“Hi.” I set down the Sharpie and pocket my phone with trembling hands.
“Don’t cut contact,” she tells Hazel. “Not yet, anyway. If Oaklyn has no idea who you are, we can use this. How would you feel about learning what the Madsens are up to for us?”
Hazel’s eyes go huge. “I—I don’t know if I can be a spy!”
My breath catches. This is theMadsenswe’re talking about, and it’s a terrible plan. I hold my palm up to Natalie. “I don’t think we should drag her deeper into this.”
Not to mention how cruel it is to ask Hazel to startusingthe person she was falling for.
“I know it’s asking a lot,” Natalie says. “But we need to do whatever we can to stop the Madsens, and having an inside woman could change everything.”
I chew my lip. It isn’t like Natalie to put someone in danger. She fought her hardest to keep me away from this world and insists on protecting me at every turn. The situation must be seriously dire for her to suggest this.
“You’re smart enough to pull this off,” I tell Hazel. “All the spy novels you read as a kid, yeah?”
“That’s not exactly the same as being a real spy!” she squeaks.
She’s right, and in truth, I don’t like this plan at all. I don’t want Hazel fucking around with the Madsens—in any sense of the word.
“First, we need to figure out whether Oaklyn is using Hazel to get to us,” Natalie says. “Then we can go from there.”
Hazel leans against the table, looking stunned. A broken umbrella clatters to the floor. “What, so if she starts asking too many questions about my friends, I should fake food poisoning and get the hell out?”
Natalie hesitates, her dark eyes troubled. “I wouldn’t ask you to do this if we had another option. You’re the closest person to the Madsens we’ve ever had.”
“We do have another option, and that’s to not ask Hazel to do this!” I say, watching Hazel closely as her love life crashes down around her. Again.
“Katie, you know as well as I do how desperately we need to catch Oaklyn and Sophia,” Natalie says.
Hazel and I stare at each other, silent. An entire conversation passes between us in one look. What if? Why? Whynot?
I don’t know what to tell her. If Oaklyn finds out…
Then again, what if Hazel helps us win the war against the Madsens? This would be huge—for her, for me, foreveryone.
“Oh my God,” she says suddenly, throwing her hands overher mouth.
“What?” I cry.
“I—I told Oaklyn where the next chimera might show up,” she says into her hands. “I showed her the map and… I guess that’s why she was so interested in it…”
The words hit me like ice water.
Natalie swears.
I sprint for the golden net, snatching it up from where it landed in a tangled heap against the wall. “Why are we still standing here? Let’s go!”
Hazel spins to the table full of junk. “With what?!”
“Which contraption worked the best?” Natalie asks.
“None of them!” Hazel and I shout together.
“Then we’ll have to do it like last time.” Natalie abandons our inventions and races for the door, pulling out her phone. “I’m calling Sky.”
Before running after her, I bend and grab the bow and arrow off the floor.Just in case.
From the Journal of Hazel Okada
