HSH: Camp Hero - Chap 4-6
Continuing the Camp Hero Story!
Chapter 4
Dreams and Nightmares
I stood in a park, next to a fence that surrounded a lake. Large branches swayed in the light breeze, blowing through the air. In the distance, many tall buildings loomed over the trees. The Empire State Building towered over the skyline. New York?
I don’t remember coming to New York.
I’d seen the Empire State Building once before, on my one visit to my grandparent’s house when I was eight. The building hadn’t changed – not that I expected it to.
How did I get here? I thought. And when?
Clothes covered my body. Thank God!
That fact still didn’t answer my questions.
I checked my surroundings. People were walking about, and kids were laughing and playing on the other side of the trees. The smell of car exhaust and flowers assaulted my nostrils. Car horns bellowed far in the distance.
No one seemed to be staring at me. As a matter of fact, a young woman pushing a stroller walked right past without giving me so much as a glance. So unless people appeared out of thin air on a regular basis in Manhattan, I’d been there for a while.
But, how did I get here? I repeated.
Usually the voice in my head would give some sort of response, even if it was a sarcastic comment. This time, it remained silent.
Then, I heard something else. There was some commotion coming from the middle of the lake. A boy ran along a bridge spanning the water. Behind him, several Agents, in full combat gear, charged. Their guns were raised, ready to fire.
“Freeze!” the lead Agent yelled.
The boy stopped. He was in the dead center of the lake, with no cover, nowhere to hide.
“Run, stupid!” I shouted, but nothing came out of my mouth. I grabbed my throat, like it was the cause of my muteness. I knew it wasn’t.
He continued to stand motionless, his back turned to the cautiously approaching Agents.
Why won’t he run? I wouldn’t just stand there and let them take me. Like the other day in the hospital café, I would fight to my last breath before they took me.
A ship suddenly appeared before me. I stepped back in fright. It shimmered into existence out of thin air, floating on the lake as if it had always been there. It looked old, complete with tattered sails and a torn up black flag with a skull and cross-bones flying on the tallest mast.
BOOM! The air exploded with sound. The shockwaves from these explosions pounded my chest like cannonballs.
Ironically, cannon fire was the source of the noise. Cannonballs crushed the bridge directly in front of the Agents, sending pieces of cement and cinder up into the air. The Agents stepped back and covered themselves as some of the larger shards rained down on them. When the smoke cleared there was a ten foot gap in the bridge, cutting off their path to the boy who was once again sprinting away from his pursuers.
Once they regained their senses, the Agents spun and ran back the way they’d come, intending to catch him on the other side of the lake.
With so much going on, I hadn’t even noticed the pirate ship fading away, until empty space once again claimed the air above the lake.
Six months ago, if I had watched that scene play out, I wouldn’t have believed it, but now it hardly fazed me. I didn’t dwell on the ship, or the smoking ruins of the bridge it left behind. All I cared about was following the boy and finding out about him.
I started around the lake, pushing myself to catch him on the other side. I prayed I would find him before the Agents. I figured I would be able to help him – protect him. Two super powered kids would certainly hold out longer against the Agents than one.
I had to be dreaming, though, it wasn’t a normal dream – I could tell that much. It felt too real, despite the outrageous scene on the bridge, to be normal. Like back in February, when the entire student population was in danger of death at the hands of Tommy Fulton, my mind tried to warn me of something – maybe something I could prevent.
Now, more than ever, I needed to know more about this boy.
I made it around the lake just in time to see the boy running into a large gray building: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Grandpa Walker had taken me there when I visited. It was the big glass room at the north end of the building that gave away its identity.
I remembered that room in particular. The ancient Egyptian temple the glass room housed would be enough to impress any third grader. The temple, surrounded by Egyptian statues and a moat, was like a castle – any child’s fantasy.
I found myself standing before the stone structure, with my back in a corner, against the slanted glass windows, gazing up at the Egyptian building I’d been visualizing. Definitely a dream, I decided.
The boy stood by the temple, totally surrounded by MHDA Agents. He must have had two dozen guns trained on him, ready to shoot at the first sign of trouble.
I got a clearer look at the boy. He had short brown hair, and wore a green t-shirt with a pair of jeans. Freckles speckled his cheeks. His right hand held a cell phone to his ear. He could only be about fourteen – maybe fifteen.
The cell phone dropped as if in slow motion, bouncing along the ground. Then, slowly the boy raised his hands over his head in submission.
“No, don’t give up!” I shouted. Again, no sound escaped my lips.
I closed my eyes and reached out to feel the guns in all the Agents hands. Intending to yank them from their fists, I prepared myself for a little mental strain. But I couldn’t grab the guns. I couldn’t even feel the guns. I couldn’t feel anything whatsoever.
So, I projected my thoughts into the boy’s head. Fight!
He just stood like one of the statues behind him, as one of the Agents strode toward him. I was behind the Agent, so I couldn’t tell what she looked like. Since she wasn’t wearing any combat gear whatsoever, I could discern only that the Agent was indeed a “she”. Her blonde hair was in a ponytail and she wore a black business suit.
She said something to the boy, but spoke low, so I couldn’t make it out. The boy responded in an equally meek voice, and the Agent nodded in response. Then she extended her right hand to seal whatever deal they’d just made.
No! I projected.
She held a syringe in her left hand, off to her side so the boy couldn’t see it.
I leaped from my corner and raced toward them, pushing through the Agents with their guns still trained on the boy. Get away from her! I desperately tried to warn him.
I was helpless to do anything, it seemed, because he stepped toward the female Agent.
I seemed to move in slow motion, not making any headway toward him as he raised his hand to grip the Agent’s.
Move! She’s gonna get you!
He took one more step. Their hands met. She gripped his hand tightly.
The boy instantly realized his mistake. His mouth opened as if to yell out. His shoulder tensed as if he was going to pull away. But it was too late.
The woman’s arm was already in motion, swinging in a wide arc, plunging the needle deep into the boy’s neck.
I stopped, and watched helplessly as his body went limp and fell to the grass.
Before the boy’s body had even hit, the Agent had already turned and was giving orders to the other Agents. When she spun and showed her face, I let out a gasp.
It was her. The woman who’d tried to get me in the café. The one Ethan insisted was just a coincidence. He’d almost had me convinced. Now, I knew for sure it was no coincidence. That woman was after me. She might have been after all of us.
She couldn’t have been more than twenty, rather young for a government agent. She looked like one of those supermodels you see in the ads for Victoria Secret, but with her hair pulled back, and in a black business suit instead of lingerie.
She looked at me – directly at me. An evil smile spread across those full and wicked lips of hers. “You’re next,” she said.
I sat bolt upright, nearly falling off the air mattress and onto the hard cement floor of the basement. It was a dream, but the woman in it was real. The situation was real. That boy was in danger. I had to do something.
But I didn’t even know who the boy was, or when the events I saw would happen. New York wasn’t exactly a small place I couldn’t just expect to run into the boy. Yet, I still had the nagging urge to run off and find him.
And the woman. I knew she was at the hospital for me. Ethan would be upset when I told him what I’d seen. She was an Agent, obviously devious and, from what I’d just witnessed, also very dangerous.
No light shone through the small window, so it had to still be the middle of the night. I fumbled in the dark to grab my cell. I flipped it open. The glow of the screen lit my face while I checked the time.
4:56 A.M. I hate my life. I knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep, and it was too early to go anywhere. I rose and crept slowly up the stairs. I didn’t want to wake anyone and I knew my grandparents would still be asleep in the living room. Or so I thought.
Grandpa Carpenter stood in the dark by the counter, putting coffee in the coffeemaker. He was hunched over in his long robe, inspecting the device, like he didn’t know how it worked. “Good morning, Christine,” he said before the door was even fully opened. “Can’t sleep, huh?”
“Hit the green button in the middle,” I said.
“Thanks, hun.” He pressed the button.
Immediately the coffee pot whirred to life, heating the water inside to filter through the coffee grounds into the pot below.
“So, can’t sleep?” my grandfather repeated, talking barely above a whisper.
“No,” I admitted. “I had a—“
“Bad dream,” he finished. “I heard you groaning down there.”
“I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Hun, this might be early for you, but it’s definitely late for me. I’m surprised your grandmother’s not up yet.” He grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and set them on the table. “So, you want to tell me about this dream of yours?”
“It’s nothing,” I lied, which was always a mistake with my grandfather. I never realized until a few months ago that he’d seen through every lie I’d ever told him, the big ones and the small ones.
“Christine,” he said sternly. Then he pointed to a chair at the kitchen table.
We sat opposite each other. Just the way he looked down at me made me feel like my kitchen had turned into a police interrogation room.
“If you don’t want to talk about that, then let’s talk about that article I read in the paper the other day.” The way he said it made me believe he was anything but impressed with what I’d done.
“It wasn’t my idea!” I said a little louder than I had wanted. I quickly covered my mouth. I paused for a moment, listening to see if I had wakened anyone, but the only sound I heard was the coffee percolating in the maker. I lowered my voice and continued, “As a matter of fact, I don’t even want to do that stuff. The others make me.”
That was when my grandfather used the classic line about everyone jumping off a bridge and me following. Why do they always use that as an example? I rolled my eyes, then quickly shook my head.
“Then why do you follow them?”
I didn’t have a response to that – at least I thought I didn’t. While my head was saying it didn’t know, my lips were working on their own accord. “It’s the right thing to do.”
He didn’t miss a beat. My grandfather acted like he expected just that answer. “It might be the right thing to do, hun. But think about what would happen if you were hurt, or worse.” He didn’t need to fill in what he meant by the “or worse”. “What would your parents think? How do you think your grandmother and I would feel?”
The bombardment of questions was just too much for me. While my mind tried to process what my grandfather was saying, my vocal cords had a different idea. “I can’t just stop. I need to be with my friends.”
“What about your brother?” my grandfather reprimanded. “Are you going to just strap him to your back while you go flying around, chasing ambulances?”
And here I thought if anyone would understand what I was going through it would be my grandfather. But he didn’t. He was treating me like a child.
“I don’t want to see any more stories about you in the paper,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I think it would be a good idea to cut back using your powers altogether. I think it’s getting to your head again.”
He’s not treating you like a child, the voice in my head said. He’s treating you like an addict.
My eyes narrowed as I realized what he was thinking. I gave serious consideration to storming off, or better yet, breaking something. Maybe I would go off to New York by myself and try to find the boy from my dream.
“You need to look at what you have, and what you’d be throwing away if you continue on this track,” he said. “I don’t want you to go through what I went through. Understand?”
“We’ve been through this, Grandpa. I’m not going to use my powers recklessly. You don’t need to worry about that. I still look at your journal to remind me I need to do the right thing.”
He sighed. Then he got up and poured two cups of coffee from the pot. He set one in front of me. I poured a little milk and sugar into mine, then drank.
He took several sips, like he needed the extra time to figure out what to say. He had a vacant stare I wasn’t too thrilled with. His eyes looked like they were looking off into the cosmos for some divine answer he couldn’t figure out for himself.
Finally, he set his cup down and placed a hand on top of mine. “It’s not about doing the right thing. Not always. Sometimes you need to step back and worry about yourself and what your actions might do to other people.”
“I don’t understand,” I whispered. If he was being cryptic, I couldn’t figure out what he was trying to say.
“When we took our oath to keep Project: Hercules a secret, we weren’t just doing it because our government asked us to.” He stopped and took another sip of his coffee. Again, I was sure he was pausing to find the right words to say.
The oath he referred to was the oath General Wilhelm had made them take on their first day. It said they would never reveal anything that went on at Camp Hero. Other than talking to me and Ethan, my grandfather had never broken that oath.
“Even then, we knew if anyone ever found out about what we could do, it would have detrimental effects on the world. Imagine if someone found out a simple formula could give them superhuman abilities. They would research it, patent it and sell it to whoever wanted it. Imagine a world where everyone had super-powers.”
I tried, but my mind couldn’t fathom a world of flying and running people, going about their business like a normal day. If everyone had heat vision or could walk through walls, it would be utter chaos.
“Now picture these powers being in the wrong hands. It is one reason why we fought so hard in Europe. If Hitler got his hands on the formula again, we’d be living in a very different world today.”
“So, what you’re saying,” I asked, “is that you think us going out and stopping crime, we’re letting the secret out?”
He nodded.
“I knew it was a bad idea,” I muttered. “With the MHDA after us, and now this…” My voice trailed off. My mind wandered back to the woman in the café who had just appeared again in my dream. I hated being wrong, but there were times I hated being right too.
I’d been against the whole idea from the beginning – especially when Ethan decided we should wear costumes. But since then, I’d gotten into it. As much as I complained, I enjoyed going out and helping people. The adrenaline rush of lifting cars into the air and stopping bullets with my mind was what did it. And the looks on the faces of the people we saved were also great.
“Eventually, someone will figure it out,” my grandfather continued. “And believe me, the MHDA is just the tip of the iceberg.”
There was something worse than the MHDA?
He nodded again.
I was about to open my mouth and ask a question, when I heard the creak of bedsprings come from the living room. My grandmother was waking up. The conversation was over.
Chapter 5
The Woman
A little while later I was sitting in Mrs. Blank’s classroom, waiting for the class to come in. I’d left early because Grandma Carpenter woke up and immediately began assessing my outfit. Before she could get to the fact that my skirt was too short, I decided I was better off not being in the house.
At least now I know where Mom gets it from.
So, I got to school about twenty minutes early. Mrs. Blank gave me the work I’d missed when I was absent. I did my best to figure out the tangent of the triangle, when they only gave me the length of one side. It was possible, but the answer was apparently a secret, because I couldn’t figure it out.
I was in the middle of a brain meltdown when a fist slammed into my shoulder.
Dropping my pencil, I prepared to destroy the idiot who just had the misfortune of attacking me. But when I looked up my rage instantly abated.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tiffany, my best friend, complained. She sat in the seat next to mine.
“Ummm. Ow!”
“You’ve had worse,” she said. “I mean, didn’t you get hit by a car the other day?”
“No, I did the hitting actually,” I corrected.
We both knew not to say anything too specific, or in a way that would attract attention. Mrs. Blank looked up from her desk for just a second and then shook her head. A quick glance through her mind showed she thought we were speaking in some kind of slang she didn’t understand.
“Tell you what, by the way?” I asked.
“Your mom?” she said. “The baby? Duh!”
“Sorry,” I said in the best sarcastic voice I could muster. “I was kinda busy, and didn’t get the chance.” An image of the car chase flashed through my head. Stupid Agents.
I hadn’t gotten the chance to tell anyone about Conner. I wasn’t even sure how Tiffany knew about him yet. As far as she should’ve known, I was sick yesterday.
“So tell me all about him. What’s he look like? Does he have any hair? Probably not, right? Babies usually don’t have much hair. Is he cute? I bet he’s cute. I can’t believe you have a little brother. It’s so amazing, isn’t it?”
“Tiff, breathe!” I always needed to remind her to do that when she got excited.
After she had calmed herself down to the point of sanity again, I continued. “I really haven’t seen him much. He’s so small. They don’t want to release him. Only my mom and dad have even gotten to see him up close.”
“Oh, that’s horrible.”
“Not so bad,” I said. “He’ll come home over the weekend.”
As much as I hated to admit it, I really wasn’t at all concerned about Conner. The woman from my dream was occupying much of my brainpower at the moment.
She was out there watching me, waiting for me to screw up – like she knew about my powers, but required proof before she could arrest me. I needed to know what she wanted, and why she was in the café the other day. I also needed to tell the others. If she was on to me, she was likely on to them as well.
I knew she was an Agent, but one question kept coming up in my head over and over again: Who was she?
“Chris?” Tiffany called, snapping me back to reality. “You’re dazing on me again.
“Sorry, a lot’s happened. Trying to process.”
“You’ll tell me later?” It was phrased like a question, but with Tiffany it was more of an order.
I just nodded as more students filtered into the room, and I tried in vain to figure out the triangle before Mrs. Blank came by to check on my progress.
Math class was as boring as ever. I siphoned some answers from Reggie Miller, when Mrs. Blank insisted on calling on me to check if I understood. At least I made it look like I knew what I was talking about.
Lance and Kyle Morgan, the twin class clowns, greeted me with such enthusiasm in science class that you’d think they hadn’t seen me in a month. Apparently, word had gotten around about the little bundle of joy, because they questioned me about Conner too.
I didn’t know why everyone was getting so excited about the baby. One would think they could just say congratulations and move on. It wasn’t like he was their baby brother or anything.
Science sucked, too. After Mr. Jenkins gave his lecture about diseases, he did an experiment with a rotten apple and a needle. The rotten apple’s juices were apparently diseased, and every apple he stabbed with the needle immediately rotted. It was to show how easily disease can spread and how drug use was bad. I would rather have fallen asleep.
As I walked to English through the crowded hallway, I concentrated on the nasty remark I would give Sam if he decided to open his mouth. If you mention my baby brother, I’ll kill you where you stand! I think it got the point across and, knowing Sam, he would quickly back down.
I never got the chance to use my line, though. Walking through the hallway, I got this strange feeling – like something bad was happening. I stopped in the middle of the hall, causing Stefan Fuller to crash into me.
“Hey, watch it!” he yelled, then continued down the hall.
I didn’t pay any attention. Instead, I glanced around the hall, opening my mind to the chaos of the thoughts of every student in the hallway. Nothing seemed off at all. At least nothing was off except…
The empty thoughts.
It wasn’t thoughts exactly – just emptiness, like the other day in the hospital café.
She’s here.
It was the same as the other day. She was there somewhere in the school. I reached out to feel for the others as time slowed itself around me. Ethan was around the corner, twenty yards behind me. Peter was coming down the staircase near the cafeteria, about thirty yards away. Savanah was on the opposite side of the school – if something went down, she wouldn’t make it here in time to help.
Mentally, I called out to all three of them. I even sent out a mental S.O.S. to Quinn, who was three classrooms down, in his office.
In a second, Ethan stood next to me, followed by the rush of wind his rapid movement always carried.
“What’s the matter?”
“She’s here.”
His head spun as he looked around for the mysterious woman I’d been talking about for days. “Where? I don’t see anyone.”
“I feel her. Or rather, I don’t. It’s hard to explain.”
“You’ve gotta explain, Chris. Because you sound insane.”
“You always believe me, why can’t you just trust me now?”
He let out a sigh. “Fine. Where is this woman?”
The halls were clearing. I could see Peter walking up, doing a very poor job of looking casual.
The woman was still in the hall, but I still couldn’t pinpoint her. Her presence was beginning to overwhelm me. There were a few people whose minds I couldn’t read, Quinn and my grandfather among them, but I had never felt a void like I did with this woman. To say it bothered me would have been an understatement.
“What’s going on, Chris?” Peter asked.
I shook my head. I was so close to finding her, I didn’t need anyone breaking my concentration now. It was much harder trying to find a void than it was finding a human mind. I guess it was just as hard when astronomers were attempting to find a black hole in the vastness of space. Finding a star was easy, but a black hole had to be near impossible.
I made a mental map of the nearby hallways, and located the few minds I could still feel lingering outside classrooms before fourth period began. As more and more students went inside and disappeared off my map, it became easier to locate the void.
I had her.
“She’s in front of Mr. Philmore’s office.” I was already in motion, with Ethan and Peter right behind me. Savanah wasn’t too far behind, and would catch us in a minute or so. The four of us would be able to take her – she was only one Agent, after all.
As we rounded the corner I spotted her, standing like a sentry in front of Philmore’s office. I could see her, but the void remained, as if she didn’t actually exist. Determined to make this woman leave us alone, I charged toward her. I was stopped in my tracks a moment later as Philmore exited his office and began talking to the woman.
We were still too far down the hall to hear what they were saying, so I reached out and got into Mr. Philmore’s head. But I couldn’t do that either. His mind was equally a void.
“Oh, crap,” I said, then slapped my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t meant to speak, especially using an obscenity with the principal standing less than thirty feet away.
“Is that her?” Ethan whispered.
“Yeah, that’s her.”
“She’s hot!”
I punched him in the shoulder. “Seriously?”
I had to admit, he was right. If I were a boy I would probably end up staring at her. She had the perfect figure, kind of like a Barbie doll. Her blond hair was pulled into a ponytail, and even in that business suit, you could tell that she was quite athletic. I hadn’t noticed that the other day since she’d been wearing a heavy jacket and was dressed to look like a man.
Her appearance was probably part of the trap. She looked young, and very pretty. Anyone who eyed her wouldn’t think anything of her. But I knew she was dangerous.
“We need to do something,” I said. “But we need to wait for Philmore to go back into his office.”
I didn’t get a response. I might as well have been talking to the wall. The two boys were too busy gawking at the woman. I doubt they even heard my voice.
Her back was toward us, so I don’t think she’d seen us. Mr. Philmore was too busy staring at the woman to notice the three of us standing in plain sight in the center of the hallway.
“What’s going on?” Savanah said, scaring the wits out of me.
“Shut up,” I said.
“Is there a reason we’re spying on the principal and his newest girlfriend?” Savanah asked.
“Shut up,” I repeated, this time giving her a little mental jab to let her know I was serious.
When I used my ability on Savanah I noticed the woman look slightly over her shoulder toward me, like she’d felt me use my power.
Oh, crap!
Mr. Philmore talked to the woman for an eternity. The bell had long since rung, and the four of us were the only students in the hallway. I felt so exposed out there and was sure we’d be yelled at at any moment. Yet, I had no desire to move.
After a few more minutes, Mr. Philmore handed the woman a plain manila folder, and then went back into his office.
This was it. The confrontation I’d been waiting for. We were going to settle this.
Except that as I started moving none of my friends moved with me. What are they doing? Don’t they know we need to get the jump on her?
“Well?” I turned to the three of them.
“Well, what?” Savanah asked.
“Are we going to get her?” I pointed down the hall at the woman.
“Why? What’d she do?”
I opened my mouth, but realized I didn’t have an answer. The woman technically hadn’t done anything. She never got the chance to get to me in the café, and who knew when, or if, what had happened in my dream was going to happen.
“Chris,” Ethan said. “I don’t think she’s here to hurt us.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re–” I began.
“Miss Christine Carpenter,” came a high musical voice from behind.
I, the girl who could project a person’s fears into their head and make them believe what they were seeing was real, was afraid to look at the source of the voice. The way the two boys’ jaws were hanging and the way I couldn’t feel the presence of the person behind me, I knew who I would be standing there.
Slowly, I turned, my eyes half closed as if she wouldn’t really be there if I didn’t see her.
Unfortunately, I was wrong.
“Miss Christine Carpenter?” she said again when I was finally facing her.
I wanted to be snotty. I wanted to be sarcastic. I wanted to hurl words at her to let her know I wasn’t going quietly. Instead, all that came out of my mouth was a small croak that formed the word, “Yes.”
She stood above me, a lovely smile on her face – as if she weren’t one of the most vile people living on the planet. “I’m Abby Davidson, your new counselor.” She held out her hand.
My arm instinctively reached up to meet hers. But, I remembered the dream and what she did to that boy when he touched her and I pulled away as if she were a witch trying to offer a poisoned apple.
“New counselor?” Ethan asked. “See, Chris, nothing to worry about.”
My boyfriend is an idiot!
Seeing I wasn’t going to shake her hand, she lowered her arm and began going through the folder Mr. Philmore had given her.
I didn’t want to call the woman a liar right to her face. For now I would play along her lie.
“We have a lot to talk about, Ms. Carpenter. Low grades. Skipping classes – like now. Shouldn’t you be in…” she flipped through the pages in the folder. “English class?”
“I guess so.” Damn, where did my spine go?
“We need to set up an appointment to discuss some of your short-term and long-term goals and how you plan to go about achieving them. How’s this afternoon, right after school?”
“Okay.” I couldn’t even look the woman in the eye. I felt so pathetic. I couldn’t seem to find any courage within the depths of my body.
“See you then?”
“Sure.” I hate you, Christine. I really, really hate you!
“Good. Now I think you four should get to class.”
With that, she turned and walked down the hallway, without so much as a glance in our direction.
My breathing grew heavy, much like it did when I found myself in a large crowd. I was going to lose control. I needed to get out of there.
“Ethan,” I gasped out.
Instantly, his arms surrounded me, and I found myself outside the school building.
I couldn’t understand. What about the woman scared me so much? There was something wrong about her. Very, very wrong.
Chapter 6
Counseling
“I can’t believe you thought the new counselor was an Agent,” Ethan laughed, spraying his half-eaten pizza on me.
“She is,” I insisted. None of them believed me. I couldn’t even convince Sam or Tiffany, my oldest friends, I wasn’t insane. That woman was…
“I don’t get why none of you believe me. She WAS in the café and she WAS in my dream.”
“You mean the dream with the boy you don’t know in New York?” Sam interjected. It wasn’t a question. It was a comment to show how crazy the whole thing sounded.
I’d explained about the dream, going so far as to compare it to the dream about Tommy back in February. But they couldn’t – or at least didn’t want to – believe the school had been infiltrated by an undercover Agent. An Agent, who was, at the very least, on to me – and quite possibly knew we all had powers.
“If I’m crazy,” I retorted, “then how come I can’t feel her in my mind?”
No response. At least I won that exchange. I took a bite of pizza and chewed it silently. I tried to figure out what I was going to do, but like most days in the cafeteria, I couldn’t think. The voices, both verbal and mental, were a lot to deal with on most days. Though I could control it, it took a great deal of brain power to keep it at bay.
For some reason, what thoughts I could get through kept drifting back to the boy. He was the key to all of this. He was the piece of the puzzle that would let me see the whole picture. Somehow, I needed to find him. But since he was like 400 miles away, the possibility seemed very slim.
In an attempt to change the subject, since it appeared I wasn’t going to get anywhere with my friends at the moment, I asked, “Savanah, any word on your grandparents?”
She wasn’t too happy with the question, as it only served as a reminder they’d been missing for a week. “Nothing. Haven’t heard from them, and no one seems to know anything.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, which Tiffany repeated.
“Your grandfather, he has your powers, right?” Sam asked her.
Savanah nodded, tears welling up in her eyes. She refused to let them fall.
“Then I’m sure they’re fine.”
“Why don’t you go talk to Mr. Quinn, Christine?” chimed Peter, turning attention to me.
Everyone at the table turned to him, wide-eyed. Most lunch periods went by without hearing more than a “hello” and “goodbye” from the boy. We stared at him, like the wise man who came down the mountain to the village once a year to share what he had learned in his solitude.
“That’s… actually a very good idea, Pete.” Tiffany smiled at him. Her gaze lingered on him for a few seconds longer before she turned to me, raising an eyebrow.
“I was going to,” I said, in response to her unasked question. “I was just… waiting for the right time.” It was a horrible lie, and we both knew it.
I didn’t want to rely on Quinn for everything. There were certain things I would have liked to do on my own. I would eventually have to see him, if nothing else than to have him “fix” my grades again since, if what Abby Davidson said was true, they had slipped to unacceptable standards… again. But I didn’t need him fighting my battles all the time. This was one battle I wanted to fight for myself.
Ethan nudged me playfully. “When you gonna go?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because, the sooner you realize this woman is just a counselor, the sooner our lives can go back to normal.”
“And the sooner you can feel less guilty about checking her out.”
The guilty look he gave me told me I’d hit the nail on the head. I couldn’t believe my own boyfriend was interested in that woman. Whatever happened to loyalty?
His guilt passed quickly, and he repeated, “When you gonna go?”
I was about to say later, but a presence was approaching quickly from behind me and I suddenly felt the need to get up from the table and leave immediately.
“The Evil One approacheth.” I pushed my chair back and prepared to stand.
Too late.
“How’s the freak show today?”
“Oh, hey Sam,” Sam said. He stood and gave his girlfriend, Samantha Diddle, a peck on the cheek.
I had to focus all my energy not to grab my lunch tray and hurl it at the cheerleader. You have no idea how much it bothered me that she was still going out with one of my best friends. But I controlled myself. I promised Sam I would behave when she was around.
“Hi, Samantha,” came mutters from around the table.
I said nothing. If I did, it would definitely be rude or sarcastic.
“I see the foursome actually made it to lunch today. Not playing dress up today?” She looked at me when she said it, making the words sting, much like my grandfather’s earlier that morning.
Other than the people at the lunch table and Quinn, the only other person in the whole school that knew about our powers was Samantha. I would have preferred to wipe her mind of that knowledge, but Sam insisted I didn’t. I would just have to wait to do it when Sam broke up with her.
“Ethan? Can you come with me?” I got up, ignoring Samantha altogether. With the proper motivation to leave, I would go and see Quinn now rather than later. If I was going to see him though, I wanted Ethan to come with me, for no other reason than to prove to my boyfriend that I’d been right all along. Well, that and to make sure he didn’t go run off to stare at Abby Davidson.
“Yeah, sure.” He stood, shoved the last of the pizza crust in his mouth, and walked off with me.
Leaving the cafeteria was like exiting Hell. Once the doors closed, I could remove some of the barriers around my mind. Without the proximity of so many people, the voices were less prominent.
We strolled down the hall to the science hallway, where we found Quinn’s room empty. I think the man only taught like two classes a day. At times I really wondered what he did – and why the school continued to pay him.
He controls people’s thoughts, the voice in my head reminded me. If they question him, he can just make them go away.
His room was empty, but set up with some strange looking apparatus – a bunch of glass bottles and clear plastic tubes, kind of like what you’d see in old cartoons featuring a mad scientist. It smelled like rotten eggs, which meant he was using sulfur for something. God knew what kind of experiment he was doing with his students today.
The door to Quinn’s office was open and, by the scent of freshly brewed coffee coming out, he was there. The man was always drinking something, and today was no exception. As he stepped out of his office, he held his ancient-looking goblet-shaped cup to his lips. How anyone could drink coffee from a goblet was beyond me.
“I’ve got a class coming in a few minutes,” Quinn said plainly. “Make this quick.”
He looked older for some reason, and more run down – almost like he was sick. His cheeks looked hollow and pale and dark bags drooped under his eyes. I would swear he looked almost undead, like a zombie in really bad horror movie.
“What do you know about a woman named Abby Davidson?” I asked. “She claims to be a school counselor.”
He sat at his desk and took another sip. He glanced at the ceiling, as if he’d been contemplating that very thing. Then he put the cup down on his desk and leaned forward. “And do you believe that?”
“That she’s a counselor?” I said. “No way!”
“I do,” Ethan muttered.
“That’s because you’re as blind as you are stupid, Mr. Everett.” The words came out as a snarl, causing both Ethan and me to step backward. “Like every adolescent boy, you are easily seduced by a pretty face.”
His face turned red. Energy crackled like lightning around us. I’d only ever seen Quinn this angry on one occasion – when I’d nearly killed Lance and Kyle for accidentally hurting Ethan.
“So she is an Agent,” I stated, braving the science teacher’s fury.
He leaned back in his seat again and blew out a deep breath. “Yes.”
I gave Ethan a look and a mental nudge that said, Told you so.
“So what do we do?” I asked Quinn. “She wants me in the office for an meeting after school today.”
Then, he smiled.
“Ms. Carpenter,” he said, “you will go and meet with her, of course.”
“But…”
He held up a hand to silence me. “Listen.”
I didn’t want to listen. The woman was an Agent, making her dangerous. She wanted to meet with me – alone. After what she did to the boy, there was no way I wanted to be alone in a room with her. The whole idea was insane.
“Do you honestly think if the woman were a threat to us she would still be here?” he asked.
I didn’t respond, so he turned to Ethan. I guess it was the teacher in him that demanded his “students” answer.
“Ummm…no?” Ethan muttered.
He grabbed his cup and emptied its remaining contents. “Exactly.” He sprang from his chair and jumped around the desk. He suddenly had a renewed vigor. The bags under his eyes disappeared and his pale complexion was replaced by a much darker hue.
“But she knows,” I argued.
“She knows nothing,” he said. “She suspects. But as long as you don’t give her a reason to continue to suspect, she will go away.” Quinn scratched the hair on his chin. “I warned you about this, months ago. I told you the MHDA would send Agents. And not just regular Agents. I’ve checked up on this Abigail Davidson. She has over thirty successful captures under her belt. She is probably one of their top Agents. So you will have to be much more careful now.”
Didn’t he just say she wasn’t dangerous? My thoughts echoed in Ethan’s head.
“She won’t be dangerous until she discovers something. Until then, we will let her investigate.”
I tried to protest once again, but Quinn just spoke louder, so I couldn’t get a word in. “Which means, Ms. Carpenter, that you WILL go on her little interview this afternoon. Everything must appear normal. Understand?”
I should have said no. But I’d learned that when Quinn gave an order, I had no choice but to follow it. So, I nodded.
The bell rang, and the chatter of students filled the hall.
“Now get to class. I’ll check in with you later.”
**********
The counselors’ offices were near the front entrance. I’d only been in there once before, to pick my classes for this school year. “Pick” wasn’t exactly an accurate description. My counselor last year, Mr. Freeman, pretty much told me what classes I needed to take and signed me up for them.
It felt different going into the office last time. I didn’t feel at all apprehensive, nor were my hands shaking. I also didn’t have to try so hard to concentrate and keep my nerves together. The last thing I needed was to have a total meltdown in front of Ms. Davidson.
My meltdown was not at all helped by my boyfriend, who’d insisted on going with me. Normally, his presence would be welcome. After all, there’s no one I would want with me more in a dangerous situation than Ethan – and not only because he could run me out of danger in the blink of an eye.
Except today.
“What if she tries to melt your brain?” he asked, making a joke of it. “Or stabs you in the neck with one of those needle things?”
I gritted my teeth and bit back several curses I so desperately wanted to hurl at him. “If you don’t shut up, I might just melt your brain.”
“You won’t.”
“Don’t test me.”
I opened the door and the two of us entered the offices. Offices weren’t exactly the best way to describe where all the counselors sat. It was more of a series of cubicles, like in my dad’s office building. Nothing separated the counselors other than flimsy pieces of carpeted particleboard.
“Why did you want to come anyway?”
“Someone needs to protect you.”
It wasn’t the only reason. Ethan was still infatuated with the woman. But I appreciated his sentiment, so I said nothing.
The one true office in the whole room was used for conferences and housed a long table with eight chairs around it. Ms. Davidson sat at the head of that table.
I tried once more to get a read on her, but again she came up as a void, like she didn’t exist. I still couldn’t figure it out.
“Wait here,” I told Ethan, indicating a seat next to Dr. Wilson’s cubicle.
“No, I’m coming with you.”
“You can’t come. It would look too suspicious,” I said, not really thinking it would look at all suspicious if a boyfriend wanted to sit in a meeting with his girlfriend. “Besides, from here you can see the entire time. If something happens, you can be in there in less than a second.”
He looked like a five-year-old who was just told he couldn’t have his favorite toy, but didn’t protest.
“This shouldn’t be long.” I shot him an enthusiastic smile – exactly the opposite of how I felt. Despite Quinn’s confidence, this woman still felt dangerous.
“Christine, I’ve been so eager to meet with you,” she said with a big smile. She stood as I walked into the room, and held out her hand once again for me to shake.
I sat without hesitation. No way I’d get close enough for her to stick me with a needle.
She looked a little put out. Her smile faltered slightly and she lowered her hand, wiping it on her trousers. She shut the door to the conference room and sat again.
I hoped I only looked like a disgruntled teen who thought this meeting was a waste of time, rather than a super-powered teen trying to hide her special ability. I leaned back in the seat, folded my hands and looked at the ceiling. I think I pulled disgruntled off.
“Christine.” She opened the folder Mr. Philmore had given her earlier. “Do you mind if I call you Christine?”
“I don’t care,” I sighed, doing my best to sound annoyed rather than frightened.
“Christine, we have a problem. You seem like an intelligent girl. You’re grades before this year prove that. Since the seventh grade, you’ve earned mostly A’s and B’s. I see a few C’s here and there, but nothing that would cause me concern.”
I spun my chair as she talked. It wasn’t hard to fake boredom with this lecture. I’d gotten it already from my parents. I knew why my grades had suffered this year. That was the one thing I wouldn’t be talking to them, or her, about.
“You’ve only gotten one B this year: History. The rest have been C’s and D’s.”
I could definitely explain why I’d gotten a B in history. We’d gone over World War II for nearly five weeks at the end of the first semester – a subject I’d gone over in detail over and over again with my grandfather, and in my own research.
I’d actually turned up some interesting facts – like the fact that Hitler was looking for a way to make himself invincible, and if the formula for superpowers hadn’t been stolen from him, then he might have succeeded. That formula wasn’t the only thing he was after, either.
“Christine, are you listening to me?”
“No, sorry,” I said, almost meaning it. “I kinda zoned out.”
“Well, I asked you if you could explain what’s changed. Why have you let your grades fall so low, and why haven’t you been going to class like you’re supposed to? I show fifteen absences from your art and gym classes this semester alone. Are you leaving after lunch?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Actually, it was when we always saw the televisions outside the cafeteria. When they broadcast breaking news, we took off to help.
“Can you tell me why?”
It was time for one of the answers I’d rehearsed during art class. “I’ve been pretty stressed lately.” That was an absolutely true statement. “My mom had a baby the other day, and I’m going to have to quit my job to watch him so my mom can work, and I have a car to pay for, and I hardly ever get to see my friends now, so I don’t think I’m going to get to see them at all any more.”
Not entirely true, but at least it sounded like a normal teenaged problem.
One of her eyebrows arched in a quizzical manner, and she smirked. I didn’t get it – my excuse was perfectly logical. Did I just say logical? Kill me now! She should have believed it.
But she didn’t.
“So, your mother had a baby. Isn’t that supposed to be a joyous occasion?”
“I guess,” I admitted. “It’s just…everything’s gonna change. You know?”
Ugh. I can’t believe I’m confessing my feelings to a woman who wants to hurt me.
“Then why should that cause you stress? You should be happy.”
My blood began to boil. I wouldn’t let one of the real school counselors tell me how I should feel. I sure wasn’t going to let her tell me. My hands clenched around the arms of my chair. If I didn’t have a small amount of self-control, Abby Davidson would be wearing that chair already.
Instead of impaling her through the eye socket with the chair leg, I mustered up the best snotty teenager voice I could, and said, “Who are you to tell me how I should feel?”
“I think I’m the professional counselor,” she said, with that cheery smirk on her face.
“No, you’re not,” the words came out before I could stop them. I would have to beat myself later for that one.
It was just what she was waiting for.
“Why, whatever do you mean, Christine?”
“Nothing,” I said a little too quickly.
My heart raced, and I could feel a sheen of sweat on my forehead. I needed to calm down, before I revealed something I shouldn’t – or worse – accidentally used my powers.
“Why don’t you just tell me what’s really going on?” she asked in an overly polite voice. “We both know your new brother has nothing to do with your skipping class. I’m here to help you, Christine. You can trust me.”
And there it was. As far as I was concerned our verbal joust was over. We’d both slipped up – though my slip-up wasn’t as bad as hers.
“I never said my mom had a boy,” I said, trying my best to look confused – though I’m sure a bit of satisfaction showed through.
Davidson flipped through the folder nonchalantly. “I saw it in your file.”
“Oh,” I said, not believing her. And so the joust continues.
“Christine, I need you to trust me. Despite what you may think about me. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help you. But in order for me to help, we need to trust each other. Understand?”
Damn, she’s good. She almost had me convinced she was telling the truth.
“Trust needs to be earned.” Another perfectly normal, angry, teenage answer.
“Fair enough,” Davidson said. “We have the rest of the semester. We can work on that. Every day. After school.”
“I can’t. I just told you. I have to go home and watch my brother.”
“That’s okay. I can always come to your house for our meetings.”
“No!”
“Well, you said you can’t stay here to talk. I’m afraid it has to be one or the other. What will it be?”
Oh, she is REALLY good. She wasn’t giving me a choice. Either way, I’d have to keep seeing this horrible human being.
I stood up. “I’ll meet you here, after school, Monday.” At least I would have the weekend to come up with some kind of plan. “Can I go now?”
“Yes.”
A flood of relief washed over me. I’d made it through without revealing myself. But as I reached for the doorknob, my relief evaporated. “If you could send your friend Ethan in, I would appreciate it.”
“What?” I shouted. “Why?” If there was any doubt in my mind that she was on to all of us, then her wanting to see Ethan erased it.
“I’m sorry. I’m not authorized to speak to students about other students’ files.”
“But he’s–”
“Your friend. I know.” Her lips looked almost evil now, the way they curved up like a scythe, ready to slash. “I still can’t talk to you about it.”
I opened the door slowly. A sense of defeat fell upon me, and suddenly all my limbs felt like lead weights. As much as I loved Ethan, I knew if he talked to her, he would expose us all.
I walked directly toward him as fast as my heavy legs would carry me. He rose from the chair, giving me one of his stupid grins. “See, not so bad. Right?”
I grabbed his wrist and dragged him from the office. “We need to go. Now!”
Luckily, he didn’t argue, and we were out the door before Agent Davidson could catch us escaping.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“We have to talk to my grandfather.”
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