“Why?”

“Caleb’s backup plan. He always has a backup. There’s a fail-safe in case he had to abandon the building.”

“What do you mean? Is the place being watched? Are the SKs back there?”

“No. They wouldn’t go back there. Nobody should.

That building is wired to explode!”

“What?” I dropped my grocery bag. The bottle of iced tea shattered when it hit the concrete. “How do you know?”

Brent’s face went absolutely white. “Because I built the explosives myself.”

Chapter Six

FIRESTORM

TEN SECONDS LATER

My cell phone was out, and I’d dialed Dad’s number faster than I thought possible. The call went straight to voice mail.

“Ahhhh! Why do you never charge your phone?!” I shouted at the recording. But what if that wasn’t the reason his phone wasn’t working? What if…

“What’s wrong?” April asked as she bounded up to me in the parking lot with her deli purchase.

“April, I need your car! Give me your keys. This is matter of life and death.”

“Yeah, right. My mom forbids me from letting anyone else drive it because of insurance.”

“No, like, literally a matter of life and death! My dad is in danger.”

“Now see, there’s someone who knows how to use ‘literally’ the correct way,” Brent said, smacking Ryan on the back.

“Not the right time for that,” I snapped at him. I turned back to April. “The warehouse is rigged to explode. I can’t get my dad on his phone, so I’ve got to try to get there before they go inside.”

“Oh!” April grabbed her keys from her purse and threw them to me.

“Which one of you can drive the fastest?”

“Slade,” Zach said. “He used to be a street racer.”

Of course it would be Slade.

“Zach and Ryan, can you two make the run to the city?”

They nodded.

“Go as fast as you can. You might beat us there. Brent, you come with Slade and me. Tell me everything you know about that bomb.”

“What do you want me to do?” April asked.

“Go back to school,” I practically ordered. I didn’t want April coming along.

Who knows what we’d find when we got there.

IN THE CAR

The next thing I knew, we were flying down the freeway in April’s jelly bean of a hatchback. I’d dialed Dad five more times for good measure, and then thought to try the phone in his office at the parish—just in case he hadn’t left yet. Someone picked up on the seventh ring.

“Thank goodness, Dad—” I started to say, but was cut off by a voice that wasn’t his.

“Grace,” Gabriel said. “Listen. Whatever you do, do not come back to the parish or the school this afternoon.”

“Why—?”

“Your dad left his phone charging here,” Gabriel said. “If you see him, tell him not to come back here, either.” And then he hung up.

I held my phone for a second, stunned. What on earth was that all about? Should I call him back? No, I didn’t have time to waste trying to figure out why Gabriel was being so cryptic. Dad was in trouble, and that’s all that mattered. At least I knew why his phone wasn’t working, and not because it had already been blown up.

Tension mounted in my muscles, and the anxiety only increased with each moment that passed and we weren’t in the city yet—despite Slade’s insane driving.

I shifted in the passenger seat so I could look at Brent in the backseat. “Tell me about that bomb.”

Brent leaned forward. “The bomb was Caleb’s backup plan in case he had to abandon the warehouse. He wanted a way to destroy any evidence he might have had to leave behind—or take down anyone who might have overthrown him. He’s really into getting the last laugh.”

“So why didn’t he just blow up the building after he escaped with rest of the Shadow Kings? We were in there for hours after he was gone. He could have gotten rid of all of us in one fell swoop.”

“It doesn’t work that way—at least not yet. I wasn’t finished working on a remote trigger before we left. The way it works now is that there’s a keypad in Caleb’s bedroom. Every night, he has to punch a code into it. If he misses a night—like if he had to abandon the building—the trip sensor will be activated. The bomb is rigged to blow ninety seconds after someone unlocks one of the entrances into the warehouse. That way the victim will be well inside the building when the explosives go off”—he swallowed hard—“making escape almost impossible.”

“You made that system?” Slade asked, swerving into the left lane at what felt like a hundred miles per hour. “Dude, I had no idea you were so hard-core. I shouldn’t have given you such a bad time. I knew you made those flash bombs we used when we robbed places—but man, you’ve got some real skills.”

“Tell that to my long string of foster parents. Nobody is too keen on a foster kid who enjoys making explosives in their garage. That’s how I ended up on the streets when Talbot found me and brought me to Caleb. I think they wanted me for my ‘skills,’ as you say.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about the trap?” I asked, trying to get us back to the topic at hand.

“I didn’t think you’d be crazy enough to go back there.”

“But wouldn’t Talbot know about the explosives?” Was he intentionally leading my dad into the trap? I knew he couldn’t be trusted.

“No,” Brent said. “I’m the only one who knew. Caleb is super-freaking-paranoid. That was his backup plan to get revenge on anyone who might turn on him. I’m probably still alive only because I stalled on making the remote trigger. No way Talbot knows about it.”

“Talbot!” I grabbed my phone and dialed Talbot’s number. It rang six times and then went to voice mail. I left a message of warning and then dialed the number over and over again. “Why aren’t you picking up?!”

Slade swerved the car between two semis and then jutted in front of one of them, cutting it off. Perhaps Caleb had chosen him for his special skills, too. I clutched at my stomach as the car took a hard right turn onto the exit. But we were still a good five minutes from the warehouse. I opened my phone with the intention of sending a couple dozen texts to Talbot—anything to get his attention—when my phone suddenly rang in my hand.