PULL THE RUG OUT, NOT THE CARPET. You know better. I kicked myself mentally for that one all the way down the stairs to French III.
It was a dumb mistake, one that came from learning outside of standard context, and a dead giveaway that I was different. The rug/carpet mix-up dated back to before my early days of trying to grasp the nuances of spoken language. I thought I’d trained myself out of it years ago. That only went to show how much he’d taken me by surprise. Zane Bradshaw, of all people, had rattled me.
He’d meant it, what he’d said about getting back at Rachel.
Most of the time, reading thoughts is a crapshoot. The human mind is a roiling mass of half-finished observations, fleeting sensations and emotions, and imagined scenarios playing out on an invisible screen. That was one of the reasons my father had warned me away from using it as a sole basis for making a decision.
When someone is agitated, it’s even more difficult to track a specific thought. Emotions rise up and block almost everything else out. But those emotions, while lacking the detail and the shades of gray found in conscious thought, can give you a baseline on a person’s state of mind, albeit more as an internal scream of rage than, say, someone articulating, “Gee, I am angry.”
Zane’s mind was as messy and chaotic as everyone else’s; no surprise there. But one thing had popped, loud and clear: he was angry with Rachel.
I wasn’t sure what she’d done or why today was different, but he’d had enough. I understood that feeling, certainly, though it was a surprise to find it within Zane.
But what had me shaking was how close I’d come to agreeing. To see Rachel caught in the wheels of her own machinations…I wanted it so bad, I could taste blood. Or maybe that was just where I’d bitten the inside of my cheek to keep from saying yes.
“Bonjour, Mademoiselle Tucker. Good of you to join us,” Miss Lenosi said as I crossed the threshold a full minute after the bell.
A wave of whispers and giggles swept the room, and my face burned. So much for keeping an even-lower-thannormal profile today.
Thanks a lot, Zane.
I took my seat at the back of the room and shifted my pack to the floor. I reached down to pull a notebook and pen from my bag, and noticed my hands were trembling.
Which was ridiculous. The worst was over. Zane wouldn’t approach me again on the Rachel matter, or any other.
Except I wanted him to. One more push and I might have given in, against all my better judgment. My human side was rattling its cage, screaming to be set loose.
No. I couldn’t allow that to happen.
I forced myself to pay attention to Miss Lenosi’s lecture, scrawling her words across my notebook page and correcting mentally for her atrocious accent. Je vais came out as Juh vaze.
But the idea of beating Rachel, scheming against her, with someone who was her friend…it made me want to laugh. It was dizzying and vengeful and everything Rachel deserved. I couldn’t reach her grandfather—that would be far too dangerous—but in this small way I could turn the tables on both of them.
It was impossible, though. Against far too many of the Rules. And I didn’t know Zane, didn’t trust him. Even though I was pretty sure he wasn’t planning to double-cross on his plan to double-cross, I couldn’t be absolutely certain. It was an unnecessary risk.
I gritted my teeth. This was the balancing act I struggled with daily, sometimes hourly. I felt like I was nothing but a bunch of extremes all bound up together. The logical voice in my head pointing out facts and likely scenarios, and the roar of emotions, the rush of want and need, that would drown everything out if I let it.
Other than the sketchy info I’d found from years of careful Internet searches, I didn’t know much of anything about the other part of my heritage, the ones who’d come from so far away. But logic—and various conspiracy Web sites—suggested that the Roswell aliens came from an advanced society. Creating technology that would allow them to break through impossible barriers—like traveling faster than the speed of light—could only come from intellectual superiority, a focus on science, logic, and strategy. They’d harnessed their potential instead of squandering it by focusing on petty divisions between race, religion, economic status, gills versus lungs, and whatever.
They—whoever they were—had risen above their primal instincts to achieve something amazing.
And as soon as they’d gotten here, however many thousands of light-years away, the human part of my heritage had shot them down, out of fear or hate or both.
Inspiring, right?
But it was important for me to remember that in this particular situation, as with most, giving in to my human side would be dangerous. Satisfying maybe, but dangerous. I wanted, raged, and needed, just like everybody else. But my analytical nonhuman side knew that giving in was risky; it might lead to decisions that would put my life or freedom in jeopardy. I wasn’t above taking risks, but they had to make sense beyond the emotional appeal. Emotions were all too often what tripped the full-blooded humans up. They wanted something more than was practical or reasonable. The desire to feel a connection with another person, to actively love or hate someone—chasing after those things left you open and vulnerable.
Logic was sound, and it had saved me countless times.
Except once, my human side shouted. Remember that?
In the lab, that last night, it had been a gut instinct, the desire to survive at any cost, that had overruled the whisper of logic, encouraging me to come out from behind my cot at the urging of the guard, the man who would become my father.
I shook my head. That was different. In that case, it had been a matter of life and death.
It had been the middle of the night when the bomb went off. Not that I’d recognized it as such at the time. I’d found out later that people protesting against genetic experimentation on defenseless animals had sent GTX a package bomb. It had exploded in the mail-processing room, only one floor above my living quarters.
But all I knew then was that one moment I’d been asleep, and the next I was on the floor in the smoke-filled darkness, cowering behind my tipped-over cot while the walls shook and the ceiling rumbled. I wasn’t even sure if I’d crawled there or I’d simply been dumped out by whatever force had rocked the room. Sirens shrieked overhead, hurting my ears, but I couldn’t lift my hands up to cover them. My right arm ached in a familiar way that likely meant a break, and I clutched it tight against my chest.
The emergency lights flickered, trying and failing to alleviate the gloom. But I could see enough to recognize blood soaking through the white sleeves of my uniform. There were small cuts on my hands, and probably more on my arms. The games and books on my shelf had been shaken to the floor. Shiny bits of glass lay spread across the room, sparkling like diamonds in the unsteady light. And beyond that, the window wall, the one that occasionally masqueraded as solid, was fractured irreparably. A giant crack dominated the smooth surface, zigzagging into thousands of smaller breaks. At the bottom, the glass was gone entirely, fissures giving way to a gaping hole with sharp and jagged edges. The observation room, where Dr. Jacobs and the techs had watched me, was dark and somehow looked smaller than normal, filled with unfamiliar shapes. I realized that was because all the equipment had been thrown into a jumble at the center of the room and the walls appeared to be sagging. Wires were smoking and snapping.
It took me a second to gather the implications of the facts at hand: I was alone, unwatched, with an avenue for escape.
Immediately, the two opposing forces within me took up sides.
Run.
It could be a test, a trap.
Or it might not be. Run!
The latter voice was so loud in my head, I was up and on my feet, scurrying toward the broken window wall on shaky legs before I even realized it.
But the argument continued in my head.
You don’t know how to live Outside. It’s dangerous.
Not as dangerous as staying in here. You know what they made you do to Jerry. What do you think will happen next? Move faster!
But the problem was, no matter how loudly that voice yelled in my head or how quickly I moved, escape was not going to be easy. To begin with, the floor of the observation room was several feet higher than that of my cell—the better to see you with, my dear.
To climb out I’d have to reach up and somehow pull myself over the sharp edges of glass in the window with a broken arm.
I was standing there in front of the window wall, evaluating my options—remove the rest of the glass; no, you don’t have time for that—when a shadow moved within the observation room.
Instinct drove me to hide. I skittered back behind my overturned cot and hunched down.
I peered cautiously around the edge as Mark Tucker appeared, shoving his way through the collapsed equipment in the observation room.
He wasn’t my father then, of course. But I recognized him even with the dust in his hair and soot lining his face. He was the new guard, the different one.
Guards patrolled in pairs on a regular schedule on the other side of the glass wall. I’d never paid much attention to them because they didn’t seem to notice me no matter what (screaming, pleading, bleeding) was going on right in front of them. I now know it was because they were hired for their discretion and paid well to ensure it.
But one day, not long after the…incident with Jerry, I was sitting in the corner of my room, refusing to watch a training video. How to assemble and disassemble an M16, if I remember correctly. I’d had my back to the video and was staring out through the glass wall. Dr. Jacobs was on the other side, casually threatening me, which I ignored. Passive resistance was the only defense left to me at that point.
When the guards came through to report in to Dr. Jacobs, I noticed something different. The guard closest to the glass wall…he was doing something curious.
After checking to make sure Dr. Jacobs was involved in their discussion, I edged forward from the corner for a better look.
Though the man was focused on Dr. Jacobs, answering the questions asked of him, his hand, down by his side, was moving back and forth. A wave. A traditional manner of greeting when distance or situation does not permit spoken words, I knew.
I sucked in a breath and straightened up. This man was waving at me. He saw me.
Before I could respond—or remember that the proper response was to wave back—the monitors tracking my heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration began to flash brightly, attracting Dr. Jacobs’s attention.
The waving guard and his partner walked on, and Dr. Jacobs turned his attention to the monitor readouts and then me, demanding to know what had caused such a response.
I’d ignored his questions, refusing even to look at him. I would not give up this secret, knowing already “Grandpa Artie” would only turn it into an experiment. Or the means to force me into doing something I didn’t want to do.
But I’d watched more closely after that—every guard rotation, every shift coming through. What else did I have to do? But this one guard was the only one who waved. And to my shock, he did so nearly every time he came through. It wasn’t an accident, either. When Dr. Jacobs was watching closely, the guard remained as still and obedient as all the others.
Now, that guard was moving toward the broken-window wall, and me, with purpose. He reached the edge and kicked at the remaining sharp pieces surrounding the hole in the bottom half of the window. When the shards fell inward, he bent down carefully.
“Come on, I know you’re in there,” he whispered.
I jerked back, retreating farther behind my cot.
“You don’t have to be afraid.”
In my limited experience, that statement was only a sure indicator that I should be afraid. And I was. I could get nothing from his thoughts but a vague sense of frustration and worry. That alone was a little frightening. I was used to being able to “hear” the noise of human thoughts, even if I couldn’t always pick out specifics.
I heard his boots crunch on the broken glass as he shifted position. “If we’re going to get you out of here, we don’t have much time.” The urgency in his voice finally registered with me. He was truly worried. Why? Surely, if he waited long enough, more guards would arrive to help him. He had nothing to fear.
I remained still, waiting, expecting him to call for assistance or charge in after me.
Instead he sighed. “I have a little girl, not much older than you. She’s been sick for a long time. She hates being in the hospital, being poked and prodded. I can only imagine what it must be like for you. It’s not right.”
I could feel his outrage along with his love for his daughter, mixed with weariness and worry. Given how little I’d sensed from him before, he felt very strongly about both topics: my captivity and his daughter.
“But I think I can get you outside, if you’ll trust me,” he said.
I looked up sharply. He’d said the magic word. Well, the one that was magic to me. Clutching my arm to my chest, I scooted closer to the edge of the cot and peered out at him. “Outside?”
He nodded slowly, as if sudden movement might frighten me away. “Do you want to go outside?”
That kind of direct question was usually a test. I eyed him speculatively. “Dr. Jacobs would not want me to go.”
The man didn’t wave away my words or tell me that I was wrong. Instead he just looked at me. “What do you want to do?”
That was, as far as I could remember, the first time anyone had ever asked me that question. Normally, someone was right there telling me what to do. Issuing commands over the intercom.
But this man, he was waiting at the edge of the room for my answer. He wasn’t charging in to drag me off, or shouting at me to do as I was told. He was asking me. I didn’t realize until years later why that was struck me so deeply—my father was the first one to treat me as a person.
Half fearing that this was an elaborate trick, I stood up, my insides quivering with fear and anticipation. “I want to go. Outside.”
He held out his hand for me. “Then let’s go.”
I hesitated for a moment, trying to think it through. Finally, the voice that had been shouting at me earlier kicked in. Someone will come for you sooner or later. And this one, he defied Dr. Jacobs. Just like you. GO. NOW!
And, my logical side rationalized, even if it did turn out to be a trick, I would likely be safer with him than any of the others who would come later.
So I left the safety of my tipped-over cot—my known world—to take his hand. It was the best decision I’d ever made. Except, perhaps, refusing to cooperate with Dr. Jacobs in the first place, but even that had had unforeseen consequences I still struggled with.
I was lucky that my father had chosen to associate his daughter with the small strange-looking child I’d been and taken the risk to save me. And I couldn’t repay his leap of faith by taking more unnecessary chances. Not for Jenna this morning, and definitely not with Zane. His plan, tempting though it was, involved too many variables, too many opportunities for the situation to spin out of control.
So I would have to continue on as I was.
The disappointment tasted bitter, and I tried to remember that at breakfast, only an hour ago, I’d been relieved to find that my cover remained intact.
The phone in the side pocket of my backpack buzzed suddenly, startling me. I waited for Miss Lenosi to face the whiteboard and then reached down and pulled it free, to find a half dozen new text messages from Jenna. I must have missed them with all the noise in the hall.
You’re coming, right?
I’m here. Where are you?
Where are you?!!!!!
Ariane? You promised!
I can’t believe you’d just leave me here!
And finally…
Some friend you are.
I sighed. Unfortunately for both of us, today was not our day.
IT TOOK RACHEL UNTIL LUNCH to catch up with me. In line for food, I had my back to the rest of the cafeteria, but when I felt cool fingertips on my neck, I knew who it was.
“Are you mad?” she asked in a pouty whisper.
I sighed. At least she knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t be happy at what she’d said to Trey. But my anger at her had faded over the last few hours into a low-level simmering resentment. I probably had Ariane Tucker to thank for that little wake-up call. I wasn’t sure what I’d been thinking or if I’d been thinking at all, going to her and proposing that wacked-out plan. I was lucky she hadn’t taken me up on it. Rachel was just being Rachel; it was better to ride it out.
“Trey was being all sensitive, you know how he gets.” Ignoring the tray in my hands, Rachel slipped her arm through mine, which jostled everything, knocking my milk container over into my mashed potatoes. “I had to say something to get him to understand.”
Or she could have not kissed me in the first place. That would have worked. I still didn’t know what was up with that. If she didn’t want to have to smooth things over with Trey, she’d have been far better off keeping her mouth to herself.
She pulled my arm tighter between her breasts, and I could feel her warm, soft skin against mine, where the front of her shirt dipped low.
Did she think that would work on me?
“Come on, Zane,” she pleaded. “Don’t hold a grudge.”
“Just because Trey has C-lunch doesn’t mean he won’t hear about this,” I said, looking down at my arm held hostage.
Rachel let go of me with a sigh of disgust, confirming my suspicion that she was once again simply toying with Trey until it suited her to do otherwise.
“Two veggie burgers, please,” I said to the woman behind the counter.
“Real men eat meat, Zane,” Rachel said in a snippy, know-it-all tone.
“What do you want, Rachel?” I said, mimicking the rhythm of her speech.
She narrowed her eyes at me, suspicious that I was making fun of her. “I just wanted to find out if we’re going to have company this week. I heard you were talking to our special friend.”
“I talked to her.” I took the plate of veggie burgers from the weary-looking lunch lady and nodded my thanks.
“And?” Rachel persisted.
“She said no.” In truth, it had been more than that and less. I wasn’t quite sure what had happened. For as much as Ariane had regarded my offer with cold disdain, I’d seen how she’d looked at Rachel yesterday—white-hot electric hate. Participating in this countergame of Rachel’s should have been the easiest decision in the world for her. But she’d refused. Some of it might have been because she didn’t trust me, and I couldn’t blame her. She had no reason to, and what she’d seen us do to her friend Jenna yesterday probably hadn’t helped.
I winced at the memory of censure on Ariane’s face. She was right. Jenna hadn’t deserved it. Maybe I should have spoken up and tried to stop Rachel, but “Rachel on a mission” fits pretty much in the same category as “runaway train loaded with explosives.” Get out of the way or be counted among the dead.
“She said no?” Rachel gaped at me as if I’d spoken words she’d never heard before.
I took advantage of the momentary reprieve to pay for my lunch and head over to the table by the windows, where Matty and a few guys from the lacrosse team were already eating. Next year we’d be able to leave campus for lunch, even if it was only to go to the park across the street. But for now we were trapped, rats in the worst maze ever. The same corners, the same dead ends, the same boring cheese that had gone stale years ago. I’d enjoyed this once, hadn’t I? I’d been happy to be Rachel’s friend, pleased that I could follow in Quinn’s popular footsteps, maybe even besting him slightly. After all, Arthur Jacobs had only one granddaughter, and she was my age, my friend. Not Quinn’s. Even my dad had been pleased by that.
Now it all seemed tired and childish and not worth it.
I might have wondered when that had all changed, except I knew. To an exact date.
I’d spent years doing anything and everything that I thought might make my dad proud, including acting like a complete tool on various occasions, because, hey, that’s what he would have done, right? In doing so, I’d paid little or no attention to the one person who loved me for who I was. If anything, I’d tried to keep distance between me and my mom, knowing my dad saw us as two of a kind.
It wasn’t until after she was gone that it finally clicked. I’d been worrying about failing the wrong person. Nothing I did would ever be good enough for my dad, and by relentlessly seeking his approval, I’d lost my mom’s.
Rachel followed me across the cafeteria. I could hear her heels clicking loudly a step or two behind me. People turned to see her coming, watching either with awe or great wariness as she approached.
Ignoring her and the inevitable storm to come, I set my tray down and dropped into an available chair, nodding at the guys.
“What do you mean she said no?” Rachel hissed in my ear. Instead of sitting down, she remained standing, sending out the message, consciously or not, that she was above us.
“Who said no to what?” Matty asked, his mouth full of food.
“Shut up and eat your pudding, Matty,” Rachel snapped, reaching down to shove his overloaded tray closer to him, her gold bracelets clanging against the hard tabletop.
“Coach told me I need to bulk up,” he mumbled, his face flushing.
“It does occasionally happen,” I said to Rachel. “Girls say no.” And it did, but not usually to me.
Ariane’s face, pale and accusing, flashed in my mind.
Rachel huffed impatiently. “I knew I should have sent Jonas.”
“You can’t now,” I pointed out, pleased that part of my plan had worked out, at least. “She’ll be too suspicious.”
Rachel abandoned any pretense of casual friendliness, or friendliness at all. “What? So now you’re on her side?” she demanded, folding her arms over her chest.
I was, actually. I liked Ariane, what little I knew of her. Maybe even more now because she hadn’t fallen all over herself to get back at Rachel, though she clearly wanted to. I shrugged. “My point is, you’re not going to get what you want from her.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“It means she’s not stupid. I think she’s already accepted that you’re out to get her, and she’ll take whatever you’re going to dish out.” I had to admire that kind of resilience and determination. I might do better with my dad if I had half of that.
Rachel, however, looked offended. It was the fear she thrived on, and Ariane had taken that away from her. My admiration of Ariane—strange quiet thing that she was—edged upward another notch.
Rachel straightened up, her mouth thinning into a tight line. “We’ll see.” She spun away from me in a whirl of red fabric and expensive perfume.
“Rachel. What are you doing?” I called after her, alarmed.
But she ignored me, making a beeline for the doors to the hall.
Shit. In trying to warn her off, I’d only pointed her straight to Ariane at full speed.
“Rachel better hurry before they finish with the cameras,” Matty muttered.
“What are you talking about?”
Matty tipped his head toward the far wall, and I saw a guy in a black jumpsuit with a bright red GTX logo on a ladder, messing with some cables. “Didn’t you hear the announcement this morning?” he asked, loading up his fork again.
I vaguely remembered hearing the loudspeaker going off when I was in the hall, tracking down Ariane.
“GTX donated a new security system to the school. They’re installing it today.” He swallowed and then chugged from his Gatorade bottle. “Cameras everywhere, man. Gonna be harder than hell to get away with anything now.”
Huh. Wouldn’t that be a nice piece of poetic justice if Rachel got busted by the same system the school had probably fawned all over her grandfather to get?
I sat back in my chair, smiling at the idea.
“Not that it matters for Rachel,” Matty continued with a sigh. “That girl could get away with murder.” He sounded envious, not angry about the injustice.
And he was right. My smile faded. The cameras could catch Rachel doing just about anything, and the front office would find some way to excuse it or simply not see it. Especially if they wanted to keep her grandfather’s favor and any other expensive equipment he chose to send the school’s way.
Damn. I really hoped Ariane Tucker knew what she was doing.
“YOUR DAD MADE YOU STAY HOME this morning?” Jenna sounded skeptical.
I’d managed to delay the inevitable until after fourth hour simply by profusely apologizing via text and saying I’d explain my absence later, in person. But now, walking to the cafeteria, I was out of time and excuses for, well, not providing my other excuse.
“He didn’t make me stay home completely,” I said. “Obviously. I’m here. He just needed me to stay at home a little later.”
I hated blaming my father for everything. But the best lies are the ones closest to the truth. And since telling her “I couldn’t meet you this morning because it might draw more attention to me and therefore eventually destroy my carefully calculated guise as a normal and completely human student” was out, this was the next best thing.
Jenna hoisted her overstuffed bag up higher on her shoulder. She’d obviously been avoiding her locker between classes by the amount of books she was carrying. “Look, I don’t mean to pry or anything, but is everything okay at home? Your dad seems to want a lot of together time.” She wrinkled her nose.
I sighed. Crap. I was straying too far from social norms again. She was worried my father had an unhealthy interest in my life.
It was such a ridiculously fine line to walk between half-truths and arousing suspicion. Even if that suspicion was not, “Hey, you’re an escaped science project,” and more of the “Exactly how ‘special’ is Daddy’s special girl?” it didn’t matter. Getting adults involved—particularly those from some kind of governmental social services program—would be bad for my cover as a “normal” person.
“My mom is dead, and in two years he’ll be alone,” I said.
I’d discovered that bringing up a dead parent puts an end to almost any conversation. And since one of my “parents” was likely dead, it wasn’t far from the truth.
At least I hoped he or she was dead. That sounds terrible until you consider the alternative. The source of the “foreign” material used in my creation—a nonterrestrial being who’d been minding his/her/its own business until it had been shot down, here on Earth, outside of Roswell in 1947, according to a variety of Internet conspiracy theorists—was surely out there somewhere, locked away in some secret facility, no doubt. I’d seen enough alien autopsy specials on television to know that.
But the thought of him or her alive and contained in some bright white room, alone except for when someone came in with oversized needles to remove samples for further cloning/hybridization, made me ill. The image of that same being dead and floating in an oversized jar of formaldehyde was equally horrific. But at least he or she would no longer be within reach of human harm. Lesser of two evils, and all of that.
I used to wonder if there was a family out there in a galaxy far, far away wondering what had happened when they lost contact with the one who’d been sent here. That same family would be mine, too, indirectly. But since I would never know, I couldn’t allow myself to dwell on it.
My mother, a human surrogate, might be dead as well, for all I knew. GTX did not take project security lightly. It was only from information obtained through my father’s GTX sources that I even knew I’d had a mother instead of donated human stem cells and an obliging petri dish or something.
I used to think about her, the surrogate, sometimes. Had they told her what I was? Had she been afraid? Maybe she’d hated me before I was even born. I’d seen enough TV and movies to know that the idea of hosting an alien or alien/human hybrid was often seen as terrifying and/or life-ending. (V, Alien, Aliens, etc., and the entire Stargate franchise.)
Or maybe she’d loved this creation that was some percentage of her own DNA and wished she hadn’t had to leave me with GTX.
I had no way of knowing what was a realistic possibility and what was simply my human side, longing for a connection. So I tried not to think about her anymore, whoever she was.
But Mark Tucker was within my realm of knowledge, and I was genuinely worried about what my adoptive father would do after I was gone. Who would look out for him? Who would make sure he took his pills? Or call 911 if necessary? He didn’t have anyone but me. He could have married again, started a new family. But instead he’d chosen to save me and given up the possibility of rebuilding his life. Once I was gone—and likely not ever able to return—he’d be alone. Lonely, perhaps. I knew what it was to be alone, truly alone, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Jenna grimaced. “I know. I’m sorry about your mom.” She hesitated. “But I think maybe you need to branch out. Try to have your own life and not—”
She would have pressed further, but a group of freshmen girls leaving A-lunch passed us. They, who should have been looking scared, hassled, or overwhelmed on their second day, had the audacity to giggle and whisper behind their hands while staring at Jenna.
Jenna’s face turned bright red. “We’re just going to go in, get our food, and get out, right?” she asked. “I’ve got passes to the library.” She dug out a slip of paper from her bag and handed it to me.
I glanced at it. Signed by Mrs. Jurs, the guidance counselor. She was hopelessly ineffective at anything resembling guidance or counseling, from what I’d heard, but valuable, it seemed, in her generous distribution of hall and library passes.
“Fine.” It had taken several text messages to convince Jenna to agree to this instead of skipping lunch entirely, which I could not do. I have to have food every few hours or risk fainting, which might mean the nurse’s office—or worse, an ambulance.
But it wouldn’t be a hardship for me to eat somewhere other than the crowded cafeteria. The audible noise was deafening; the mental noise was worse. It was a pit of anxiety and thinly veiled panic that began fifty feet down the corridor from the lunchroom doors, especially this early in the school year, when friendships and lunch table alliances were being formed and broken. I’d walked past SAT testing rooms that were calmer.
But I was concerned that hiding from everyone might send the wrong message. If Jenna wanted everything to return to normal, she was only putting off an inevitable period of awkwardness. The longer she delayed, the worse it would be, the more people would speculate and anticipate her return. The best way to reestablish the “normal” pattern was to resume it as soon as possible. I was something of an expert on this topic.
But I knew Jenna wouldn’t want to hear it.
I wrestled with the decision as we approached the cafeteria doors, while Jenna remained uncharacteristically silent, no doubt gearing herself up for her entrance. Was it my responsibility to warn her of the flaw in her plan? Or would it be abnormal to have this kind of insight and share it?
The problem with overthinking everything in order to appear normal and mundane is that you sort of lose track of what insights a regular person would or would not have. Therefore, figuring out the right (a.k.a. the average, human, normal) thing to do was something I struggled with daily. Sometimes it was easy. If it was information I’d learned only by hearing someone’s thoughts, no problem—pretend I’d never heard it and act accordingly.
But if it was something more subtle than that, a conclusion I should have reached by observation or years of experience, a conclusion or thought a full-blooded human might share if he or she was observant and/or moderately intelligent…then I had to decide what to do. What was the likelihood that Ariane Tucker, the version of me that I presented to others, would know something like this and be inclined to speak up about it?
God, it was so complicated, so many variables.
As we rounded the final corner, the noise increased and I winced at the blast of emotions and thoughts, all at a fever pitch. It was what I imagined the Colosseum must have sounded like in the days when religious persecution and entertainment were one and the same.
My stomach clenched, knowing Jenna wouldn’t be the only one stared at. The two of us together would be twice the spectacle. I didn’t want to go in there any more than Jenna did, but I was accustomed to looking past the emotion of the moment to find the logic.
“I’m going straight for the salad bar, and I’ll meet you back out here,” she said, digging into her bag for her wallet. She pulled her money free and tucked the bills into her pocket for faster removal.
Except the far more strategic move would have been to stay and suffer today in the hopes that tomorrow or next week would be better.
In the end, I had only my instincts, and they were screaming at me to speak up.
I hesitated, then said, “Jenna, maybe we should—”
A man in a GTX uniform crossed into the hall from the cafeteria, carrying a ladder, and my voice dried up in my throat.
Paying no attention to me, he leaned the ladder against the wall and climbed up to adjust a video camera on the wall, one that had not been there before.
Cold washed over me, and I couldn’t move. It was like one of my nightmares, where the faceless men appeared in my bedroom to take me back to GTX and I couldn’t run or hide. I let them drag me out the door, where a version of Dr. Jacobs, so much taller than everything around him, including my house, waited with that false expression of paternal fondness.
Jenna stopped outside the cafeteria when she noticed I wasn’t with her, and turned around. “What’s wrong?” she asked with a frown.
The tech on the ladder glanced down at us and then promptly returned to his work.
“Nothing,” I managed to say through numb lips, barely able to breathe. “I need to make a call.”
Jenna’s bright blue eyes widened. “What? Now? Are you kidding me?”
I ignored her, fumbling in my pocket for my phone.
Jenna hurried toward me. “Wait until we get our lunch, please. We’re almost there, and the rest of A-lunch is going to empty out soon.” She sounded panicked. She wanted to try to sneak in during the five to ten minutes of transition between A- and B-lunch, while most everyone else was finishing eating or at their locker.
I shook my head, my neck so tight it felt as if it might snap. “I have to check in with my dad. I’m sorry.” That was protocol for anything unexpected like this. Why hadn’t he warned me?
I hit speed dial for my father’s cell, ignoring Jenna’s loud sound of disbelief, and turned my back on her and the GTX tech.
While the phone rang on the other end, I forced myself to focus and put the pieces together. The cameras meant surveillance. No doubt about that. My father had said they were ramping up the search for me. The fact that they were putting up cameras here, in my school…that had to mean they’d zeroed in on this location. That was bad. Unspeakably bad. I could almost feel Dr. Jacobs staring down at me. But they didn’t know who they were watching for; they couldn’t, or else they wouldn’t have bothered with cameras. They would have just sent in a team to get me.
I lowered my guard and focused on the thoughts of the tech only fifteen feet behind me. He hadn’t seemed remotely interested in me…and he wasn’t.
God, that food stinks. Wonder what Mariella packed. A flash of a smiling dark-haired woman with a brown lunch bag in her hand. Not that I’ll get to eat anytime soon. So behind. A second flash, this one a piece of paper with the words URGENT, PRIORITY stamped across it. Ten more after this. They never should have scheduled us for this one today. I don’t care who signed the order.
“Ariane?” My father’s voice on the phone pulled me from the tech’s thoughts.
“Hey, Dad.” The words sounded so stiff and stilted. “Checking in, like you asked.” That was a fabrication, but better than letting anyone who might be monitoring think I had another reason for calling.
Behind me, I heard Jenna huff in exasperation, and when I looked, she had disappeared through the double doors of the cafeteria. Evidently, going alone was better than going in late.
“Is everything okay?” He sounded alarmed but cautious.
“Sure, everything is great. Oh, hey, it looks like we’re getting a new security system here, cameras everywhere. Did you know about that?”
Silence held on the other end of the phone, and my stomach plummeted. He hadn’t known.
“Do I have a dentist appointment today?” I persisted. Dentist appointment was code for Leave immediately. Cell phone conversations were all too easily intercepted.
“No,” he said finally. “I don’t think so. Unless…your teeth are bothering you.”
It took me a second to extrapolate his meaning. Run if I felt threatened. Well, easier said than done. I always felt some level of threat, and GTX in my immediate environment absolutely did not help.
“Not right now,” I said.
“Let me check in about the dentist, and I’ll get back to you. If you don’t hear from me, proceed normally.”
I winced. Even I knew that didn’t sound like something a “regular” dad would say.
He paused. “I mean, come home and do your homework.”
“Right, okay.”
He hung up before I could say good-bye, and though talking to him usually reassured me, there were too many gaps, too many pauses this time.
He should have known this was happening. He had sources in GTX for this exact sort of situation. Unless GTX was keeping things quieter than normal. That might mean they thought they were closing in on me. And/or maybe someone had finally figured out that we had a mole on the inside. My father might be under suspicion.
I couldn’t shake the feeling of dread creeping up in me. GTX was nipping at my heels. The only question was how long would it take them to pin me down.
Glancing at the camera behind me and the tech fussing with it, I had to guess it wouldn’t be long.
Urgency pulsed through me. I had to find a way to stop my little power outbursts and regain control. Immediately. My father had theorized that time, patience, and practice would eventually work. But I couldn’t wait anymore.
I had to do something else. Now. But what? If I’d had other ideas to try, I would have tried them already.
I could feel desperation swelling in my chest, threatening to cut off my breath.
The bell signaling the official end of A-lunch rang, startling me. I forced myself to slowly draw in air.
Think, just think. But the noise from the cafeteria—both in my ears and my head—made that impossible. And standing here in the hall, pondering it all, right in the flow of traffic and ten feet from a GTX employee wasn’t smart. Better to catch up with Jenna, get my food, and hide out with her in the library, where I could hear myself think.
I tucked my phone into my pocket and started toward the cafeteria, but before I’d covered half the distance, a loud crash came from inside, followed by a piercing shriek.
Jenna.
I ran for the doors. Her distress was coming through loud and clear, but her thoughts were too muddled with the others for me to get a clear picture of what had happened.
I stopped at the threshold, the scene frozen in front of me like some kind of tableau or diorama entitled Trauma in the Lunch Line.
Jenna was on the floor in front of the salad bar, lettuce from a plastic container spread around her. A broken bottle glittered in an orangish-pink puddle of juice. Jenna’s face was flushed, and her hands were up as if to defend herself from an invisible force.
A big shiny metal dog collar hung loosely around her neck, the prongs tangled in her blond hair. A box of Milk-Bones lay on its side, its contents pouring out of the open top.
Oh God, Jenna.
I rushed toward her, ignoring the voice in my head that warned me to stay away. And the second I moved, the entire cafeteria broke free from its hold of surprise, and jolted to life again.
The room exploded in hoots of laughter, catcalls, wolf whistles, and “Here, doggy, doggy” from all directions. Mr. Scaliari, one of the teachers on cafeteria duty, left his position against the far wall and jogged toward us.
I avoided the broken bottle and knelt down next to Jenna, shielding her from view as much as I could. “Are you all right?” I whispered. I didn’t see any blood, and I wasn’t sensing physical pain—more shock, horror, and abject humiliation. The entire area reeked of too-sweet juice, ranch dressing, and something far less pleasant.
Jenna looked up at me, her hands still up in the air and shaking. Her eyes were filled with tears. “I…I stepped in something.”
I glanced around and discovered a half-squashed bag of what appeared to be dog excrement under the edge of the salad bar. Probably from the park across the street and definitely the source of the bad smell.
“And when I tried to move back, they put… What is this?” She lowered her hands to pull at the collar around her neck. Before I could stop her, she ripped it off over her head, taking chunks of her hair with it in the links.
When she recognized it, her mouth worked wordlessly, and tears spilled down her cheeks. She looked as if she was going to be sick, and my stomach twisted in agony for her. “Oh, Jenna, I’m sorry. I should have been with you.”
But she didn’t seem to hear me, her gaze focused on something behind me.
I stood and turned. Rachel Jacobs was there, wearing another of her flimsy spaghetti-strap tank tops—in red, of course. Her arms were folded across her chest, gold bracelets poking out, emphasizing her tanned skin and her slim wrists.
Two of her cronies—Angela and Deni or Demi?—sophomores desperate for her approval, were on either side of her, grinning like idiots, empty plastic shopping bags in their hands. They may have done the actual dirty work, but even money said that Rachel had done the planning and the shopping.
The worst thing was, Rachel didn’t attempt to pretend. She didn’t hurry away or make some offhand comment to pretty up what she’d done.
She just stood there and smiled. But not at Jenna. At me. She raised her eyebrows, and I heard her, loud and clear. Yeah, what are you going to do about it?
My heart sank. She’ll find your weak spot. Zane’s words echoed back at me, and I looked around, spotting him easily. He was standing at the back of the room, a tray in his hands.
Mouth tight, he looked unsurprised and weary at the events unfolding in front of him. His gaze met mine. I told you. His thought came through as distinctly as if he’d shouted it in my ear, his emotion and intensity lifting it above the mental chaos of the cafeteria.
Rachel was torturing Jenna to get back at me. Fresh rage swept over me, and a high-pitched buzz filled my head. The overhead lights began to sway and flicker. A low rattling came from the hall, followed by several sharp metallic bangs. Lockers flying open.
The barrier in my brain had dropped again.
My stomach twisted. Oh, no. No, no, no. Not now. Not with all these people around, and with the GTX tech right out in the hall.
Panic turned my fingertips cold, and the lights shook harder. We were maybe seconds from more lightbulbs exploding, or worse. The energy that had once bent to my will, moving objects as I desired, now ran wild, uncontrolled. Without focus, it would simply arc outward to nearby targets.
I could feel the energy tingling up and down my arms, seeking direction that I could not give. No! Stay calm, breathe through it, the voice of logic from somewhere deep within me commanded. Get control.
Great idea, except I had no clue how. I visualized a white stone wall and then a metal door. Then a metal door inside a stone wall and…nothing. I couldn’t stop it. It was like trying to hold back an ocean of waves, one right after another.
The few people not distracted by Jenna’s plight began to look up and point at the lights.
I turned to face Rachel—always know your enemy’s movements—but she was no longer paying attention to me. She was staring at Zane.
…he looking at her? Shouldn’t be looking at her. Little freak!
I froze. Her thoughts were loud and intrusive, breaking into the buzz of power that filled my head.
What, because she’s some weirdo stray he feels sorry for? The more Rachel’s thoughts intruded, the more distracted I became. She was the only thing I could hear—so damned loud!—overwhelming even the thrum of my power gone wild.
And what was she talking about?
With that thought, the barrier in my mind suddenly slammed into place, knocking me back a step. The rattling from the hall stopped, and the lights slowed their swaying and began to provide steady illumination again.
My ears rang with the chatter of the cafeteria, marking the return of my regular hearing.
Whoa. What was that? What had just happened? I rubbed my hands over my arms, brushing away the last prickles of fading energy. The barrier had dropped, all that power about to go wild…and then it stopped. I’d heard Rachel through all the noise, and when I’d focused on her thoughts…
“Mayborne, Tucker, Jacobs, Carson, and Lehigh. To the office,” Mr. Scaliari spoke behind me, startling me. I’d almost forgotten his presence. “Now.” He sounded irritated.
With a loud huff, Rachel spun off toward the doors, her two henchwomen trailing.
I turned slowly to follow, feeling wobbly and out of sorts. All of that uncontrolled energy and force that would have blown something up had instead retreated within me. Mr. Scaliari was supporting Jenna with one hand under her arm. She looked pale, though her cheeks were splotchy and red.
She was frowning at me. “Are you okay?” she asked.
No. But I nodded.
“Tucker, let’s go. Move!” Scaliari pointed at the doors with his free hand.
I drifted through the doorway and down the hall, seeing everything through a haze—the GTX tech on his ladder, the brightly colored Bonfire Week posters, several lockers hanging open, groups of B-lunchers heading toward the cafeteria—as my brain whipped up and discarded possible explanations and scenarios.
Had I gotten my control back in one fell swoop? The wall broken by one moment of extreme pressure? That had been one of my father’s theories, once upon a time, and it sure as hell would be good timing if that’s what had happened.
But no, when I forced myself to focus on one of the open locker doors, I couldn’t make it budge.
Jenna’s voice was a low murmur behind me as she talked with Mr. Scaliari.
I bit my lip. Something had happened. Something was different. That was the first time the barrier had dropped and gone up again without stuff blowing up or flying around the room.
It wasn’t controlled. I’d simply gotten distracted, and when I’d focused on Rachel’s thoughts, the mental block had snapped back into place.
But that was more control than I’d had before. I’d spent years practicing, trying to regain the use of my ability. But maybe that was like trying to cook in the kitchen when I was still locked out of the house.
Perhaps all those years of practice hadn’t worked because the barrier had to be gone—even temporarily—for there to be any hope of making the ability mine again. It sort of made sense: how could I direct something I couldn’t even access?
A chill slipped over my skin. Was it as simple as that? The theory seemed sound. But to know for sure, I needed to test it. Get the wall down and then try to duplicate the results. Unfortunately, I knew of only one way to reliably make that happen.
Rachel. Proximity to her would likely spawn at least one more opportunity, maybe more.
I gave a mental groan. That was not a good idea. So dangerous.
Then I looked up at one of the newly installed cameras—GTX emblazoned in red on the side—staring down at me from high on the wall. Was doing nothing, and waiting for a retrieval team to catch up to my father and me, a safer option?
“Stop dragging your feet, Tucker. Keep moving,” Scaliari called.
I gritted my teeth and picked up the pace. There was another problem. Since my life up to this point had generally revolved around avoiding Rachel as much as possible, it wasn’t as if I could suddenly start inviting myself to her lunch table. Not with any chance of success, anyway.
That left me only with one option if I was I going to go through with this insanity.
I was going to have to take Zane Bradshaw up on his offer.
A zing of anticipation shot through me. Because no matter what my practical reasons were for agreeing to Zane’s proposition, participating came with one giant bonus. A chance to beat Rachel at her own game, an opportunity to score a victory for myself, for Jenna, for all the people Rachel walked on like it was her right to trod on a person-paved path.
I wanted that. Badly.
“Tucker!” Mr. Scaliari shouted over his shoulder. At some point, he and Jenna had passed me. “Hurry up.”
But first I had to go to the principal.
I’d never been in the principal’s office before. It struck me as surprisingly mundane for all the fear and dread everyone accorded it. Four walls and a desk with a computer, a phone, and some family photos. But Mr. Kohler himself, a large man with an enormous shiny head, may have played some role in that fear and respect.
“No one else can verify your story,” he said to Jenna, leaning back in his worn leather desk chair, which creaked under his weight.
“The entire cafeteria saw what happened!” Jenna protested, her face tear-stained. She smelled of spilled juice and the dog “present” Rachel and her followers had put underfoot.
“That’s not what I’m hearing,” he said. “And it’s your word against Rachel’s.”
It turned out Rachel had had a purpose in speeding out of the cafeteria. She’d arrived at the office first and had the principal wrapped around her finger—and her side of the story—before we arrived.
And evidently, no one else was willing to speak for us. It was like that gangland documentary I’d seen. No one will talk, for fear of being included in the next round of punishment/killing.
“But if Jenna’s story is true, then Rachel is the aggressor,” I pointed out. “Why should Rachel’s word be given equal weight? It’s not as if you expect her to admit doing wrong, is it?”
Principal Kohler frowned at me. “Who are you again?”
I swallowed hard. “Ariane Tucker.”
He nodded slowly, but I could hear him rifling through his mental files of students and not coming up with anything. Which was how it was supposed to be, after all. But once again it would have been nice to have had a reputation as a solid student, non-troublemaker, and credible witness in this scenario, instead of a blank spot in his memory. “Well, Miss Tucker, Rachel is a good girl.”
…I think. She runs with a wild crowd, but they’re kids. The things I did when I was that age…
I cocked my head to one side, listening to him ramble internally. Good grief. He isn’t even sure what he believes about her.
“And her family has done a lot for this school,” he continued.
Now, that was the truth. He didn’t want to lose the favor the school had with GTX and Arthur Jacobs.
It always came back to him. That bastard would rule in hell or bribe his way into it.
“Can you play back the recordings from the new cameras?” I asked, trying not to seem as if I was holding my breath waiting for the answer. If the cameras were on, I was toast.
“The new system isn’t up and running yet,” Mr. Kohler said. “They’re still in the installation process.”
And even if they hadn’t been, there was no way he’d use the GTX-donated system to bust Rachel. I didn’t need to hear his thoughts to know that. Still, it worked to my advantage in this case. I let out a breath.
“Look, girls, most of the time, these things end up being a misunderstanding. A joke that went too far, as Rachel said.” Mr. Kohler steepled his hands on his desk, attempting to project wisdom and confidence. “It will all blow over in a few days.”
At least, he was hoping it would. He was worried. He didn’t want the Maybornes to force the issue. That would make things awkward. There was all this emphasis on preventing bullying these days.…
…We’re raising a generation of wimps.
Lovely.
“I’m going to talk to Rachel again and make it very clear that all jokes are off, okay?”
Jenna looked weary. “Fine.” She dabbed at her face with a tissue.
“Wait here while I get passes for you.” Principal Kohler levered his bulk out from behind his desk and headed to the outer office.
“Will your mother fight for you?” I whispered to Jenna. “He’ll take that seriously.”
“Are you kidding?” she said. “My mom was literally Miss Popularity. That was her yearbook title and everything. She won’t understand.”
I frowned. That, at least, explained Jenna’s obsession with Rachel and breaking into the “elite” crowd. I’d been in the car with Dr. Mayborne once or twice before, to and from various shopping excursions with Jenna. She gave a constant stream of gentle-sounding suggestions—“Wearing your hair back would give you a slimmer look, Jenna.” “A longer skirt would be more flattering to your shape.” “You know, I’ve heard that bronze is the new silver, which could really help add some color to your face.”—that would have worn down someone far tougher than Jenna just by the sheer volume.
Jenna tipped her head up toward the ceiling, blinking back fresh tears. “God. If I could only figure out what I did wrong.”
I stared at her. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You don’t understand.” Jenna shook her head, blond curls that had probably taken an hour to create sticking to her overheated face. “Rachel wouldn’t be nice to me only to turn on me.”
I would have gaped at her naïveté, but this was Jenna. “She would do exactly that,” I said, more harshly than I should have. “That was her intent in the first place.”
Which was, I guess, the wrong thing to say.
Her face crumpled. “Seriously? You’re supposed to be my friend and you say that? Like it’s impossible that she could have been genuinely nice to me?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Ariane!”
“Not because there’s anything wrong with you,” I said quickly. I wasn’t explaining this well. I fumbled for the words to explain something that, to Jenna, would be completely foreign. “That’s how Rachel is. She only sees people in terms of what she can get from them.”
It made sense to me, as much as I didn’t care for it. It was how Dr. Jacobs viewed the world; though in his case, it was less about mean-spirited entertainment and more about no-holds-barred scientific advancement.
I glanced toward the outer office to make sure Principal Kohler couldn’t overhear. From the sounds of it, he’d gotten caught up in lecturing somebody about not using the bike racks for skateboard “stunts.” “But listen, it’s okay. I have a plan,” I said to Jenna, with another involuntary shiver of glee.
Jenna frowned at me. “What kind of plan?” She paled. “Is this about getting back at Rachel?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could say anything, she cut me off, her hand up. “Look, I wish I was more like you, Ariane. That I didn’t care about being alone and not having a life.”
Stung, I straightened up. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about being alone or lonely. I just had to be careful in how I went about resolving the issue. I didn’t have a choice in that.
“But I want a life, and I’m not going to get what I want by pissing off Rachel.” She hesitated, then stood and slung her juice-stained bag over her shoulder. “Maybe we should take some time.…”
I realized with a harsh start that by “we,” she meant me. That I should give her time, a chance to mend the imaginary fences she thought she’d broken in her “friendship” with Rachel without the added burden of me, another outcast. After all, in Jenna’s mind, everything had been going great with Rachel until school started and the two of us, Jenna and I, were together again.
I swallowed hard against the unexpected lump in my throat. “Sure.” I forced the word out.
“It’s not forever, just until all of this gets straightened out,” she said, backing toward the door.
Which would never happen because Rachel wouldn’t change and Jenna would never see things the way they truly were. But I nodded, and Jenna smiled with relief. Then she turned and walked to the outer office. A second later, I heard her asking for a late pass to class.
I couldn’t move. My fingers were wrapped so tightly around the metal armrests of the chair, I was worried they might break. I should have been grateful. Jenna, as my weak spot, would cause only more trouble for me with Rachel.
But I wasn’t grateful. My chest ached with the hurt. Rachel had managed to win again, taking the only person I counted as a friend. And the worst part? It wouldn’t change things. Rachel would still abuse Jenna, gaining her trust and then turning against her. And if she sensed Jenna’s abandonment of me as a sign of my vulnerability, she’d probably take the opportunity to come after me again.
No. Just no. Rage welled up inside of me, and the picture frames on Kohler’s desk began to jitter and dance.
Calm down. Breathe. I clamped down on the anger and forced myself to release my death grip on the chair arms, letting my breath out slowly. But then the lightbulb in Kohler’s desk lamp gave with a quiet pop, followed by the delicate tinkling of broken glass, and something inside me eased, the built-up power released.
Shit. With a quick glance toward the door—I could hear the slightly whiny voice of the skateboard dude protesting loudly—I stood up and swept most of the glass off the desk into the trash, then straightened the pictures that had vibrated out of place.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than doing nothing.
Which was pretty much the description of my plan. And I was going forward with it, Jenna or no Jenna.
I had to.
Rachel needed to see what it felt like to hurt, to lose for once. She and her grandfather had taken everything from me. Yes, it might save my life if I could regain control over the barrier in my brain and keep GTX from finding me. And maybe by keeping Rachel’s attention focused on me, I could protect Jenna. But those were justifications, excuses for doing what I wanted—no, craved—with a frightening urgency.
See, this was the problem with creating a freak like me. I had the drive to win, to crush competitors who had no idea what they were up against, combined with an advanced ability to predict, plan, and manipulate. And you could bury all of that under layers of civility and rules, but it wouldn’t go away.
It might have been my human side clamoring for blood, or my alien side looking for a chance to exercise strategic dominance over a lesser life-form. Either way, I was going to win.