Resistance (The Variant Series #2) (2 page)

And Alex—after coming down with the best-timed stomach flu in history—had missed Bay View High’s first three days back after Spring Break and spent the ensuing weekend hiding from the rest of the world. Now it was Monday morning and she was officially flu-free.

Time to face the music.

Noticing that Alex was still in bed, her aunt blinked in surprise. “You’re not up yet? It’s a school day!”

Cil stepped fully into the room, limping carefully in an attempt to keep from putting too much weight on her injured leg. Her dark overalls were spotted with dried clay and drops of paint.

“Mmmph.” Alex burrowed deeper beneath the blankets. “Would you believe me if I said I had a fever?”

The wooden floorboards creaked softly as her aunt walked unevenly toward the bed.

She must have left her cane in the workshop again.

It had been barely a week since Masterson shot her in the thigh. The doctor that Grayson summoned to treat her wound had ordered Cil to stay off of the injured leg for at least one or two more.

But with the upcoming show and work still to be finished, her Aunt was a woman on a mission—and doctor’s orders were easily ignored.

Alex felt a tug at the duvet.

“Really,” Alex continued. “My temperature’s at least a hundred and three and still on the rise. I might be dying.”

“Nice try.” Cil sat down on the edge of the bed.

Alex wheezed and gave the most convincing fake cough she could muster under the circumstances. “See? I’m almost definitely contagious. One of the other students might catch something from me and then where would we be?”

“You’re a regular Typhoid Mary, it’s clear.” Cil finally wrenched the blanket free. “Now. Are you really afraid of someone catching something from
you
… or are you afraid of catching
something
from one of the other students?”

Wilting under the weight of her aunt’s knowing gaze, Alex snatched up the nearest pillow and dropped it over her face, groaning into the cool fabric of the pillowcase.

It was strange how much her life had changed in little more than a week.

Now, one step out of line—one wrong move on Alex’s part—and that life was officially forfeit. All it would take was one accident with the wrong pair of eyes around, and Alex would find herself the newfound property of the Agency.

With the stakes this high, Alex found it easier to withdraw completely.

“I thought so.” Aunt Cil heaved a sigh. “You can’t live like this forever, Lee-Lee. You’re going to have to go back out into the world eventually.”

Alex felt Cil pat her knee where it was hidden beneath the bed sheets.

There was a pause.

“I’ve been talking with Grayson,” Cil said finally. “And we’ve come to a decision.”

Tentatively lowering her fluffy defense, Alex slit her eyes up at her aunt.

“Why does that sound ominous?” she mumbled into the pillow. “Honestly. If my life had a soundtrack, this is where the creepy organ music would start up.”

Cil squared her shoulders, apparently hoping the action would help to reinforce her declaration as well as her posture. “We’ve decided it’s time for you to resume your training. It’s important that we start exposing you to some of the more common abilities. You know…
just in case
.”

At first, the words washed over Alex without fully registering. Her thought process had come to a screaming halt after the word
training
.

“Since Grayson believes you more or less have a handle on jumping and telepathy,” Cil continued, “you’ll be starting off with a focus on telekinesis.”

“You want me to
what
? Oh, no. No, no, no.” Taking the pillow with her, Alex staggered out of bed, stumbling over her journal and last night’s read in an attempt to flee from her aunt and this awful new reality.

Sleep.

Give her sleep. Bring back the nightmares.

Anything would be better than waking up to
this
.

Alex stood in the corner of her room, wedged between her bookcase and a nightstand. She held out the pillow as though it could protect her from her aunt and this absolutely half-baked idea.

“You should have started training seriously the second we got home.” Cil shook her head. “Instead I’ve been babying you for the last week.”

“You haven’t been
babying
me!” Frowning, Alex tossed the pillow back on the bed, as though she hadn’t just been hiding behind it like a toddler defending herself from the bogeyman. “And what good could possibly come from exposing me to new abilities? What, was blowing up the computer lab not enough? Do you
want
me to destroy the entire school?”

Cil rolled her eyes. “Indulging your desire for isolation hasn’t done you any favors. Avoiding your ability is not enough. We need to prove that you can control it.”

“But I
can’t
control it, Aunt Cil.”

“Did you miss the part about training?” Alex’s aunt raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m not doing it,” Alex insisted. “I won’t… I
can’t
.”

“I’m not having this argument with you, Alexandra Catherine.”

Ohh, and out comes the middle name.

Her aunt was serious about this.

“You’re going to meet with Nathaniel after school today, and that’s the end of it.” Cil sighed and softened her tone. “You can’t
hide
from your ability, Lee-Lee. It’s a part of you. The sooner you make peace with that, the sooner you can start living again.”

Didn’t she realize?

Alex was doing this to protect
them
, as much as herself.

Cil got carefully to her feet, stepping lightly toward the hall before pausing to examine the two outfits hanging from Alex’s closet doors. One was a pair of jeans and a gray peasant blouse, and the other was a red asymmetrical skirt with a white tank (a gift from her best friend Cassie, who was still on a mission to liven up Alex’s wardrobe).

Before disappearing into the hallway, her aunt nodded toward the skirt. “You’ve always looked good in red.”

Alex deflated. She spared a glance at the clock.

7:26.

With a sigh, Alex walked to her closet and yanked the jeans and gray blouse off the hanger.

She was going to be late.

— 2 —

A
lex gripped the steering wheel of her beloved Jeep Wrangler tightly as she whipped it through an intersection and a hard left turn. To her right, Alex’s best friend Cassandra Harper stomped an imaginary brake on the passenger-side floorboard and reached up to take hold of the roll bar.

A whimper came from the backseat. “Brakes are your friend.
Brakes are your friend!
God. I’m having flashbacks to DC. You’d be a perfect match for
either
of my older brothers, Alex.
None
of you
know how to drive. All three of you seem to have your right foot superglued to the gas pedal.”

“Sorry, Kenzie,” said Alex, letting up on the accelerator.

The jeep slowed and Kenzie let out a long breath. “No worries.” Her voice carried the auditory equivalent of a shrug. “It’s going to take a lot more than that to throw me this morning. You guys have no idea how insanely excited I am right now. Just don’t kill us on the way to class, and I’m good.”

Alex stole another quick glance at the clock on the dash—and then slammed on the brakes to keep from running a red light. Everyone in the Wrangler lurched forward.

Late.

They were going to be late.

Which was fine by Alex, of course. She’d be quite happy to miss the
entire day
at this point—up to and including her training session with Nathaniel that afternoon.

Her passengers, however, were having none of that. Kenzie was unnaturally excited for her first day at Bay View, and Cassie…

Well, she had more than made her position clear the minute she’d launched herself into the passenger side of the jeep, grumbling about alarm clocks and tardies and her perfect attendance record.

If they missed homeroom, Cassie would make Alex regret it.

Anyone who didn’t know Cassie well might find it hard to take such threats seriously. The feisty blonde was all soft curves and kind eyes and perpetually quick with a smile. Alex, however, knew better than to mistake that softness for weakness.

Cassie was the biggest sweetheart in the world—provided you weren’t being an idiot.

A sweetheart, who currently seemed bemused. “What is
wrong
with you?”

“What?” Alex shot her a sidelong glance as she maneuvered the jeep around a big boat Lincoln that was slowing them down by doing twenty under the speed limit. “Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.
Everything’s fine
.”

Cassie raised an eyebrow. “We’ll get to you in a minute, speedy,” she said. “I
had
been talking to Kenzie. I was going to ask her why she’s suddenly acting like a pod person.”

“What? Me?” said Kenzie. “What’d I do?”

“Did aliens suck your brains out in your sleep last night?” asked Cassie.

“Not that I recall,” Kenzie replied. “Although I
did
have time for an extra cup of coffee this morning, since you two were running late.”

Alex cut her eyes up at the rear view mirror, glancing warily into the backseat. The last thing Kenzie O’Connell needed first thing in the morning was an extra dose of caffeine in her system.

Bay View High wasn’t going to know what hit it.

“
Who
,” asked Cassie, twisting around to peer into the seat behind her, “in their
right mind
gets excited about their first day starting at a new school?”

“Are you kidding?” Kenzie’s grin lit up the rearview mirror. “It’s a public school! A public. School.
As in, a
school
that is
open
to the
public!
No uniforms. No psycho headmaster whose only joy in life is reprimanding innocent redheads with a weakness for caffeinated beverages. I’ve been waiting for this day my entire life! I heard there’s almost three-hundred kids in our junior class alone. Is that right? I can’t even… I mean, do you know how tired you get of seeing the same sixty faces day after day, year after year?”

“You went to a private school?” asked Alex.

“
Sixty kids
?” Cassie grimaced. “That’s it? That was your entire junior class?”

“Hey!” said Kenzie, as though something important had suddenly occurred to her. “Do we have lockers? I’ve always wanted a locker.”

Cassie and Alex exchanged a look.

The light changed.

A few hundred feet later they stopped again. Oh, the many joys of rush hour traffic and the start of tourist season.

Alex chewed distractedly on her thumbnail. Four minutes and counting until they pulled in at the school. Three, if they caught the next two lights on green.

Then the fun would
really
begin.

“Are we actually at the intersection of Highway 9 and something named Tater Peeler Road?” asked Kenzie, squinting out the scratched plastic window of the Wrangler’s cloth top.

Cassie was busy scrutinizing Alex. “You’re still spazzing about the skin thing, aren’t you.”

Not a question.

“’Mmnot,” Alex mumbled.

“Right.” She smiled. “Stop gnawing at your fingers, then.”

“Who the heck names a road
Tater Peeler
? I mean… this is the beach. If you’re going to go full-on weird, why not something like Barnacle Bob Boulevard or Don’t Park Here Tourists Or We’ll Tow You Drive.”

“Don’t Park Here Tourists Or We’ll Tow You Drive?” echoed Cassie.

“You locals are weird about parking on private streets near the beach. It’s a thing I’ve noticed.”

“Mmhmm,” said Alex distractedly, still staring up at the red light.

“So excited!” Kenzie was mumbling. “Hey, look! A Bayside Brews! It’s a chain? I thought that cafe on the Boardwalk was just a one-off. And this one’s only five minutes from my new house! Love it. Think we have time to hit the drive-through? I could use an iced coffee.”

Cassie straightened out the folds in her gray linen skirt. “Alex, remind me to slip our new classmate a Xanax at lunch.”

The light changed. Alex hit the gas just a little too hard.

Cassie grabbed for the roll bar again. “Maybe I should slip you one, too.”

“Sorry.”

Kenzie was still smiling in the backseat. “I’m not going to apologize for being in a good mood. If Declan can’t ruin my morning, I’m pretty sure nothing can.”

Alex perked up slightly at the mention of Kenzie’s older brother, then forced herself to ignore the sudden increase in her heart rate.

The guy was a derisive, condescending jerk, Alex reminded herself.

A derisive, condescending jerk that could be kind of sweet when he wanted to be.

“What’d he do this time?” asked Alex.

“He bogarted my bathroom!” she grumbled. “I had, like, ten minutes in there this morning. Total.”

Cassie smirked. Alex thought of Cassie sharing one bathroom with four brothers of her own and figured she understood Kenzie’s frustrations all too well.

“He’s supposed to be sharing one with Brian. Instead he hijacked my en suite. And it took him
ages
this morning,” she continued. “He can take five-minute showers whenever it suits him, but
god forbid
I want to look cute for something. Then it takes him half a freaking hour.”

Declan.

Shower.

Alex flashed back to her first morning at the cabin—of Declan striding casually down the stairs with his hair tousled and still wet from the shower, smelling of cinnamon and woodsmoke and something uniquely
Declan
…

A warm blush crept into her cheeks as she attempted to bury that thought beneath a few tons of imaginary cement and lines from a play she’d memorized the previous semester for her English class.

When she realized that the lines were actually dialogue between Benedick and Beatrice in Shakespeare’s
Much Ado About Nothing,
she abruptly stopped her recitation and bit down on her lower lip.