Blindsided (24 page)

“So once you get into that network, you’ll know where they’re hiding?”

“I should be able to track it down.” She finally looks up at me, and when she does I’m surprised to see her eyes full of excitement. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s having the time of her life. “Make some coffee? Once I get on a code I have a hard time quitting until it’s broken.”

“Sure.” I get up and start the coffee maker, then I go up to my room to get dressed. Grabbing my phone, I flick it on and see twenty messages. All from Seth. I guess he does still care about me, even if he’s not showing it much lately. After seeing how upset Miles was, I feel bad for making him worry.

I want to ask if he overheard anything when his dad was talking to Juan’s guys, but tonight I have a feeling that won’t go over well. It takes me several text drafts to figure out the right words, but I finally settle on:
I’m safe. Sorry I couldn’t explain. I know I must’ve scared you.

Seth’s reply comes quicker than I expected, it being four in the morning and all. Has he stayed up worrying since I called?
Glad you’re okay. You know I’d go crazy if I lost you, right?

The words mean everything right now. Maybe we’ll be okay.
I know. Same here.

Good. See you in a few hours.

Right.
I settle into bed, wishing it was a lot more than a few hours. Not because I don’t want to see Seth, but because I’m way too tired to go to school and deal with the Army after a night chasing The Phantom.

Can’t a vigilante catch a break?

Chapter 32

I should probably be trying to catch up in class, but I can’t stop looking at the texts from Diego’s phone. Lee Seol printed them out, and Bea sits next to me translating the longer ones from Spanish. She hands me another paper, sending her words right into my ear, “Some of these look more useful.”

I grab it, hoping our history teacher doesn’t notice. So far the texts have been stupid or too vague to help—but I keep hoping one will tell us where to look for The Phantom’s base, what Seth’s dad is doing, or what kind of attack we need to prepare for.

Delivered the money to JM. Says he’ll cooperate. Will report info after doing my rounds.

JM—that could be John Mitchell. It probably is, since the date on this is the same as when Seth saw one of Juan’s guys in his house. There’s no denying he’s telling them
something
, but it’s hard to know what. If Seth’s dad is behind the bugs—and I’m sure he is—he should know a lot more than what Juan’s people do.

Keep telling him to send for Ted. Bitch would never get past his infrared, but he won’t listen. Never does.

My stomach turns; this one is about me. I hate infrared devices because they’re a pain to get around, but at least they can be dismantled or destroyed. People who see that way? I’d be in big trouble if The Phantom got past his pride and asked for help.

There’s not much else, and the bell rings anyway. We meet up at our usual lunch table, where Seth and Hector are already eating. I sit next to my boyfriend, wanting to be closer but unsure because he looks beyond stressed. I haven’t even asked him if he heard something last night. He’ll tell me when he’s ready, right?

“Find anything interesting?” he asks through a mouthful of pizza.

“Just this.” Rather than saying outright that his dad’s probably guilty, I show him the texts Bea translated.

Seth sighs. “We should probably find out who exactly this Ted guy is.”

“Yeah.” I take a small bite from my salad, my appetite minimal.

“And it only confirms my…” Seth’s hands go to his head, the words turning into cussing. These vision glitches are getting ridiculous, and I have a feeling they are more frequent than he’s telling. He puts his head on the table as I watch The Pack stare at him in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” Hector asks. “Did you realize something bad?”

“No…” Seth’s voice is weak.

“Must be a sudden headache,” Brady says in a feeble attempt to cover. “You know how he gets those.”

Carlos purses his lips, not seeming to buy it. “Looks like one hell of a headache.”

“Maybe you should go to a doctor,” Bea offers.

“No!” I blurt out. That was so not the right thing to say, because now they look even more suspicious. “Uh, I mean…”

“What’s going on?” Hector’s face is serious, and I worry he’s heard more than he lets on with how often he goes without his ear plugs lately. “I get the sense you guys aren’t telling us something.”

Carlos nods. “Something majorly important. That’s not cool—we’re supposed to be in this together.”

Brady and I cringe at the same time, but what are we supposed to say?

Bea frowns at Brady’s expression. “Wait,
is
there something you’re keeping secret?”

“Guys, don’t worry.” Seth picks himself up from the table, trying to look like he’s fine. Too bad his eyes flit back and forth rapidly. At this rate there’s no way he’ll be able to keep his secret, no matter how much he wants to. “It’s just—”

“Fiona!” someone calls from behind. I turn to find Allie waving at me, a big smile on her face. She comes up to the table, panting and excited. “There you are! I was hoping I could steal you away for the rest of school, get started on things. What do you think?”

“Oh, sure,” I say evenly, though I’m afraid she’ll notice Seth’s pain. She is a scientist; she has to be observant. “Seth can come, too, right?”

“Of course!” She nods toward the office building. “Should I check you out now?”

I wasn’t aware she was allowed to do that, but I tell her she can, anyway. “We’ll meet you over there, okay?”

“Perfect.” Allie practically skips off.

As I help Seth up and head for the lab, I’m happy for the excuse to leave because I’m not sure The Pack would have stopped pressing for answers. “That was close.”

“Yeah.” He’s shaky still, and I’m not sure his vision has fixed itself yet. It’s been a while since he held onto me this tightly. “Do you have the microphone today?”

“No. Mom took it to work with her. Lee Seol is hoping to get more intel on The Phantom’s base, since we have the Army covered.”

He nods. “It’s getting weird, Fi. I’m seeing through things I never did before.”

This is not good news to me. “Like what?”

“Just…there’s more subtlety, I guess. Like instead of pulling back all skin layers I know I’m pulling back only a few. Or with trees—I can pull out particular rings in the trunk. And with Allie’s hair just now, I think I saw through her hair dye, because it was brown instead of blond.”

I take in this information as we walk the halls. “And you couldn’t do that before?”

“No. I’d just see straight through something, not midway.” He puts a hand to his eyes. “It hurts like hell.”

I wish I could take care of him, even though I’m not sure he’d let me. Maybe we came to some kind of truce last night, but we’re still dancing around our physical issues. “It sounds like you’re going through some kind of ability growth spurt.”

“Maybe.” He appears a little stronger now. “Better than thinking I’m messed up.”

“It’s not unheard of.” The lab is in sight, and Allie waves to us from where she stands by the guards. “Lots of people with mental abilities don’t fully master them until they’re older. My mom spent years honing her telekinesis.”

We get to the lab before he can answer, and Allie clears us with the guards. The lab is mostly the same, except now the vials of merinite give the room a blue aura. These must be the samples she got when we discovered her and Graham in the cave. Speaking of which, “Where’s my brother? I haven’t seen him in a few days.”

Her smile gets dreamy. “He’s been doing a lot of security flights around the school, your house, and factory, watching for any of Juan’s people.”

“I see.” Sounds like something Graham would do. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible for him to shake the guard dog tendencies. Not that it’s a bad thing—I feel safer knowing he’s up there looking out for us.

“So…” Allie holds out a hand to the vials. “I’ve started analyzing the merinite, and it’s looking like my theories all these years have been correct.”

“What theories?” Seth asks in his grumpiest tone. He must still be in pain, either that or he hates the idea of a cure way more than I thought.

Allie’s smile drops slightly. “I’ve been studying Radiasure since I was a kid. Well, at least the formulas I was able to get a hold of. They never added up to me, and I postulated in one of my high school papers that there was a missing element. Everyone thought I was crazy, because the element I described didn’t fit anything in existence. I tried to get enough Radiasure to study, but people would rather use it than donate it to science, you know?”

I nod, imagining how horrified my dad would be at the thought of breaking down perfectly good pills to study. “So you kept researching as if there really was a missing element?”

“Well, it’s a long story, but a few people noticed what I was doing and believed me. Major Norton was one of them.” She runs her fingers over the smooth table top. “If it weren’t for him, I’d have never made any progress. He convinced the military to let me use confiscated Radiasure—I was able to confirm a missing element, but unable to extract that element from the drug. Everything broke down each time I tried.”

“So that’s why you owe the Major,” Seth says. “Even though he’s an ass.”

Allie nods. “Now that I have merinite, I should be able to build the antidote from the ground up. I probably know more about how Radiasure works than anyone, and I finally get to put that to good use. Thanks to you guys.”

Seth doesn’t seem to buy this, but I can’t help liking Allie. She seems so driven and smart and good—I see why Graham is crazy about her. I head for the vials, curious to see more of what could make me visible in the near future.

“What made you devote your life to this so early on?” I ask. “Seems like a pretty dangerous choice in occupation.”

She smirks. “I guess you’re right, but it’s personal for me.”

“It’s personal for everyone,” Seth says. “What makes you so special?”

“Nothing, really.” She seems uncomfortable with Seth, and I want to tell him to stop being so rude. “So many people focus on the extraordinary abilities from Radiasure mutation, but people forget that our infant mortality rate is higher than it’s been in centuries. Many babies die from deformities or deadly abilities that kill both them and their mother. And if they do live, their lives are often painful and difficult.”

Allie gets this distant look in her eyes, and I recognize it as the same look Brady often gets. I hesitate for a second, but then say, “You lost someone close to you because of a mutation, didn’t you?”

She nods, unable to pull her eyes from the floor. “My little sister had a rapid growth mutation. My mother went through an entire pregnancy in a few weeks, which nearly killed her, and then my little sister spent a year growing so quickly you could literally watch her age. But only her body grew—she was still a baby in her mind. It tore my mom and dad apart, going through life in fast forward like that. I decided I had to find a cure, impossible as it seemed. Too many people have suffered because of this drug.”

I couldn’t agree with her more. “How long do you think it’ll take to make a cure?”

“It depends.” Allie goes to a drawer and pulls out a bunch of papers. “I’ve created a lot of theoretical drugs based on what I know about Radiasure and the missing element—if one of these proves to be a good start then it could take just days to create.”

“Seriously? That seems really fast,” Seth says, seeming a little more interested. “What do you know that all these other scientists over the years don’t?”

Allie sighs, like explaining this is tedious. “It’s not just me—many scientists agree that Radiasure isn’t what its creators thought it was. Epigenomics was barely a science when Radiasure was developed, and they got in over their heads.”

“Epige-what?” I say.

“There is the genome…” Allie grabs one of the three-dimensional DNA models from the shelf. “…and then the epigenome. Your genes are kind of like a musical score with all the different notes and instrument parts—the epigenome is like the annotation of how those notes should be played. They are chemical instructions that tell your cells what part of your DNA should be used and how much and when.

“Radiasure is the first and worst of its kind: a drug that acts like an epigenetic tag to control your genes. Originally it was supposed to turn off a human’s sensitivity to radiation, but the FDA approved it without enough testing or knowledge of epigenetics.” Allie stretches out the DNA model, frowning at it. “Scientists knew there was a risk that Radiasure’s epigenetic tag would transfer generation to generation, but since most of the tags don’t they took the chance. Everyone hoped that even if it wasn’t ultimately safe, the drug would only affect those who chose to take it. But it actually added an extra, permanent chemical to the epigenome. That’s why mutations are genetic, but we can’t predict what that tag will tell a person’s DNA to do.”

I can barely follow what she’s saying, but it seems like Seth grasps most of it. He puts his hand over his mouth, thinking. “So if you can get rid of the tag, you get rid of the rogue mutation?”