Keeping Me (Spy Chronicles Book 2)(42)

A landline?

He walks towards the kitchen and I follow him. There is a landline phone hanging on the wall. I remember seeing it there, now that I think about it, but I just assumed it didn’t work. I mean, who uses landline phones anymore?

“Hello,” Sebastian answers.

I wait, watching his face. But there is no change in his expression, so I have no idea what the call is about.

“Understood,” he says, then hangs up the phone.

“What is it?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer. He just grabs my arm and pulls me towards the backdoor of the house. Out the back, there is a small yard and a deck that leads into the river. But we don’t go towards the river. Instead, we run into the woods.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Just keep up, S,” he says. “And keep quiet.”

Of course.

Once again, my life could possibly be at risk, but I can’t know anything. What’s new?





No.





I’m not sure how long Sebastian and I run—it’s longer than I’ve ever run before. I’m not sure how I’ve run so long, but something about being scared makes you stronger and pushes your body farther than you ever thought possible. But eventually, we run into a clearing where there is a small airplane sitting.

“Get in,” Bass says.

There are literally only two seats in the plane.

“No,” I say, shaking my head.

“Why not?” he asks.

“Too small.”

Because I would literally be in the smallest seat in the world. And I can’t.

“You have to.”

“I can’t,” I say again, looking away from the plane, towards Sebastian. “I can’t handle small spaces.”

“Crap,” he says. “Okay, look. You don’t have a choice. You have to either get on the plane or you are, literally, going to die. Do you understand?”

“No,” I say. “How could I possibly understand? I still have no idea what’s going on.”

He lets out a breath. “The phone call said Protocol Kryptonite. Do you know what Kryptonite is?”

I nod. “The stuff that hurts Superman.”

Gage made me watch a ton of Superman movies.

“Right,” Sebastian says. “And if my dad is Lex Luthor, who do you think your dad is?”

“Superman.”

“Exactly,” he says. “I don’t know what is going on. But I know that we need to get out of here and we need to get out of here now.”

“Where are we going?”

“North,” he answers. “And then we’re getting on a bigger plane and going to Australia. Then we will figure it out from there. Right now, I just know I need to get you out of the country as quickly as I possibly can.”

“And you can fly this?” I ask.

He smiles. “I guess you’ll find out.”

“Do you have your license?”

“No,” he answers. “I’m only seventeen, S. You can’t get a pilot’s license when you’re seventeen.”

“You’re not making this easier,” I say. “And look, I might have bravely jumped from an airplane. But I can’t do this. This... is different. It’s the small space.”

“It’s my fault. I knew your fear was small spaces. I guess I just thought we’d have more time,” he says.

“What are we going to do?” I ask.

“Plan B.”

“What’s plan B?”

Sebastian holds up a set of keys and pushes a button on a remote. I hear a car horn go off and look around the plane to see an SUV sitting there. “We drive. It’s going to take longer and put us at a bigger risk, but right now we don’t have another choice, unless you’ve changed your mind about the airplane.”

“No.”

“Okay. Get in.”

We both run towards the SUV, getting inside. Sebastian drives, of course. I’ve taken a couple of driving lessons, but I’m still not a good driver. Sebastian drives like he’s been driving for years, which I guess, technically, he has. And he’s taken stunt driving courses. He can do a lot of crazy things that I couldn’t dream of doing.

I breathe a sigh of relief as he pulls out onto the road.

For a minute there, I really thought he was going to force me onto the plane.

“You did good running here. It was ten miles. You’ve never run that far before,” Bass says. “You don’t even sound out of breath.”

“Well, I was kind of scared,” I say.

But my adrenaline has worn off, and my body hurts.

Something Sebastian said comes back to my mind.

“What exactly is Protocol Kryptonite.”

“You. You’re kryptonite,” Bass says. “Your dad’s one weakness is you.”

“Right,” I say. “Does it mean my dad is safe?”

“I don’t know where your dad is,” he says. “The call came from somebody else. We’ve been keeping an eye on airports and any place we feel is big enough for a plane to land. It’s why we chose New Zealand. It’s small here, and easier to keep an eye on things.”