The Dangerous Days of Daniel X by James Patterson, Michael Ledwidge

incredible again today.
    “I was hoping to bump into you, Daniel,” Phoebe said. “Well, not literally, I guess, but do you have a free period now? I was wondering if we could talk. Please?”
    I actually had geometry class, but why bring up pesky details? “Of course,” I said. “I finally figured out where the library is.”
    Which made her laugh.
    Which made me kind of goofily happy.
    Chapter 32
    PHOEBE AND I SAT on a couple of footstools in a far corner of the library stacks. Our knees were almost touching, and mine were knocking a little. No one else was anywhere around.
    For about a minute, she stayed there staring at me while she gnawed on her lower lip. Then her eyes welled up with tears.
    “What is it?” I whispered.
    “I can’t fake it anymore,” Phoebe said in a shaky voice. “I lied to you about my dad moving us because of his job. We relocated because something awful, really awful, happened to our family.
    “Last July, my little sister, Allison, went out to chalk on the driveway after swimming lessons and . . . she never came back. She was abducted. Somebody took her, Daniel. She was six years old. She’d be seven now.”
    I sat there stunned into silence. I hadn’t known what Phoebe was going to say, but I definitely wasn’t expecting this kind of revelation.
    Phoebe started to sob. She balled her fists in my shirt, and I could feel her shuddering against my chest.
    “I’m sorry,” I finally managed. “I’m so sorry, Phoebe.”
    As I wiped away her tears, I felt the worst kind of sadness inside myself. This was what was so different about Phoebe, I realized. It was our connection.
We’d both lost people, people we’d loved.
    “I know what you’re feeling,” I said. “I lost a sister too.”
    Her name was Pork Chop.
    Chapter 33
    I LEFT PHOEBE at the doorway of her next class and immediately headed for the nearest exit. I was too wired to be in school right now. I needed to figure some things out. Maybe her sister’s disappearance wasn’t a coincidence. According to The List, Ergent Seth abducted kids. Was it possible that he had Allison? Of course it was. Keep this in mind:
there are no coincidences.
    I was coming across the teachers’ parking lot when I heard a low, whooshing sound, like a bottle rocket or something. The side window of the BMW in front of me vaporized in a shower of flying glass.
    There were two more barely audible whooshes as I flipped and somersaulted along the asphalt between two parked cars, trying not to be hit. A couple of deep gouges blew out of the concrete where my head had been.
    So this is what Seth meant when he said the gloves were off.
    I poked my head up and spotted a muzzle flash at the top of the football equipment shed. Another projectile zipped past my ear, close enough for me to hear the air pop. This craziness had to stop right now, before somebody got hurt. The problem was that a whole football field stood between me and the enemy with a rocket launcher.
    I closed my eyes and concentrated hard. When I opened them again, Willy was crouched there beside me.
    “Whoa! What’s going on, dude?” he said. “I was sleepin’ in, y’know?”
    “I’m getting shot at. The shells are about the size of bowling balls.”
    “Cool!” Willy said.
    “
Not
cool,” I said.
    He glanced at the car we were crouched behind. A third-generation Chevy Cavalier. “This will do,” he said. Then Willy punched a hole in the window. He yanked open the driver’s door. “I’m in. Nice interior.”
    He kicked at the steering column until he cracked the plastic.
    “Damn! Ignition wires are supposed to be red. This looks like colored spaghetti. Daniel—color of ignition wires for a ’97 Chevy Cavalier?”
    I went through pictures and pages of the car manual—yes,
in my head,
there’s lots stored in there, trust me—till I found what I was looking for.
    “Pink!” I said.
    “MacGyver, eat your heart out!” Willy giggled, then yanked the two pink wires out.