Resistance (The Variant Series #2) (7 page)

Her look of surprise evaporated. Alex rolled her eyes and pointed toward her closed bedroom door. “
Out
, Decks.”

“But I haven’t told you why I’m here yet,” he said, making his way to her desk. He pulled out the small, armless chair, spun it around and straddled it as he sat down, folding his arms over the back. “And besides, you still need to tell me what happened in art today when I was taking that call.”

Sighing heavily, Alex ran a hand through her hair. She sat down on the edge of her made-up bed. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“Bullshit.”

She frowned, but didn’t reply.

Declan’s gaze shifted to the iPod on the bed behind her. The music coming from the earbuds had changed to the Nelly song ‘Just A Dream.’ Interesting mix she had going there.

“It’s on shuffle,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. Guess Alex didn’t need the connection in place to be able to read him. He wished she was half as easy to gauge.

“What happened with Jessica, Alex?” he asked.

She fell back onto her bed, staring at the ceiling so that she wouldn’t have to look at him. “Why are you even asking? Didn’t Kenzie already tell you?”

Her voice didn’t sound angry, just resigned.

“I’m asking, because the others are worried about you,” he said. When she didn’t reply, he nudged her bare foot with his boot and tried for honesty instead. “Because
I’m
worried about you.”

“Ack.” She jerked her foot back. “Your boots are wet.”

Alex turned her face toward him, but didn’t answer his question. He took the opportunity to study her a little more closely.

She’d been crying. There was a telltale puffiness and a fading red sheen to the whites of her eyes.

“I’m fine, Decks,” she said. “No worries.”

“You’re not fine.”

She frowned. “I can handle it.”

“You shouldn’t let her get to you like this,” he said.

“Last I checked, you were being paid to babysit
me, not act as my therapist.”

God, he hated the B-word.

“Bodyguard,” he corrected.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Decks.” Her smile was wry.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, deciding it was time to change the subject. “In case you were wondering, that phone call I received this afternoon was from Oz.”

“Ozzie called you?” Alex sat up again. “Why?”

Over the course of the next few minutes, Declan explained that Ozzie—the reclusive genius he’d only ever seen through a wall of monitors in an empty London flat—had called to negotiate the terms of a job Declan had for him.

In the end, Ozzie agreed to cross-reference Bay View High’s current list of students and faculty with Agency files of known Variants.

The results? Well, Bay View beat the odds with an almost unheard of
five
Variants on campus—but three of those five were Kenzie, Alex, and Declan himself. As for the other two, one was a freshman Alex had never seen before and the other was a janitor that worked nights, long after Alex had gone home.

She was officially safe to roam the halls again without much worry.

Of course, that information hadn’t come cheap. Ozzie was now holding the promise of a future favor from Declan over his head, in exchange for services rendered.

“What kind of favors does a guy like Oz ask for, anyway?” she mused.

Declan had a pretty good idea, but he wasn’t about to share that idea with Alex. He shrugged instead. “It’s no big deal.”

“Actually,” she said, “it is. This is exactly what I needed.” Alex set aside the photographic print-outs of the freshman and the janitor and graced him with a relieved smile. “Thank you, Declan.”

In that moment, he realized that no matter how troublesome Ozzie’s favor turned out to be, it wouldn’t matter. He’d still make the same deal a thousand times over.

He got to his feet. “See you in the morning?”

She nodded.

Relaxing for the first time since he woke up that day, Declan jumped.

— 6 —

“K
ick me under the table one more time, Runt,” said Cassie, eyes narrowed at her little brother. “See what happens.”

Runt’s swinging legs stilled for a moment.

But only for a moment.

“Ow!
Dammit
, Runt,” said Cassie’s older brother, Tom. “Don’t kick
me
, either, unless you want to miss your next birthday.”

“Dollar in the swear jar, Thomas,” said their father, studiously refusing to look up from his plate of arroz con pollo.

Cassie couldn’t really blame him. If he looked up, he’d be forced to take inventory of what was happening on the battlefield that was their kitchen table. Easier just to ignore it.

Probably safer that way, too.

“Oh, come
on
, Dad,” Tom protested around a mouthful of food. He pointed at Runt with his cornbread. “He freaking kicked me!”

“Swear jar,” their father repeated, stabbing a piece of chicken with his fork. “Dollar.”

Runt’s swinging foot connected with the nearest leg of the kitchen table and he smiled at the sound it made. His gaze zeroed in on one of the bowls across the table. “Hey, can someone pass the black beans?”

“Don’t give him the beans, Dad,” said Runt’s twin brother, Danny, with a panicked shake of his head. “If you pass him those beans, I’ll have to wear a gas mask to bed tonight ’cause the Runt will be passing
SBD
’s out of his leaky butt until morning.”

Well, now
.

There was an appetizing thought.

Cassie lowered her fork and dropped the tiny mound of yellow rice back onto her plate.

Had she been born an only child like her best friend Alex, Cassie probably wouldn’t have known what SBD even stood for.

And she
certainly
wouldn’t be aware of just how pressing Danny’s concerns regarding his twin brother’s bowl habits were, because she would have been blissfully ignorant of just how toxic an eleven-year-old boy’s
silent but deadly
gases could get.

“
Daniel
,” their father chided. “We don’t talk like that at the table. Matthew, put your cell phone away. And Runt—I mean, Taylor—
take the bowl
, for god’s sake. It’s burning my hand.”

Runt finally took hold of the bowl his father was offering.

Beside him, Danny sank back into his chair with a disgruntled, “Really?
Really
? Come
on
, Dad! You don’t have to share a room with him tonight!”

Just another typical evening in the Harper household.

Cassie sighed.

Family dinners in this place were about as relaxing as a root canal. And usually twice as loud.

The twins—Danny and Runt (whose given name was Taylor, though only their parents ever remembered to use it)—were making faces and obscene gestures at each other while their father wasn’t looking, and their fourteen-year-old brother, Matthew, was busy texting someone on the cell phone he’d concealed beneath his napkin.

Next to Cassie and at the end of the table, Tom—the eldest Harper child—sat glowering at his enchilada and muttering a string of curse words under his breath that was being drowned out by the repetitive
thunk-thunk-thunk
of Runt’s foot knocking against the table leg.

Cassie, meanwhile, sat slouched in her chair, chin cupped in her hand, poking dejectedly at the scraps of food on her plate and counting down the minutes until she might be excused from the table.

It was bad enough she’d been forced to suffer through an afternoon of babysitting the twins. Getting suckered into staying home for dinner tonight instead of going to check on Alex was only adding insult to injury.

She snuck a glance at her own cell phone, which she’d hidden in the folds of her gray skirt.

Still no reply from Alex—but she did have five new texts from Aiden.

Raising an eyebrow, she checked her message inbox and fought back a smile at what she found waiting for her.

Today
6:32
P.M
.

S
HE WALKS IN BEAUTY, LIKE THE NIGHT

O
F CLOUDLESS CLIMES AND STARRY SKIES;

A
ND ALL THAT’S BEST OF DARK AND BRIGHT

M
EET IN HER ASPECT AND HER EYES;

T
HUS MELLOWED TO THAT TENDER LIGHT

W
HICH HEAVEN TO GAUDY DAY DENIES
.

Today
6:47
P.M
.

C
HRIST.

I
GNORE THAT TEXT FROM EARLIER.
K
ENZIE HACKED MY PHONE.

BRB
.
G
OTTA GO AVENGE THE LOSS OF MY LATEST PASSWORD.
A
ND MAYBE MY MANHOOD, TOO, CAUSE DAMN
.

Today
6:55
P.M
.

I
F YOU NEED TO TALK TO RED TONIGHT, CALL THE HOUSE LINE.
T
URNS OUT, HER PHONE DOESN’T REACT SO WELL TO POOL WATER.

“I’m in hell,” Tom was muttering to no one in particular. “Forget the mundane horrors of balancing my eighteen credit hours at the University with a full-time job. This—this
dinner table—
is the very definition of hell on Earth.”

Cassie palmed her cell and glanced up—only to realize that the entire table had dissolved into chaos while she’d been distracted.

Beside her, Tom was shaking his head slowly. “I’m going to be ninety-five and on my deathbed and I’ll still be having nightmares about our family dinners.”

At some point, Runt had made the mistake of kicking Matthew, who, apparently, had responded with a swift kick of his own that left Runt wailing as though he’d just been mortally wounded. Danny’s laughter at his twin’s distress quickly sparked a fight between the twin brothers, who had turned in their seats and were now duking it out in earnest.

Judging from the cheers, Matthew was rooting for Danny. Had there been more of a crowd, he probably would have started taking bets.

Runt’s milk had been the first battlefield casualty and was now making its way across the table, in a mad dash for the edges and a gravity-assisted trek to the hardwood floor.

Their father—looking more defeated than Cassie had seen him in ages—had given up on trying to mediate the mayhem and now sat at the head of the table, sporting a rather
epic
facepalm.

Probably wishing his wife hadn’t taken that extra shift at the hospital tonight.

Cassie’s mom was the only person on the planet capable of maintaining order amongst the troops at the dinner table. Cassie’s father, bless him, just didn’t command the same sense of authority.

Her brothers had sniffed out that weakness like natural-born bloodhounds and were once again using it to their advantage.

Cassie sighed.

Danny’s glass of water had just been added to the ranks of the fallen, giving Runt’s milk the final push it needed to breach the edges of the table.

That was her cue.

“May I be excused?” she asked.

No one seemed to hear.

Cassie took it as a yes, anyway, grabbed her plate, and fled to the kitchen before her father could call her back into the fray.

She’d done her tour. Now it was time for some well-earned leave.

Cassie climbed the stairs to the second floor and closed the door to her bedroom firmly behind her. Moments later, her cell phone started vibrating insistently against her palm.

Put off by the unfamiliar number on the screen, she answered with a hesitant, “Hello?”

“It’s me,” said Kenzie. “Had to use the house phone.”

Smiling, Cassie crossed to the large round folding chair set up in the corner of her room between her bed and the wall, just beneath her tiny window that looked out onto the backyard. She sank into the oversized pink cushions.

“I heard,” she said. “Something about pool water and revenge.”

Kenzie snorted. “I was only trying to help him. I mean,
poetry
! In a
text
! Who doesn’t love that crap?”

Cassie laughed. “Heard from Alex yet?”

“Nah, but Decks said she’ll be fine. She’ll talk to
him
, apparently, but not us.” Kenzie huffed. “Which is nine kinds of ridiculous, if you ask me.”

Cassie sighed. “Yeah, well. Knowing Declan, he probably didn’t give her much choice in the matter. She’s okay though?”

“She’s okay.”

In the past, Jessica’s torments usually prompted Alex to retreat into herself for a while until she’d dealt with the pain, and Cassie had slowly learned that the best thing to do was to simply wait it out.

But with everything
else
going on these days, Cassie was no longer certain if the hands-off approach was still the right way to help her friend.

Cassie couldn’t stand guard over the girl 24/7, and so altercations like this one with Jessica were bound to happen every so often.

At least, they would until Alex learned to stand up for herself—or until Cassie finally convinced Declan to use his jumping ability to drop the evil wench into an active volcano somewhere.

“So have you called him back yet?” asked Kenzie, changing the subject.

“Who, Aiden? No. Not yet.”

“And why the hell not?”

Cassie picked at the sewn edges of the circular cushion. Why not, indeed?

It’s not that she didn’t want to. Aiden was the sort of guy Cassie had always hoped to meet someday. The sort of guy that just didn’t exist in Bay View.

But Mr. Perfect had arrived on the scene with more than a few unexpected risks attached.

And Cassie wasn’t quite sure what to do about those just yet.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Just haven’t gotten around to it, I guess.”

“You know what I see?” asked Kenzie. “I see two people who are absolutely crazy about each other… And
one
that’s too scared to give it a chance.”

Rubbing her forehead tiredly, Cassie closed her eyes. “Are we really going to have this conversation over the phone?”