continued cautiously, watching me from the corner of his eye. “I’m betting he knows where the vial is. He can get it and get out.”

I expected everyone to jump on the objection train but no one said a word. I had to be the voice of sanity? Really? Fine.

“Bad call. Kale has spent too much time with me. No way they’ll trust him. And what happens when they expect him to start up daily sessions with their Resident brain-basher? How will he keep her from going in and figuring out that he remembered? Not to mention the chance of her scrambling things up again.” I clapped my hand for dramatic effect. “Oh, and we removed his tracker. How do you propose we explain that?”

“Dez makes some good points,” Mom said. “If they start to play with his memories again, then we lose the last chance we’ve got to save the kids.” She glanced at me. “That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”

“Agreed,” Ginger said with a click of her cane. I couldn’t help noticing how everyone relaxed when she set it down beside her chair. A room full of people with extraordinary abilities and we were all afraid of an old woman with a cane.

“It’s risky,” Brandt agreed. “But in theory, he wouldn’t be there long enough for it to matter. Get in. Get the blood. Get out.”

I sighed. “Because anything is ever that easy? Too many things could go wrong. And like I said, how do you explain the tracker?”

Brandt frowned. “I said you wouldn’t like it. As for the tracker, I’m not sure.”

“Kale should go back—but not alone,” someone said from the other end of the table.

Everyone’s attention turned to Vince.

“I’ve been here a while, and I owe you all a great debt. First, for coming to warn me, then taking me in when I had no safe haven.” He set down the paper. “I want to see these people fall just as much as the rest of you. They took my life from me. Everything I’ve worked so hard for—gone.”

Ginger watched him carefully for a moment before leaning back. There was something in her eyes that made me twitchy. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but she either didn’t trust Vince or knew what he was going to say and didn’t agree. “So what do you suggest?”

“Kale needs to go back. I think that much is a given. But he should go in with support.” Vince nodded toward Mom. “Sue’s right. If he goes in alone, everything we’ve done in regards to getting him back could be too easily undone. He needs a show of good faith…”

“Good faith?” Kale asked, suspicious.

Kale didn’t understand what Vince was getting at. I did—and it was kind of brilliant in a scary, impulsive, and reckless sort of way.

“An offering,” I said, rushing on before I gave it too much thought. “Me. I’ll go.”