T39C, chap. 7
Chapter Seven: In the Memory of Isabel Kabra
Amy reached over to point the light at the ceiling. It was a trapdoor.
“Wires,” Ian said. He had stepped on the wires which had opened the trap doors. Definitely Janus. So, it was indeed the guy named Beckwourth who built the traps, as Ian had suspected. He felt both relieved and afraid. If this really was where the Last Clue was, there must be a lot more than just snakes in trapdoors.
“Shall we keep on moving?” Ian asked Amy, who nodded.
But after half an hour or so, another problem arose: food. There was absolutely nothing edible in this place; their only source of meat had tried to kill them. Ian didn’t mention it, but he couldn’t stop his stomach from growling loudly. He wasn’t used to hunger.
Amy was, though. She probably wasn’t even hungry, while Ian felt like he was on the edge of starvation. When his stomach growled again, she looked at him with a curious expression.
“Was that your stomach?” she asked.
Ian gave her a slightly pained grimace that he wasn’t sure she had seen. “Yes. Yes, that was my stomach. I don’t suppose you have some food on you?”
To his surprise, Amy chuckled. “Yes, Master Kabra. Of course there’s food. Don’t think that after the years in the 39 Clues I wouldn’t bring some when I come to places like this?”
Ian could only smile when he heard the words “Master Kabra”. Of course, not a lot of people still called him that. In the recent years, the companies that his father had owned were starting to lose more and more profit to what they had suspected to be the Ekats’. Personal luxuries were cut down to keep the workers from quitting. That, of course, didn’t help the situations inside the family as it grew more and more apart with the desperation of the Clues mounting higher and higher.
Amy handed him a lump of food. It felt like beef jerky, something that he would never even touch unless he sunk so low to circumstances like this. Therefore he gratefully munched it down.
But before he took a bite, his Lucian instincts told him to stop. After all, poisonings were more that common in that branch of his, and from a very early age he was told by his mother to not trust anyone. “That can very well be your death,” she had said. To her, trust was foolish and unwanted. Just like stabbing yourself with your own knife.
The thought of his mother brought some rare tears to his eyes, which he wiped away. Now was hardly the time for him to be sentimental.
He bit in the hard and dry piece of beef, with his hunger getting the better of him. It was more delicious than he had thought; flavorful and tough and probably nutritious, too. But a hungry man isn’t picky, he reminded himself. He might as well as be eating dried mud and hadn’t noticed.
He glanced at Amy, who was already done.
“It’s a Madrigal formula,” she explained. “The meat was salted with special ingredients that contain all the essential vitamins. It’s useful, see, so that some of the agents can survive under harsh weather conditions. It has one downfall, though.”
With that, she handed him a jar of clear water. He gulped it down after a thanks.
After a moment of silence, she spoke again. “Why is it that Lucians don’t trust people?” So she had noticed his hesitation after all.
Before, he would have been pricked by the question, prideful as he had been. Now, he just shrugged.
“It was what my mother had said to me: ‘Trust no one.’” And it was true.
Amy was a little surprised at the response. “What is it that makes Cahills so hard to get along with each other?” she asked a little sarcastically.
The answer was plain, of course, but neither answered. The 39 Clues was the cause of everything. But that had been what drawn the two together.
“Take your mother, for example. Why is she trying to kill Dan and me every single time we meet?”
“She won’t any more. She’s dead,” Ian replied simply.
To that, Amy had nothing to say, and Ian continued. “She died two days ago. My . . . father’s men took her away and shot her.”
She gasped. “Why?” It seemed that she couldn’t imagine such cruelty.
Ian looked away. “She was no longer a capable Lucian agent. Her mental health had the last word in that. I could tell that he had planned this for a long time from now. He planned to find an excuse to execute her in order to remarry and have new heirs. He disinherited us a long time ago from his will because we had been followed too much into my mother’s footsteps. He needs someone who will do his orders without protest.”
Another moment of silence.
“I’m sorry,” Amy mumbled quietly. And she was. No one deserved to die like that. To her, it seemed pretty unreal. Isabel Kabra, dead? She couldn’t believe it.
Ian shook his head, as if to shake his thoughts off and started pacing in circles.
“She wasn’t a great mother, but she wasn’t exactly that horrible, either. She was a very . . . inspiring woman, and she taught me many things, many ideals. Believe it or not, my mother wasn’t all bad. Some of her ideals were working towards the good instead of the evil many of the others believe.” He grinned in the memory, showing perfect white teeth. “‘Why waste our time in the Clues when we already have the riches?’ I remember asking her when I was ten. ‘Why waste our energy in this wild goose chase?’
“Her reply was simple. ‘Because this place needs fixing up,’ she told me. Well, snapped at me, actually. You know how she does that.”
He turned back at Amy. His grin was gone, replaced by a rather sad smile.
“At the time, I did not understand what she had meant by fixing ‘the place’ up. Still, it frustrated me that I couldn’t answer my own questions. I was considered by others to be a child genius. I was considered by myself to be a genius. I didn’t give up. I was stubborn.
“Being so persistent has its goods. Seven years passed, and I repeatedly brought this question to myself, though I had yet to answer it. You see, it wasn’t like I didn’t understand what those words meant. It was that I didn’t understand what she meant. In the last few days, however, I had finally been able to understand. It was as if a blindfold that I didn’t know to exist had been taken off. Everything became clear. It was enlightenment.”
Amy shook her head. “Why? What is it that has made the last few days so different?” How could he have changed?
Ian didn’t answer. Instead, he knelt down beside her and cupped her chin gently with his two hands. This time, Amy didn’t flinch back. Though her heart was pounding faster than ever, she didn’t even blush. Her mind was calm, her breathing was still; she was perfectly fine.
“The last few days were one of the most horrible times for me. Though it has made me see the truth, it was only through pain and regret.”
Why? Amy wanted to say, but no words formed.
“After you jumped off that accursed bridge,” he continued, “I thought you were dead. Everyone thought so too. You cannot possibly imagine the regrets I have felt, that I still feel. But you are here, and I am here. There is no way I am to lose you again.”
He stared at her, deeply into her soul, straight to her heart, and then said:
“Amy. I am in love with you.”
Slowly and carefully, he leaned down to kiss her.
. . .
It was oddly cliché, somehow in a way it reminded Amy of the time in the museum. Utter confusion. This must be how it felt like to be frozen within the glare of a cobra, to be paralyzed without will. So much that Amy wanted to believe what his eyes were telling her, that he truly was in love with her, that he would never ever betray her. But her own heart was in a fight of objection, not wanting to be hurt by the same tricks again. In the end her heart won.
She turned away.
Ian sensed her rejection, and he lifted his head back, with his hands on his sides now. Taking a slow breath, he stood up again and motioned Amy silently to keep going, into the tunnel of endless darkness.