The 39 Clues [Cahills vs. Vespers] 05 - Trust No One by Linda Sue Park Page B

precious water ration to soak rags and place them on his body in an effort to get his temperature down.
    Ted could have told them it was no use. The combination of Alistair’s advanced years and his weakened constitution left him defenseless. Ted could already smell it — the putrid odor of the infection snaking inexorably through Alistair’s system.
    Then he heard an odd noise like rapid drumming, followed by Nellie’s panicked voice.
    “Quick! Turn him on his side!”
    Natalie’s voice: “Oh, my God, what’s happening?”
    “He’s having a seizure —”
    The noise was Alistair’s feet beating uncontrollably against the floor. The drumming sound slowed, then stopped as the seizure ended.
    “Alistair? Alistair, it’s Nellie. Can you hear me?”
    Ted heard the slow, strained gasp of Alistair’s lungs pulling desperately for air.
    “Brave,” Alistair croaked. “Amy . . . Dan . . . all of you.”
    “Alistair!” The anguish in Nellie’s voice made Ted flinch.
    “Help him!” Natalie’s scream bounced off the walls. “Somebody, please! Hurry!”
    Ted heard another long, terrible breath that made his scalp tingle and the rest of his body shudder. To him, the sound was as bad as what everyone else was seeing.
    Maybe worse.
    The silence that followed was absolute.

    “Here’s what I’m thinking,” Atticus said. “We need to —”
    Amy’s phone sounded with the tone she had programmed for Vesper One’s calls. It was a text alerting them to an incoming video transmission. Quickly, Dan got out his laptop so they could see the video on a full screen.
    The transmission came through as a Skype call. On the screen they saw Nellie, live, her eyes filled with fury even as tears spilled out of them.
    “Amy and Dan? Bad news here. Really bad.” Pause. Sniffle.
    Amy held her breath.
    Nellie looked pale and haggard. She cut her eyes to one side, glancing at something or someone else. After a few moments, she looked straight on again. It seemed to Amy that she was receiving silent cues about what she could and couldn’t say on camera.
    “He was already so weak, and then he got a cut on his leg. It got infected. And the infection spread really fast. There was nothing we could do. . . .”
    Her voice caught; she cleared her throat. “He was thinking of you at the end. He said, ‘Brave, Amy and Dan and all of you.’ And then —”
    Nellie lowered her head and sobbed, unable to speak for a few moments. Then she wiped her eyes and looked into the camera.
    “He’s gone, kiddos. Uncle Alistair’s gone.”
    For a moment, Amy’s vision was blotted out by the black anger that engulfed her whole being. Grief would come later, she knew; for now, she could only feel rage.
    “I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!” she screamed at the computer. “I thought you at least had SOME sense of honor — in your sick, twisted way! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?”
    The image of Nellie’s face blipped out and was replaced by the program’s placeholder icon. Vesper One’s words were creepily robotic, filtered through an electronic voice distorter.
    “You have forty-eight hours left.” The call disconnected. Dan cursed — not loud, but fiercely. Amy put a hand on his shoulder and felt him trembling with grief and rage.
    Amy put her other hand to her neck and deliberately scraped the small powder burn with her fingernail. For some stupid reason she wanted to feel physical pain . . . to match the anguish in her heart.
    It hurt. A lot.
    “Atticus,” Jake said quietly. “Let’s go to the car.”
    Amy gave Jake a look of gratitude, but he had already turned away.
    Dan was leaning forward as he sat on the bench, head down, elbows on his knees, picking aimlessly at a loose thread in his jeans. He spoke without looking at her. “Nellie said that he said our names at the end. And ‘brave.’ Do you think he meant ‘Be brave,’ or that he thinks we
are
brave?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Both, I bet. Pretty cool of him.”
    Yes.