A Different Kind (16 page)

I frowned and shook my head. “It was real.”

Jo’s brow creased. “But real like…like some new military equipment they’re testing or something, right? We’ve got to be close to an army base or something….”

I shook my head: No.

“Payton, what’s going on?”

I choked up, thinking about everything that had happened to me. I tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out. So I sat down beside Jo and squeezed my eyes shut to try to keep the tears from falling. Jo reached her arms around me and hugged me tight.

“Oh God, Jo, they’re real,” I said in trembling, broken speech.

Over the next few hours I told Jo everything, even about Logan. She was quiet and wide-eyed as I told her about the first night I was abducted. She looked frightened when I described the grey beings and their shiny black eyes. She glanced out my bedroom window and stared at Logan’s house when I explained he was from their planet. Through all of it she listened, silently absorbing my story, the truth and the fear and every twisted piece of it.

I wasn’t sure if Logan would be upset with me for telling Jo or not. I knew it was something I wasn’t supposed to do. I knew I’d promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone about what he was, but I needed to tell Jo, and I knew I could trust her. I hadn’t told anyone my whole story, not even Logan. Sure, he knew what’d happened to me, but I’d never had to say it out loud. Not the way I was telling Jo just then. It was scary to share all that with her, but it felt good too. I showed Jo the mark on my arm and the small scar behind my ear. I told her about the chip in my brain and about how they would be coming back for me. By the end my face was streaked with tears, but I also felt a little bit lighter.

Jo shook her head. “This is crazy.”

“I know,” I said. “But it’s all true.”

She took a deep breath. “Do you think Frank might actually be able to help you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but considering my options I think I want to find out what he knows.”

CHAPTER

20

A
t school the next day I waited outside the English room for Logan to arrive. I leaned against the wall. My fingers twitched, tapping the cover of my English text. I smiled when I saw him walking my way and pushed away from the wall.

“Hey,” Logan said.

“Hey, we need to talk.”

Logan’s face took on a concerned expression.

I bit my lip. “I kind of did something I wasn’t supposed to.”

“
Okay
.”

“I may have told Jo…everything.” I smiled nervously, hoping he wouldn’t be mad at me.

His eyes went wide. He led us down the hall a few feet and leaned in.

“What do you mean
everything
?” he whispered.

My lips thinned and my eyebrows rose, but I didn’t say anything.

“Payton, do you realize how much trouble you can get us in if this gets around school? If Jo starts to gossip, we’re going to attract someone’s attention.”

“She won’t.” He looked at me skeptically. “Seriously, I trust her more than anything. Besides, even if she did tell someone it’s not like the government’s going to get involved with high school gossip. I don’t know why you worry so much about that. My getting abducted again is a way bigger issue.”

Logan groaned. “It’s not the government I worry about. It’s people. The government would brush it off and call it a hoax like they do with everything alien related. But people…people freak. Think about what some of them would do if they actually believed what happened to you, or where I’m from.”

“They would hunt us down with pitchforks?” My tone was light, but I did understand what Logan meant.

Logan frowned. “Seriously, pitchforks and torches.”

“Okay, I get it,” I said in a more serious tone. I saw some of the anxiety drain from Logan’s face. “And I trust Jo more than anyone. She won’t tell.”

Logan nodded. Then he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Alright.”

When the bell rang we agreed to meet at lunch and went to class.

A
t lunch Hailey and the other cheerleaders cast gossiping gazes in our direction. Melissa sat with them today, and she’d brought Jared with her. Being able to avoid him made me extra glad that Jo, Logan, and I were sitting at a table near the back of the lunchroom. With Jo’s help I convinced Logan to let Nikki and Frank in on everything…well, almost everything. Logan had wanted to keep the number of people we let in on our secret to a minimum, but Jo didn’t want to talk to Frank without letting Nikki in. Frank was, after all, Nikki’s friend – not ours. We didn’t really know how to get ahold of him other than through her.

 “Can we trust them?” Logan asked.

“I think we can trust Nikki, yeah,” I said.

“What about Frank?”

I shrugged.

“We can trust him,” Jo said. Both Logan and I looked at her. “I don’t know him real well, but he takes this stuff seriously. He really believes in it.  If we told him it’d be dangerous for him to talk about it, he’d keep quiet.”

Logan nodded. “Well, it’s worth a shot, and we don’t really have a whole lot of other options.”

“What about the pictures we took; did you show them to your mom?” I’d forwarded the photos I’d taken on my phone to Logan the other day.

Logan sighed. “Yeah, I don’t think they’re going to be much help. I’ll tell you about it later. This Frank guy though, when can we meet him, after class?”

I shook my head. “I really need to go to cheer practice. If I miss two days in a row, Mrs. Davis will be on the phone with my mom, and the last thing I need right now is her doing something stupid like trying to ground me and taking away my car keys.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jo said. “Nikki and the guys have band practice after class.”

“Tomorrow then?” Logan asked.

I nodded.

“Yeah, tomorrow works,” Jo said. “I’ll call Nikki and set it up.”

When the lunch hour ended I wanted to ask Logan about the pictures we’d taken, but he dashed off before I had the chance. I’d really been hoping we’d gotten something even semi-useful, but maybe we hadn’t. Or maybe his mom couldn’t read that much of the Greys’ language after all. Regardless, I was disappointed.

J
o and I made it to cheer practice early that day. We tried not to talk about aliens or any of the things I’d told Jo the night before. I think she sensed I was getting more and more worried about how this all would end. Still, she couldn’t help but ask a few questions. I was in the middle of telling her about how Logan could move and bend metal with his mind. I was showing her the ring he made me, when the locker room door opened. Hailey, Melissa, and two other girls stepped in. They were laughing but stopped when they saw me. Their giggles picked up again and they disappeared behind a row of lockers to change.

Jo and I looked at one another.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“Not a clue.” I figured it was just gossip about how much time I’d been spending with Logan and ignored it.

Practice began like normal. Mrs. Davis got us started with stretches. Occasionally Hailey would glance at me, and I heard her and Melissa whispering at one point. But it wasn’t until after we started to get into position to run through one of our regular routines that things got interesting. Hailey bumped into me. Full on shoulder to shoulder contact.

I spun, glaring at her.

“Oh,
sorry
,” she said sarcastically.

I was about to say something, but Mrs. Davis gave us instructions then, so I did my best to ignore Hailey’s behavior.

We went through a routine we’d done a thousand times before. This was a warm up. We all knew every step, which is why I know when Hailey stepped on my foot that she did it on purpose. I lost my balance. I fell to the ground, landing face down on the blue mat. Pushing myself back onto my feet, I glared at Hailey. She was giggling and so was Melissa, along with a few other girls. Jo moved to stand behind me. Then Mrs. Davis blew her whistle.

“Alright, ladies, let’s get it together. Five minute break, then I expect you to all be on task.”

The girls dispersed, but none left the gym. They looked on as Hailey and I faced one another. Neither she nor I moved. Jo stayed behind me and Melissa’s curly blond ponytail bounced as she walked behind Hailey, backing her up.

“What is your deal?” I asked.

“My deal is you,” Hailey said.

“And what the hell did I do to you?”

Hailey rolled her eyes. “Like you don’t know what you did?”

“Maybe you should tell us ‘cause…we don’t,” Jo said.

Hailey huffed, crossing her arms. “You’re totally changing. You’ve been uninvolved in anything the squad’s been doing, and I was trying to be understanding when you ditched out on the Homecoming after party, but then you started to miss practice, and today you didn’t sit by us at lunch. You haven’t called me in forever–”

“I’m so sorry you feel ignored, Hailey,” I said in my bitchiest tone. “I’ve been busy.”

“Oh, this is about
way
more than that. You know, I really believed you when you said you and Jared were over. I even felt bad for you. I never thought you’d–”

“That I’d what?” My anger was boiling.

“That you’d hit on him at the Homecoming dance, and now you and Logan have this thing, and God, poor Ian. He really liked you, you know.”

“
What
?”                     

“Hailey, that doesn’t even make sense,” Jo said.

Hailey shrugged and brushed her dark hair behind her shoulders, knocking her dangly earrings – stupid things to wear to cheer practice. My gaze shifted to focus on Melissa behind her. She squirmed under my gaze.

“That’s what Jared told me happened when the two of you were outside, at the dance,” Melissa said. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “He said you followed him when he went out to get some air. That you told him you wanted to get back with him. He said you tried to kiss him.”

“What? He tried to kiss
me
.”

Hailey rolled her eyes. “He also told her that the two of you
never
slept together, and that you just made that up to make him look bad when he broke up with you.”

My eyes narrowed on her. “I broke up with him because he
cheated
on me.” My fingers curled at my sides, nails digging into the palms of my skin. I wanted so badly to slap her and knock those stupid silver dangling earrings right out of her head. I held back, but then her earrings started to sway. They rotated in fast spirals, moving so quickly even Hailey noticed. She reached up to grab them. They stilled, but suddenly I thought of Logan and how he could make metal objects move with his mind. Could I have moved her earrings with my mind, or was I imagining things?

“Whatever, Payton, you lied about losing your virginity. That’s kind of a big deal. How am I supposed to believe anything you say now?”

I ignored Hailey and shifted my gaze to Melissa. “Jared is a jerk, Meli, and he lies about everything. You can do better than him – trust me. I was outside with Jo because she left the dance early. Jared followed me out and tried to kiss me. That’s why Logan punched him. Remember how he had a bloody nose?”

Melissa looked unsure, as if she knew my story made sense, but was too wrapped up in Jared’s web to believe me. Hailey, however, was fully prepared to be my brand new arch nemesis, and it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d had video evidence.

“Or maybe you’ve been fooling around with the little loser and he got jealous seeing you macking all over your ex, and that’s why he punched him.”

Rage. I felt pure rage. Suddenly Hailey’s earrings were spinning again. This time I knew I made it happen, but that wasn’t all. Behind Hailey a metal rolling cart filled with basketballs started to shake.

“Payton,” Jo said, but I didn’t know how to make it stop.

Hailey, Melissa, and the rest of the gym, including Mrs. Davis, turned to stare at the cart. Watching it shake, I became extremely nervous. I worried they would all know I was making it move. The more anxious I became, the more the cart and orange balls inside it shook. Jo was looking at me, but I didn’t know what to do. Then, with a loud bang, the cart tipped over and all the basketballs rolled out, bouncing across the floor.

I
n the confusion caused by the cart tipping over, Jo and I slipped out of the gym. I cursed under my breath, and we briskly walked down the hall.

“Did you do that?” she asked.

Our sneakers squeaked on the tile floor.

“I think so.”

I hoped the locker room would be my safe haven, a place for me to hide, but the second I entered, the locker doors started to shake. Their metal locks clanked against them.

“Payton, stop it,” Jo said with a tremble to her voice.

“I can’t.” My voice was shaky. “I don’t know how.”

We grabbed our things, not bothering to change, and left. On our way out of the school locks lifted from the hallway lockers, and one of the grey metal doors flew open. Luckily, we were alone in the hallway and walked out the side door before anyone could see us. When we reached the parking lot I worried I’d make the cars rattle. When they didn’t so much as shimmy, I assumed they were too heavy to move with my mind.