Shifters (Shifters series Book 1) (4 page)

Chapter 5

The iPod and the Fire Alarm

–TANNER–

How am I going to sleep now? I know Ryland is right. Nobody
’
s safe around us. How did Kai find us? He said he knew it was her. What did that mean?

Bryce fell asleep quickly enough. He
’
s always tired though. The nightmares wake him constantly—and me for that matter. Mom said his nightmares are real. Now I feel bad for yelling at him and complaining to Mom all the time.

I must have fallen asleep at some point ‘cause Ryland scares me to death when she throws her backpack on my bed.

“Uh . . . leave me alone,” I complain as I pull the blanket over my shoulder and roll over.

“Come on! I saw Kai waiting for us outside. He
’
s probably going to walk us to school,” she says.

I roll over, lift my head, and say, “What? What
’
s he doing here? Did you talk to him?”

She sits on the foot of the bed and sighs. Her eyes are glassy. Is she tearing up?

I sit up and look at her. “Ry? Are you okay?”

“I
’
m okay,” She says, wiping a tear off her cheek. “I just didn
’
t sleep very well.”

“Tell me about it. I don
’
t even remember when I fell asleep.”

She stands up, grabs her backpack, and says, “Get up. We have to get to school.”

I climb out of bed and start to put on my shirt when my sister stops me. Now I
’
m standing in my underwear with my arms stuck above my head with the twisted shirt bunched above me.

She pokes me right in the armpit and says, “Oh my God! What is that?”

I totally freak out. I just found out I
’
m a mutant from another planet! Is there some kind of freakish appendage springing out of me? I rip the shirt over my head and reach my other hand into my armpit with my other hand raised as high as I can.

“What! What is it?” I yell.

“Is that . . . a hair?” Ryland teases. “My little
big
brother has an armpit hair!”

Awesome. I almost forgot I totally hate her.

Mom makes us eat before we leave for school.

I whisper to Ryland, “Are we really going to school? After last night? Shouldn
’
t we be packing or something?”

“Sh,” she says. “I can
’
t leave without seeing Alice and Melinda, you know, to say goodbye. I know I can
’
t really tell them, but I would feel better if I could at least see them once more.”

“Yeah. I’d like to see Frederick and Chucky at least one more time.”

“We
’
ll leave tonight. Okay?” she whispers.

I nod.

We finish up, say goodbye to Mom, and catch up with Kai, who
’
s waiting for us around the corner. I’m still working through everything Mom and Dad told us last night. Dad said, “He must know a way to discover other Shifters. If he does, they will too.” After we walk a couple of blocks, I can
’
t hold it in anymore.

“How did you find us, Kai?”

Ryland looks at him. I knew it. That must’ve been bugging her, too.

He looks down and starts watching his feet moving one after the other. “Before the Keepers found us.”

“The Keepers?” Ryland asks.

“Yeah, I
’
ll have to tell you about them. Anyway, before they found us, my parents gave me this,” he pulls an iPod out of his pocket and holds it up.

“You found us with an iPod?” I ask.

“It
’
s not an iPod. Well, it is, but it
’
s also a tracker.”

“You have something to track us?” Ryland asks, worry drawn across her face like a curtain.

“Don
’
t worry. The Shifters don
’
t have them. We took it off of one of the Keepers.”

He keeps bringing that up. Who are the Keepers?

“It
’
s not that powerful. I have to get close before it works,” he says.

“How close?” Ryland is looking more concerned.

“Like a few feet.”

Well, that explains the stalking.

“Shifters emit a kind of a low level electrical current when they’re close to Shifting. Like when they get nervous, or scared, or excited or something. This picks it up,” he explains.

I finally get it and say, “So you were trying to make her nervous.”

“You
didn
’
t
make me nervous,” Ryland says defensively.

Kai motions his eyes to the iPod, and we exchange a smirk.

We arrive at school and leave Kai across the street. Ryland and I split up to go see our friends. I see Melinda and Alice staring back where we left Kai then excitedly talking to Ryland. Girls.

I head over to Frederick and Chucky. They act as if nothing is different—like their best friend isn
’
t a mutant alien with creatures from another planet planning to pounce on him at any moment to prevent him from destroying their universal kingdom. Nope. Just a normal kid hoping to get through a day with minimal torture from the normal-sized fourteen-year-olds. I really am going to miss these guys.

–RYLAND–

Don
’
t cry. Don
’
t cry. Don
’
t cry
,
I think as I approach Alice and Melinda for what could be the last time. I mean, they’ve been my best friends since elementary school when Alice, even then too tall for the boys, pushed down the biggest bully in kindergarten after he made Melinda cry. A boy should really never tease a girl about her hair when there are other girls around.

Anyway, so I
’
m telling myself it’ll all be okay. I’ll see them again soon. I just have to master my Shifter-ness, defeat some sort of universal Shifter overlord government on steroids, make peace with the Ordinaries, and return in time for prom. I am so not missing prom.

Melinda is blushing from ear to ear and grinning like a Cheshire cat. Uh, oh.

“Oh, my gosh!” She giggles, still shy, even around us. “Who on Earth is that?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, awakened from my reverie. Here I was, thinking about never seeing them again, and they don
’
t even know it isn
’
t a normal day.

Alice gives me a cold, hard look. “You know exactly who she
’
s talking about. Isn
’
t that your stalker?”

I turn around to look for Kai, but he’s long gone. He’ll be back after school to meet up with us, but he won
’
t stick around all day. At least not visibly.

Melinda pulls out her ridiculously old, chunky flip phone. “I took a picture,” she says, beaming.

“For exactly this situation,”
Alice continues.
“We knew you would deny everything.”

Melinda waves her phone around for a moment, right in my face. “That
’
s just a picture of me and Tanner,” I say flatly.

Partially, I
’
m relieved. It would’ve been hard to explain why I was hanging out with my stalker—especially right before I disappeared. My parents would be able to figure out where Tanner and I went, but Melinda and Alice would probably think my crazy stalker kidnapped me.

Melinda snatches her phone back to look at the picture. Alice leans over her shoulder to see, too. They both frown. “But he was right here,” Alice mutters, pointing off to the left side of the photo.

I feel myself glancing at the ground. I don
’
t know what to tell them. I mean, I can
’
t tell them the truth; they
’
ll think I
’
m insane. I probably would think I’m insane, too.

Melinda furrows her brow then looks accusingly at me. “He was right there. I don
’
t know how my pic got cropped or whatever, but he was there.”

“Okay,” I sigh. “He
’
s not really a stalker. He
’
s just new in town and happens to ride my bus.”

Melinda beams again. “He
’
s cute.” She can barely get the word out; she
’
s blushing too badly.

Alice gives Melinda a hard look and stares at me. Deadpan, she says, “What Melinda means to say is the boy is hot. What
’
s going on there?”

I feel my face go warm. I understand why they
’
re asking, and I wish I were a normal girl. I wish I had just found a cute new guy here in town. I wish he did just ride my bus. I wish we could gossip and giggle about my potential first boyfriend. I wonder now if I
’
ll ever get to experience that.

“Nothing’s going on there,” I say. “He
’
s new, and he
’
s in Tanner
’
s grade. We were just trying to show him around.”

“Oh,” Melinda sighs. She’s probably the most eager of the three of us to gossip about boys, but she can hardly speak to anyone, let alone a cute boy. I think her plan is to live vicariously through me.

Don
’
t get me wrong. She’s super smart, really funny, and very compassionate. She can talk to a boy about school or help him when he
’
s having a problem, but if he talks to her the next week, she can
’
t say a word.

Alice is the total opposite. She can talk to anyone about anything, but she has this emotionless demeanor that intimidates most people. It
’
s not that she’s emotionless or a sociopath or something. She just had to grow up tough.

Her dad left her mom when she was little, and her mom hasn
’
t exactly been stable since. Her mom is like crazy beautiful. She could be a model. She
’
s almost six feet tall with perfect bronze skin, eyes like molten copper, and ebony hair that screams shampoo commercial. But being abandoned with a young kid has kind of made her flighty.

I wonder how my abandonment will affect Alice. Will she devolve into an even less social person? Will she branch out and try to make new friends?

I really hope she does. I hope she takes Melinda with her. They’ve both sort of lived in my shadow. I don
’
t say that to be unkind. I know they’re more than that. They
’
re both amazing. I just hope, now that I
’
m leaving, they find their own popularity.

“Well, maybe you should make something happen,” Alice suggests lightly.

“What?” I ask. I’ve totally forgotten whatever it was we were talking about.

“With?” Melinda half asks.

“
Kai!
” I shout, proud to have remembered our previous topic of conversation. “
Right. Ummm
. I think not. He
’
s like in high school and . . .” I trail off. I have no real reasons. Well, none I can explain.

He
’
s an alien, mutant freak. Although, I don
’
t think that’s a valid argument if I
’
m one too. He
’
s living on his own. Again, I
’
m about to be in the same situation. He might get killed by some crazy alien government agents. I suppose you could argue the same for me.

“As if high school boys never hit on you,” Alice replies flatly.

“We’re almost in eighth grade,”
Melinda chimes in.

I roll my eyes.

As we walk into the building, I notice there are several adults here I don
’
t recognize. Adults in dark suits. Like secret agents.

“What
’
s with the feds?” Alice asks, chuckling darkly.

“I hope nothing’s wrong,” Melinda frets.

I grab their hands and drag them down a side hall as quickly as I can. “We need to go,” I say.

“What’s going on?”
Melinda squeaks.

I notice one of the men is following us, holding what appears to be an iPod. Oh. My. God. I need to find Tanner. Now! I do the first thing I can think of. I pull the fire alarm. Then the chaos begins.

Chapter 6

Armed and Dangerous

–TANNER–

So, Frederick was telling me about Chucky’s new lab partner, Sammy. If it were Frederick or me, Sammy would be some jock who would spend his time trying to see how far he could pull our underwear over our heads. Or worse yet, some pimply-faced eighth grader that’s even more of a loser than we are.

“She is so hot,” Frederick says. “She was wearing this tight tank top. Like you could totally see her bra, and these tiny shorts. Seriously, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”

So not fair.

“What can I say? They like me,” Chucky beams.

Just then, we hear the bell ring. When we turn to go into the school, we realize it
’
s not the bell because somebody’s yelling, “Fire!”

People start screaming and running away from the building. We’ve just started running when somebody grabs me from behind.

“Hey!” I yell.

Frederick and Chucky stop and look back at me just as two creepy guys come up behind them.

“I’ve got him,” I hear from behind. The two others nod in my direction as they grab Frederick and Chucky. I have no idea what
’
s going on. My friends both have their eyes open so wide I swear they looked like they saw Freddy Krueger coming after them.

“We were leaving, okay?” I say to the guy.

“Shut up! Stop squirming,” he grumbles as he turns me around.

What? Why is he so mad at me? Through the chaos, I see Ryland and her friends running toward me. Ryland
’
s yelling something at me. I can
’
t make out what she
’
s saying when . . . she does it again.

Right in front of everyone, she totally vanishes.

I feel a sudden tug then the guy holding me is gone and Ryland is yelling at me. I have no idea what she’s saying. I turn around, and the guys holding my friends are gone too. Alice and Melinda both stop in their tracks with their eyes as wide as bowling balls. And yes, I know that
’
s physically impossible.

Kai is suddenly standing right between Ryland and me. I finally figure out what Ryland is yelling.

“
Shifters!
”

Kai grabs our hands, yells,
“We have to go!” and starts to pull us toward the school. He starts to run, and we both yank him back like a dog hitting the end of its leash.

“We
’
re taking them!” Ryland demands, pointing to her friends standing wide-eyed behind her.

“Them too!” I add, pointing to the two frozen guys in the courtyard.

“They
’
re after you, not them!” he argues, motioning around him.

I didn
’
t even notice that there are several people wearing
Men in Black
suits running toward us.

Holy crap! They found us already? I just found out about us last night!

One of the
Men in Black
guys is reaching for something in his jacket.

Seriously? What’s going on?

We both refuse to move. Kai tilts his head, squeezes his jaw shut, and says, “Fine. Come on!”

Not knowing what to do, we all follow Ryland and Kai who are running toward the school. Oh, yeah . . . that makes
total
sense. We should run
into
the fire. We have a bunch of Shifters chasing us, trying to kill us, so we might as well end it all in a blaze of glory.

Kai slams into the front doors, thrusting them open, and runs in. The six of us follow after him like wobbly, sprinting ducklings. We run down the hall, past the office, and through the cafeteria. Kai stops and looks around.

Frederick says, “This way!”

We follow him through the kitchen and down the hall into the gym. We hear the front doors slam open and voices barking commands at each other.

“Which way?” someone yells.

“You two, that way. You go out and around the back. You three, follow me!” another ordered.

“They
’
re scared. Use the tracker,” from still another one.

They
’
re following us. They have a tracker. Holy crap! We are so dead!

Frederick leads us onto the stage in the back of the gym, behind the heavy curtain, and through a door I didn
’
t even know was there. We’re now running down a dark, narrow hallway that’s only lit by a blinking florescent tube hanging from the ceiling. Frederick runs through the door at the end and starts waving us in.

We all run through the door, and Frederick closes it. The room has a couple of small windows on either side and a huge furnace in the corner. We gather against the opposite wall and crouch together, trying to stay quiet.

“How did they find us? One of them had an iPod. I thought you said the Shifters didn
’
t have them?” Ryland whispers, trying to be quiet.

“Who?” Chucky asks.

Alice and Melinda both stare at Kai as Frederick starts studying the windows and the wall behind us.

“They don
’
t,” Kai whispers. “They
’
re not Shifters. They
’
re Keepers.”

Frederick gets up and runs over to an old desk sitting in the corner. He hisses at Chucky, “Help me with this.”

Chucky jumps up, and they start moving the desk toward the wall.

I can
’
t help myself and say, “You keep saying Keepers like we
’
re supposed to know what that means. Just tell us who they are.”

Kai starts looking around and says, “No time right now. They’ll find us in here.”

Frederick tells Chucky to get on the desk and open the window above it. Chucky jumps up and starts trying to open it. Frederick grabs an old piece of pipe laying on the floor and starts pounding on the pipes to the furnace.

Alice yells at him, “What are you doing? That
’
s a gas line.”

Just as the gas line starts to leak, the door flies open. Frederick digs through his pocket and holds up a lighter and yells, “Stop!”

The room starts filling with gas. The three suited people stop and look at him.

The first guy smiles and says, “Look at the little man. You know you won
’
t.”

Frederick tells us to get out through the window and acts like he
’
s going to light it up. We all start scrambling through the window as the guys surge forward. Frederick flicks his thumb on the lighter, and they freeze in their tracks.

We all get out, leaving Frederick inside. Frederick backs up to the window and slowly climbs out holding the lighter in the window. Just then, another guy runs through the door behind the Keepers. He sees us getting away and pushes to the front, pulling his gun.

I hear one of them yell, “No!” as he fires toward us. We’re all running when it begins. At first, it’s kind of a
whoosh
sound. Then it comes. A low rumble followed by a loud thunder, and I feel the heat of the flash push me toward the ground.

–RYLAND–

I wake up on the ground with a splitting headache and mouthful of dirt for—if you believe it—the third time in my short life. The first time was when I was three and thought I could fly. I jumped off the roof of my parents
’
, or who I thought were my parents’, house. Somehow, I didn
’
t break any bones. I suppose that
’
s part of the mutant thing.

The second time was when I got into a fight in fifth grade. It probably wasn
’
t the wisest move trying to fight the biggest seventh grader our school has ever seen, but she called Alice
’
s mom a skank. I wasn
’
t going to let that stand.

Anyway, so the third—and hopefully final—time I wake up with a mouthful of dirt is after my brother
’
s dumb friends blow up the school. I, of course, spit the dirt out and leap to my feet. Seriously, I
’
ve like always been a ninja or something. I
’
m great at gymnastics.

I look around to see what’s going on. Everyone is stumbling to their feet, except for Kai. He’s turned around, staring at the flaming wreck that was our school.

“We have to move,” I try to shout, but no sound comes out. That
’
s when I realize my ears are ringing.

I
’
m shouting, but no one can hear me. The nice part is the Keepers are just as disorganized as we are. Kids are running around, screaming and crying. Keepers are injured and down. Are some of them dead?

Kai locks eyes with me, and I know we need to go now. I grab Tanner and drag him toward the soccer fields. They
’
re empty at the moment. Everyone’s gathered toward the opposite side of the school. You know, away from the explosion.

Tanner nods and our friends follow us as we half jog across the fields. We
’
ve made it halfway toward the far street before the Keepers locate and start to follow us. We just have to be a little faster then we can lose them in the neighborhoods.

We push ourselves hard. Alice is a brilliant runner, very athletic, but Melinda is lagging. She’s not exactly the athletic type. She
’
s not overweight or anything, but she has asthma and hates running.

Kai sprints out ahead of us, and I wonder if he
’
ll leave us here. He doesn
’
t really know us. He could take off and just leave us behind. We
’
re dead weight.

He stops at a parked car across the street, and I see him fumbling with his bag. He pulls out a metal flashlight and slams it into the driver
’
s side window. Tanner yells, “What on Earth are you doing?”

Kai rips open the door, hits the unlock button, and motions for us to get in. We pile into the old green Ford Focus like zombies, moaning and groaning and dazed. Kai pulls out the wires and fiddles with them for a second; then, the engine roars to life.

We take off down the street at seventy-nine miles an hour. Our heads slam back, and we all yell indecipherable complaints as gunshots rattle the street behind us. The Keepers didn
’
t make it to us in time, but they
’
ll find this car. I
’
m sure they already have the plate number.

“What are we going to do?” Tanner groans in the front passenger seat, holding his left arm.

“You’ve been shot!” I shout, watching his fingers darken.

He shakes his head, “I just cut myself when I fell.”

I’m visibly relieved, even with five people cramped in the back of the compact car like clowns at a circus. I may hate my brother, but I don
’
t want him to get shot. “What are we gonna do?”
I ask Kai.

Kai, I notice for the first time, is shaking. His hands grip the wheel, and he’s white as a ghost as he speeds through the winding streets. “We need to find a different car, and then, we need to find somewhere to hole up. They
’
ll be looking for us.”

“Who are they?” Chucky finally snaps.

“What’s going on?”
Melinda squeaks.

“Are you like secret agents or something?” Alice asks, only mildly intrigued.

“They shot at us! Kids!” Frederick screams.

“You were the one breaking gas pipes and holding a lighter!” Chucky yells.

“You helped!” Frederick yells back.

“Shut up!” Kai snaps. “Just shut up! I need to think, so we don
’
t all wind up dead.”

That shuts everyone up. Melinda clamps her hands over her mouth, making a tiny moaning sound as though she
’
s swallowing back bile. Chucky stares with his mouth hanging open. I try to breathe slowly. In through my mouth, out through my nose. Don
’t panic.

Kai’s shaking more visibly now. I realize I have no idea what he
’
s been through. Was this the worst of it? Or does this just remind him of the horrors he
’
s already faced?

“Pull over,” I say gently.

Surprisingly, he listens. He stops the car, and we all wait. There’s no sound of pursuit or helicopters or anything.

We get out of the car and find a much bigger seventies panel van. It isn
’
t nice, but it’ll fit us all comfortably. Luckily, the door is unlocked, and the keys are inside. In the ignition. Seriously?

We rearrange ourselves and buckle up; then, we drive for hours. We drive down highways I
’
ve never seen or even heard of before. When it starts to get dark, Kai announces we’re almost out of gas and need to stop for the night. It’s been so quiet on the drive it almost shocks me to hear him speak. The sound of it reverberates through my brain like the concussive weight of the explosion at school.

Life, as I knew it, is over.

We find this seedy looking motel on the side of the road. Sunnyvale Inn it says, or would say if it weren
’
t missing all the vowels. Kai rents us a room with what little cash we pool together.

We pile inside, and Frederick immediately turns on the TV. The news pops up, and he shouts, “That
’
s us!”

We all turn to look in unison. Sure enough, there we are on the news, running from the explosion. “Several FBI officers were killed in this vicious and brutal attack on Lincoln High School. Luckily, no students were mortally wounded, but the injured number in the dozens.”

“I can
’
t believe it,” Chucky says. “Kids from our school.”

“The suspects are students who attended Lincoln. Apparently, these students have been acting strange lately, and other students report they were worried something like this might happen.”

The camera pans to that junior who rides my bus. “Tanner was a freak, man. I mean, his sister was kinda hot, but they were weird. Still, can
’
t believe they tried to kill us all.”

Melinda begins to cry as the reporter continues, “When one of the janitors noticed a strange smell, he reported it to the local police. Police discovered someone had planted bombs and broken gas pipelines in the school. The police then called the FBI in to evacuate.”