The Dangerous Days of Daniel X by James Patterson, Michael Ledwidge Page A

it, and let myself crack up.
    “Dumb-Dumb,”
I repeated.
    Chapter 52
    “YOU READ MY DREAM, did you? I’m truly impressed.”
    Suddenly Seth had a smile on his face. An awful, pinched smile, matched with an even more heartless gleam in his dark, demonic eyes.
    “Wait! Maybe
you’ll
be impressed with something I have in the back room,” he said, clapping a claw to his head as if he’d been forgetting something. “Hold on, I’ll be right back. Don’t you dare go anywhere. You’ll love this.”
    I didn’t like the sound of that one bit. Even his disgusting followers looked worried when he shouldered his way past them and disappeared down a long, dingy hallway.
    They actually dove out of the way when he returned a moment later. He was holding something above his head. My eyes locked on it. Oh boy! An Opus 24/24 assault rifle.
    “Say hello to my little friend,” Seth said. “Nothing like the cool steel of an Opus 24/24. And what a coincidence. I could be wrong, but isn’t this the same sort of weapon that did in your dear departed mother and father? I believe it is.”
    The door of my cage screeched like a banshee as Seth flung it open. A chill raced down the ridge of my spine. Everyone was deathly quiet—the kids, Seth’s thugs, even Seth.
    Slowly he raised the deadly rifle to his shoulder.
    “What are you going to do now? Shoot me?” I asked with a fake smile.
    A bloom of fire burst from the gun’s barrel. What felt like dynamite exploded inside my stomach.
    “Good guess,” Seth said with a smile as I flew backward about fifteen feet and landed spread-eagled on the floor.
    What can I tell you about getting gut-shot? It’s bad. About as bad as it gets. Excruciating is the tip of the iceberg. I could actually feel the bullet deep in my stomach, feel its heat, feel it burning into the torn tissue that surrounded it.
    I slapped my hand to the wound as blood—red blood, not green or anything—started pouring out from between my ring finger and pinkie.
    The most sickening sadness laced the pain as my vision started to blur, then flicker. I wondered if this was how my mother and father felt just before they died.
    Talk about having a sucky last day,
I thought, as I fell away into darkness.
    And I had kind of liked Terra Firma too.
    I would miss night baseball, sno-cones, Spider-Man, the Winter Olympics . . .
    White Castle sliders, Bart Simpson, did I mention sno-cones? . . .
    Chapter 53
    I DON’T KNOW how long it was before I came to—I wasn’t even sure if coming to was what I was doing. All I knew for sure was that there was a worried face floating maybe a foot above me. The innocent face of a seven or eight-year-old girl.
    I would have believed she was an angel—except for the terrible waves of pain throbbing in my stomach.
    I looked down and saw that the girl had balled up my shirt and stuffed it into my wound. A tear rolled out of my eye onto the stone floor. Abducted, terrified, and most likely in shock, this little girl had probably saved my life.
    Gestures like that were why humans were worth saving, I thought. Or even worth dying for.
    “Thank you,” I whispered. “These ugly horse-heads better watch their step. They’re starting to get on my nerves.”
    “Mine too,” said the girl.
    “
Hey, you!
What do you think you’re doing in there?” came a voice. One of the aliens was crouching by the cell door. “Didn’t I tell everyone not to touch him?”
    The little girl stared at him like a deer frozen in headlights, at least the way I’ve always imagined that cliché looks.
    “Hey, give me back my wallet,” I croaked at her, loud enough for the thug to hear.
    “Oh, why didn’t you say you were just robbing him?” the guard said, turning away. “In that case, go for it. You humans are lower than dirt. Tear each other apart. Go for it.”
    Chapter 54
    I SPENT the better part of the next hour lying there on the cold stone floor, writhing in pain, probably close to death. I’d lost what