Meg Cabot - Code Name Cassandra

He hadn't been kidding about the attempted murder thing. If that had been my head, I thought, with a touch of queasiness, I'd have a handy space near my brain stem right about now to keep loose change.

"Nice trick," Clay grunted, as he squatted down to retrieve my flashlight. "Only now you can't see to get out of here, can you, girlie?"

Good point. On the other hand, I could see what mattered most, and that was him.

And, more to the purpose, he couldn't see me. I figured I'd better press that advantage while I still had it.

The question was, how? I figured I had several options. I could simply stay where I was, until the inevitable moment I was once again caught in the sweeping arc of his flashlight … and now he had two flashlights, so make that two sweeping arcs.

My second option was to attempt to follow, as quickly as I could, Shane down his rabbit hole. The only problem with this plan was that any rock I happened to kick loose on my way there would give me away. Could I really outcrawl a guy that size? I didn't think so.

My third alternative was the one I liked the least, but which seemed to be the one I was stuck with. So long as the guy had me to worry about, he wasn't going to mess with Shane. The longer I could keep him from trying to go after the kid, the better Shane's chances of somehow escaping.

And so it was, with great regret, that I made a sound to distract Clay, luring him toward where I hid, and away from Shane.

What I had not counted on was Clay Larsson being smart enough—and let's face it, sober enough—to fake me out. Which was exactly what he did. I'd thrown a pebble one way, thinking he'd follow the sound, and immediately darted in the opposite direction. . . .

Only to find, to my great surprise, that Mr. Larsson had whipped around and, fast as a cat, blocked my path.

I threw on the brakes, of course, but it was too late.

Next thing I knew, he'd tackled me.

As I went flying through the air, narrowly missing several stalactites, I had time to reflect that really, Professor Le Blanc was right: I had been lazy, never learning to read music. And I swore to myself that if I got out of Wolf Cave alive, I would dedicate the rest of my life to combating musical illiteracy.

I hit the floor of the cave with considerable force, but it was Clay Larsson's heavy body, slamming into mine, that drove all the wind from me. It also convinced me that moving again would probably be excessively painful—quite possibly even fatal, due to the massive internal injuries I was pretty sure I'd just incurred. As I lay there, dazed from the blow—which felt as if it had broken every bone in my body—I had time to wonder if they would ever find our skeletal remains, or if Shane and I would just be left to rot in Wolf Cave until the next camper, some other Paul Huck wannabe, stumbled across us.

This was a depressing thought. Because, you know, there were a lot of things I'd wanted to do that I'd never gotten a chance to. Buy my own Harley. Get a mermaid tattoo. Go to prom with Rob Wilkins (I know it's geeky, but I don't care: I think he'd look hot in a tux). That kind of stuff.

And now I was never going to get to.

So when Clay Larsson went, "Nightie-night, girlie," and raised his steel flashlight high in the air, I was more or less resigned to my death. Dying, I felt, would actually be a relief, as it would make the mind-numbing pain I felt in every inch of my body go away.

But then something happened that didn't make any sense at all. There was a thud, accompanied by a sickening, crunching noise—which I, as a veteran fistfighter, knew only too well was the sound of breaking bone—and then Clay Larsson's heavy body came slamming into mine again. . . .

Only this time, it appeared to be because the man was unconscious.

Suddenly recovering my mobility, I reached for his flashlight, which had fallen harmlessly to one side of my head, and shined it in the direction from which I'd heard the thudding sound. . . .

And there stood Shane, holding on to one end of the stalactite that had broken off from the cave ceiling, which he had clearly just swung, baseball-bat style, at Clay Larsson's head. . . .

And hit it out of the park.

Shane, looking down at Clay's limp, still form sprawled across my legs, dropped the stalactite, then glanced toward me.

I went, "Way to go, slugger."

Shane burst into tears.

C H A P T E R

17

"Well," I said. "What was I supposed to think? I mean, after that whole don't-call-me thing."

Rob, sounding—as usual—half-amused and half-disgusted with me, said, "I knew what you were after, Mastriani. You wanted to get rid of me so you could ditch the Feds and go after the little guy."

Shane—who was tucked into the bed beside mine in the Camp Wawasee infirmary, a thermometer in his mouth—made a noise that I suppose was meant to signal his objection to being called a little guy.

"Sorry," Rob said. "I meant little dude."

"Thank you," Shane said sarcastically.

"No talking," the nurse admonished him.

"And you were okay with that?" I asked Rob. "I mean, letting me ditch the Feds, and you, in order to go after Shane?"

I suppose it was kind of weird, the two of us working out our recent relationship difficulties while the camp nurse fussed over me and Shane. But what else were we supposed to talk about? My recent brush with death? The expressions Ruth, Scott, and Dave had worn when Shane and I, bruised and battered, crawled out of Wolf Cave and asked them to call the police? The look on Rob's face when he'd roared up a minute or so later and heard what had happened in his absence?

"Of course I wasn't okay with that." Rob paused while the nurse butted in to take my pulse. Seemingly pleased by the steadiness of its beat, she moved away to do the same to Shane.

"But what was I supposed to do, Mastriani?" Rob went on. "The guy pulled a gun on me. Not like I thought he'd shoot me, but it was clear nobody—most specifically you—wanted me around."

I said defensively, "That isn't true. I always want you around."

"Yeah, but only if I'll go along with whatever harebrained idea you've come up with. And let me tell you, going into a cave in the middle of the night with a killer on the loose? Not one I'd probably go for."

I said, "Well, it all turned out okay."

Rob snorted. "Oh, yeah. Shane?" He turned around and looked at the chubby-cheeked boy in the bed next door. "You agree with that? You think it all turned out okay?"

Shane nodded vigorously. Then, when the nurse reached down and took the thermometer from his mouth, he said, "I think it turned out great."

Rob snorted. "You didn't seem to think so when you first got out of that cave."

Well, that much was true, anyway. Shane had pretty much been in hysterics up until Special Agents Smith and Johnson arrived, along with the sheriff and his deputies, and put a still unconscious Clay Larsson under arrest. They had a hard time dragging him out of that cave, believe me, even using the wider side entrance he'd discovered.

"Yeah," Shane admitted. "But that was before the cops got there. I was afraid he was going to wake up and come after us again."

"After that whack you gave him?" Rob raised his eyebrows. "Never mind football, kid. You've got batting in your blood."

Shane flushed with pleasure at this praise. He had nothing but admiration for Rob, having recognized him as the guy from the story I'd told that first night, the one about the murdering car.

What's more, Rob had pretty much been the only one who'd kept his head in the wake of our crawling out of Wolf Cave. That week's worth of counselor training hadn't prepared Ruth, Scott, or Dave for dealing with a couple of victims of an attempted murder.

"You know, Mastriani," Rob went on, "you have more than just an anger-management problem. You are also the stubbornest damned person I've ever met. Once you get an idea into your head, nothing can make you change your mind. Not your friends. Not the FBI. And certainly not me." He added, "I used to have a dog a lot like you."