Death Screams (5 page)

"
I know," she whispered.

He put a hand on her shoulder, so black against the zebra print of the shirt. "Is someone trying to hurt you, Soph?" he asked in a low voice. Every guy there heard the threat in his tone, the menace.

"
Buddy?" he said, not able to rein in the clench of his free hand that didn't touch her.

Jade's eyes got wide and she looked at Jonesy. Somehow, even though she wasn't touching him he was leaking pretty good on her. I walked over and stood next to Jade where she still held onto Sophie's knee in a death-grip.

She shook her head, her soft hair flying around her face. Jonesy unconsciously stroked her shoulder.

"
Then what?" he asked so softly everyone leaned in to hear.

She raised her head again. "He's a teenager. He's going after the AP girls first, cuz it's easy. But the cops think he'll...." she covered her face with her hands and Jade instinctively pulled her hands away from Sophie's face.

Jade's scream had me wrapped around her protectively in about three seconds.

Everyone rushed to Jade and she stared at Sophie in horror. "We know him..." Jade said.

Sophie shook her head no.

I turned Jade in my arms and shook her slightly. "Who is this creep, Jade?"

"
I...I...think he's the same guy as the clairvoyance sample I worked on yesterday."

Alex came forward. "What? You mean that one of your samples matches up with the AP attacker?"

John said, "How would you know they're the same, Jade?" He spread his hands out, like,
explain please.

I was pretty damn curious myself. It's not that I didn't care about Sophie. But Jade was my priority. I looked again at Sophie's dark circles and suddenly an idea occurred to me.

"
Hey...wait a sec..." her face turned to me."You can't sleep, can you?"

She shook her head.

John snapped his fingers as realization struck him between the eyes and Alex said, "Of course. The perv uses his AP to attack the girls while they can't get away."

"
But, the AP girls could just get back into their bodies," Jonesy stated with his logic.

Which was damn fine as logic went.

Sophie said, "No," she looked at him in despair. "If the drug becomes mandatory, we'll be trapped there. With him."

The guys looked at the girls assembled in the room and wondered how to fight something we couldn't see. Someone that could be everywhere at any time, harming girls we cared about.

Alex's raging strength wouldn't help.

My corpse-affinity wouldn't.

Jonesy could light the world up like a strobe and it wouldn't matter.

Trapped.

Jonesy's eyes met mine. The raw emotion standing there for all of us to see, his hand left its spot on Sophie's shoulder and wound around the back of her neck, pressing her face against his leg.

Her shoulders trembled as she cried.

The girls were trapped.

Beginning with Soph.

I walked Jade to her Empath class first block. She'd be there for an hour and a half while I was with Smith and Tiff "learning" about Life Transference in Theory. Dad told me I shouldn't say that I actually was the proof behind the theory. I'd have to get into all the nastiness of sucking the life out of that assassin and all the explanations that would mean for me.

No.

Jade twirled into my arms, giving me a quick peck, looking for Griswold or someone like her. Seeing we were in the clear, she brushed the softest velvet caress against my lips. We clung for a moment then I let her go, reluctantly.

I hung onto her arm when she would have gone inside and her black eyebrows arched in question.

"
Find that sample, Jade."

She shuddered. "I don't want to touch that again."

I gave her steady eyes. "If you don't do this, he can go after Sophie... other girls. Eventually, he could get to you too. The sooner we get a handle on who he may be, the faster the cops can nab his sleazy ass."

She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, gooseflesh rising in aggressive bumps.

Her luminous eyes met mine. "It was so awful," she whispered, biting her lip.

I waited. I hated to press her about something that I knew was hurting or frightening her, but the alternative sucked ass so here it was.

Slowly, she nodded. "I'll try."

"
Good," I said, relieved as I pressed her head underneath mine and met Tulle's angry eyes over her hair.

"
Thank you for seeing Miss LeClerc off so thoroughly," she said with thinly veiled sarcasm.

I scowled, letting Jade go. As Jade walked through the door I said, "Why don't you tell Miss Tulle what's going on. Maybe she'll catch a clue."

Tulle stomped out into the hall, trying to look intimidating (she had nothing on Griswold) and said, "You're so clever, Mr. Hart. Why don't you enlighten me about what was so important you had to stand out in the school hall pawing Miss LeClerc and making her tardy?"

I thought about an expected response that wouldn't get my nuts in the cruncher.

A safe answer.

Instead, I did a Jonesy.

"
Actually, that really isn't me pawing. Pawing is much more intimate, Ms. Tulle."

Jade stood behind Tulle and rolled her eyes at me. She couldn't believe I'd said that.

I couldn't either. But, I was an okay student (okay, not stellar) and didn't cause trouble, so why get up my ass?

Her eyes shifted back and forth, gauging my expression. "I think Ms. Chen needs a little visit from you, Mr. Hart."

I groaned. "I'll miss AFTD."

Like I cared.

"
Tough, you should have considered that consequence when you got all mouthy."

Nice. "Fine."

She pointed her finger in the direction of the principal's office and I stalked off, silently thanking her for the directional clue. I totally didn't know where the office was. Retarded.

*

Ms. Chen sat across from me in all her black sternness, leg swinging her stiletto pump back and forth, back and forth.

"
Mr. Hart... Caleb..." she began, spreading her palms on either side of her, the width of them swallowed by the mondo desk that she sat behind.

"
Yes?" I asked, looking mild and innocent. Jonesy could have never pulled it off.

She looked down at her pulse and depressed her thumb, then lifted it, sliding it across the desk to me.

"
Please tell me what you see there." She tapped a white-tipped fingernail on the front.

I looked:

Claudia, Caleb Hart keeps jamming his tongue down the throat of my sophomore Empath, Jade LeClerc. Normally, I don't butt my nose in too much but he hovers around the girl so much that I think his powers of distraction linger even after the bell rings. Will you get him to cool it? They behave in a very mature way that is not becoming to the student body as a whole.
- Tulle, Megan, KPH

I slid it back to Chen. Yeah, that was definitely Jade and I, dry humping in the hall. Couldn't Tulle gnaw on someone's ass that was really causing problems? Like Brett... or better yet, that creeper that was stalking the chicks. Yeah, him. I felt my blood start to boil and made a conscious effort to loosen my hands and wrap them on the armrests of the chair I was sprawled in.

I didn't say anything and Chen waited. We had a stare down. Then finally she tilted her head and said, "You're not one to volunteer information, Caleb."

I shook my head. "No."

"
Hmm..." she put her pen to her lips, obviously still doing the stupid writing thing. "Tell me, is that pulse from Ms. Tulle accurate?"

Kinda. "No, I don't 'jam my tongue down Jade's throat'."

Usually.

She arched her thin black brows and I sat there, listening to the pulse clock whir. "I will let this go this one time. As you know, it has been some time since the brawl ensued in the commons area last year. This is of a different nature. However, we do not want any unsettling trends to begin, do we?"

Like fighting and making out. Gotcha.

"
I hear what you're saying, Ms. Chen." I heard but obeying may prove challenging.

"
Good. I am pleased we've come to an understanding. I would hate to involve Jade's aunt or possibly your parents."

I hid the flinch with difficulty. My parents I may be able to manage but not Jade's aunt. She wasn't a fan of mine.

Or my zombies.

Chen stood and I did too. She maybe came up to my shoulder, she was a literal china doll. But I had never been one to be fooled by size. Chen was a powerful Null. This had been her first high school admin position. She had been in the same placebo group as Dave Smith. He got the AFTD and she got the shut-it-all-down juice.

She wasn't easily intimidated. Only a mundane could hurt her. None of us teens could.

I hesitated, wondering if I should tell her about what Sophie had said about the attacker.

She cocked an eyebrow again. "Do you have something you wish to say, Caleb?"

Nah, better keep her in the dark. What could she do anyway?

"
No."

She gave me a hard stare, she knew I'd been holding back. "Fine, see if you can learn something from the latter half of AFTD."

I strolled out of the office without looking back or giving it a lot of thought.

I'd give it a lot of thought later.

Should've told her.

*

Jade searched, tearing through the bin. When everything was chucked out and in a messy heap by her feet she finally turned to Miss Tulle. She was on her shit list today but she had to talk to her sometime.

"
Ah... Miss Tulle?" Jade asked, flicking a chunk of black hair over her shoulder.

Tulle looked at her from behind the desk, then dipped her head again to her pulse-reader, grading the latest assignments.

"
What is it, Jade?"

Yes, definitely still on the list, Jade thought dismally.

"
I can't find yesterday's sample."

Tulle didn't look up. "It's in there. Be thorough, look harder."

Jade put her hands on her hips, starting to get irritated. Was this all it took for Tulle to discount her? She did a little PDA with Caleb in the hall once in awhile and she got her panties all knotted up? She huffed.

"
I did. All the samples are here," Jade indicated with her hand as Tulle finally gave the samples her attention.

A frown formed on Tulle's forehead. "Is that the one that had the DI?"

Jade nodded, swallowing. Yeah, that'd been the one alright.

Tulle came around the corner of the desk, gouging her hip and hissing in her breath. Jade came forward, concerned and Tulle put up a warding palm.

She walked to where the pile lay at Jade's feet. She searched each piece in turn, placing one after the other back in the bin and shuddering with the touch of a few.

"
Should have worn gloves," she muttered more to herself than Jade.

When she finished, she straightened.

Tulle looked at Jade. "I keep these locked..." A troubled look came over her face. Finally, she looked at Jade, Tulle's eyes searching hers. "I know you wouldn't have taken that sample."

"
No way, Miss Tulle." Jade said, suppressing the shiver with difficulty.

"
Do you have a few minutes so we can talk?" Tulle asked.

"
I do if you can excuse the tardy," Jade answered cautiously.

Tulle pursed her lips, realizing that she was asking Jade for something after she'd just hung her boyfriend out to dry at Chen's office.

"
Yes," she answered shortly and Jade gave a small smile as she nodded.

The bell shrilled and the kids flowed out of the class.

Tulle sighed. "I was distracted by your boyfriend earlier..."

"
Caleb," Jade clarified and Tulle shrugged.

"
The AFTD."

Jade nodded. He was so much more than that. Just as she was
way
more than just an Empath. Jade didn't like how everyone was so easily identified as what they were rather than who.

"
I phoned the police, against my better judgment. We have been using the clairvoyance samples without much trouble for the five years I've been teaching here. But recently, with the skill set of some Empaths becoming wide," she spread her arms apart as far as they could go and Jade laughed despite herself. "We need to turn in samples that have Death Intent."