Cassidy Jones and the Luminous (Cassidy Jones Adventures Book 4) (5 page)

“Mr. Phillips, I did not see your hand–”

“If it isn’t ‘paramecia,’ what is it, then?” Emery repeated calmly.

Levy stared at him, speechless.

I tapped my foot nervously, glancing sidelong at Emery’s composed face. He always drilled in how critical it was to be discreet. What was he doing?

The ticking of the clock echoed over the SMART Board. An anxious tension collected in the air, as everyone became uncertain of what to do or where to look, with the exception of Emery. His steady gaze didn’t waver from Levy.

“Class, take out a piece of paper for a pop quiz,” Levy ordered, taking his revenge.

No one protested.

As the sound of clicking binders and rustling paper filled the silence, Mr. Levy shuffled to his desk, picked up a bottled water with an unsteady hand, and took a long drink.

“Dude, that was cool of you,” Dixon whispered to Emery.

Emery looked at him squarely. “You were right, Dixon,” he stated matter-of-factly.

Dixon nodded, then looked at Rodrigo and snatched his pencil.

Smoothing a piece of paper, I attempted to calm myself. The scene had driven a wedge of icy fear into my heart. Emery had revealed himself. Screw-ups were my department, not his. His removal of the metaphorical mask confirmed a whispering terror that tormented me every night while lying in bed, waiting for sleep to come after racing around Seattle.

This charade of ours won’t last forever.

When the jig was up, what then?

Emery slid his sheet of paper in front of me. He had written
: I was wrong to let the pretentious windbag get to me. The mask won’t come off again.
He pulled the paper back and scribbled over his note.

Levy tossed the plastic bottle he had drained into the wastebasket. He twisted off the top of another, took a swig, and then read the first quiz question.

Pens and pencils sailed across paper, except for mine. I hadn’t even heard the question, as my eyes stared at the spot where “mask” had been written on Emery’s paper.

Was his word choice a coincidence?

At one time, I would have presumed so. But we’d had too many coincidences.

Fear wasn’t my only nightly tormenter. Guilt was equally persistent. Emery wasn’t normal, and I knew why. And every day I regretted the promise I’d made Gavin to keep my mouth shut about it until he felt his son was ready for the truth.

Arthur King Sr. had experimented on my friend when Emery was young, and had changed him.

Somehow.

“Levy’s class was intense,” Jared said, breaking the silence.

We were walking to his mom’s apartment after school to get his stuff and feed the pets. Eileen was on a business trip, so he was going to hang with us for the weekend.

I had fallen into deep thought about Levy’s class, too. Emery acting out of character had thrown me. Sure, what Levy had done to Dixon was wrong. And, yes, the pompous jerk should have been called out for abusing his authority. Emery had a strong sense of justice. But he wouldn’t normally act so rashly. I expected
me
to make stupid decisions, not him. Emery dropping his act had been a rude awakening. He was subject to mistakes, too. After all, he was only human.

Maybe
. . .

Having fought King’s mutants, I couldn’t comfortably presume Emery was completely human. I had no clue how King had tinkered with his mind, or why he would have. Gavin hadn’t felt obliged to fill me in when he’d sworn me to secrecy.

“Uh, Cass? Did you hear me?”

“Yes!” I blurted so abruptly that Jared jumped.

“Man,” he said with a laugh. Bending over, he pressed his palms to his thighs and laughed more. He found almost everything I did funny, especially the odd stuff.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. I was sort of lost in my head.”

“No worries,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “You just took me by surprise.” Grinning ear-to-ear, Jared straightened up. He put me in a light chokehold and grated his knuckles over my scalp.

“Well, that’s romantic!” I protested, squirming free. I smoothed my mussed hair and attempted
a look
. It failed utterly, earning me more chuckles from Jared.

“Is this better?” He wove his fingers into mine, taking me by surprise.

We started walking again, hand-in-hand. An elated smile split my face, making my cheeks feel ready to crack.

“Let’s try this again,” Jared said, smiling at my smile. “Levy’s class was intense.”

“Uh-huh.” His palm was toasty warm. Our hands fit together perfectly.

“‘
Uh-huh
?’ That’s all you have to say?”

“No. I like this.” I swung our clasped hands up.

The last time Jared had held my hand was when he’d told me I was special to him. He had shared his feelings for me with my dad, too. Dad thanked him for being honorable, then informed him that Jones kids weren’t allowed to date until they reached the age of sixteen.

“Me, too.” Jared returned. His smile tightened, and I felt his fingers loosen. Bummed, I assumed he was recalling his talk with my dad, too. He probably figured holding hands was barred. Safe guess.

“I’m getting the feeling you don’t want to talk about Emery,” he teased as my hand fell from his.

“That
was
intense.” I balled my lonely hand and shoved it into my sweater pocket. “Levy needed to be challenged. He is a total jerk! So is Dixon, but no one deserves to be degraded like that.”

“Agreed.”

I could see on Jared’s face that he was evaluating whether to share more of his thoughts on the incident. He wasn’t one to blurt out whatever sprang into his head.

“What are you thinking about?” I prompted.

“This hilarious thing happened at Cherry Street last night,” he eluded, changing the topic to the coffeehouse where he played guitar.

I knew that wasn’t what had been on his mind, but he didn’t claim it to be. And he wouldn’t. Jared never lied.

~~~

“Hi, Athena,” I cooed at Jared’s cat. She was curled up on the sofa, which was bathed in sunlight filtering through the picture window.

Jared locked the front door.

The building had been built in the early 1900s, so the apartment had all the cool architectural details common to that era—high ceilings, elaborate moldings, oak floors. I found it charming, eclectic, and homey, especially furnished with Eileen’s antique shop finds.

The calico had cracked an eye open when I’d spoken to her, then let it slide shut again. It had taken some effort on my part to get her to warm up to me. Due to odd reactions from other animals since my mutation, I had come to realize that I didn’t smell human anymore. I usually didn’t care what animals thought of me, but that wasn’t the case with Athena. She was Jared’s cat.

The first time she’d encountered the new me—the old one, she didn’t give a rip about—she hissed and ran away, as if in mortal danger. Jared had been stunned by her reaction. I’d felt humiliated, and scared. I didn’t want him to think there was anything wrong with me. But by sneaking her cat treats and patiently petting her, I eventually gained her trust. A few times, we had trapped one another in unblinking stares, and I’d felt some sort of weird mind-meld initiate. That had been my cue to look away. I didn’t want to know what would have happened if we’d kept it up.

“How about you feed Athena, and I’ll feed Killer? Unless you’d rather feed Killer?” Jared flashed a grin.

Killer’s future meals chirped in Jared’s room.

“Ha! The only thing I’d do with Killer’s
food
is set them free.”

“So I’ll feed Killer then.” He tugged my hair and headed down the short hallway to his room.

I walked through the dining room to their adorable galley kitchen, with a black-and-white checkerboard floor, mint-colored cabinets, red countertops, and 1950s reproduction appliances. Entering their kitchen felt like being time-warped to
Leave it to Beaver
. There was a faint odor of meals from the past that only I could detect, though probably Athena could, too. It was as though ninety years of food preparation had seasoned the room.

After a long, savoring breath of the comforting kitchen aroma, I filled Athena’s food bowl with kibble and gave her fresh water. Then I walked to Jared’s room, where I took another long, savoring breath that ended in a sated smile. The room smelled of him: exquisite.

“What are you smiling about?” He dropped a cricket in his tarantula’s terrarium.

“Nothing.” I swiped up a goalie mask that I had almost stepped on and tossed it onto his unmade bed. “You need to clean your room.”

“Look who’s talking!”

“You’re right. My floor is my dresser, too. Oh, listen to them!” I motioned to the jar, from which Jared was in the process of fishing out another cricket. “They’re pleading for their lives!”

“Not for long.” Jared wiggled his eyebrows and dropped another cricket to its death.

“You’re heartless!”

“A guy’s gotta eat.”

There was a knock at the front door.

“Mrs. Carmichael,” Jared predicted.

Mrs. Carmichael was a widow who lived a couple of apartments down. She kept Eileen and Jared in ample supply of homemade baked goods and motherly advice.

“I hope she’s bearing gifts of warm chocolate chip cookies,” I said, glimpsing one of his soccer shoes thrown on its side near the window. The cleats were packed with mud and grass. That explained the earthy smell in the room.

“Me, too.” Jared handed me the jar. “Don’t feed him too many. He’s starting to get cricket belly.”

“Charming. And no worries.”

With distaste, I set the jar next to the terrarium just as Jared left the room, leaping over a pile of clothes on his way out. I would never want a pet that required live food.

“You’ll have to make do with what you’ve got,” I told Killer, bending over to peer at him through the glass. Hanging out in his shallow water bowl, Killer appeared not to give a hoot about the crickets hopping all around. “Not hungry, eh?” I tapped the glass. The spider didn’t flinch.

The front door opened. “Can I help—”

There was a fast movement of feet.

“Wha—” Jared gasped. A sharp smacking sound cut him short.

My heart leapt to my throat. I ran to the bedroom door and peeked out.

A rough-looking man with sunglasses bolted the front door. Another thug had an arm around Jared and a hand clamped over his mouth. I could see a red welt forming on Jared’s cheek where he’d been backhanded. A third man held a gun on him.

Jared began to struggle.

The gunman cocked the pistol.

Glaring at him, Jared stood still.

Think, think!
I willed my brain, my heart hammering against my ribs.
If I go out now, Jared could be shot. All that creep has to do is squeeze the trigger.

A shudder shook my body. My head swam. This could not be happening.

THINK!

My frantic eyes latched on to the hockey jersey wound around my shoe. It had gotten caught on my foot when I’d run to the door.

“Tape him,” the gunman ordered.

I yanked the jersey over my head.

“You have your old man to thank for this—”

I swiped the goalie mask off the bed.

“When you play with fire—”

Pulling on the mask, I dashed to the door and looked out. The thug in the sunglasses was wrapping duct tape around Jared’s wrists while the other thug held him still. Jared’s mouth was taped shut. I gripped his hockey stick leaning against the wall.

“—
you
don’t decide when to stop playing.”

I prayed the gunman would uncock the weapon and lower it. He didn’t, keeping it trained on Jared. The thug binding Jared squatted down to tape his ankles together, while the other, wearing a sordid smile, held him still.

The gunman approached Jared. “Shame.
You’re a good-looking kid.”

“No!” I screamed and shot out of the room.

Swinging around, the gunman released the trigger.

My eyes slowed the speeding bullet. I saw it coming and could have avoided contact, but the thug in sunglasses distracted me. His hand dove for a gun tucked into his waistband. My skin hardened as the hot metal tore into my left shoulder, stopping the bullet’s progression. I launched forward, swinging the hockey stick back and into the gunman’s chest. The stick snapped in half, and the gunman crumbled to the floor, his head smacking against the wood.

Without pause, I seized the thug who’d been going for his weapon. I grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off the floor and throwing him. He flew into a hutch that displayed Eileen’s prized fine china. China and glass shattering, the hutch toppled over and pinned the man underneath. His sunglasses sat cockeyed on his face, and blood streamed from glittering shards sunk deep into his right cheek. It trickled over his drooping lips and splashed on the floor.

The man who held Jared released him and stumbled backward, his vile smile gone. I came at him in a flying kick, ramming my foot into his gut. His body curled around my leg, the impact propelling him backward. He took out a rocking chair and side table, sending the lamp and ceramics on top crashing. He rolled on the floor in agony, gripping his stomach, and squealed like a frightened pig.

I sprang at the creep, pulled him to his feet, and brought my fist into his face. Cartilage cracked under my hand, and blood spurted from his nose, splattering my face through the mask. I could taste it on my lips.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head. I released his collar, and he collapsed into a heap at my feet.

I spun around, prepared for another attack, but found only sprawled bodies, overturned furniture, broken glass, blood, and Jared. He was on his knees, his chest heaving, his round eyes full of shock . . . fixed on me.

My heart sank.

Jared was terrified—of me.

“Everything is going to be okay, Jared,” I choked out.

He just stared at me with those wide, shocked eyes.