“You know what I mean.” Footsteps squeaked by in the hallway. A shadow crossed the door before disappearing. “And”—I lowered my voice—“if he’s going to insist on playing this caveman sport with all the hitting and running around and throwing of things, his energy’s going to keep getting drained.”
“Funny. I would have thought you’d have been proud to learn your progeny was turning out to be a perfect physical specimen.” He tilted his head. “At least in Hollow Pines terms.”
I blinked and felt my forehead wrinkle. “You think?”
“If the cleat fits…”
I bit my lip. Adam was becoming every bit the breakthrough that I’d sought out for him to be. Maybe Owen was right. “I’m trying to make a … device.…” This time I jammed my finger into the page and it tore a centimeter. “… To make it easier to, you know, recharge him. But it’s not working.”
Owen pulled the edge closer and slid his glasses to the bridge of his nose. “Some kind of plate?” He hummed quietly.
“I figured I’d surgically insert it. With portals for the wires and—”
Owen held up a finger and looked away from me. “I am going to try not to be positively offended—no, wait—blasphemed by the fact that you didn’t come straight to me before attempting to upend a perfectly innocent laboratory hot plate.” My shoulders relaxed. “But I’m here now.” He cracked his neck, followed by his knuckles. “We can get to work.”
A slow grin stretched across my face. “Really?”
Owen had already turned the hot plate onto its back and was bent over, fiddling with the screws. I glanced at the clock and registered the time. Resting my elbows on the table, I leaned in to watch him work. Owen tinkering, a man in his natural habitat. “Uh, Owen?” His fingers stopped. He turned toward me, our noses an inch apart. “Think you can help a girl out and sort through the rest of this on your own?” I set my chin on my fists and peered up at him. “Pretty please?”
He spared a long-suffering look for the ceiling. “I’m already in this deep, I suppose.” He returned his attention to the lab equipment and pinched his tongue between his teeth. “Besides, you’re hazardous when it comes to machines, anyway.”
“Awesome.” I grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Can you have it ready by then?” I batted my eyelashes.
The right corner of his mouth crept into a smile that dimpled his cheek. “You’re not that charming, Frankenstein.”
“I am to you.” I blew him an air kiss, turned on my toes, and headed out the door.
At least half the school’s lights had been turned off, and the hallway was dotted with patches of darkness with only the red glow of exit lights to mark them. Outside the classroom, I fumbled in the bottom of my bag for my keys and looped a finger through the ring. The soft melody from a teacher’s radio floated toward me as I made my way to the football field.
A prickle grew along the back of my neck, inching its way up the notches of my spine like a caterpillar. By the time I’d passed the last of the science classrooms, I was able to place the creeping sensation as the feeling of being watched. It slithered and disappeared into the cracks between my ribs, where it forced my heart to beat faster.
I froze in place and spun. My bag banged against my hip. I felt the dead quiet all around me until over my heartbeat I could again hear the small trickle of music coming from the radio hidden behind one of the classroom doors.
Shadows cloaked groups of lockers in even intervals. My eyes focused, and I saw a silhouette. The tingle worked a path down my forearms. The silhouette stepped from the shadow into a shaft of light. The head of a mop landed next to his feet.
I let out a whooshing exhale. “Mr. McCardle,” I said. “God, you scared me.” My pulse throbbed even as my muscles relaxed. I shook my head, unsure of what had gotten me so spooked.
Blackness filled in the lines on his face. His mouth was curved into a shallow frown. “It’s dark,” he said.
“Guess so.” I lingered awkwardly, remembering when he’d found me rather precariously positioned in the girls’ restroom with Adam. I could only imagine what he must have thought he’d walked in on. I pressed my lips together and rocked back on my heels. Maybe he’d forgotten. Earlier today, I’d seen a few kids playing Pin-the-Tail-on-McCardle, a dumb game where students tried to attach embarrassing signs or stickers to the janitor’s back. The game was mean-spirited and cold, but I never removed the stickers for fear that McCardle would think that lots of people had been noticing. “Anyway.” I waved. “Just heading out. Have a good night.”
He took another step forward when a door behind him opened. “Tor!” Owen popped his head out, brandishing a notebook in his hand. “You forgot this.” Owen jogged down the hall, past Old Man McCardle, and deposited my black-and-white composition book into my hands.
The book that contained Adam. I squeezed it to my chest. I never went anywhere without it. Instinctively, I flipped through the pages of data, diagrams, and research, reassuring myself that it was all still there. “Thanks,” I said, and meant it. Then I went outside to the emerald field that waited, glittering underneath the glare of the stadium’s industrial lights.