VENUS 13 - JACK WILDER [2]

11: mistakes

"No, I had the stick, the actual stick, I swear," Lula says, defending her case for the millionth time since we've arrived at Ion's magic shop to discuss where exactly it was we went wrong. "It was in my hand, in the lab, and I put it in the little case thing and I gave it to Atlas." Lula slaps her hands together repeatedly to demonstrate an image for us as she then points to Danny.

"Right, which I then gave to Dylan," Daniel explains, stressed out as he sits on a short set of stairs. "Is there any chance you possibly misplaced it at any point?"

Dylan shakes his head with a thin, yet cozy blanket wrapped around him. "No, I took it from you and then slipped it back in your coat when I pushed you out."

"There has to be something we're missing," I say exasperatingly, wracking my brain for any memory I have where the stick might have slipped away from me. "The damn stick has been in our possession ever since the lab, there's no way anyone could've taken the time to replace it with the fake one."

"Unless we're not the only ones with a sleight-of-hand magician on our side," Merritt points out, glancing at a pissed off Jack who stands with his arms crossed.

I shake my head, scoffing at the obvious truth. "Someone got the better of us."

"Either way, we're left holding a whole sack full of nada," Merritt says, walking closer to us even thought we are all distantly spread out throughout the small room.

"But they're gonna come after us as if we do have something," Jack informs us, as if our current situation didn't already suck.

"No, okay," Lula intervenes, the heavy fur coat still wrapped around her as she starts pointing fingers. "I agree that someone got the better of us, okay? Somehow. But I don't agree that we have a sack full of nada. Because we're all here. That's a sack full of something."

I silently chuckle, though I'm not sure if it's sincere or sarcastic. "Leave it to Lula to find the silver lining in every critical situation.

"Like I said, someone has to be the positive one." She softly smiles at me, noticing that everyone's attention is on her, prepared to hear what she has to say, maybe enough that will finally prove her worthiness for the Horsemen. "Listen, Walter is not going to stop until he gets that chip. And we're the only ones that know that he's alive. We can't just walk away. That's not what the Horsemen do."

Everyone seems to fall silent, letting the truth of her words sink in. The Horsemen were created to make the playing field fair for those who have been robbed of the honesty they deserved. The little guys. Without that integrity, and without the will to fight even when things get hard, we're basically letting the bullies of the world win, the cheaters and the liars. If we don't save ourselves, no one else will.

I don't expect anyone to say anything. The thing I expect the least is when Danny opens his mouth to speak, yet this time it is not rude or pessimistic like he usually is when he responds to Lula. Instead, he takes her words to heart.

"There's a quote, umm...it's actually by the magician that made me wanna do this in the first place. It's, uh, a magician's greatest power lies forever shrouded in his empty fist." By now, Danny has stood up from his seat on the stairs and has walked over to the table that we all surround, holding his closed fist up for us all to see. "And the—"

Dylan says the words along with him, or rather cuts him off to finish the familiar quote himself. "And the very idea that he can convince the world that he is in fact carrying with him a secret."

"That's Lionel Shrike," Danny says, making Dylan smile.

"Right." He nods.

Jack looks at them puzzled, trying his best to understand what they're implying. "Wait, so what are you saying? That we should pretend like we have something that we don't?"