The Lost Saint(20)

“ ‘The Depot,’ ” I read out loud. “Do you know what that is?”

“I’ve been asking around,” she said. “I couldn’t find out anything at first. Not even anything on the Internet that wasn’t in a locked forum. But then I was at that old movie theater in Apple Valley with Miya and Claire the other night. And you know that stoner-looking guy who works at the concessions stand—the one who always wears those gamer hats?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I was buying some popcorn when I heard that kid going on about some new club he was dying to play at—a place called The Depot.”

My mouth popped open. “Did you find out anything else?”

“Yeah. I had to give him ten bucks, but he finally told me that The Depot is like this superexclusive emogamers’ nightclub in the city. And for another twenty bucks he gave me the address.”

She opened her drawer and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper.

“What … really?” I reached for it.

April pulled it away. “I don’t know if I should tell you where Jude is.”

“Why?”

“Because if I tell you, then you’ll go tell Daniel or your dad, and they’ll go down there and just scare him off. If he wanted them to find him, then he would have contacted them … not me.”

“Not us. Jude contacted me, too.”

April looked down at the folded piece of paper. She turned it over in her hand a couple of times and sighed. “I don’t know if this will even do you any good. You can’t just walk into The Depot. I told you, it’s, like, superexclusive. Not even the kid who gave me the address had actually even been inside yet. You have to have a special keycard or you can’t even get in the door.”

Keycard? I stuck my hand in my jacket pocket and pulled out the plastic card I’d found at the market yesterday. “You mean like this one?”

April’s jaw dropped. “How did—?”

“You’ve got the address. I’ve got the card. We can do this together, or not at all.” I took a step toward her. “What do you say?”

“Okay.” April stood up. She shook in that excited-nervous way of hers. “But we’re going to need makeovers.”


I almost dropped the keycard. “We’re going to need … what?”





CHAPTER EIGHT


The Depot



THAT NIGHT




Yeah, so this is pretty much the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, I thought as I listened to the weird vroom-vroom noise the borrowed pair of vinyl pants I wore made as I walked. The sound was so distracting that I didn’t see the crack in the sidewalk, and stumbled in the high-heeled red leather boots April had insisted that I wear.

April caught me by the arm before I fell. “Those are hard to walk in, huh?”

“The pants or the boots?” I grumbled. “Seriously, why do you even have vinyl pants?”

“They’re for my Halloween costume. I’m going as Lady Gaga.” She pointed to the pink sequined top she wore with a denim jacket and a black miniskirt. “This goes with it.”

Great, I was headed to a nightclub for the very first time in half a Halloween costume. I wrapped my arms around my waist, trying to cover up my bare midriff. This lacy red top was far too short for my taste, but April had forbidden me to wear my wool jacket over it because she said it would ruin the “ensemble.”

And not only was I dressed like a pseudohooker, I was also walking down a street only two blocks away from Markham—the worst neighborhood in the Midwest—after dark. Yep, this definitely ranks on the list of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.

April looked down at the paper in her hand and then did a full circle, looking at all the buildings on the street. “This is supposed to be the address, but this doesn’t look like a nightclub to me.”

I’d been so distracted by my ridiculous clothes, and the prospect of getting mugged and/or solicited by a total stranger, that I hadn’t even paid attention to the architecture around us. I looked up at the building we stood in front of. It was long and wide, with boarded-up windows and a huge chain wrapped around the handles of the decrepit double doors. I could feel a slight vibration under my feet. “Isn’t this that abandoned train station they’re always talking about on the news? How it needs to be demolished?”

April shrugged. “All I know is that I’m going to punch that stoner kid in the ’nads if he doesn’t give me my twenty bucks back. He totally ripped me off.”

I took a couple of steps closer to the building. The vibration in the ground got stronger, rumbling through the soles of my shoes and up the pointy four-inch heels. Another two steps closer and I could feel the vibration in my ears now. Music—coming from somewhere nearby. Underneath us, perhaps? If it weren’t for my powers, I probably would have missed it.

“No,” I said. “I think we’ve found it. The Depot? Train station? Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“I guess,” April said. “But this place is totally boarded up.”

I motioned to April as I followed the musical vibration around the side of the building and down the narrow alley between the train station and an equally abandoned-looking warehouse. Stupid, stupid, stupid, I kept chanting to myself with every quick step, but if this was the only way to track down Jude, I wasn’t going to turn back now. The sounds of a screeching car and a shouting man back out on the street made me pick up my pace until I came to a metal door on the side of the building. It looked far more modern than the chained-up doors out front. The vibration was strong from behind the door, and I could even pick up the faint rhythmic pulse of techno music.