Destiny and Deception (17 page)

I looped an arm in hers and towed her to the side of the classroom. “Whoa. Soph. So, you’re, like, what? Coaching these kids? We stood in that hallway listening in on you-know-who—”

“Voldemort?” she teased.

“Might as well be, considering the level of crazy we’re all mired in,” I returned. “And you—what are
you?
”

She stood nearly nose-to-nose with me, keeping a wary watch over my shoulder to make sure nothing went wrong. “I sort of coach … I’m more like an enforcer? An overseer?”

“I guess I’m—”

She shouted over my shoulder, “Sam—don’t close your eyes—”

BOOM
.

—just a little too late.

Sophie leaped past me, clipboard clattering to the concrete floor as she grabbed a fire extinguisher and doused the desk that had suddenly burst into flames.

“Stunned,” I concluded.

“Next time, keep your eyes open when you try to set something on fire—it’s called
aiming
,” Sophie said, shaking the stunned boy’s shoulder.

“Next time,” the girl with the orange said, waving her pink slip in the air at him, “aim that blast right here.”

Sophie shook her head and whispered to me, “I’d hate to be around when Samuel starts staring at some pretty girl and thinking, Man, she’s
hot
.… She might suddenly be hot in a far more literal fashion.” She rolled her eyes. “Okay, everyone. I think it’s time for a break. Pull out your silent reading books and take a seat.”

“Really? Silent reading?”

“Reading opens your mind to possibilities,” she justified. “Until a couple weeks ago—maybe a couple months, in your case—none of us had any clue that any of this was even a possibility. But now?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, thinking back. “I guess that makes sense. So, are all these kids affected because of the school lunch program?”

She shrugged. “At this point that’s our best guess. It’s not impossible that a few students with latent abilities would’ve triggered with the onset of puberty, but we think even those have been greatly enhanced by whatever’s being fed to the students.”

“So it connects back to the food.”

“Yes.”

“Anything else we know about the food and its impact on the students?”

“That on days they serve burritos, Sam’s fireballs become a touch more …
explosive?
”

“Everyone gets a bit more explosive on burrito day,” I quipped, “regardless of the suspicious nature of the additives.”

She pursed her lips.

“And the other part of the
we?
This is Harnek’s pet project, right?”

Down the stairs I heard the click of high heels coming and a moment before I saw the woman, I identified her by the signature color of shoes she favored.

“Ms. Harnek. Hunch confirmed.”

She froze a second, assessed the situation, and then allowed a smile to cross her lips. “It shouldn’t surprise me that someone like you has stumbled into our midst, should it, Jessie?”

“By someone like me, do you mean
nosy?
”

“I prefer to think of you as tremendously inquisitive.” She winked. She surveyed the room again and held her hand out for Sophie’s clipboard, trailing her gaze along the list of names and notes. “Interesting. Dear sweet Samuel.” She shook her head as she headed toward him. “I know what the cafeteria was serving today and it wasn’t any product with a significant bean count. Explain your lack of control.”

He looked up from his copy of
Firestarter
and started to open his mouth, and my attention returned to Sophie.

“So. Harnek?”

“… has an intriguing history,” Soph admitted.

“I hear you,” Harnek warned over her shoulder.

“I thought teachers and staff were only supposed to have
eyes
in the back of their heads,” Sophie retorted.

“You mentioned my intriguing history,” Harnek quipped. “Let’s not bring my ex-husbands into this.”

“Ha!” Soph grinned. “I like working with you, you know?”

“You’d better, because there sure as heck isn’t a paycheck coming with this gig,” Harnek returned. She turned her focus back to Sam, her hands clutching the scorched desk as she leaned over to have a private conversation.

“Harnek was one of the last staff members in part of a special—and very hush-hush—Duke University program that ran in conjunction with the Rhine Research Center. It was designed to identify and train teens and preteens with special abilities. Harnek got placed here as a counselor—”

“Which I’m
more
than qualified to be,” Harnek added, clicking her way back across the concrete to us, “but the idea was I’d hang out here a while and scout the locals. Even then, Junction had a higher than average number of reports of the paranormal kind.… Ever hear of Susie Fenstermacher?”

Oddly enough, I had. “The kid who could produce socks out of thin air?” I snorted.

“The same. Some kids cry glass, some dream-walk,” Harnek pointed out. “But Susie manifested socks. And not just any socks—matching pairs—talk about a useful, but weird, ability.” She shrugged.

“I could’ve used her on laundry days,” I muttered.

“I’ve seen you shoeless on days other than laundry days. You could’ve used Susie a lot,” Soph muttered.

Harnek continued. “Anyhow, researching Susie was one of the main reasons I got this gig.”

“Seriously?”

“Susie was a viable point of study. Hey, it was the eighties—there was so much aerosol in the air from maintaining big hair, it’s a wonder anyone could think straight.”

“I’ve seen pictures.”

“I’ve
been
in those pictures—and I
liked
it,” she reported with a smile that snapped into place.

“So you came to Junction to track down the weirdness and study the people?”

“It was that, and a bit more. The government—well, the military specifically—has always wanted to know about every single asset we could possibly employ: the more bizarre, the more covert, the better. So psychic studies and paranormal research were hot. Sure, people imagined some of the stuff we encountered, but mostly its existence was only rumored. And the idea small-town America, full of the salt of the earth—the common people—could be so rich with paranormal diversity … well, we
hoped
but we never guessed there’d be this much. That’s the amazing thing: Fact truly is stranger than fiction.”

I pointed to the students who’d gradually put down their books and returned to testing their newfound abilities. “Is this what you expected—what you hoped for?”

“No,” she admitted. “This was never part of any plan I was aware of. But it’s happened. Kids have been affected. So now they need to be trained.”

“Trained for what? Military usage?”

She shook her head. “I hope not, though I think that may be in the works. It’s not on my agenda, though. Here I’m just trying to get them to use their powers enough so they can control them. So they can be safe.” Looking down at the toes of her brightly colored shoes, she added, “Beyond that, they can train for whatever. To fight oppression, to defend democracy—”

“An assault against terrorism using floating citrus hardly sounds do-able,” I said. “I mean, have you seen the price of oranges recently?”

Harnek blinked, but the smile never strayed from her lips. “They don’t need to be our heroes. We shouldn’t expect that sort of dedication or sacrifice from anyone but ourselves.” She shrugged. “You of all people know that there’s far more we don’t know than what we
do
know. And these kids”—she looked at Sophie—“
all
need the best chance they can get. At survival. We’ve tampered too much with things. I’m just trying to make our mistakes survivable.”

“Are they?” I asked. She had to know I was referring to the girl who was wheeled into Pecan Place on a stretcher and exploded. “Are these mistakes survivable?”

Her eyes darkened. “I hope so. All I can do is my best.”

“Tell them not to eat the school food,” I suggested.

Harnek looked at Sophie.

“I don’t eat it,” she confessed. “I’m still doing what I was doing.”

“But you were pushed by Derek. He was your catalyst. That’s gotta be different. What if once you’ve been triggered, that’s it?” I asked. “What if you don’t need to keep being exposed to the catalyst again and again? What if overexposure is…”

“Deadly,” Harnek said, her voice soft. “You aspiring authors and your what-ifs.”

“You need to put an end to this. You told Perlson no about the additional supplement—face him down about the additive, too,” I urged.

Harnek pressed her lips into a thin line.

Sophie whispered, “What if coming out so openly about all this gets her removed from the picture?”

“Killed?” I asked Sophie.

Harnek paled. “
Killed?
”

I snorted. “You’re running with quite an organization, you know? I’ve been shot at a bunch. Grazed, even.”

“I meant they’d
fire
her,” Soph said with a roll of her eyes. “Make it look like a budget cut.”

“Like they’d ever remove a guidance counselor from a middle school or high school,” I muttered. “Parents are the first ones to say their tweens and teens need help.”

“Schools cut teachers all the time, and what are schools supposed to be doing?
Teaching
,” Sophie responded.

“Good point.”

“So let’s not wrongly equate the needs of the students with the designs of the administration—or any school board.”

I shrugged, agreeing. “So she might lose her job. Wouldn’t it be worth it to warn the student body about something so potentially dangerous?”

“Still standing right here, girls. Besides, losing my job would make it harder to keep up with the students and make sure they’re taken care of. Now, at least, I’m in the
heart
of the operation.”

The boiler grumbled.

“Or its unruly gut,” Harnek muttered. “You have to excuse me, girls. This whole thing can make you a bit crazy. I’m definitely at the ‘If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry’ stage.” She sighed. “Besides”—she signaled us to lean in—“there haven’t been any more deaths since that one at Pecan Place. I truly think this can be handled.”

“As long as Perlson doesn’t sneak in the supplement,” I said.

Harnek’s eyes narrowed. “You were right before.”

“About what?”

“About being nosy.” But she reached out to us and threw her arms around us, drawing us away from the other students. “But that nosiness? It might be an advantage.…”

Alexi

I pulled into the broad parking lot and took a deep breath before looking at the building that sprawled ahead of me, marked by one large sign that read
GOLDEN OAKS ADULT DAY CARE AND RETIREMENT CENTER
.

Over the weeks I had grown bolder, driving the car a row or two closer to the entrance before parking and sitting in a contemplative silence.

It was just a building housing many older people. Why should I even care?

I glared at its stoic brick face.

Although I did not know why I cared, I knew at least that I
did
care. That although Hazel Feldman was far from being the mother I knew and loved, she was my mother. Should that not count for something?

But I was not ready to meet her or speak to her. I was not able to yet face the truth enough that she might see it and know it. That I did care. It showed up in my anger and frustration. In the way I warred with Max over petty things, some part of me always remembering that
he
was the eldest Rusakova.

Some part of me remembering I was merely a fraud.

But how could I meet her and not accidentally let her know that even in abandoning me she had still
affected
me? Deep down I knew that eventually meeting her was inevitable.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Marlaena

I’d never been much for sticking to the shadows, especially in my human skin, so the request to get together in a dim alley sucked. “You wanted to meet me?” I raised an eyebrow at the man in the shadows, his attempt at anonymity in the poorly lit alley nearly worthless considering my superior night vision and my sense of smell. And this man’s scent was distinct: humanity tainted with cheap cigarettes, cheaper cologne, and vodka—
lots
of vodka. I’d recognize him just by his stink. His scent coated the inside of my nostrils like pollution crawling into carefully maintained airducts.

“
Da
,” he said, his eyes scanning me.

“Well, here I am.” I clapped my hands in front of me and pushed out one hip to rest a hand on it.

He blinked, startled but unimpressed.

“You are one of them?” he asked.

“One of who?”

“The oborot.”

“Ober-
what?
”

“Oborot: ones transformed.” He stepped into the light. Muscular and significantly older than me, he had short-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair, and eyes that looked like they had seen everything life had to offer—good and bad—twice. “Werewolves.”

“Ohhh.
Werewolves
. Yeah.” I straightened. “Yeah. I’m not just
one
of them—I’m the
best
of them,” I said, shooting him a narrow look. “But before we go any further, exactly who are
you?
”

“A man with significant ties and money who is looking for some people—
independent contractors
—with special abilities and a desire to make some fast cash under the table.”

“Under the table. Of course. Go on.”

“Things will be dangerous.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and nodded.

“Certain situations will become violent.”

I shrugged.

“There may even be a need—from time to time—to break a few laws.” He went silent, watching me with hooded eyes.

A few long minutes passed.

“Did I tell you to
stop
talking?”

He barked out a short laugh. “So we shall do business?”

“You keep my pack sheltered, clothed, and fed—well fed—and I think we can reach an agreement.”