Resistance (The Variant Series #2) (3 page)

Not helping.

“Preaching to the choir, Kenzie,” said Cassie. “Brothers. Who needs ’em?”

Kenzie nodded her agreement.

“But
speaking
of the O’Connell boys…” said Cassie. “How’s Aiden?”

“My cousin is doing just fine, thanks for asking,” said Kenzie. “Although he won’t shut-up about this certain blonde I know.”

Cassie appeared to be fighting back a smile.

“No, seriously.” Kenzie leaned forward to peek into the front seat. “Call the poor boy and put him out of his misery. My entire household will thank you.”

Last red light. They were now one left turn and a two-hundred yard drive away from the junior class parking lot.

Alex drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and tried not to think about crowded hallways and closely placed desks.

She eyed the three-quarter sleeves of her peasant blouse and suddenly wished she’d remembered her jacket. Eighty degree weather or no, it would have been nice to be a little more covered.

During the long weekend she’d spent hidden away in her room, the newfound confidence she’d acquired over the break had slowly withered away, replaced instead by the growing fear that she might never be able to fully control her abilities.

In the wake of learning the truth, Alex had been able to stand up to beings and organizations of indescribable power—but she’d only done so in an attempt to protect the people she cared about most in this world.

Now that they were home again—
safe
again—Alex had been forced to accept another, far more horrible truth: the biggest threat to the well-being of those she cared about, now, wasn’t the Agency and it wasn’t Samuel Masterson.

It was Alex herself
.

The revelation left her terrified of who might be made to pay the price the next time Alex lost control.

And in a place like Bay View High,
losing control
wouldn’t be a question
if
, but
when.

The light changed. Traffic in the left turn lane inched slowly forward as the first car in line caught a break in the traffic. Just as Alex tapped the gas, a sleek-lined, black Honda sportbike cut in front of her.

She scrambled to hit the brakes.

“
Hey
!” Cassie grumbled, her hands splayed on the dash. She glared at the biker. “Nice driving, jerk.”

Kenzie stared out the windshield and snorted in amusement. “You should have hit him, Alex.”

Two feet in front of the jeep’s front end, the guy on the bike shot them a glance over his shoulder.

He flipped up the shaded visor on his helmet.

A familiar pair of hazel eyes stared back at her, crinkled slightly at the corners. He was grinning.

Declan
.

The traffic pulled forward.

Alex let out a breath as she followed Declan onto the road leading up to Bay View High School’s parking lots.

The junior lot was located on the far side of campus and was composed of three short rows of second-rate parking, followed by a vast expanse of hard-packed gravel, where the overflow ended up.

As Alex maneuvered the jeep up and into the overflow area, Declan parked his bike at the very front of the lot.

Naturally.

“And with four minutes to spare!” said Kenzie. Alex pulled the driver’s seat forward to let her out of the backseat. “Give the girl a medal!”

“Thank you, Ms. O’Neill,” said Alex as she righted the seat and slammed the driver’s side door closed.

“Who?” Kenzie blinked in confusion as she shouldered her backpack. “Oh, right! Kenzie
O’Neill
. I’m with ya.”

“Forget already, Kenzie?” said Cassie. “I thought you were excited about the whole ‘incognito’ thing.”

It was easy to forget that the
real
reason Declan and Kenzie were starting classes at Alex’s high school wasn’t just because the Grayson family had relocated to Bay View. It was also to appease the Agency.

Their new last name was simply a precaution. According to Grayson, the name “O’Connell” had a certain weight attached to it in Variant circles. The last thing Alex—or the others—needed right now, was to draw unnecessary attention to themselves.

As part of their agreement, Alex would only be allowed to remain free so long as she kept a low profile.

And so long as she was being
watched
. She was meant to be kept under control.

The real watchdog in this situation wasn’t Kenzie—it was her 18-year-old brother Declan.

He was the one who had officially taken on the assignment.

“What can I say?” Kenzie led them across the parking lot and toward the glass doors leading into the humanities wing. “I’m too excited about that square hunk of metallic real estate someone’s about to assign me. I can’t focus on playing secret agent this morning. Wonder if it will have that new locker smell?”

Alex smiled in spite of herself.

“You’d best hope it
doesn’t
,” said Cassie, holding the door open. “Generally speaking, the only smells you find inside a locker are the permanent reminders of the tuna fish sandwiches its last owner brought for lunch every day.”

Alex froze just inside the doorway.

The hallway that stretched out before her was packed with bodies, filled to capacity with students milling beside lockers and meandering toward their classes.

She took a breath and held it.

Kenzie and Cassie quickly disappeared into the crowd, leaving her behind.

Why hadn’t she walked the long way around the building? Her homeroom was three hallways and a commons area away, and the entire path would be packed until the second bell.

The sounds of conversation and laughter grew louder, surpassed in volume only by the sudden thudding of her heart as it pounded frantically against her ribcage.

So many people… all it would take is one touch from the wrong one
, she thought.
One touch, and I could lose control.

Move. She needed to move.

Someone brushed past her, jostling Alex’s shoulder as they entered through the double doors behind her.

Alex swallowed a whimper, searching frantically for an empty space in the chaos.

Hugging her arms tightly around her middle, Alex found an opening in the crowd and made her way to a narrow wall between two classroom doors, pressing her back against it and aching for an escape.

Closing her eyes, Alex fought to steady her breathing, then sucked in another ragged breath after being startled by the sound of the first bell blasting from a loudspeaker mounted to the wall above her head.

“Never pegged you as the agoraphobic type.”

Alex opened her eyes.

A smiling face stared down at her, a few short inches from her own.

Her first instinct was to jerk away, but a warm hand on her shoulder had pinned her firmly in place.

“Hold still, Alex,” Declan ordered. With his left hand placed protectively on one shoulder and his right hand pressed against the wall on her other side, Alex was effectively boxed in.

“Declan, you can’t—” she began, shrugging her shoulder where he held it in place.

Declan inched his fingers farther away from her exposed collarbone and down her sleeve, but still didn’t pull away. “You’re fine,” he said. “Just breathe.”

Students filed past on both sides. Alex eyed them nervously.

“Look at me,” Declan said quietly. “Not at them.”

Alex did as she was told. Declan just shook his head, smiling.

“You know, it’s probably a good thing you can’t jump right now,” he said in an undertone. “I would
not
have wanted to explain to Grayson why you teleported in the middle of a crowded hallway with dozens of witnesses.”

Ashes.

Cinnamon.

Declan.

Alex’s head swam with the sensory overload. Having Declan standing so close was only making it more difficult to pull herself together. She’d forgotten just how easily his nearness could knock her for a loop.

He was still smiling down at her as though they were just another normal couple stealing a quiet moment alone, instead of two Variants standing in the midst of a sea of humanity, while one of them tried to keep the other from falling apart entirely.

The passing students sent them a few curious glances as they walked into their classrooms, but otherwise gave them plenty of space.

Another few minutes and the crowds began to thin.

Declan removed his hand from her shoulder and took a step backward. “You okay to move?” 

“I… Yes,” she said, her face flushed with embarrassment. “I am.”

Slipping past him, Alex marched off down the empty hallway. Declan’s long legs matched her stride easily.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked as they entered the open expanse of the commons area.

“Not particularly.”

“You sure?”

“I’m fine.”

“Right.”

The second bell rang.

Alex was officially late.

— 3 —

O
nce again, Declan O’Connell had found himself working as a glorified babysitter on account of one Alexandra Parker.

Bodyguard,
he corrected himself.
We’re gonna go with “bodyguard” this time.

So far today, Declan and Alex had arrived late to three of their first four classes.

Each time the bell rang, the same thing happened. Alex would hang around a classroom until the halls had started to empty and, upon their late arrival at the next class, Declan would claim ignorance of the school’s layout and insist that Alex was only late because she’d been helping him find his way.

He wondered how long she’d be able to keep that up. It certainly wouldn’t work on each teacher more than once. After today, she was either going to have to suck it up and brave the crowds of students during passing period, or start collecting tardies.

Declan stared tiredly at the back of Alex’s head while an aging calculus teacher droned on about finding the answer to some convoluted equation. Alex’s dark brown locks had started the day in a ponytail, but had since been taken down in an effort to cover the slip of skin exposed at her collarbone and neck.

Even now, safely confined to her individual desk, Alex sat with her left arm clutching her midsection and only raised her right arm above the level of the desk when it came time to take notes or work out a problem.

It’s not that he didn’t understand her sudden aversion to touching people.

That part was easy enough to explain.

What confused him, was how much she’d changed in the six days since he’d last seen her.

Where was the Alex he knew? The strong-willed, stubborn, give-’em-hell Alex that he’d first met?

This Alex was a walking bundle of nerves, and it was only getting worse as the day went on.

He watched her tug at the edges of her sleeves, pulling them just a fraction of an inch further down her forearms.

Not gonna help, princess.

The bell rang.

Declan pulled the printout of his schedule—of
Alex’s
schedule—from his jacket pocket while they waited for the other students to pack up and head out.

Lunch was up next.

Thank God.

Time for some food.

Alex was silent as he followed her through a maze of hallways and toward the upperclassmen cafeteria.

Finally, they reached a large, open room with two lunch lines and a dozen long tables already packed with students. Across from them, the room’s exterior wall was made entirely of glass, one giant window looking out over a green lawn that stretched toward the football field and tennis courts.

With the sun shining brightly in a clear blue sky, the cafeteria was awash in light.

Gray, wooden picnic tables, long since faded by the sun, were scattered across the lawn, filled with the kids who hadn’t found a home beside the cheerleaders and jocks occupying the tables inside. He spotted Goths, a few disheveled looking skaters and a table filled with… cowboys?

Huh. Definitely the FFA set.

He shrugged inwardly. To each his own.

Past the tables stood a few gnarled oak trees, their moss-covered limbs offering shade to a handful of lonely students.

He spotted Cassie seated on a small blanket beneath one such tree, her back against the trunk and a colorful lunch bag set on the ground beside her.

Declan glanced at the lunch line that stretched out endlessly in front of them and then back toward Cassie.

“Hey, Lex?”

“Hmm?” She edged warily backward as two guys ahead of them in line shoved each other, laughing.

“I’ve got to… go do something,” he said. “Think you can grab me a slice of pizza and some water?”

Alex was still preoccupied with the group in front of them. “Yeah, sure,” she said. “No problem.”

Leaving her in line, Declan made his way through the cafeteria and out onto the bright green lawn.

He came to a stop beside Cassie. “Hey, blondie.”

“Hey, butthead.”

“This seat taken?” He dropped down beside her in the shade without waiting for a reply.

“Enjoying your first day at Bay View High, Mr. O’Neill?”

“I’ll turn nineteen next month and I’m going to celebrate it as a junior in high school,” he said. “It’s pretty safe to say I’m living the dream.”

Cassie rewarded him with a smile.

Declan cleared his throat. “So, you know Alex better than just about anyone, right?”

“Ah,” said Cassie. “And this would be the point in the conversation where you ask me what’s going on with her.”

“I just don’t understand why she’s suddenly so…”

“Freaked out?” She tapped the top of her soda can before cracking it open.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean,
I get it
, but…”

Cassie frowned. “It’s… complicated.”

Inside the caf, Alex was still carefully inching her way through the lunch line, Declan’s sister Kenzie now standing by her side.

“I think it has more to do with
this place
than it does with her situation,” she said slowly.