Wade and the Scorpion’s Claw

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After what seemed like a century, the welcome announcement came.

“Now boarding Flight Five-Thirty-One to San Francisco and New York.”

Good, I thought. Get me out of this place. I stuffed the notebook in my backpack and headed quickly into line.

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The jet was packed. The attendant at the desk told my dad that the flight had been overbooked and that one of our five seats wasn’t with the others. The loner was three rows back, which I said I would take, but Dad wanted us all together.

The man with the green shoulder bag was in the window seat across from our other seats. He already had a blanket draped over him and sat leaning against the window.

When another passenger—the long-haired acrobat guy who’d stood on his hand for the baby—came in, heading for the open aisle seat, Dad asked if he’d mind switching with me.

“Or are you two together?” Dad asked him.

“No, no.” The acrobat glanced at the man by the window, then at me, and smiled. “Not at all. Please, son, sit here.”

So after we were settled, Darrell and I were split by the aisle. He only took his seat—he was the last one to sit before the cabin door closed—after making sure Leathercoat wasn’t on our flight. “I didn’t see him. But if he works for Galina, he’s too good to be seen.” Which didn’t make any real sense, and didn’t slow my pounding heart, either.

As the jet taxied from the gate to the runway, the man with the green bag turned to me. “I am Dominic Chen,” he said, extending his right hand.

His fingers were ice-cold. “Wade Kaplan,” I said.

“I like to sleep on overnight flights,” he said with a slender smile, “but the protocol with fellow passengers is to chat, so we can, if you like.”

Protocol.

A week ago, protocol was just a school vocabulary word. But since Uncle Henry’s death had set off the secret Frombork Protocol—a set of instructions for the Guardians to gather the relics and destroy them—the word had taken on a whole new meaning. Maybe Mr. Chen’s use of protocol was just a coincidence.

Coincidence. Another word that sounded an alarm.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I like to rest, too.”

He nodded. “When we awake, it will be Sunday morning, the first day of a brand-new week. Enjoy your sleep.”

There was something soothing about Mr. Chen’s voice. Within minutes of hearing it, and the droning engines, I began to feel drowsy. I glanced at Darrell, the girls, and my dad. Their eyes were closed. We’d all gone a long time without any kind of rest, so that was good.

I closed my eyes, too. I wanted to go back to the dream of the cave, if only to get a better ending to it, but returning to a dream is nearly impossible when you try to force it. It didn’t work. Soon enough I stopped hearing noises and fell sound asleep.

I dreamed of nothing this time. Black space. No sound.

A few hours later, I woke up to bad news.

“… affects passengers with destinations in New York,” the pilot was saying. “A real kahuna of a snowstorm is flying up the East Coast and has shut down all three New York airports.”

Lots of passengers groaned, so we weren’t alone.

“Are you kidding me?” Darrell’s hair was going in every direction. He was obviously still groggy, but he had the ability to be groggy and jumpy at the same time. “We’re finally on our way, then everything stops? I can’t take this!” He slammed both fists onto his thighs.

“Don’t self-punch,” I said.

“But come on—”

“I get it,” I said. “Two steps forward, one step back.” I glanced at Dad, who leaned over and said something quietly. Darrell wiped his eyes and mumbled a couple of words, but shook his head sharply.

Soon there was a flurry of additional announcements.

“We’ll arrive a half hour ahead of schedule … it’s raining in San Francisco … airport hotel for stranded passengers …”

Blah blah blah. Landing early was normally good, except this time it meant that we’d spend an extra half hour in rainy San Francisco before we could get to New York and start our real search for Sara.

My ears popped as the jet descended. Mr. Chen was still wrapped up in his blanket, eyes closed, face turned to the window. Even with the clouds, the shade next to him was brightening with daylight. I wanted to raise it to see the city as we landed, like we were getting somewhere, but I didn’t want to bother him.

The landing gear rumbled welcomingly beneath the floor. As we drew closer to the airport, the pilot said his final words to the flight crew to prepare for landing. I tapped Mr. Chen’s shoulder lightly.

“Excuse me, Mr. Chen, we’re landing. If you’re going to New York, there’s a snowstorm.” I waited for him to rustle his blanket, blink, turn to face me sleepily. But he didn’t move.

We were asked to shift our seat backs upright. Because Mr. Chen remained sleeping, a passing flight attendant pressed the button on the arm of his seat to push his seat back gently forward. As she moved down the aisle, the blanket over his shoulders rolled down a few inches, and my blood turned to ice.

In the folds of Mr. Chen’s neck were several dark bruises.

“Mr. Chen?” I whispered. “Mr. Chen?” My throat seized. I could barely make a sound. I leaned across the aisle. “Dad,” I croaked. “Dad!” I glanced back to make sure I had seen what I thought I had.

There was no doubt. The angle of his neck and the purple marks on his skin meant only one thing.

I was sitting next to a dead man.

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Dominic Chen was dead.

What I mean is, he was dead now, but he wasn’t before. He’d been very much alive when I’d gone to sleep a few hours earlier.

I had never been so close to death before. He was so still. His eyes, his lips—his whole body was sunken heavily into his seat as if he were made of stone. The dream image of Becca on the floor of the cave flashed in my mind, then vanished.

My dad couldn’t leave his seat while the jet taxied to the gate, and it took its time getting there. “Wade,” he whispered across Darrell. “Keep still. Don’t freak out. I’ll be there as soon as …”

I wanted to tell him easy for you to say, but my mouth wasn’t working. It was the longest eight minutes of my life. Becca, Lily, and Darrell shot me astonished looks, as if they understood only too well that my seatmate was dead. Had we changed this much already? That we expected somebody to die so close to us? I didn’t want to believe it.

I tried my hardest not to throw up. I wanted to run screaming down the aisle, but I was cemented where I sat.

Finally, the seat belt sign binged off. Becca bolted up in her seat, one hand over her open mouth, while Lily held her other one. Dad carefully but quickly eased his way between the passengers already crowding the aisle and helped me out of my belt.

I could barely stand up, but we managed to exchange seats. Dad bent over Mr. Chen in a position that blocked most passengers’ view. I heard him whisper a few words and nod as if he’d gotten a response. Totally crazy, I thought, but I knew I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. He was being careful. He didn’t want people to panic. Or us to panic. When Dad turned his face up, his eyes were filled with fear, but his lips wore a thin smile meant to keep anyone else from suspecting that Mr. Chen was dead. Why?

No police. No authorities. Not even now.

Becca’s eyes were welling up. “Is he …”

“Don’t say the word, please,” Dad said, tucking the blanket gently behind Mr. Chen’s shoulders, as if he were simply asleep.

“He said protocol,” I whispered to no one in particular. “Nobody uses that word. Not to a kid. But he said it.” I must have had a sick look on my face, because in the middle of everyone moving, opening the overhead bins, talking, Becca put her good arm around me.

Lily poked Darrell. “You told us Leathercoat wasn’t here.”

Darrell looked as terrified as I felt, jerking his head in every direction. “I didn’t see him. I checked and rechecked.”

We were being careful, not raising our voices, not leaving our seats. My heart was thundering; my ears rang. Passengers streamed down the aisles. I guess we appeared as though we were waiting for them to leave. When most of them had, we gathered our stuff and looked one last time at Mr. Chen, and my dad steered us off the plane into the Jetway.

“We have to tell someone,” Becca said softly, wiping her cheeks. “Maybe airport security?” I was carrying her bag again, and I touched her hand for a second as we came out into the gate.

“In a minute.” Dad scanned the passengers as they made their way down the concourse. “Telling the authorities might be uncomfortable for the Order, if the police even believe they did this—”

“They did!” said Lily.

“—but we were sitting next to him,” he continued. “And the investigation will keep us here. I know it sounds callous—cruel, even—but we can’t get drawn into this any more than we have to be. We didn’t actually know Mr. Chen. It could be unrelated.”

“Dad, no,” I said, as calmly as I could. “First there’s Leathercoat; then Mr. Chen said protocol. Maybe he wanted to see if I would do or say anything. But I didn’t. Maybe I should’ve … I don’t know …”

“Everyone, just stop. For a second,” Dad said. “I’m sorry; I mean … we’re obviously not playing around here. You know that.”

I thought we knew it, but I guess there was more to learn. Dad had never wanted us to get mixed up in whatever this was becoming. From the murder of Uncle Henry to Sara’s kidnapping, it was way more dangerous than anything we’d thought possible. Now here we were, at an airport in a strange city, and a man sitting next to us had been murdered.

The chubby, laughing baby’s parents settled him into his stroller, as he bubbled with giggles. The last few passengers exited the Jetway, some on their phones, others chatting with one another.

“They’re all too busy to notice Mr. Chen,” Darrell said. “They don’t care about him just sitting there being all—”

“Don’t say it.” I could hardly suck in enough air to breathe, and my head was light.