“Kellan, we have to go. Now. Let’s get Harry.” I ran into Harry’s bedroom and shook him. “Harry, get up!”
“Shrimp, what’s up?” He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
I noticed Kellan gathering his clothes and shoes from the floor. “Harry, we have to go now. Come on.” I grabbed his hand to pull him up and ran out of the suite following Kellan, who was waiting with the elevator door open.
“What’s going on?” Harry asked as soon as the door closed.
“I’m not sure. Put your clothes on. We have to get out of here.”
“Why? Where to?”
“Simla was in my room–”
Kellan blinked in astonishment. “What?”
“I don’t know why or how, but Rowena told me to get you guys and get out of there, so I did.”
The doors opened, and a middle-aged couple got in. I was glad Harry had managed to get dressed. We had to stop talking. The couple didn’t say a word all the way down, but just kept throwing each other furious glares. They weren’t the least bit happy.
We ran out of the hotel and walked down the strip aimlessly, not knowing where to go. We eventually stopped and sat down outside Stripburger. I could have killed for a burger, but we had no time.
“So tell me again, why we are running?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know. When I opened the door to my bedroom, Simla was sitting on my bed. I asked her how she got there, but she didn’t know. She looked really lost, so I started to walk over, but Rowena appeared in front of me and told me to get you guys and run. That’s all I know.”
Harry shook his head. “And now what?”
“I guess we lay low for a while, and then go back and check it out,” Kellan suggested.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do you think Rowena wanted us to go?” I asked.
“She must’ve thought Simla was dangerous somehow,” Harry said.
“How would Simla be dangerous? It’s more likely that someone who
is
dangerous dumped her there. I can’t even imagine why! Simla?” I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why
her
. The last time I had seen Simla was at school. “When was the last time you guys saw Simla?” It dawned on me that if I was a year behind, I had no clue what Simla had been up to recently. Her dad had taken me, after all.
“I saw her just a few days ago when you and I rescued her,” Kellan said.
“Rescued her from
what
?” I snapped. I was so sick of not knowing anything!
“It doesn’t matter,” Kellan muttered.
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m just so frustrated with all these tidbits of information. That’s all. You guys have to tell me what’s going on here. I’m lost.” I welled up.
Kellan put his arm around me and pulled me in. I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I soaked his t-shirt while he stroked my back, running his hand up and down it.
“Shrimp, you’re right. You do have to know what’s going on. The trouble is trying to find a way to fill you in with a whole year’s worth of happenings.”
I pulled away and looked at him expectantly.
“Kellan, let’s try to focus on one thread at a time,” Harry suggested. “Let’s start with Simla.”
“It’s going to be hard to do that without getting into all sorts of cross-threads.”
“Come on, guys! Threads? What are you talking about?”
“You’ve lost a year,” Harry said patiently. “A lot of stuff has happened over the past year. Much more than would happen to a normal kid. It’s been a very, very eventful year. What I want to try to do is concentrate on one thing at a time. We were talking about Simla, and how and why she may have ended up on your bed at the Bellagio. Right?”
“Right,” I agreed.
“When exactly was the last time before then that you remember seeing her?”
“Hmm, I’m not sure. We’re not really friends. I may have seen her in the cafeteria, but not the last time I was there.”
“Okay, so let’s assume that was a year ago, at the cafeteria. You knew that Justin and she were good friends?”
“No. I didn’t really pay much attention to either of them. I assume you’re talking about Justin Weeks, right?” Justin sat behind me in physics class. He played hockey with Harry and Kellan.
“Yeah.” Kellan nodded. “Well, you and Simla had a fight at school, in the restroom, where Simla tried to strangle you.”
“Get out! No way! Simla wouldn’t do that!”
“Well she did.” Kellan looked deadly serious. “She strangled you until you were unconscious. Luckily, Harry and I found you and took you to the hospital.”
I was shocked. “Why? We’ve never had any problems. Ever.”
Harry shook his head. “Let’s not go into the
why
right at this minute. It’ll just take us off course. The fact is, she
did
do that to you. She was very angry with you.”
Kellan nodded. “Simla’s mother, Erica, worked for your mother. Simla’s dad, Raj, wanted the blueprints to the portal, so he kidnapped you–”
“What? How? How can I not remember that?”
Kellan ignored my questions. “Raj kidnapped you, Ella, Harry, and me, and then blackmailed your mom using Simla as a go-between.”
“Ella? Was she hurt?” I whispered.
“No. She’s fine. The point, however, is that Simla has been in cahoots with her father, aiding him in any way she can to get those blueprints. And now, she suddenly appears here. It’s not that off the wall to assume, like Rowena probably did, that she’s here because of him.”
“Okay,” I relented. “But how did she get here? Do you think she’d been in the room all along? How did she know I was going to use it? What did she want with me?”
“Well, let’s see,” Harry said. “I guess she could have arrived there before we did. I can’t imagine how she’d have known. Your third question is probably the easiest to guess. Her dad probably sent her to try to either bring you back to him, or try to get you to get the blueprints for him somehow.”
Kellan jumped in. “What’s important right now, I guess, is how she knew to find you there. She’d have to have had help from someone with that. No one should have known where we were, and the only people who could have found out and transported her here this fast would be the Sigma-W-Pi. That means that the security breach is worse than your grandfather assumed.”
Harry rubbed the back of his neck, looking thoughtful. “We knew that Raj must have had some kind of Sigma-W-Pi help, but this kind of a security breach is a lot more serious than Raj involving a lone Wanderer. This is an organized group. It points to Potomal himself being involved.”
“What does this mean?” I moaned. All I wanted to do was get back home. We were supposed to visit Mom. I hoped she was doing better.
“It means that Sigma-W security has been compromised,” Harry reiterated. “Which means that we have to be really careful. We can’t call home in case someone tracks our phone calls. We’re going to hide out until we know it’s safe.”
“What about Ella? Gramadea said that she was going to bring her back to the hotel.”
“I bet Gramadea will figure out that it’s not safe and take her somewhere else.”
My stomach rumbled.
Harry laughed. “You hungry again? Got worms?”
I scowled.
“Anyone got any money?” Harry asked.
We scrambled through our pockets and handed what we had to Harry. He counted it up. “Seventy-six dollars and thirty-two cents. That’s not going to last us long at all. Anyone got a credit card? I left mine at the hotel.”
“Nope, I didn’t grab mine before we ran,” Kellan replied.
I shook my head.
Harry looked down at our change. “I suppose we could try gambling some of it in hopes of making some–”
“Or we could try getting some work. I’ve got my driver’s license, do you?” Kellan asked.
I felt around for mine. I didn’t have it. It would be in my purse, which I had left behind. I shook my head. Harry had his.
“Okay,” Harry said resignedly. “Much as I would like a Stripburger, I guess we better find a McDonald’s or a Burger King or something. Then Kellan, you and I better try to get some work.”
We walked down the strip toward Circus Circus and went into the McDonald’s beside it. It was busy, as expected. We ordered food off the dollar menu and sat down and enjoyed every last mouthful.
It was already past midnight. I was exhausted. “Harry, let’s ask to find out where there’s a cheap place to stay for the night.”
He nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
“This really sucks,” I remarked.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Kellan agreed.
Harry came back grinning. “Well, the good news is that hotels are cheap around here, so we should be okay. We’ll all have to share a room, though. The fact that we don’t have a credit card is going to be an issue; most hotels will want that to book us a room. However, the guy at the counter was really nice and, when I told him that I didn’t have a credit card with me, he suggested a hotel off the strip where his sister works as a receptionist. If we pay her in cash, she’ll let us into one of the empty rooms for the night. He’s going to call her to let her know to expect us. You guys ready?”
We nodded. I was more than ready. We followed the directions to the hotel from a scribbled diagram on a napkin that the man at McDonald’s gave Harry. The walk seemed to take forever; this place was way off the strip. When we finally arrived at the Desert Doll Inn, it was clearly a motel, not a hotel.
In the lobby, there was only the one receptionist at the desk. I had to smile when I saw her. If anyone ever wondered where to find Marilyn in this city of Elvises, this was the place. Her nametag confirmed that she was Clara, the sister the McDonald’s guy had told us about.
Harry walked up to the counter with a huge smile plastered across his face. “Hi, your brother sent us.”
“Yeah. Took pity on you, did he?” She looked us up and down. “You don’t look like the kind of people he needs to be helping.”
“We’ve been robbed; they took everything.”
I was impressed with Harry’s quick thinking.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “All right then, but only because my brother asked. That’ll be ten dollars each.”
Harry put the money on the counter. She handed us a card. “You’ll need to be out of there by eleven. Unless you want it for two nights….”
“We might,” Harry replied. “Can I pay you tomorrow if we need to stay?”
“I suppose. Now, don’t make a mess!”
“Thanks, Clara.” Harry grinned. “We really appreciate it.”
I noticed her softening. Harry’s charm was difficult to resist.
She broke into a smile. “It’s okay. Glad to help. I’ll save you some breakfast. I leave at nine, though, so come down and get it before then if you want some.”
“Thanks, that’s really nice of you. I will.” Harry threw her another appreciative glance before we left.
The room was on the first floor at the back of the motel. A strong waft of tobacco hit us as soon as we opened the door. Almost gagging, I tried not to breathe in the cancerous air. The room was small and dark. We turned on the dusty lamps and stared at a picture of a topless woman hanging above the bed. The
only
bed. Sigh. “Bagsy me the left side!”