The doctor shook his head and then took a closer look at the cut on the side of my head. “It’s not deep,” he said. His gentle tone lulled me into a false sense of security, and then his fingers prodded my bruise. “Does this hurt?”
I yelped and let loose an impressive string of expletives.
“Okay,” the doctor inferred, seemingly bemused, “that hurts.”
He pulled a light out from the front pocket of his lab coat and shined it in my eyes. He continued examining me as he ran through a list of questions, some of which Tara had asked me earlier, and some of which she hadn’t. In the end, he said that he didn’t think I had a concussion and that an MRI wouldn’t be necessary this time.
“You got off easy,” he told me. “If you’ll take my advice—and they never do—you’ll get out of this game while you still can.”
I had to remind myself that he was talking about the cheerleading aspect of it. He had no idea what we were really up to. Either way, there was exactly zero chance of me quitting. If anything, recent events had caused some perverse part of me to want to throw myself into this mission more.
Seeing the refusal to quit in my eyes, the doctor sighed. “I have three daughters,” he said. “The oldest one is five. If she wants to play football when she’s in high school, I’ll buy her the jersey, but the second the word cheer leaves her mouth, I’m locking her in her room until she’s thirty. It’s just too dangerous.”
And with that, he was gone.
I turned to Tara. “And you said I was a drama queen.”
Tara grinned. “Let’s go,” she said. “I think you have something Brooke will be very, very happy to see.”
Tara’s words registered, and after a few seconds, my hand flew to my throat. My necklace was still there, and the charm appeared to be in one piece. Until that moment, I’d completely forgotten that I was wearing the contents of the late Jacob Kann’s laptop around my neck.
I smiled, thinking how satisfying it would be to hand the data stick to Brooke all gloatylike, and echoed Tara’s words. “Let’s go.”
And then, because a full fourth of my brain had become dedicated to cheers, I rephrased my words with but a hint of irony in my voice. “L-e-t-s-g-o, let’s go, let’s go, l-e-t-s-g-o…”
Tara grinned. “Let’s go!”
CHAPTER 10
Code Word: Prezzies
By the time Tara and I got back to the Quad, my mood had improved significantly. You know your life is bordering on the absurd when a day you almost get blown up, but don’t have a concussion, is a good day. I think it’s safe to conclude that I was pretty much in happy denial land. All I could think about was that, despite our mission’s disastrous ending, I’d managed to do something that none of the other girls had.
I’d gotten computer intel. If any of Jacob Kann’s lovely, unencrypted files contained information about what he was doing in Bayport, that would be huge. Now more than ever, we needed to find out why the TCIs were here, because with Kann’s death, one thing had become crystal clear.
Whatever it was that had brought the TCIs to Bayport was worth killing for.
“Toby, OMG, are you okay?” Lucy greeted me with a huge hug and a mouthful of high-speed babble. “We were like so worried about you! I mean, I know you were standing far enough away from the blast that the resulting heat wave shouldn’t have affected you, but flying debris can be so totally deadly and stuff!”
“I’m fine,” I assured her. “Really, Luce.”
Tara rolled her eyes, probably at the fact that I’d gone from Drama Queen mode to downplaying the whole thing. All it took was a little sympathy.
“Do you think the cut will heal before homecoming?” Lucy was wide-eyed at the prospect. I brightened slightly at her question. Would this negatively affect my chances for homecoming princess?
Please, I thought, let this negatively affect my chances for homecoming princess!
“Don’t worry, Toby. We’ve got you covered.” Brittany handed me a small gift bag, and then Tiffany handed me a slightly larger one.
“Oooohhhhh,” Bubbles said appreciatively. “Prezzies!”
I was somewhat skeptical of anything that involved the twins handing me packages. Somehow, I doubted there was chocolate inside.
“The blue one has a new liquid base in it,” Tiffany said.
“It’s totally safe to use on wounds, and it’s got this polymicrofiber thingy in it that completely camouflages even the worst bruises.”
Oh, goody! Makeup.
“What’s the pink one have in it?” I was almost afraid to ask.
Brittany reached a hand out to touch my hair. “Prototype conditioner,” she said. “Explosions wreak havoc on your hair’s moisture levels.”
I almost got blown up, and the twins were worried about the effect it would have on my hair. Why was I not surprised?
“Good. You’re back.” Brooke pushed through the others to stand directly in front of Tara and me. “You two ready to give us the full rundown on your recon?” Her gaze lingered on my bruised temple for just a moment, and I thought I saw something that might have been worry behind her eyes. Then again, it also might have been unadulterated disdain. I’m always mixing those two up.
“We’re ready,” Tara said. Then she looked at me, and the edges of her lips turned up slightly. “Let’s go.”
The look in her eyes, in combination with the tone in her voice on those last two words, had me fighting an insane urge to giggle, even though our “let’s go” joke wasn’t objectively funny at all. I blame the fact that, between the body glitter, the pep rally, and nearly being decapitated by flying debris, it had been a pretty stressful day.
Not saying a word, and somehow managing to keep my stress-induced giggle impulse to myself, I followed the others to our conference table and sat docilely while Tara began calmly and methodically walking the others through our mission.
“Your potentially hostile target almost caught you guys casing his room?” Brooke asked.
Tara inclined her head slightly, acceding the point, but the look in her eyes was pure steel. “He didn’t catch us.”
“Get in and get out,” Brooke said. “You were supposed to get in and get out.”
Personally, I thought she was blowing this a little bit out of proportion. She hadn’t been the least bit concerned about the fact that I’d almost been blown to Toby bits, but she was upset that we’d overstayed our welcome in Kann’s room?