Reject High (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 1) (12 page)

These aren’t normal kids.
We recognized Peters’ voice.

You were only supposed to trail them to the source.
Looks like Welker is the ringleader. The “source” of what?

I didn’t shoot to kill, Ron. The bullet bounced off of him. I aimed for Rhapsody’s shoulder, and Selby – he moved out of the way somehow.

You’re not above the law, Jeff, and all of the evidence points to you.
Spivey sounded ticked off, like he didn’t need a reason to dislike Peters in the first place.

Then arrest me, Stu. I’ll outlive my sentence.

“Wait, what does that mean?” I asked.

“Shh,” Rhapsody said.

We haven’t been around this long by being sloppy, Jeff.
Welker was talking to Peters.

Why didn’t you. . .

Rhapsody paused the recording. “After he asked that, Spivey did a hand motion, like this.” She demonstrated it to us – pointing her thumb, index, and middle fingers at her temple. “Don’t know what it meant.”

She pressed play again.

Where’s the source? 
Welker asked, as the recording resumed.
Is it here, in the building?
 

Close. You should’ve seen what he did to his stepmother’s car, and how he left my house last night,
Peters said.
I haven’t seen anything like it since King.
  

“Who, or what is King?” Selby asked.

Although Rhapsody had heard this live, she seemed as shocked as we were. Our principal and the policeman were co-conspirators with Peters. Now her theory that Cherish had been murdered didn’t seem so nuts after all. And we know where “a source” is?
There’s more than one?

Spivey butted in.
We would have known if it was here, Ron.

A boy with something that powerful makes them dangerous, unpredictable,
Peters said
. We have to get to it first.

We waited for them to discuss their plan, but they veered off-topic for a few minutes before the crackling of a walkie-talkie interrupted them.
Sergeant Spivey, what’s your 20?

Welker’s office,
he answered back. 

We’re having trouble finding Rhapsody Lowe. Her mother is here to pick her up.

There was a long pause of silence. I looked to my friend, who relived the recording. Suddenly, a
whoosh
rustled papers – Selby had just blasted by and rescued Rhapsody.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I do something really stupid

We processed the happenings of the past five days in different ways. Rhapsody wanted to prove Cherish’s death was not a suicide. Selby constantly thought out loud about using his super-speed to see naked girls.

At first I’d wanted to be normal and left alone. Now, I’d settle for life way less crazy than it is right now. I wasn’t going to get anything close to “regular” anytime soon. Everything was off-the-charts weird.

Our Earth Science teacher was some sort of secret informant for whomever. The police department, or at least one of its sergeants, was in on it. None of us could figure out what Welker was doing. All we had was the fact the meeting we weren’t supposed to know about had taken place in his office. Besides that, he hadn’t said much we could use.

But he
couldn’t
be neutral, could he? 

Were we their targets or was it the “source”? Spivey had said he suspected it might be in the school, and the only place all three of us spent time was the dungeon. As much as I hate to admit it, Selby was right. If we were going to get it out of the wall, we didn’t have much more time left.

The shard in my pocket poked me in my right thigh. Sasha wanted a pair of earrings out of it. Selby and I wisely kept that part secret – we agreed that Rhapsody might not take it well.

“I’m telling you, we have to get it out. Today.”

Rhapsody nodded her head so hard that the spikes in her hair bobbed. “He’s right. We’re not the only ones who get dungeon duty. If they figure it out, they’ll do God-knows-what with it.”

“So, it’s on
me
, then? What if I can’t move it?”

Selby pointed his finger in my face. “You
have
to move it, Freak. We’ve got no other options.”

That’s when I saw red. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him a few feet. “My name is
Jason.
Call me
Freak
again, and we’ll play a game of ‘how-high-can-the-freak-show-throw-me’?”

Rhapsody slapped my arms until I put him down. “We’re in
public
, Jason.”

“That didn’t stop Knife Boy here from running through the girls’ locker room after gym.”

She turned green, before realizing she’d missed P.E. to eavesdrop on Welker. “Seriously?”

Selby held his hands up. It came with the territory.  

“You want the source? Fine.” Still mad, I shoved Selby so hard that he flew back about thirty feet.

I jumped – far and high enough to land on the three-story building across the street. From there, I ran and leaped again, setting down on the roof of a building at least a quarter of a mile away from the first one.
How did I just do that and not crash into something?
I tried not to think about anything. The crystal sort of guided me – funneling my powers into something I could direct.

With one last attempt, I traveled the remainder of the distance to the school and found myself in the parking lot. I strutted up to the side door, hoping the fifty dollar bill I had given Janitor Brad would buy me re-entrance into the building and down to the dungeon. Turns out, I didn’t need it. It was unlocked.

While I jogged down the hallway leading to the dungeon, I sensed a presence close behind me. I whirled around with closed fists and nearly punched Sasha in the face. She flinched and shrank away.

“Sasha?”

She opened her eyes and straightened up. “I missed the late bus,” she said, still trembling. 

“Sorry, I’m a little jumpy. I left something in the dungeon. Do you know if it’s open?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “Go ahead. I’ll wait for you.”

Hoping she’d be safe, considering what I’d heard this afternoon, I ran to the end of the corridor and down into the basement. After navigating my way to the back of the room, I conjured up the most powerful anger I could without blacking out and thrust my fist into the wall up to my elbow. Twisting my hand around, I fingered solid rock at the top and the source at the bottom.

From my fingertip to my elbow had to be at least a foot-and-a-half or more. I pushed my arm down, up to my armpit. Still rock. . .and
still crystal.

This thing was at least two feet deep! I pulled my arm out of the wall, amazed at the sparkling green powder on it.

Curious, I wandered down two feet of the same wall, slid a filing cabinet out of the way, and punched through the rock.
More crystal.
The only way I’d get it all out would be to
smash the entire wall
. They were going to do that soon, anyway. Selby could flash in during demolition, grab it, and be out of the building before the place collapsed. If it was too big, or heavy – we’d have a problem. I’m a slower runner than he ever used to be. 

There was one more thing I had to try.  

In front of the original site, I squared my shoulders and punched with all I had.

Everything went black.

“Wake up,” Sasha said in a panic.

Why was she waking me? I forced one eye open. Selby and Sasha both knelt over me. If one of them had to give me mouth-to-mouth, I hoped it was Sasha. “What. . .” My voice sounded as scrambled as my brain felt.

“We gotta get out of here,” said Selby with urgency in his voice. “Move the cabinet back. It’s too heavy for me, so you’ll have to.”

Sasha helped me to my feet, which wobbled beneath me. I wanted to take a nap and stuff my face with food at the same time. The holes in the wall were gone, sealed up. Selby
whooshed
up the stairs, shutting the door behind him. Sasha turned around, flustered. “Where did he go?”

I staggered over to the cabinet and managed to shove it into its old spot. Though my back was turned, I knew Sasha’s eyed bugged out of her head. Seeing a kid my size move something that outweighed him by one hundred pounds or so with a little effort didn’t happen every day. She’d get those earrings, after all.

“Jason, you. . .how. . .”

No time for questions. “Later. Let’s go.”

Once we left the basement, we followed the trail of dashed papers and opened lockers. Sasha carried her shoes so that she could keep up with me. We fled, out of the side door and into the open field behind the school.

The town water tower stood in the distance, which meant our apartment was to my right. I faced that direction and wondered two things. Did I have enough strength left to get us there? Would we land unharmed? The last time I’d travelled with a passenger, her tuck-and-roll landed her leg on a rusted nail.

I grabbed Sasha around the waist, forgot all of my fears, and remembered the one thing that gave me direction.

We soared through the air. It took all of my concentration to block out her screaming and wiggling until she either gave up or passed out. I refused to look, for fear I’d drop her like I did Rhapsody. We drifted through the trees at the back of my apartment complex and landed safely – oddly enough at the building’s corner. No one’s windows faced us.

Sasha sprang from my arm and backed up, cursing up a storm. “I dropped my favorite platforms. . .I don’t know,
somewhere over downtown?”

I thought she’d be happier that I saved her life, but sadly, no.

“How
did you. . .just?” She flung her hands back and forth in the air, like bird’s wings.

This was how Rhapsody must have felt in the girls’ bathroom last week. “I didn’t have time to tell you, or show you, or explain it.”

“Explain what? You’re a superhero
?”

When she said it like that, it sounded a lot cooler and less stressful than it had been. “Come upstairs with me, and we’ll talk about it.”

She said nothing to me, not in the foyer, or as we walked up the stairs. Debra forbade me to have girls over when she wasn’t home. She hadn’t been back to work yet, so I hoped she’d allow Sasha in today. I needed to sit down and eat something,
anything.
A peanut butter sandwich would be nice, but an entire cow would have done the trick. 

I keyed the door and led Sasha inside. Aunt Dee was helping my stepmom change Zachary in the living room. Aunt Dee, who’s three inches shorter than I am, might as well have been 6’5”. She’s my birth mother’s older sister, and one of many to take Debra’s side after the divorce. The two of them loved one another and had the same dislike for Ray.

When she and Debra stopped what they were doing and stared behind me, I figured they had spotted Sasha. I stepped aside and introduced her. “Aunt Dee, Debra, this is Sasha.” My voice cracked and heat rushed to my face. “Sasha, this is my aunt, Deidra Lee, and Debra Brown, my stepmom.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Aunt Dee, her eyebrow raised at Sasha’s lack of footwear and windblown hair. “I’d shake your hand, but Mr. Zachary has us kind of busy here.”

“I-I lost them,” she explained. “My shoes. T-They broke off of my feet.”

“Mmhmm.” Aunt Dee huffed. “Jason, aren’t you going to invite her in?”

“We were hoping to study in my room,
with the door wide open.”

Before Aunt Dee could give her two cents about how neither of us had books, Debra stepped in. “That’s fine, Jason. Keep the door open at all times.”

Aunt Dee resumed her diaper-changing duties, while I led Sasha down the hallway and to the right. I grabbed my dirty clothes from the floor and shoved them into my laundry bag. I’d made my bed, although frankly, it wasn’t that good of a job.
What’s the point, anyway? I’m going to get back in it at the end of the night, and no one is in it during the day.

“Nice room,” she said, admiring the numerous basketball posters on my wall.

I thought she might be insincere about that, but I brushed it off. “Thanks.”

She brushed a corner of my bedspread smooth and sat on it. “How long have you been able to do. . .
that?”

The way she said “that” made me laugh. “Not long. Listen, Sasha. . .”

“Don’t worry. Usually I don’t keep secrets, but
this one
I think I’ve got to. Besides, it’s not like anyone would believe me. How do you do it?”

Keeping her in the dark was for the best, so I sidestepped the question. “Why do you like me?”
Did I really just say that?