Revive (10 page)

Naturally, I follow the signs for a parking garage and exit the hospital without any trace of them. My phone, tucked in my jacket pocket, hasn't gone off, so I hope that means Kyle is okay and on his way to the coffee shop. I need to get down to ground level and do the same.

Sucking in a lungful of cold, exhaust-filled air, I look around. The stairs are to my right. I start toward them, wondering if it would have been better to stay in the warmth longer, but the hospital was making me claustrophobic. Out here in the cold, it's like my body can expand.

I wrap my fingers around the phone, considering texting Kyle with an update when an SUV turns the corner. Though the car has plenty of room to get around me, it stops. I don't recognize the driver, but I know this can't be good.

Without waiting to see if I'm wrong, I let my subconscious take over and I run in the direction of the hospital entrance. A car door slams behind me. Someone yells my name—the Sophia one.

Looks like my tails' reinforcements have finally arrived.

Chapter Nine

Eight Weeks Ago

I motion to Audrey and Yen with the hand signals I taught them, and we crouch in a thicket of rhododendrons and scraggly maples no higher than my waist. Not far ahead, the ground slopes up toward one of the two wood bridges that cross the creek at the center of RTC's campus. During the spring, the creek supposedly flows with water, but now the bed is dry.

Good thing since that's how we've managed to sneak this close to the bridge without being seen.

One boy and one girl from the Dead Philosophers team lean on the rails, discussing their history exam. Unknown to them, four members of the Red Ridings—a team named after the school mascot—are approaching. Our group, the Good Expectations, is waiting for their arrival.

The Fall Games are in full swing, and the annual Capture the Flag game is the favorite event of almost everyone. This amuses me. Where I'm from, games like this have far more serious repercussions than scoring or losing points. I've been playing variations on it since I was five, and even then I knew it was far more than a game.

It was, in a very literal way, going to be my life.

Still, I'm no longer surprised by RTC's quirks—excuse me, traditions—or how seriously everyone takes them. Whether it's the senior class boys' annual naked run across campus, the underground and unofficial drinking clubs, and the most beloved and totally school-approved Games—RTC has its own culture. I might think the Games are silly, but at least I get the point of competition.

The naked run and the obsession with alcohol? Not so much.

Clearly growing impatient, Yen looks at me, so I stick my head up, searching for signs of the approaching group. Thirty teams of fifteen people each signed up for the Games this semester. Today, four teams have been matched for this round. Each has a prize to hide and protect. Each team member is marked by the flags we wear around our waists. Our team is blue. Every prize captured counts for points. Every flag captured also counts, and any player who loses their two flags is out of the game.

I guess no one's explained to the school that it's hard to do camouflage properly when you're wearing brightly colored flags.

I shake my head at Yen and settle back. She scowls, bouncing on her heels. Yen's strategy, I've been told, is the same every semester—run into the opposing team's territory and try to eliminate as many people as possible by stealing their flags. My strategy, which is something I once successfully used back home, is a bit more complicated. I must have sounded like I knew what I was talking about because my team immediately decided that would be our plan.

To be fair, I do know what I'm talking about, not that I had intended to throw my experience around. It goes against that whole blending-in thing. Never had I expected people would consider me a genius for suggesting a strategy I'd used when I was ten. What had been an achievement then seems pretty dim-witted now. But only to me, apparently.

In the future, I have to be more careful about that sort of thing. I still forget sometimes that things I know, or skills that come easily to me, make me stick out. I purposely have to slow down or fumble the ball during intramural soccer, and my perfect memory makes physics and history easy. Likewise, my ability to see logic patterns and do calculations in my head means it takes me longer to write out the solution to a math problem than it takes me to find the answer. The only class that bugs me is philosophy. Though I read fast and remember details, picking out things like the social commentary in
Candide
doesn't come naturally.

I adjust my position, pushing the sapling's last clingy leaf out of my face. Whispered voices cut through the stillness, and the three of us turn to each other, smiling. At last, footsteps follow the voices down the path. Through the mostly barren trees, four people emerge.

The bridge is a good choke point for the defenders, but there's only two of them. The four Red Riders charge. All we need is one, maybe two of them to get through. Yen shifts position, getting ready to run. After me, she's the fastest girl on our team, which is why she's going to make a great decoy.

The bridge's girl defender goes down as someone tears off her second flag, but she takes one of the red flags with her. For a second, the five remaining players are a dancing mass of limbs, then two Red Riders break free.

I signal to Audrey and Yen, and we burst through the underbrush, scrambling to the top of the ravine. The other teams are already running after each other, creating a perfect opening along the side of the gym where the Dead Philosophers have hidden their prize—aka an RTC water bottle with “Dead Philosophers” written on it in masking tape.

“There, go!” someone shouts in our direction. We've been spotted, and chaos breaks loose.

I outmaneuver one of the Red Riders and snatch the bottle from under his fingers. A second defender lunges for me, and I toss the bottle to Yen as I run.

Audrey, who's hung back, takes off over the bridge. We still need to get the bottle to our team captain—in this case Alanna, who is sitting the game out with a cold—and have it verified with the student council seniors who act as the official judges. And then I need to hope my defensive squad and second and third offensive teams have done their parts, but there's nothing I can do about that. Even the best-tested plans depend on mere humans to carry them out.

Yen lets out a holler as we make it across the bridge and start down the path to the dorm that's serving as home base.

“Now!” I tell her, and she passes the water bottle to Audrey, who tucks it under her shirt.

Coming out of the grove into the overcast sunshine, I scan the grounds. Home base is right ahead, but getting there won't be easy. Kyle and a senior girl are co-captains of the Dead Philosophers, and they've stationed several people around the dorm perimeter. The only way we're going to get Audrey through is for Yen and me to draw their attention.

“Break,” I say, hoping they remember the plan.

I turn right, putting on an extra burst of speed, Yen at my side like she's protecting my flags. Together, we pull the opposing team as far from Audrey as we can while she aims for Alanna, who's drinking tea and talking with the other team captains as she cheers us on.

Then, from behind, Kyle yells, “Go for Audrey! We've got them.”

Spinning around, I see Kyle and another guy charging us down. Damn it. Yen and I split, and Audrey takes off, realizing our ruse didn't go as planned.

Luckily, several members of the fourth team are also running this way, chased by more members of the Red Riders. The dorm quad erupts in colorful confusion as green, red, blue and yellow flags fly. A whoop goes through the crowd, and I see another of our teammates is racing over with the fourth team's prize water bottle.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Kyle yells. “They snagged two?”

I grin, egging him on, and he pushes his legs faster. No one seems to know which of us has the bottle hidden, and I wait for Audrey to collapse in front of Alanna in the “safe zone” with it before easing up.

“Hernandez, you are going down.” Kyle grabs for my flag, and his foot snares my ankle.

We both end up going down, hitting the cold grass. Kyle falls on top of me, forcing air out of my lungs. It occurs to me, just briefly, how close he is. His elbow digging into my back. His legs pressing against mine. His face inches away. Despite the October chill, he's been running, and I can smell his skin. It's like being gassed—it does funny things to my insides.

He seems to notice too, a flush spreading over his face as our eyes meet. Then he recovers and grabs one of my flags before I can crawl away.

“Damn you!” I laugh to cover the slight tremor in my voice.

Now he's the one grinning. “Oh, shut up. Your team snagged two prizes, and we've still got ten minutes until time's called. I should take your other flag.”

“Not a chance.” I fling myself forward as Kyle starts to get up, and grab hold of his ankle. He falls back down, landing on his knees. Crawling as fast as I can over the grass, I reach for his closest flag, but he rolls out of the way.

Kyle blows hair out of his face. “This is what I get for helping you with that
Candide
paper?” He lunges at my last flag. This time I roll, and he ends up smacking me in the butt.

“That's enough, you two,” Alanna calls, laughing at us. “Get a room!”

I climb to my knees. Through my veil of hair, I see Kyle's face has turned red. That makes me laugh too as I head over to the out-of-bounds area.

Pushing sweaty hair off my forehead, I sit on the dorm stairs to watch the rest of the game unfold. Kyle plops next to me. His knee touches mine, and I try not to look at that spot where our jeans meet. Instead, I bury my hands in my sweatshirt sleeves for warmth. I want to crack some joke about rolling on the grass with him, but my tongue is dry.

Kyle clears his throat, the blood slowly draining from his cheeks. “I can't believe you got two. Chase told me you single-handedly came up with this whole complicated strategy.”

I ball my sweatshirt cuffs into my fists. “Hardly single-handed or complicated. I've just played with some really clever people before.” Talk about an understatement, but especially given what I know about Kyle now—and what he might suspect about me—I can't downplay my skills enough.

He elbows me, and I wobble in place then return the gesture. “Watch it there, boy.”

“Me? You're the one who tried to pull my jeans off.”

Never mind elbowing, I punch his arm. “What? I did not. And it was your fault for grabbing my ass.”

“I did not grab your ass.” But the flush as he says it gives away his lie.

“You're welcome to grab my ass because my team kicked yours.”

Kyle buries his head in his hands. “Yeah, looks that way. I bow to your brilliance, but I so did not grab your ass.”

“Whatever.” I raise my gaze to the weak sunshine fighting the cloud cover. I've had many conversations with Kyle since that day we bumped into each other on the bell tower, but there's something surreal about this one.

It could be all the endorphins pumping through me because of the game. Or it could be something else—an unspoken acknowledgment that something's changing between us. Are the teams that Kyle and I belong to far more different and serious than Good Expectations and Dead Philosophers?

I sense this question, and the threat it poses, like the falling barometric pressure.

My initial reaction to discovering Kyle's snooping was to report him, take my orders and suck it up. But I didn't. I've been trained to act independently in the field. I should be allowed to use my judgment, and my judgment is telling me to let Kyle be. If he's also searching for X, which seems likely, he could be further along than I am. I have my spyware on his computer. Why not use it to track his thoughts and moves? So long as Kyle doesn't know I'm on to him, he could be useful.

That letting him be means I don't have to do anything unpleasant yet, well, that's just a bonus. Or so I tell myself. But I'm pretty sure this is a rational plan and my feelings have nothing to do with it.

It can be both, right? A rational plan that also happens to mean I don't need to hurt Kyle?

“So.” Kyle nudges me with his foot. “If I graciously concede to your superior strategy skills, will you return the favor and concede something else?”

“Depends on what it is.”

He fidgets with the zipper on his jacket. “I, uh, was wondering if you wanted to go somewhere sometime. Like out. I mean, dinner or a movie or something less lame.”

“Like a date out?”

“Exactly.”

I feel the air change again, not in pressure but in charge. Like there's a storm building right around us. Everything's alive with electricity—exhilarating and dangerous. I'm suspicious of Kyle, yet drawn to him. Wary, but giddy. Part of me is flipping out because maybe Kyle likes me. But the rest of me—the smarter me—hates myself for it, and for knowing what I should do. After all, getting closer to Kyle is the perfect strategy if he's the enemy after X.

But why is he giving me that opening then? Unless it's his strategy too.

I don't want it to be a strategy for either of us, but I have no choice except to treat it like one. Emotions suck.

Outwardly, I can do nothing to work off this conflict. I'm reduced to biting my lip to keep myself together when really I feel like I'm going to explode. And all the while, Kyle's watching me like he might vomit.

I squeeze my hands a few times, trying to release the tension. “Yeah, I could do that for you.”

His shoulders relax, and he elbows me once more. “Very magnanimous of you.”

“Hey, if you don't really want me to go with you…” I don't know where to take that, so I return the elbow.

Kyle starts talking about our upcoming physics test, and I think he wants to change the subject. That's fine because thinking about this is going to give me a headache.

“Hey, Sophia!” Alanna waves to me. “Your phone's buzzing.”

I jump up and head over to her. I hadn't wanted to carry my phone into the game, and I'd forgotten Alanna was watching it for me.

“Thanks,” I say, then frown at it.

Your Aunt Kate is waiting at the admin building.

I don't have an aunt. This wasn't part of my cover.

“I didn't know you had an aunt nearby,” Kyle says, reading over my shoulder.

That makes two of us. I shove the phone in my pocket. “Yeah, I do. But I wasn't expecting her to show up today.”

“Or to refer to herself in the third person?”

I cringe. “She's weird. I guess I'd better go meet her. Later.”

I figure it out on my walk toward the administration building and groan. Fitzpatrick's first name is Kathleen. Shit. Fitzpatrick is here. This cannot be good.