Torn-missing 4 Read Online Free

else could go wrong?
    There wasn’t time to ask. Jonah snatched up the Elucidator and tucked it and the picture of Andrea inside his cloak. Just then the dim glow of John Hudson’s tracer appeared at the top of the stairs. The tracer walked purposefully to a door beyond where Jonah and Katherine were sitting. He lifted his hand as if he were about to knock.
    “Should I go stand there and knock?” Jonah asked. “If I’m playing his role …”
    He was already standing up. But that was as far as he got. It was hard to keep his balance on the rolling deck. And he had another moment of fear: What if he did knock? What if someone answered the door? What was Jonah supposed to do then?
    “Go stand over there, but whatever you do, don’t knock!” JB whispered tensely. “The tracer’s going to chicken out.”
    Indeed the tracer had frozen, his hand poised by the door. Then he backed away.
    Jonah noticed that the tracer’s lips were moving.
    “What’d he just say?” Jonah asked.
    “He said, ‘He never likes to hear bad news. And I’m not sure …,’” JB whispered back.
    “Should you say that for him? Should I?” Jonah asked.
    “No, no—nobody could hear him, so it doesn’t matter what he says,” JB whispered.
    Like that whole ‘if a tree falls in a forest …’ question,
Jonah thought.
If no one hears him, who cares if there’s a sound or not?
    Jonah was feeling light-headed, and still wasn’t entirely certain that his thoughts were making sense. Was it from the timesickness? The panic? The effort of trying to figure out what he should do as John Hudson?
    He stepped carefully into the space that JohnHudson’s tracer occupied. Crazily Katherine stepped up right behind him, as if they both needed to stay within the tracer’s dimensions.
    Or maybe she was scared too.
    A strangled cry sounded behind them, and both of them whirled around. A man’s head was just dipping down out of sight at the top of the stairs.
    Jonah had no clue what the tracer was thinking—Jonah had no idea what to think himself. Had the man slipped on the icy stairs? Had someone attacked him?
    The tracer began creeping toward the stairs, stealthily, as if he wanted to see what had happened to the man but didn’t want anyone to see him. Jonah shuffled forward too, not quite getting the rhythm of the tracer’s steps.
    Oh, yeah, you kind of have to wait between rolls of the ship. Is the water always this rough?
Jonah wondered, lurching forward, catching his balance, then lurching forward again.
    Jonah reached the edge of the stairs only a split second behind the tracer. He peeked down into the—what would it be called? The hold? But he couldn’t really see what had happened, because his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness below. He squinted, trying to make out shapes.
    Then he heard screaming above him.
    “No! You are not going to hit my brother! Jonah! Watch out!”

Jonah whipped his head around to see a giant club descending toward him. It was already too close to dodge, but Jonah tried anyway. He hunched his shoulders and brought his arms up to protect his head and rolled to the right and …
    And how is it that that club hasn’t hit me yet?
    He realized that he’d squeezed his eyes shut, defensively, but now, still rolling, he dared to open one eye partway.
    The club was still poised above him, but he was no longer directly in its path. He scooted a little farther to the right. The club still hovered overhead.
    It wasn’t moving.
    “What the …,” Jonah muttered.
    He pulled himself together enough to sit up and looktoward the handle end of the club. A cruel-faced sailor was holding on to it with filthy, infected-looking hands.
    The sailor wasn’t moving either.
    Looking around—more leisurely now—Jonah realized that John Hudson’s tracer was frozen in place as well, sprawled across the deck in the exact spot where Jonah had been only seconds before. The tracer seemed completely unaware of the man above him. And his