Rogue by Gina Damico Read Free Book Online Page A

his feet. He unzipped it, then tilted it toward the Juniors so that everyone could see.
    Seven Sparks were inside—one for each of the Juniors, plus Uncle Mort. The smooth glass balls made tinkly noises as they clinked against one another, their whizzing, sparkly embers lighting up the bag like a disco ball, indicating that the people they represented were alive.
    Except for one. Uncle Mort picked it out of the bag and held it up. Some of the flecks inside were still dancing around—
    And some had come to a dead stop. Suspended in midair, immobile.
    “Well, there’s your answer,” Uncle Mort said. “Half and half.
”
    Lex tried not to be devastated all over again. She reached into her own bag and pulled out Cordy’s Spark, steadily glowing like a light bulb. “But Driggs’s isn’t glowing, like Cordy’s is,” she said. “So maybe he’s not dead!”
    “That just means he hasn’t gotten to the Afterlife,” Uncle Mort continued through clenched teeth, irritated with Lex for making him state all of this appalling stuff out loud in front of Driggs. “Not even the dead half of him. Look, moving sparks mean alive. Stationary sparks mean ghost. This one has both, so—”
    “So I’m a Hybrid,” said Driggs. “Which we’ve already established and beaten deader than a dead horse at a dead-horse-beating festival.” He gestured to Uncle Mort. “Carry on with the plan.”
    Lex sank back against the side of the Stiff as Uncle Mort resumed his speech. She couldn’t lie to herself any longer. Driggs was a ghost, which meant he’d never be able to cross over into the Afterlife. They’d be together for the rest of their lives, which would be nice, but when she grew old and died, he’d be left on earth forever, stuck. She’d never see him again, and he’d be sentenced to a never-ending, miserable existence. How could she ever live with that?
    She couldn’t.
So fix him
, she told herself.
It’s as simple as that
.
    Except she didn’t have the slightest clue how.
    “—up to the vault,” Uncle Mort was saying, “destroy the portal, then split. Next, we inform the other mayors—”
    —up1em">“Wait, mayors plural?” Ferbus said. “Like LeRoy and—who else?”
    Uncle Mort sucked in a gust of air, as if unable to believe the scope of this himself. “All of them. The other Grimsphere mayors around the world. What we do to the portal in Necropolis—if we can really manage to pull it off—is to be duplicated in Grimsphere cities everywhere, once it’s proven to work.”
    The Juniors were staring at him, their mouths agape. “I told you, this has been in the works for a long time now,” Uncle Mort said, fiddling with his scythe. “Years of planning, calculations. This is everything I’ve been working for.”
    “You got every single Grimsphere mayor in the world onboard for this?” Ferbus asked.
    “A good percentage of them. And in the cities where the mayors are resistant—the ones who sympathize more with Norwood’s side, with maintaining the status quo—other rebels have stepped up, volunteered to destroy the portals in secret.”
    “Won’t be a secret once they’re destroyed,” Driggs said.
    Ferbus interrupted. “If this is such a big deal of a plan, wouldn’t it be easier and faster for us to Crash to Necropolis?”
    “Crashing is just another kind of violation, and violations are what’s damaging the Afterlife,” Uncle Mort replied. “It’s messed up enough as it is right now. I don’t want to push it any more than we absolutely have to. Plus, Dora can’t Crash, and we can’t very well leave her behind.”
    “Why not?” said Ferbus. “I mean, no offense, but the old gray mare ain’t what she used to be.”
    “Bullcrap!” Dora shouted. “The old gray mare is exactly what she used to be! And more!”
    The mention of Crashing sparked something in Lex’s head. “Hang on. If Norwood can Crash now, why did he just stand there when we drove away? Why didn’t he Crash directly