Freaks of Greenfield High (14 page)

“You got that right,” Tyler said. “I didn’t realize— Shit, Jay. Shawn’s no lightweight. How’d you do that?”

“Yeah, how’d you
do
that?” Caro’s voice was reduced to a high-pitched squeak.

“As I explained to your mother, it’s simply a matter of leverage and training,” Jay said.

“Oh. Okay.” Caro appeared to have accepted her explanation.

“Martial arts, huh?” Tyler said.

“Yes. It’s not difficult to pull off what appears to be an astounding feat of strength if you know the correct techniques.”

“Cool,” was Tyler’s final verdict. “Wouldn’t mind you giving me some pointers in case
I
ever have to take out some trash.”

“It would be my pleasure,” Jay said, meaning it. The prospect of being physically close to Tyler—having an excuse to touch him as she wished, teach him some of what she knew—elevated her heart rate until she was convinced its frantic thudding must be obvious to both him and Caro. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

“Whoa,” Caro said. “I still can’t believe Nessa posted this clip. ‘Boy Wonder Left Wondering’. Ouch. Even the title kinda makes Shawn out to be a dick—remember that suck-up newspaper reporter called him Greenfield High’s Boy Wonder?”

“Yeah,” Tyler said. “I remember. He took all the credit for our last win.”

“And if Shawn’s pissed about this,” Caro said, “you can bet Bettina will take her cue from him. Nessa might have uploaded this to get back at you, Tyler, but she really didn’t think it through at all. B’ll probably kick her off the squad. What the heck is up with her lately?”

Jay wasn’t interested enough in Vanessa’s fate to bother commenting. She hacked into the site, expertly bypassing the firewalls and all the security protocols. Within seconds she found what she was looking for, the file path for the video clip upload. “This laptop is incredibly slow. I gather you’ve nothing more powerful?”

Tyler snorted. “You gather right. It’s one of Dad’s old ones. He was gonna rebuild it for me but—” He puffed out a disgusted breath. “Can’t afford anything else. That a problem?”

Jay shook her head. “No. I’ll deal with it permanently when I get home. In the meantime, I’ll ensure no one else can view the clip by making it appear to be a faulty upload.”

“If you can do
that
,” he said, “why don’t you just delete the damn clip altogether, right this instant?”

“I could. But I don’t want the interference traced back to me, so it’s best I use my own computer. I also have a program I can use to trace the views to their point of origin to confirm they’re all local.”

He considered what she’d said, his gaze so intent, so incisive, she could well picture it cutting right through her outer shell to search for the soul beneath. Except Jay did not possess a soul. And for the first time since her creation, she felt herself lacking—less than human, instead of more.

She didn’t try to hide herself from Tyler. She let him read what he could in her face. And waited for him to ask what he so desperately wanted to ask.

Caro’s gaze darted between Jay and her brother, confusion obvious in her furrowed brow and parted lips. “Huh? Did I miss something?”

“No.” Tyler managed a smile. “You just about done, Jay?”

She turned back to the monitor and began manipulating code. “There.” She exited the site. “Caro, try searching and opening the clip now.” She relinquished the chair and took a seat on the edge of the bed, leaning back to rest on her elbows.

While his sister was occupied, Tyler chewed his lip and not-so-covertly contemplated Jay. He wandered over and plunked himself down next to her. After a glance at Caro, he leaned in to whisper in Jay’s ear. “You’re not just doing this for me, are you?”

“What makes you say that?” she whispered back, throwing out the question to test what Tyler thought he knew.

“You gonna tell me why you need to go to all this trouble?” He hissed the question from the corner of his mouth. “Or am I gonna have to employ some devious means of torture to get it out of you?”

A genuine smile ghosted Jay’s lips. She liked that he was intelligent enough to figure out she was hiding something, and courageous enough to call her on it. She levered herself up and leaned toward Tyler to brush his hair back from his ear. “Let’s just say,” she murmured, “there are people out there who have an unhealthy interest in some research my father was doing before he died.”

Her lips grazed his earlobe, and he shivered.

Interesting. Or perhaps that should be “cool”.

“I get it,” he said. “They think you’re some whiz-kid who knows all about your dad’s research or something.”

An ironic statement, given that Jay
was
her father’s research. “I’m a computer genius and these people want what they think I know.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t appear bothered by any of this.”

He shrugged. “I knew you were something out of the ordinary the first time I saw you.”

Jay had never had cause to analyze this kind of intimacy before. It appeared Tyler’s physical reactions were in response to her touch rather than the content of what she was saying. To be completely certain, she repeated the experiment, skimming her lips across the sensitive area where his earlobe met his jaw line.

“Likewise,” she murmured against his skin, inhaling the odor of his hair gel mingling with a particular scent that was uniquely Tyler. “I knew you were extraordinary, too.”

The fine hairs on the nape of his neck rose and his breath hitched. “Th-these people. They’re like, bad people?”

“They’ve done some questionable things in the past and I’d prefer not to have them know where I am. Can I trust you, Tyler?”

Again he shivered. And his indrawn breath was released in a series of small shuddering gasps.

She would take that as an affirmative.

As Jay analyzed his physical reactions, she found herself dwelling on her own. Her pulse and breathing rate had accelerated. She felt—

What did she feel, exactly?

On edge, with her perceptions heightened and unnatural warmth suffusing her body. Mildly dizzy, with a peculiar buzzing in her head. Her senses were swamped with so much sensory input she was forced to continually override her brain’s directive to enter shut-down mode to fully process the data. And the only catalyst she could think of that might cause such anomalies was the human boy beside her. Tyler. She wondered what it would be like to press her lips to his, to kiss him properly, thoroughly, as she’d seen intimate human couples do. She wondered whether he’d let her.

She blinked rapidly, forcing her mind away from his fascinating physical responses. And her own.

Tyler’s body, so close to hers, fairly thrummed with the questions he wanted to ask, but he said only, “Yes. You can trust me.” He dared a glance at her then, his face upturned, gaze locked with hers as he sought her hand and squeezed it gently. “I won’t tell anyone. Not even Caro.”

“Thank you.”

“Yee-ha!” Caro pumped a fist in the air and whirled her chair to face them. “Tried everything I can think of but the clip won’t open. Guess your ass is saved from the toaster, brother-mine.”

Her glee morphed to a crinkled frown when she registered Jay’s close proximity to her brother. And the way Tyler had ducked his head to hide flushed cheeks. A knowing little grin spread across her face. “Would you two like some privacy or something?”

“Shut up, Caro,” Tyler said.

“Yes. Shut up, Caro.” Jay quirked her lips into a smile to take the sting from her words.

“We need to figure out what to do about Matt and Vanessa,” Tyler said, in a blatant attempt to distract his sister. “Bet my right arm the clip’s still on their phones. And there’re a few choice things I’d sure like to say to them both—especially Vanessa.”

Caro favored her brother with a narrow-eyed, thoughtful gaze. “Some secret history between Nessa and you I should know about?”

He dropped his gaze to his sneakers and bent to fiddle with the laces… which were perfectly adequately tied, so far as Jay could see. “I’m just pissed this clip has gone public,” he said.

“Right.” Caro didn’t sound convinced but she let it slide.

Jay considered doing some digging to see what she could learn about any continuing relationship Vanessa and Tyler might have. She decided against it. It wouldn’t be prudent to draw attention to herself by asking questions about Vanessa. Or indeed, any Snapperton resident.

“I’m thinking we need to go at this from another angle,” Caro said, her distant gaze and deliberate speech cueing Jay that she was still thinking something through. “It’s what’s
on
the clip that’s the problem, right?”

“Well, duh.” Tyler rolled his eyes.

“Got it!” Caro snapped her fingers and pushed the chair into a wobbly spin. “We change the way people think of the original clip.”

Jay blinked, unable to comprehend her logic. She stared at Caro, reviewing everything she knew about Tyler’s sister in an attempt to understand her thought processes. But Caro’s triumphant grin and eager gaze held no revealing clues.

Could Caro, a teenage girl whose test scores highlighted an above average IQ, but certainly nothing in the realms of Jay’s abilities, really have conceived the perfect plan to diffuse this situation?

Something fluttered low in Jay’s abdomen, an unsettling sensation. How could she have failed so completely? Her systems were in flux, and no longer reliable. What was happening to her?

Tyler groaned, rubbing his temples with his fingertips. “I give up. What the hell are you going on about? And I’d quit that spinning ’cause I think the chair’s gonna give up the ghost and you might end up dumped on your butt.”

Jay inhaled and exhaled slowly. Tyler hadn’t comprehended his sister’s reasoning, either. That was some comfort, at least.

Caro planted both feet on the floor and leaned forward, eager to share her idea. “We make out the whole fight was staged. Like, to showcase Jay’s mad martial arts skills. Then no one, not Principal Harris, or anyone, can punish Tyler. Plus, Shawn’s sure to go for it, ’cause he won’t look like a total dick if he’s supposedly volunteered to go Dumpster diving, right? Whaddya think, guys?” Her eyes shone with misplaced enthusiasm.

Tyler appeared to be taking his sister’s solution seriously. For all of ten seconds. His gaze skittered to Jay. “One problem, sis. Even if we convinced Shawn to play along with that version, Jay’s not so keen on going public with her awesome dump ’em in the Dumpster skills.”

Tyler understood more than he let on. And for once, Jay was content to sit back and let someone else do the work for her. Father might have called it manipulation. Jay labeled it trust. She trusted Tyler implicitly. His reasoning might be based on incomplete information, but he had her best interests at heart.

“Why not?” Caro was saying, her bottom lip protruding in a pout. “If I could pull a stunt like that, I’d be making sure I was all over the news. I’d be a freakin’ celebrity!”

“You’d be a freak, all right.” Tyler traced an invisible pattern on the bed’s comforter. With evident reluctance he met his sister’s gaze. “Look. Caro. Why should Jay even have to do this for me, huh? She barely knows me. And you inviting her for dinner to make up for Vanessa’s crappy behavior hardly makes you two best-friends-forever, either. If Jay doesn’t want to turn herself into a public freak-show, then that’s that. End of story.”

Caro surged to her feet, throwing him a baleful glare. “Leave Nessa out of this. I’ll be giving her hell over this stunt of hers first thing tomorrow, you can be sure of that. And if Jay doesn’t consider herself my friend, then she’d be straight up and tell me. Right, Jay?”

Jay nodded, intrigued by the dynamics of the argument. “Yes, I’d be straight with you.” About that, at least.

“So I don’t see what the big deal is, bro.”

Tyler levered himself from the bed, his features twisting into a truly impressive sneer that Jay resolved to try to emulate when she was alone with a mirror. “The trouble with you, Caro, is you’re so tied up in your own little world, you can’t see what an awkward situation we’ve put Jay in.” Fists clenched at his sides, his lower jaw thrust out, he faced down his sister.

This was no case of one-upmanship or sibling rivalry. Tyler was standing up for her, trying to protect her. Again. And a part of her, the part Jay’s logical brain had labeled a malfunction, was so touched by his gesture that she didn’t even consider the irony of a cyborg needing any protection whatsoever from a mere human.

“Tyler.” She placed a cautionary hand on his forearm and marveled at the warmth of him, the concern she could almost see vibrating over his body. “It’s all right. I think I need to tell Caro the truth.”

“You sure?” He searched her face.

“Yes.”

“What’s going on?” Caro’s gaze switched from her brother to Jay, and back to her brother, unsure who best deserved to be rewarded with her glare.

“My father was working on some top-secret research for a private company,” Jay told her. “I’m pretty much a genius when it comes to computers, so he co-opted me to collate all his data and research notes and write software programs for him. We were unofficial research partners until he died. And now there’s a rival organization who want very badly to get their hands on his research. If I were to be identified on such a public domain, they would be able to track me down.”