Reject High (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 1) (20 page)

I’m invulnerable and this even worried
me.

We set down in the parking lot, a couple of spots away from Peters’ car. I touched the hood.
Hot.
He was here. Nothing made a sound around us.

Sasha exploded into a sobbing fit. I held her for a while until she stopped sniffling. She did not talk.

Gradually, I eased her into the vest she’d stolen and checked the straps. The thing was way too big for her frame and left her vulnerable above her chest and below her heck. If she moved too suddenly, it would shift and reveal more of her body. It was useless.

“You can’t go. This thing won’t protect you at all, and I don’t need it,” I said.

She flinched when my hand touched her skin.

“Here.” I walked her across the street to a gas station about a block away from the school. “Go inside. You’ll be safe here. I’ll be right back in a minute.”

She said nothing, but shivered near the magazine rack and watched me leave.

After walking back, I circled the school for the double-doors closest to the dungeon and yanked the handle hard enough to pop the lock. For once, I caught a break — the alarm wasn’t active. 

Down the hall, Janitor Brad or someone else had propped open the red basement door with a wooden wedge. I didn’t have to prime myself – strength ebbed through all of my muscles. As I descended the stairs, a familiar voice startled me.

“Took you long enough,” said Selby.

There are so many reasons I wanted to hurt him. “You knew where to find me.”

“Yeah, I did. Remember, I was there
first.
And if you don’t, well, I can show you the video.”

I tried to put a lid on my emotions, but he was pressing my buttons like Ray. Even in limited lighting, I could tell I got to him. No matter how angry he got, I held the edge here. “From what I’ve heard, it was short anyway.”

“Heard?
You haven’t
watched
it? You’re the only kid on the planet who hasn’t.”

He flashed over to me, grabbed my arms and rapidly shook back and forth. It would’ve killed anyone else, damaged their brains, or broken their necks.

Not me. But, it did make me crazy dizzy. I dropped to the ground. The colors of Sasha’s outfit appeared in my blurred vision. Either I was seeing things, or he’d gone and gotten her, too. 

Selby laughed, and did something to her. I used my hearing to tell what was going on in the room while I recovered.

“What are you doing?” That sounded like Peters. “What is
she
doing here?”

“He put her in a gas station,” Selby said, talking about me.
Selby’s with Welker, Peters, and Spivey?
That caught me off-guard, but it wasn’t particularly surprising. “Thought I’d have some fun.”

My sight finally steadied, but I played possum. Through squinted eyes, I estimated that Selby was about five feet away from me. He held Sasha’s arm with his left hand, so she was further away from me. I couldn’t see Peters.

“Your parents. . .” Sasha muttered.

“Shut up!” He backhanded her. He’d pay for that. 

“Did you harvest the rest of them? Because, if you didn’t, I’ll. . .”

“They’re gone,” Selby taunted. “All of them.”

In one motion, I sprung up, yanked Selby’s necklace off his neck and pushed him hard in the ribcage, He flew into a nearby wall and crumpled to the ground.

Good thing he’d let go of Sasha before I hit him. She rushed towards me, but I shrugged her off. Grabbing Peters by the throat, I lifted him into the air by his chin until his head almost reached the low ceiling.

“Control,” he said, gagging.
“Control.”

Instead of making fun of me, he said it like he was giving
me
instructions.
I lowered him to the ground. He coughed up a little spit and cleared his throat. “Thanks.”

“We’re not done.” I tossed Selby’s necklace to Sasha and dragged Peters upstairs.

“Don’t,” he said, his voice trembling. “Please,
don’t.”

He
feared
me. Good. I’d ignore his begging until he told me everything I wanted to know.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

we get the truth

Debra says making things up isn’t the only way to lie – adding to the truth or leaving something out is lying, too.

Like last April, when she dropped me off at Northridge Mall to see a movie with a couple guys from school. Once the film started, I ducked out to see Girlfriend Number Three, who lived behind the mall complex. While I was there, an earthquake hit the area. Once Debra finally caught up with me, we hugged. Then, she grounded me for a month.

Peters shot at us, spied on me and hit me with his car
.
Kicking him around might not get us answers, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying.

I pushed my science teacher through the double doors leading outside. He rolled down the concrete steps, falling face down on the pavement. Just for fun, I threw him onto the grass. Peters got up again, more slowly than before. His tan slacks were torn, stained brown and green at the knees. A round spot of crimson lingered on his reddened right cheek.

“Stop,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. “Don’t black out.
Control it.”

“Shut up. You don’t know crap about me!” I raised my fist and hit him once. Then again and again.

“No!” Sasha screamed. “Stop it!”

Her cry broke through my rage, and I dropped my hands. Startled at the shift in my emotions, she relaxed. “Were you going to stop?”

She clearly didn’t think so. I wasn’t so sure, either.

Peters rolled over and nursed his injuries. “
I’m
your enemy?” he asked, spitting out a thin stream of blood and spit. “C’mon, Jason. You’re smarter than that. Think.”

That’s the problem – I
couldn’t
think right now. Seeing this, Sasha stepped in front of Peters to keep me from acting. I guess she figured I wouldn’t go through her to hurt him some more. 

“Scientists do things for a reason,” Peters said, smirking over her shoulder. “We experiment, construct, test, gather data. Trust me – I’m not the guy you want.” 

I don’t trust adults, especially ones that shoot at me. “You want
trust?
Give me your bracelet.”  

He shifted his shoulders. “I’ll die without it.”

I’d already seen three dead bodies. What was one more? “You’re lying. Hand ‘em over.”

Peters extended his left wrist, revealing the obnoxious bracelet. There were
five
crystals on it now instead of three – each one but the last had faded a pale shade of green. “Here. Take it. I’ve been living on borrowed time long enough.”

Sasha blocked me from his hand. “If he’s telling the truth. . .you’ll kill him
.”

While we debated the issue, one of the exterior doors swung open and Selby spilled out of it. He staggered over to us, holding his right side, his breathing ragged. Though he slapped her a minute ago, Sasha rushed over and helped him steady himself. 

“Aww, he needs help? Call an ambulance,” I snapped. Did she forget about the crime scene? “I take off with him, Peters disappears again and we’ll
never
get answers. Forget it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Peters taunted Sasha, who draped her arm around Selby. “You’re wondering if his prism will heal him, aren’t you? Emotions burden intellect, Ms. Anderson. Split up, and figure it out.”

Before I fully processed what was happening, she did it. Clone Sasha backed against a wall, still sniveling over the Selbys, I guessed.

Original Sasha supported Selby and confronted me, dangling my enemy’s crystal from her right hand. “We have to give it to him, Jason.” She pleaded with me, because she and her clone knew I could stop them.

“You give that to him and he’ll get his powers back. He
killed his parents
, Sasha,” I said. 

“We don’t know that,” said Original Sasha, her eyes darting back and forth. “You can’t jump with him. He’s probably got broken ribs, and he might have clots in his lungs. Please, Jason. Don’t stop me.”

Selby wheezed and coughed up blood. “Help,” he muttered.

I wondered if either of his parents had begged for mercy like this. The saying that you never forget your first must be true, unless there was more between Sasha and Selby than she told me.

Sasha re-formed and fastened Selby’s crystal around his neck.

The results were instant. He straightened up and inhaled deep breaths, patting his right side. Showing no signs of soreness or pain, Selby stretched out his arms. “Thanks Freak,” he said to me.

Before he had the chance, I hooked Peters and Sasha around the waist with my arms and leapt away to the one place I always felt safe.  

Traveling with two people instead of one didn’t seem to slow me down. We gently touched down in my old neighborhood.

Harleysville was a white picket fence paradise. It had curfews, leash laws, and expensive cars nobody ever thought to lock. Ray lived somewhere close. With the highway on my left, I concentrated inside and leapt alone to Sasha’s house.

Rhapsody opened the screen door to the porch when she noticed me approaching from the back door. “Hey.” she said, brushing a few strands of hair behind her ear. She looked me over. “What’s up?”

“Gotta go,” I said, waving her towards me.

“Okay,” she said, shutting the door behind her.

Of the times I’d jumped with Rhapsody before, this one seemed
different.
All of a sudden, I was self-conscious about how to hold her. Sasha always wanted to do it the same way – completely in my arms.
Was it cheating to carry Rhapsody?

If I grabbed her around the waist, her boobs would press into my chest, and that didn’t seem like a great option either. Carrying her in a piggyback would’ve worked, if we were five-year-olds.

She erased most the distance between us and stood close enough that I could smell her flowery perfume. “Well?” Her tone wasn’t sarcastic, but like she expected me to move. “I’m not the one who can leap cities here.”

I cradled Rhapsody in my arms and jumped back to the spot where I dropped off Peters and Sasha, who acted surprised when we landed. 

“What’s up?” I asked her. Rhapsody stayed close to me for a second.

“Nothing,” Sasha said, crossing her arms.

That’s when Rhapsody shoved herself away from me. “Where are we?”  

The three of them surveyed the area – an unkempt playground at the rear of a church. Peters fidgeted among the knee-high weeds, as if the presence of a steeple and cross intimidated him. 

“Good question. Where are we?” asked Sasha. “This doesn’t look like anywhere near town.”

“Harleysville,” I replied. “He’ll never find us here.”

“Harleysville?”
Eyebrows raised, Peters acted impressed. “Nice job. You didn’t destroy the highway this time.”

Jackass.
I’d saved his life, or at least spared it, so he owed me at least one favor. “If
you’re
not the enemy, who is?” I blurted out.

Peters slid his fingers across his touch screen cell phone. “Turn off your phones, all of you. Take the batteries out, too. Spivey can use police technology to track you.” 

“No way.” Rhapsody crossed her arms. “If something happens to my dad, I want to know about it.”

“She gave him her crystal,” I said to Peters.

“What? When?” he asked her.

“I don’t know, two o’ clock yesterday. Three?”

Peters checked his watch and rolled his eyes back and forth. “He might have some time left.”

“Until what?” Sasha, Rhapsody and I asked at the same time.

Peters flashed his wrist and pointed to the barely green stones. “They stop working. The effects are temporary on adults.” 

That meant George could slip back into a coma, or worse. “It won’t happen,” I reassured her, pointing to Peters. “He and Selby collected the prisms from the basement, so we’ll get one for each of you.”

Peters shook his head. “I don’t have them. Welker does.”

No big surprise there. As soon as we digested that information, he continued. “We found a red source across town a year ago following the quake. After that, the white one was. . .”

Red? White?
It was too much to take in at once.

“Wait,”
Sasha interrupted. “You work for Welker?”  

“Yes,” he said, nonchalantly, instantly alarming both of us. “Not the school, but something independent. At first, a long time ago, it was just a scientific study. Carrington changed all of that.”   

Independent? How about “illegal,” too? I remembered what he said about two source crystals. Was ours the
third?
Or were there more?

“You’ve finally figured something out,” he said in fake praise. “Beryl aluminum silicate occurs naturally in six different colors: red, white, green, pink, gold and blue.”

Great. Something else went my way.

“Was Cherish one of us?” Rhapsody asked. She flinched a little. She does that when something hits her close to home. Around her mother, Ruby, she did it
a lot.

Peters hung his head. “I think so. Before her death, Welker didn’t even know about the green source’s location.”

Across from me, Sasha examined my face. Her stare penetrated my skin, but I didn’t bother to acknowledge it. “Then, Cherish
did
kill herself?”

He nodded his head back and forth, like he juggled the idea. “Yes and no. One morning, during a lecture, she lip-synced my every word before I said it. It was fascinating – amazing, in a word.”

“She read your mind,” Sasha said, covering her mouth. “Those were the voices she heard!” 

“Her brain was too unsteady, unbalanced. So yes, she pulled the trigger. But, it’s not that simple. Welker can control minds. Definitely erase them, too. He has ways to make you do what you don’t want to do.”

The revelation sent Rhapsody reeling. From the looks of it, she’d dissolve into a puddle of tears at any second. But, only one drop made its way down her cheek before she regained her nerve. “She didn’t kill herself,” Rhapsody said. “She was
persuaded.”
  

“Or forced.” Peters sounded like he spoke from experience.