Sophomore Freak (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 2) (18 page)

Selby and I looked at each other. “Who?” we asked at the same time.

Hughes puffed out a long breath. “Did they get dark and brittle looking?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Kind of.”

“Then they’re dead,” he said without flinching. “And we have a little more than half a day before King gets here.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

showdown with Ryan Cain

I killed six people
.

Ten hours from now, give or take – that’s all Hughes figured King would need to mobilize an attack unit and move it from Mexico to Walsh.

“Of course, he could be wrong,” Camuto said, “but I don’t bet against him.”

The four of us trickled into the dining room after our showers. Sasha and Rhapsody were already there, sitting across the table from one another. I sat in Hughes’ spot, which put Sasha to my left and Rhapsody at my right. Tired of his “accidental” touches, Sasha made Selby sit next to Rhapsody.

We ate in silence. Our plastic forks scraping against the paper plates, our sipping from soda cans, and our chewing were the only sounds, except for an occasional belch by Selby. It was then I started thinking about how I could have been stupid enough to lead our enemies here. I did everything short of mapping it out on a GPS and jumping King to Walsh myself. Though I expected one of them, anyone, to blame me for it, no one did. Why not?

Courtney put us on a strict midnight curfew, which gave us a half hour to do whatever after we finished eating. On our beds lay new Geiger counter watches, upgraded cell phones, a sleeping pill and a bottle of water. Mine had six pills – one for sleeping and five Adderall for my ADHD. I glanced back at Sasha’s bunk and she smiled while tying her hair back. Rhapsody was brushing her teeth in the bathroom. Selby was already a snoring lump under his green blanket.

I wandered to the source crystal room and found Courtney there. Wearing a long-sleeved white t-shirt and blue striped pajama bottoms, she sat cross-legged on the floor against the wall. When she heard the door’s hinges, she waved me inside and patted the ground next to her. “Hi Jason,” she said with a hoarse voice. “Join me?”

The glass shards from where I’d broken the window had been swept away. The alternate throbbing glow of the pink, red, and green crystals was like a light show. The colors on the walls changed from a dark pink to a weird shade of brown. I settled down next to Courtney. There, in the light, I noticed creases in her cheeks and wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Has she gotten older? I thought the crystals stopped that.

“Not bad for an old lady, huh?” she asked me, focusing straight ahead.

“You read my mind?”

“No, you were staring. Much better than Michael, though. At least you’re not always looking at my breasts.”

I rested my elbows on my knees. “So, I basically gave a murderer our address and I killed six people.”

She nodded and sighed. “Yeah. I heard.”

“Why isn’t anybody pissed off about that?” I pounded a fist on the floor, denting it. "I’m not a killer!”

Courtney turned her head in my direction. “Because we knew it was going to come to this at some point. We’ve been moving from place to place for years. This is our last outpost. He was going to find us here anyway. It was just a matter of time.”

My eyes widened. “If you knew so much, why didn’t you try to stop it? Why aren’t you moving again? What makes right now any different?”

“You do.”

I’d been afraid she was going to say that. “What do I have to do with it?”

Courtney licked her lips. Clearing her throat, she said, “After the last big solar storm forty years ago, the remaining eight split up. Welker and Peters went with King. Me, Camuto and Hughes stuck together.”

I did the math. “Who are the other two?”

“One goes by Vivienne Coker. The other is Belinda King. You know them both.”

My mouth dropped open. “W-w-wait! Who is Belinda King? King’s sister?”

When it looked like she might answer me, Courtney avoided the question altogether. “Belinda built Reject High and Hidden Potential, Jason,” she said. “She and Vivienne have been working together since the split. We’re going to them for help.”

“What kind of help?”

Courtney unfolded her legs and straightened up. “We’re about to find that out. None of us have talked in forty years, but they’ll know what we’re up against.”

I glanced down at my wrist. It would be midnight in five more minutes. “Alright,” I said. “Good night. I’m off to bed.”

“Jason?”

I opened my eyes to the cornfield, except it was golden yellow. There was someone else, a woman. Her thick, wavy black hair reached down past her shoulders. Her white linen dress had spaghetti straps. A purple scarf hugged her shoulders. She knew I was there. A quick turn of the head revealed her radiant smile, which I loved.

It was warm, a thick kind of summer heat, but I didn’t mind. All I thought about was the woman. I called out her name. She turned around and waved, like we had not seen each other in a long time and I was a good friend. Her slender, rounded nose and the way her lips were formed – she reminded me a lot of Sasha. She was
perfect.

My mother stood still and waited for me.
She’s waiting for me. She wants me.

“Mom,” I called out to her, “I’ve missed you so much.”

Her voice was sweet like pancake syrup. “Jason,” she said, “I’ve missed you.”

I ran over, almost close enough to touch her.

Bubbling over with emotion, she covered her mouth. “Jason!” she shrieked in a whisper. Her voice was different, distorted, almost panicked.

“Jason! Wake up. Something’s happening.”

Someone shook my body. Keeping my eyes closed, I wished they would go away and my dream to continue. All I saw in my mind’s eye now was the back of my eyelids.

“Whaaat?” I slurred, wiping the drool from my face against the pillowcase. I wasn’t even sure who was talking to me. “Time is it?”

It was Rhapsody.
Where are Sasha and Selby?

“King. He’s here. Get up.”
How is that even possible
? I swung my legs over the side of the bed and jumped down to the floor. Rhapsody ran through the wall. While she was gone I snatched the extra gold ice necklace I’d stolen and put it underneath my sheets.

She returned a minute later, out of breath but carrying clean bodysuits. “Here,” she said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

We dressed and pocketed our new cell phones. “Source room,” I said through my mask.

“Source room,” she said, pulling her mask on as well.

Rhapsody grabbed my hand and we passed through the corridors of the compound until we reached the storage area. Camuto had told us to keep our distance from the pink source. Now we were standing a foot away from it.

I heaved the morganite onto my left shoulder. Shaped like a giant football, it was difficult to get a hold of. “I’m going,” I said, looking at the ceiling.

“Then, I’m coming,” she said, moving close to me. “Go!”

We ghosted through the compound and streaked across the dark sky in an arc to the other side of Walsh, where Hidden Potential was located. There was an acre or so of trees beyond the main facilities. Once we had dropped the morganite there, we journeyed back to the room and moved the emerald next, leaving it beside the pink.

When we returned for the scarlet emerald, King’s footmen crowded the room. Ryan, their leader snapped his fingers. “Julio, Luis.”

Luis and Julio, identical twins, held us while another boy unzipped our bodysuits down to our waists and took our heliodor necklaces. He checked the inside pockets and patted us down, leaving us with our new cell phones. After all, we had no one to call now and they would explode soon, killing us anyway.

While he searched us my right leg suddenly gave out, and I fell to one knee.

“Jason!” Rhapsody called out. Luis blocked her from helping me.

Ryan grinned and held out his right hand. It was decorated with a goshenite ring, like King’s. “No need to bow, Champion,” he said. “But since you are. . .”

He kicked me across the left side of my face. I felt my cheek and temple swelling, and a stream of blood dribbling down my ear. “Not even. . .yet,” I said, grimacing.

He approached the red source in the wall. Pulling a prism free for himself, he taunted me, “Don’t you hate Julia? You
should
be thanking me for almost killing her. Nobody replaces your real parents, anyway.”

The twins gave Ryan a look, like he had broken some sort of rule by taking a prism. Was he supposed to do that?

He shrugged them off. Pointing his thumb over his shoulder, he said, “Load up the scarlet emerald. Keep Selby and Sasha away from them.”

They followed his orders. We were left with Ryan and two Caucasian boys.

Pushing off with my good leg, I got to my feet. “I’ll beat your. . . on one leg.”

Ryan approached me and grabbed my chin. “You can’t even breathe.”

“No,” I said, spitting in his face. I could still do that.

He wiped his face with his forearm and punched me in the stomach.

Rhapsody sprang forward and shoved Ryan to the floor, daring him to hit her back. “Bring it,” she said, motioning with her hands for him to get up. “I can take you.”

Instead, he pulled a pistol from the holster on his leg and fired three times.

The first shot grazed me in the left arm. The second found a home under my shoulder blade. The last one landed right near my heart.

The world around me spun. I fell backward onto the floor, my arms spread out. My heart beat hard and loud. Bullets? Goshenite? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t care. It hurt.

Rhapsody called out my name. She was rushed away, by the twins, I guess.

Ryan bent down over me and patted my face with his hand. I was dying. For a moment he looked as if he regretted pulling the trigger.

“Following orders,” he said with sincerity. “If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have killed you this fast. But King’s going to become a
god
soon. You’re in the way.”

His statement was the last thing I remembered hearing for a while.