My back is up against my bedroom door. I’m not trying to be brave anymore. In fact, I’m considering screaming. Through the living room window I can see my dad outside, chatting with those bodyguards. Isn’t he wondering why I haven’t come out yet? What his boss is doing? Unless Mr. Charles used some power to make Dad forget all about me…not that he needs much help in that department.
“Well, imagine how upset this news made me,” he says. “I’ve worked so hard for all that I have.” He puts his sunglasses on top of his head, and I see that his eyes are bloodred. He stares at me and my whole body freezes up. His gaze is powerful, dangerous. I felt it before, at my basketball game, and I feel it again now. “With the hope that I could prove my associates wrong, I had to come see for myself. It was easy enough to set up a meeting with your father. And when you recognized my true identity at the basketball game…”
I shake my head and start to say something, but he cuts me off.
“Oh, don’t bother denying it. We’re being honest here, remember? I found that it was true. You are your mother’s daughter. And I’m sorry, Nizhoni, but I can’t afford to have one girl, one tiny speck of a girl, ruin everything.”
“But I can’t ruin anything!” I protest. My heart is beating a mile a minute, and I just want out of here. “I see stuff sometimes, I admit it, but that’s all.”
“Stuff ?” He chuckles, waving my words away. “It’s okay, Nizhoni. You can say it. You can detect monsters. But interestingly enough, your brother cannot. In fact, I thought he might take after your father instead of your mother and be perfectly mundane. But then Marcus shook my hand, and I felt his unrealized potential. He’s special, too.”
I knew it was a bad idea to shake his hand! A burst of anger overrides my fear, and I shout, “You better not touch my brother!”
“So fierce. What a good sister you are! But don’t worry about Marcus. I want him alive. His power is different from yours, and once it manifests, he will come in quite handy for my business needs. You, however…” He shakes his head sadly. “It does pain me to hurt youngsters, it really does. But best to do it now, before you grow up and truly become a problem. I am so very sorry, Nizhoni, but I’m afraid…” He stops twirling the object in his hand and points it at me. It’s long and flat and made of black stone, and it looks sharp at one end.
My heart thuds hard in my chest when I realize he’s holding an obsidian knife.
“…I need you dead.”
I don’t even think before I run full tilt at Mr. Charles. His startled eyes are the last thing I see before I kick that knife right out of his hand. It goes skittering across the tile floor.
Whoa! Where did that move come from?
But I’m not done. I head-butt Mr. Charles in the stomach. He goes Whooof and stumbles back. And for good measure, I execute a perfect elbow strike to the cheek, just like I learned in the self-defense class Coach taught in PE last year. I’ve never been able to do it before, but this time it’s a direct hit. And it’s fast! I’m fast! Mr. Charles definitely makes an Uggghhh sound.
“Nizhoni!” my dad yells from the open front door, horrified.
I pause in my vicious monster-fighting onslaught to look over. It’s not just Dad, but also Mac and the two bodyguards pushing through the entryway. They’re all staring at me, mouths open, eyes big as frybreads. Well, I can’t see the bodyguards’ eyes behind their reflective sunglasses, but something tells me they’re huge.
“What on earth…?” My dad rushes forward to help Mr. Charles. The man is bent over, one hand holding his stomach and the other rubbing his cheek. “I am so sorry,” Dad murmurs as he helps Mr. Charles stand up straight. “I have no idea what is wrong with her.”
Wrong with me? “He had a knife!” I exclaim. “I was protecting myself!”
Dad looks around. “I see no knife.”
“I kicked it away,” I say. “It’s on the floor over there.” I gesture vaguely in its direction.
Mr. Rock bends over and picks something up. “This?” he asks, holding up a sharp, deadly…mechanical pencil.
“It was a knife!” I insist.
Mr. Rock presses the fraction of lead sticking out of the top of the pencil, and it breaks off with an audible snap, showing how thin and fragile it is. Mac makes a low whistle and mouths, Way to play it cool, Z.
“But—but…” I take a step toward Mr. Rock, ready to search his pockets. Of course he switched out the knife for the pencil, of course he’s hiding it. He works for Mr. Charles, doesn’t he?
“Not so fast,” Dad says, holding out an arm to stop me in my tracks. He grabs my wrist like a vise, and the low rumble in his voice tells me I’m in big trouble. The only thing worse than the rumble is when he calls me by my full name.
“Don’t you think you’ve caused enough trouble, Nizhoni Marie Begay?”
Welp!
Mac mouths, You are so grounded.
I narrow my eyes. Oh, no. I’m not getting blamed for this one. “Dad, he had a knife, honest! He was threatening to kill me! Why else was he in our house—?”
“I came in to use the little boys’ room,” Mr. Charles says with an embarrassed Aw shucks chuckle.
Oh, please. Surely Dad’s not falling for that. I mean, do monsters even pee?
“Then why were you studying our family photos?” I ask with a growl.
“I was admiring them,” he says. “You have such a lovely family.”
Aha! More lies! Everyone knows Mac is funny-looking.
I ask, “Then why did you need a pencil?”
He crinkles his brow, puzzled. “You asked me for an autograph. Don’t you remember?” He holds up a small flip-top notepad. Mr. Rock pumps the eraser to load fresh lead and hands the pencil to Mr. Charles, who signs a piece of paper with a flourish. He tears it out and holds it out to me.
“Thanks,” I mutter, taking the paper automatically. I look down at it and see that he has very nice handwriting. That seems odd for a monster.…Wait, monsters give autographs? Double wait, I never asked for his autograph. He’s totally lying!
Dad simmers.
Mac mouths, Loser.
“Dad!” I start to protest, but he’s not listening.
“To your room!” he says, quietly but firmly pushing me down the hall.
“I swear he had a knife!” One last protest.
We’re at my bedroom door, and he marches me across the threshold, plants me by the bed, and turns to me. I’ve never seen him so mad. His face is bright red, his eyes are wet like he’s about to cry, and the veins in his neck are pulsing with parental rage.
“I have never been so embarrassed in my entire life!” he hisses through gritted teeth. “How could you attack my potential new boss, who I’m trying to impress? And then make up some wild story about a knife?!”
“But—”
“No!” He holds up a hand. “You’re done talking, Nizhoni. In fact, you’re done, period. You are staying here while the rest of us go to Pasta Palace and have a nice violence-free dinner. You are not to leave this room, and I’m taking your phone, too, so you can spend time thinking about what you’ve done. Do you hear me?” He raises a shaky hand to his face and pushes his short hair back. “And I am going to apologize profusely and try to save my job. I know you don’t want us to move away, but you’ve gone too far. Much, much too far! I hate to say it, but I am ashamed of you.”