So that night I still didn’t get a good sleep. Skylar and I decided that Josh was our best bet, and so we let him guide us. I had been prepared for Uncle Ben to take care of us, but that wasn’t going to happen. “If that wasn’t Uncle Ben, then who was it?” I asked Josh as we walked.
“Well, I suspect that it is him, but he’s either being controlled by Monarch or they somehow convinced him to join them.”
“But he’s my Uncle!” I protested loudly. “He wouldn’t just turn on his own family!”
“Well, I have a bunch of murderers for family,” Josh pointed out, and I immediately fell silent.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered softly.
“Nah, it’s okay.” In the dark, I couldn’t see his facial expression, but somehow I could tell that his friendly demeanor had faltered.
“I was thinking,” Skylar put in, “Josh, is your last name actually Monarch?”
“What?” He asked, seemingly caught off guard, as I was.
“Skylar, do you realize what a weird thing to ask that is?” I said.
“No, it’s not. Think about it for a minute, Robbie. Monarch either means a butterfly or a ruler and what are the chances that this organization just got born with a last name that so perfectly fits them?”
“Butterfly?” I asked teasingly.
“No!” She bumped into me playfully. “Leaders and heads of something.”
I laughed briefly, but then considered what she was saying. “So you think my family’s name isn’t actually Monarch, and they just decided that’s what we would be called?” Josh asked.
“Yeah.”
“I mean, I guess it’s a possibility,” he told her. “It does make sense.”
“Don’t you think we have some bigger things to worry about?” I asked, interrupting their conversation. “Like, you know, just those people who are trying to kill us!”
“Technically they’re only trying to kill you,” Skylar pointed out. I shot her a look, that even in the dark she seemed to receive. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry, Robin. I know this must be really stressful.”
There was a moment of silence, but then Josh seemed to realize that we were both waiting for him to say something, as he was the only one who seemed to have a clue what to do. “Well, the first step is to find somewhere to sleep. Any ideas?”
“My house?” Skylar suggested. “We could sneak in without my dad noticing.”
“That’s probably not the best choice, as Monarch knows you’ve been there before.”
“Before I stayed with Skylar, I slept at the park,” I offered.
Josh shook his head again. “No, it should be more protected than a public area.”
“What other options are there?” Skylar wondered aloud.
“There is one other place,” Josh said, seeming uncomfortable.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well…” He trailed off and rubbed the back of his arm nervously.
“Josh!” Skylar elbowed him in the ribs meaningfully. “Tell us!”
“Promise you won’t laugh?” he asked, sounding like a 9-year-old asking someone to tie their shoelaces.
“Either you tell us what the heck you’re talking about or we freeze to death out here and get kidnapped by a group of people who may or may not kill us, so yeah, we won’t laugh.”
He exhaled a small breath through his nose that sounded like a short laugh and then he turned to the right and began walking again. Skylar and I trailed after him. “So what is this place?” Skylar repeats.
“I never liked being at home much when I was a kid," He admits, “So I found a bunch of old scraps and made this.” Then he turns a corner, and in the dark, I cwould barely make out what looked like a large box stuck up in an oak tree. Josh waited a moment, letting us observe it. Then he continued. “It’s a treehouse. I guess it’s probably a good thing you can’t see it very well. I wasn’t a great builder when I was 10.”
“Now you’re?” Skylar asks, seeming to realize at the same moment that I did, that we didn’t even know how old Josh was.
“15,” he answers. “I know I don’t look it, I… Uh…” He trails off. “Well, anyway. I guess it’s the best we’ve got, right?”
“Right,” I agree. “How do we get up?”
“There’s a ladder around the back,” he tells me, circling around the large trunk. In the darkness, I couldn’t see anything, but luckily Josh knew his way around. He reached up, standing on his tiptoes until he grabbed the rope ladder that was tucked behind a branch. “You go first, Robin. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Okay,” I agreed and grabbed the first rung. I gripped it tightly and stepped onto the lowest one with my left foot. It swayed slightly and I steadied myself with my other foot. Grabbing the rope firmly I hoisted my other leg up. I wasn’t afraid of heights, but it was a long way up to the top of the tree, and in the dark, I could barely tell where the tree even was. I could feel the ladder shaking, but I did my best to ignore it. A few more steps and it was swaying wildly, even with Josh holding it from below.
“Are you alright?” He called up, his voice in between a whisper and a shout.
“Yeah!” I replied. I reached behind the ladder and pressed the palm of my hand against the tree trunk to steady myself. I could feel leaves on my head, and I knew I was getting into the thick foliage. I continued up, climbing higher and higher. I could easily tell when I was at the top, as the ladder was tucked under a wooden board at the end of the treehouse. I pulled myself up and whacked my head on the roof of the house. “Shoot,” I grumbled under my breath. “I forgot this thing was made for a 10 year old.”
I crawled deeper into the little treehouse and then called down that I was up. Josh was next, then Skylar. They both made it much faster than I had. Once we were inside, Josh clambered around for a minute, until he found what he was looking for. A candle and a match. He lit the candle and then blew out the match quickly. “Did you just happen to have all this stuff in here?” I asked.
“Uh, yeah.” He said, “But let’s just try to get some sleep, okay?”
Josh didn’t seem to want to talk about himself much. I looked at Skylar, wondering if she had picked up on this. She gave me a slight nod, indicating she had, but she didn’t say anything about it, so I didn’t either.
“I have a few blankets somewhere around here too,” Josh said, and then picked up the candle and began searching. A minute later, he pulled a few worn-looking blankets from a small bin. He brushed a bit of dirt off them, and then came back and sat with us. He set the candle down in the middle of our small circle and handed a blanket to Skylar and then me. “Sorry they’re a bit ragged,” he apologized.
“No, no, don’t be sorry,” Skylar told him. “This is much better than I could have hoped for. Without you, Robin and I would have been caught three times over by now.”
Josh didn’t seem to know what to say to this, so instead, he whispered, “Uh, goodnight.” Then he shuffled around, trying to find the softest bit of wood floor he could.
“Wait,” I said, “I have one more question before we sleep.”
“Yeah?” He asked, stopping to face me.
“How did Monarch know where to find me?”
He paused for a moment, pondering his answer. “They’ve had eyes on you ever since you ‘hacked’ Mr. Mercedes's computer.”
“What?” I asked, caught off guard. “But how did they find me?”
“Did you really think a computer would have been that easy to hack?” he asked, giving me the only answer I needed.
“Oh.” I whispered. And then the candle flickered out, plunging us into complete blackness, once again.