Luminosity (Gravity Series #3) (The Gravity Series) (23 page)

His odd choice of words made me wonder. It reminded me of the strange, angry reaction he’d had when he issued me detention.

I asked Henry about it on the phone when I got a chance.

Dad told me about it last night. He and my father got into a fight. He thinks McPherson is having a nervous breakdown.

He sounded like it. I saw him at the mall a few weeks ago following girls around.

That’s pretty gross. I think Dad has people involved with the police department, just as a heads up. He was on the phone last night with one of the deputies for an hour in his library. How did your spying go, by the way?

I got some solid information. I need to talk to you about something, actually.

I didn’t want to break the news about Henry’s father over text messages. But I didn’t feel like I could wait until we saw each other next. I called him instead.

“I hate telling you this over the phone,” I began, shutting my eyes, feeling my nerves swell in my chest. “I hate telling you this at all.”

“If you’re breaking up with me, give it to me straight,” Henry said in a distant, sad voice.

“What are you talking about? It has nothing to do with that.”

I heard him let out a breath into the phone speaker. “Okay. You had me scared. All your ifs and buts, remember? So, why so serious?”

“When Jenna and I went to the ballroom—”

“By the way, about that…were you breathing in my ear or something? Because I had a feeling…”

“Yeah, kind of,” I said quickly. “I was only being silly. But I overheard your dad and Dr. Briggs talking, after he sent the rest of you out.” I gulped hard and my chest hurt as I delivered the news. “Phillip has a brain tumor. And I’m guessing it’s pretty bad, because Doctor Briggs said he didn’t have much time. Until next Spring, at the latest. Then Phillip mentioned something about seeking immortality. I think that’s his motive for whatever Thornhill really is.”

Henry was very quiet. I realized it sounded like he was crying.

“Are you all right? Talk to me,” I said.

I heard him sniff once, and then his voice almost went back to normal. “That explains things. A
lot
of things. But that means he’s only going to get worse, doesn’t it?”

“Probably,” I admitted.

“I know it’s awful that I even care. After the way he’s treated me and the things he’s done. But he’s still my father.”

“I understand. It’s not awful. Just don’t let your guard down because of your feelings.”

###

Lately, I’d acquired the terrible habit of juggling too many things, both in my mind and with my hands. I was trying to carry both my lunch tray and my backpack on my wrist, and doing pretty well, until I got to the table.

I slid my tray on the table, but then my backpack slipped out of my grip and crashed to the ground

“Great,” I groaned. My friends weren’t there yet and being alone upped the embarrassment ante.

Bending down, I began to scoop my possessions together. To my dismay, Eleanor’s necklace tumbled out of its tissue paper cocoon, in plain sight.

I reached out to grab it, but inches away I could feel heat from it. I had the feeling that touching it wouldn’t be good for me; my tolerance had already started to wear off in only a couple of days.

“On your way to the pawn shop?” Harlow Briggs sneered from in front of me. I looked up and scowled at her. She was by herself, tossing a green apple up and down on her palm. Before I could stop her, she set the apple on the table, bent down and picked up the necklace.

I wanted to protest, anxious she’d feel it heat up, or that its unstable power would make her see something. But she just inspected it with faint curiosity, flipping it over like it was any other piece of jewelry. I relaxed with one realization—the necklace didn’t give any sign of its special powers when normal people touched it.

“Where’d you get this?” she asked.

“My mom gave it to me. Can I have it back, please?”

I lifted my books up for her to set the necklace on top. Harlow hesitated, still casually inspecting it like a jewelry appraiser.

She finally held it out and set it on top of the book stack. “You OCD or something?” She had noted my sleeves pulled up over my hands, like I was warding off germs. “I’m not the one with cooties.”

“It’s just me and my idiosyncrasies,” I said with mock cheer. “I wash my hands ten times a day.”

Harlow rolled her eyes and headed back to her own domain. I pinched the chain with my sleeve and jammed the necklace into my pocket. It didn’t feel too hot in the jean material, so I figured I was safe. But faint tingles ran up and down the side of my leg.

“What did Harpy want?” Theo asked, arriving with a tray full of cheeseburgers and fries.

“To annoy me. Where do you fit all of that?”

“Secret compartment,” Theo said, and grinned. Alex sat down beside her.

“She means me,” he said, snagging half of her fries in his hand and popping some in his mouth. I was glad that they seemed to be getting along well again.

The necklace stayed put in my jeans; even though I wanted to move it, I didn’t get the chance. I forgot it as I dug into my lunch and conversation with my friends, and then moved on to a quiz in class.

I heard the quiet rumble of a text message in my pocket. I reached inside automatically, not thinking about how I’d stuffed the necklace in beside it.

My fingertips brushed the warm, hard stone. My vision immediately distorted and amplified, as though my eyes were ten times bigger. The room went dark and I didn’t move, listening to my frightened pulse beat in my temples.

Then the room was drenched in blue light. The spooky kids were standing in front of the chalkboard in a line, holding hands. They began to raise their heads in unison….

“Don’t look at them,” commanded a sharp, yet oddly soothing voice. Sitting in the desk beside me was Ambrose Slaughter.

“Why?”

“Because the more you look at them, the more they’ll warp your easily impressionable mind,” Ambrose said. His ghost was paler than I remembered, his face chalk white and his lips tinted blue as if cold. A dark shadow fell across his face, like the one I’d seen on Jenna’s. This one remained as I blinked, and I could faintly hear a buzzing sound. Then the shadow dissipated.

I shot a look at the chalkboard. The orphans were gone. The only two desks in the room were those of Ambrose and me.

“They want you to think that they’re innocent,” Ambrose explained, even though I hadn’t asked for clarification. “Believe me when I say they’re anything but.”

“Have you seen the dog?” I asked him.

“I smelled him. But I haven’t seen him. Don’t trust him, either. Really, you shouldn’t even be trusting me.”

“I already knew that,” I said. “Why am I still having these dreams? I went back, I got the necklace. What else is there for me to find out?”

“All your darkest desires,” Ambrose said. “You’re waking up.”

“Huh?”

I opened my eyes. I was lying on the classroom floor, having fallen out of my desk. A thin foam of spittle coated my lips. A group of worried faces were leaning over me, staring at me like I was road kill.

“Ew, she’s drooling,” whined one of the girls, wrinkling her nose.

“There, she’s awake,” the teacher said. He held up his hand in front of my face. “How many fingers?”

My throat was too dry to answer, as though lined with sandpaper. The inexplicable scent of chlorine flooded my nose and I gagged.

“Oh my God, that’s a really bad sign of a head injury!” squealed Sarah Abbott.

“She needs to go to the office,” the teacher said to the others.

I tried to protest, but I couldn’t speak. Instead of the ecstatic feeling I’d been flooded with before, it felt like my entire body was filled with poison. I tried to lift myself up and my legs twisted beneath me, knocking me back down.

Alex reached out his big hand and lifted me up. He was strong enough to support my entire weight himself, wrapping his arm underneath mine.

“Be careful with her,” the teacher said.

“You don’t have to tell me that, she’s my friend,” Alex scoffed.

“Remember when she passed out in gym that one time?” I heard another girl talking like I wasn’t there.

“She didn’t pass out,” Alex said gruffly, leading me away. “Maybe you’d remember if you hadn’t killed so many of your brain cells.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Lainey attacked her,” said Chad Levitt knowingly, pointing a finger at me. “Dude, there was so much blood!”

“Ignore them,” Alex whispered in my ear. I was so disoriented I could barely comprehend that the others around me were real. I leaned heavily against him, feeling like my legs were too weak to carry me.

Out in the hall, Alex asked, “Are you okay? That was a pretty big spill.”

I still couldn’t speak, so I just nodded. Or thought I nodded.

“You’re as pale as a sheet. Not buying it. What happened? Are you having seizures again? You were out for a good couple of minutes.”

I wanted to protest that I’d never had seizures. I clenched my teeth shut and forced out a few words. “No seizures. Low sugar.”

“Uh huh. I snagged your necklace for you, by the way.” He held it out near me and I pulled back, widening my eyes in fright. I didn’t want to even look at it at the moment. He looked surprised, wrapping it back around his hand. “Sorry, I can take care of it for you if you don’t want to wear it. I thought you’d lost this thing.”

He crammed it back into my backpack, which he was carrying on his beefy shoulder. “Hey, can I talk to you about something?”

I grunted as we continued on our way to central office. He was still supporting most of my weight, but my legs began to untangle. My mouth was slack, though, and I kept worrying I’d drool again. Other people walking in the hall gawked at me as we passed.

“It doesn’t require you to speak much, don’t worry,” Alex said. “Theo has been acting really funny with me for a while. I thought we’d worked things out, but she’s not all there.

“Her father has been awful with her—I mean you saw that shitshow—but she’s been really defensive and going over there to help him all the time. He was better for a little while, but then the insults just started right back up again. She tells me about it after the fact, and how am I supposed to react?”

I looked up at him, finally feeling more like myself. “Have you tried talking to her about him? You know he’s on medication, right?”

He looked down at the floor. He was such a bear of a guy, but he looked really hurt. “Yeah. I don’t know what to do, Ariel. I’m not trying to be a jerk. I feel like I’m losing her. And if I did lose her, that would kill me.”

“You really think it’s that serious? I just thought she was under a lot of stress.”

“She’s been under stress before. She never acted this distant with me. A little distant, sure, but this is like an ocean.”

“Well, I know the fact that she can’t paint much is really bothering her. Have you tried maybe helping her over at her dad’s house?”

“I can’t stand him. There’s no way I can go over there without punching her out.”

I took a deep breath, slurring my words out of my slack mouth. “She told me that she feels a little crowded. So maybe back off for a little while and give her some space. She likes to go through things on her own, you know that. She loves you, I know your relationship is just as important to her.”

He looked at me through his eyelashes. “Are you sure she loves me? It doesn’t always feel that way.”

“Yes, definitely.” I’d seen the feeling in her eyes when she looked at him.

We had reached the central office and he whipped the door open while supporting me.

“Girl having passed out, coming through,” he reported.

We bypassed the front counter and went down the hall towards Callie’s nurse station. Coming out of McPherson’s office were Callie, McPherson and Harlow Briggs. We interrupted whatever conversation the trio had been having. McPherson and Callie went back to their respective offices.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Harlow.

She held up a prescription bottle and shook it back and forth. “I was getting my PMS pills. Stupid school won’t let me keep any medication on me. Not like it’s any of your business. But I don’t think anyone in school wants me to be a bigger bitch.”

“We can barely handle the bitch you are now,” Alex said with a nasty smile.

Harlow brushed past us, scowling. I snickered, smiling at Alex gratefully. He placed a brief peck on my forehead. “Somebody’s gotta stick up for ya, kid. You’re too nice.”

Alex pulled me into the sick bay and sat me down onto the little cot, rapping on Callie’s door with his knuckles. She came into the room, frowning at me with surprise. I still didn’t feel like I was all there, and I laid down, pulling my knees up.

“What happened?” Callie asked, crouching down beside me in her crisp white uniform.

Without giving me a chance to explain, Alex said, “She passed out in class.”