W\\CKED

A Party to Lie For

[Sanny]

Juliet's bodyguard waited in the hall, two cloaks slung over his arm — one soft and white as down, the other a red deep as sunset. Their hoods would prevent anyone from seeing Juliet's scar, but they were also my way of getting us noticed without sending Jul into a panic.

I took the cloaks from the bodyguard. "Thanks, Carl."

"It's Ken," he corrected.

Juliet got a new bodyguard every couple of months, so it was hard to remember. Her dad kept getting rid of them becaue he couldn't get rid of me.

I frowned at the stiff black suit Ken was wearing. I'd tried to talk him into going to Hallowfest as a bare-chested minotaur — he had the muscle to pull it off — but he insisted on dressing "as required" while on duty. Having him around suffocated our social life, as he always kept to the straight and narrow rulebook of bodyguarding.

But this time, he wasn't going with us. He just didn't know it yet.

I heard the sound of knocking. That was my cue.

"What's that noise...?" I asked innocently.

When I opened the bedroom door, the muffled knocking became loud pounding.

Juliet's voice called out from inside the closet. "Sanny? I can't get the door open! It's dark in here!"

Chuck - Curt - Whoever! - made straight for the closet. "Step back. I'll have you out in a second!"

He tested the doorknob. When he met resistance, he shifted his weight and slammed his shoulder into the wood surface!

The doorknob — handle, lock, and all — snapped off, pieces popping into the air as the bodyguard disappeared into the closet.

I heard a buzz crackle through the air, then a grunt, followed by a thump. I flicked on the light as I stepped into the closet. Carl lay unconscious on the plush rose carpet. Juliet stood next him, her arm thrust straight out as if it was locked in its current position, a stun gun held tightly in her hand. There was a look of panic on her face.

"Bull's-eye," I cheered.

"Is he dead?" she whispered. "I know he's dead."

I took his pulse. "He's fine. Looks like the injection feature worked." Juliet's father, being in the security business, liked to experiment with law enforcement tech. The stunner was his own design; it used the muscle-loosening capacity of a stun gun to halt an attacker long enough to inject a tiny dose of an incapacitating drug into the bloodstream. When he gave a prototype to Juliet last week for self-protection, he said it could knock a target cold for hours.

"But what if he's in a coma? What if I gave him nerve damage? What if—"

"Your dad spent how many hours training you to use it?"

"It felt like a century."

"Then stop worrying." I grabbed the duct tape waiting on a nearby shelf. "He's taking a nap. When he wakes up..." I grinned broadly. "...he'll find us safely tucked in bed, like we never snuck out in the first place."

"Poor Ken. Dad always blames the bodyguard when you — when stuff like this happens."

I ripped off a piece of tape and bent down to cover the bodyguard's mouth. "If he can't handle a couple of teenage girls, he should switch an easier job — like joining the Marines!"