Sophomore Freak (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 2) (3 page)

Sasha stared at me from the other side of the buffet.

“What?”

She pointed her finger to the phone in my hand.

Oh. That.
“Welker. The safe,” I mouthed to her, waving my phone.

She blew me off.

I might as well read the texts now, since she was already annoyed at me.

Coming?
The first one was stamped from a half-hour ago when I was asleep in the Cougar.

U with GG?
“GG” was shorthand for “Girl Genius.” Sasha swears that Rhapsody means it sarcastically, as if she is really a moron.

The last one said, “I found something.” The time stamp was from a minute ago.

I replied, asking what she meant, and pocketed my phone.

That’s when my body froze.

My ADHD kept anyone with a scarlet emerald from reading or controlling my mind, but they could stop me from moving. I searched around. Nobody moved, from the mounted Mark McGwire framed bat and glove at my far left all the way to the glass-encased football signed by Rich Gannon in front of me.

“Leave me a slice,” a male voice said.

He was
behind
me. I recognized the voice – Ryan Cain, the kid whose jaw I’d broken last fall.
Who gave him a scarlet emerald and taught him how to mentally freeze people with it?

He stepped in front of me, snatched the pizza off my plate and bit into it. About my size, he was dark-skinned and wiry, with a twisted braid haircut and a scarlet emerald chain around his neck.

I discovered I could talk. “You can chew? No more sucking through a straw?”

According to what I’d heard on Twitter during my suspension, he’d drank his meals for two weeks. It was a lucky punch, but it had served him right for what he’d said about my dead mother.

He continued munching. “Saw your family over there. Your new mom is hot.”

Our fight had ruined Ryan’s last chance with his latest set of foster parents, so they had sent him back into the system. From what I’d heard, they were nice, but even nice people have limits.

A few months ago, at my formal hearing, Debra had tried to make me apologize. “It might get you back into school,” was her sales pitch. Like that would’ve ever worked.

And apologize for what? Being screwed up? Standing up for myself? Principal Rush, Mr. Tracy, and the lawyer didn’t care what either of us did. They wanted us out.

Thinking about it made my head throb.
“Ryan started the fight. He admitted that. What was I supposed to do, get bullied until somebody noticed?”

The lawyer swiveled in his padded cloth chair. Principal Rush smirked.

“All of you can piss off if you ever think I’ll say sorry to him,” was the last thing I said to them.

That had been my one-way ticket into Reject High.

Ryan wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, which was already hot. “Thinking about her right now? How much do you miss your
real mommy
, Junior?”

I cleared my mind before anger completely consumed it. It was the only way to keep from blasting Ryan through the ceiling. Once I could move again, that is. I wiggled my toes.
He’s losing it,
I thought.

“You have something I need,” he said, stressing the double-e’s in “need.”

“I’m not that kind of guy,” I said. My leg muscles twitched with activity. “But if I’m gonna be your date, can I finish eating first? There’s taco pizza coming out.”

Ryan stuck me in the back with something solid – a knife? On instinct, I braced myself for pain. My powers had kicked in a while ago, so it didn’t hurt.

I prayed for someone, anyone, to come in through the tinted glass door, but it was a slow night.
Isn’t anyone around here wondering why I haven’t moved in minutes
? I heard the workers laughing in the kitchen. This would have been a good time for Sasha to get up for more food, then she could help me. Not this time, though. My girlfriend eats like a slow moving pigeon, even when she’s not depressed.

Ryan tried to snatch off my emerald necklace, but he fumbled with the clasp. Sasha and I had a jeweler set our prisms into titanium settings so they couldn’t be removed as easily. Mine had a lobster catch, so it took concentration to unlock.

My tongue loosened. “I’m perfectly still, and you can’t get a
necklace
off? You’re going to be a virgin for the rest of your life.”

Ryan waved his hand. From next to the pizza bar the utensil cups emptied. Steak knives rose into the air and pointed in the direction of our booth. Fortunately, I already controlled most of my upper body. I pretended to be unable to move my head.

“The provenance crystals,” he growled. “You’re going to help us.”

So, not only did he know about me and my powers, he knew that provenance crystals grew the prisms. And “us” meant there was someone behind him pulling the strings. “Make me,” I interrupted him.

Should’ve kept my mouth shut.

He nodded his head, and the knives zipped around the corner. A woman screamed in agony. It was either Sasha or Julia. Zachary wailed. Had he been hurt?

I seized Ryan’s necklace and pushed my left palm into his chest. He rocketed through the air and crashed through the front door. Glass shattered and fell to the floor. The knives dropped. I hid his necklace in my shorts’ pocket before anyone else saw it.

Sasha rushed around the corner. Nothing was sticking out of her body.

Julia?

The commotion alerted the workers. One of the Giovanni’s girls came from the bathroom, spotted Julia, and fainted.

“Are you okay?” I asked Sasha. She’d seen a lot – exploding schools, fires, and her sometimes friend had burned to death.

“Julia,” she said.

We scrambled over to the booth. Ray propped his wife up against the window. Three knives had plunged deep into the left side of her chest, right above her heart. Blood soaked her sports bra and workout jacket. It streamed over Ray’s hands and dribbled across his knuckles onto the green padded booth seat. Julia’s body started experiencing seizures and bumped against the table. Zachary giggled. He thought Julia was playing a game. Thank God at least he wasn’t harmed.

Sasha took off her shirt and gave it to my father to help stop the flow of blood. Wooziness. I can’t stand the sight of blood.

Zachary erupted with laughter, like he thought it all of this was a game.

Too much going on for me to think straight.

“Julia.” Ray called her name over and over again. “Somebody call an ambulance.”

Sasha ducked into an arcade driving game and duplicated herself. Clone Sasha rushed to the front of the store, where most of the employees were yelling and asking each other questions. I couldn’t hear them over my heart pounding in my ears.

Ray cried. I’d seen him tear up only one other time in his life - when the pallbearers had lowered my mother into the ground. I didn’t care for him, but Julia didn’t deserve to die because of my mouth. She might make it to the hospital in an ambulance and live through surgery.

I didn’t think so. Neither did Original Sasha, who pulled me aside and confirmed I already knew in my gut. “Do it,” she said without hesitation. “North Hospital is fifteen miles away. I checked my traffic app. It’ll take the ambulance too long.

“Ray.”

My father ignored me. He tried to stop the pooling blood and keep Julia awake.

Kneeling in the booth seat against his, I called him again more loudly. “Ray!”

He shook his head at me. “We’re not going to lose her. We’ll get help.”

Was he talking about Julia? It didn’t sound like it.

I reached my right hand behind Julia’s back and placed my left arm underneath her feet. From this angle it would have been hard for anyone else to lift her. But I picked her up like a stuffed animal, much to Ray’s surprise. He’d never seen me do a pushup, much less lift a woman who outweighed me by twenty pounds.

Julia’s voice drifted off. “Help. . . “

He stood in front of me. “Put her down! The ambulance will be here soon.”

I shook my head. “She’ll die. Open the door!”

Original Sasha dashed past my father and propped the back door open with her foot. “Go.” She pointed to the parking lot. “I’ll make sure no one else follows.”

Holding Julia firmly, I jogged toward the rear of the building near the blue dumpsters. I’d have to even out my thoughts so we wouldn’t travel too fast. I didn’t need to check for the address of the hospital. I’d memorized it a long time ago.

Ray followed after me, pointing his bloody fingers and cursing.

How did he get past Sasha’s clone?

“Get her back in there,” he said. “I’ll lock you away myself if she dies. Just wait.”

I cursed back at him and turned in the general direction of the hospital. Large oak trees blocked my view of the town’s skyline, but I thought my sense of direction was good.

At least I hoped so.

If we didn’t hurry, we’d have an audience. Police sirens were closing in. Ray didn’t need to see me jump, but I had no choice short of knocking him out cold.

Blood from Julia’s wound soaked into my shirt near the white Raiders’ emblem. Her eyes fluttered and rolled back into her head.

“She’ll be your second dead wife if I don’t do something,” I said.

Shaking his fist, Ray continued shouting until I burst into the air and could no longer hear him.

CHAPTER FOUR

my first arrest

In a flash, we landed near the ER entrance. It wasn’t dark yet, so we could have been seen, but I didn’t notice anybody around. For the moment, things appeared to be all right.

Before I reached the automatic doors with Julia, two men in scrubs saw me carrying her limp body. They grabbed a gurney and wheeled it in our direction. Neither of them asked how I got there, which was a relief.

A third man escorted me over to the front desk. There, a short, Hispanic woman with a patterned hospital blouse stared me down. Julia’s blood wet the front of my shirt. Thank God my clothes were dark colors. Otherwise, I would’ve looked like an amateur butcher or serial killer.

“Her name is Julia Champion,” I said, pointing to the men rolling her away. “I’m her stepson. I don’t know what insurance she has, but she’s got it. She has money, too.”

“Have a seat,” said the woman. She pointed to the waiting area. “Wait over there, young man. We’ll straighten it out.”

Instead of doing what she said, I waited until she wasn’t looking and practically ran for the bathroom. I tried not to vomit while cleaning up the blood. Carefully peeling off my shirt, I squeezed the extra liquid off of it. Then I used the paper towels and hand soap to wash up. I scrubbed my hands and fingernails last and reluctantly put my damp shirt back on over my semi-clean body. Afterward, I rinsed out the sink, which had temporarily turned bright pink.

Something inside me told me I should leave. Still, I wanted to wait for Sasha, so I returned to the lobby and dropped my body into a cushioned chair. The television was tuned to the Weather Channel. Mellow music played between segments where meteorologists talked about the solar storms raging across the world.

“X-class flares will steadily build in force across the surface until peaking next Friday,” said a male voice. An animated display showed the yellow sun erupting with small explosions. “Best case scenario, sometimes your electronics will work. Worst case, at the storm’s height, your cell phone will become a portable explosive.”

“Wonderful,” I said out loud. My cell phone had a full signal, but Rhapsody still hadn’t messaged me back.
What’s your 20?
I sent her in another text.

She did not answer. Maybe her service was down wherever she was. She could be visiting her dad. George was in a coma and cell signals in the ICU were horrible.

Sasha once said that she thought solar flares activate our prisms’ power.
She’s smarter than I am, but I’m not sure.
Could it be
that
simple?
And beryl is a gemstone
. Did that mean everyone wearing one as jewelry would become like one of us? Or did they have to be from the source crystals?

Before I nodded off completely, she found me.

“Hey.” Sasha joined me in the waiting area. Ray was impatiently filling out admission paperwork for Julia. “Maybe we should get out of here.”

“Agreed. How is he?” I asked her as I eased out of my chair.

Her mouth tightened. “We left after you took off. He drove on sidewalks, back roads, whatever, to get here. He saw Clone Sasha. That didn’t help
at all.”

“How did you explain? Long lost adopted twin sister?”

“Hardly,” she said. “He knows I’m an only child, remember?”

The only reason we were in this mess was because of Ryan. “I could kill him.”

She rubbed my back. “Don’t do that to yourself. You saved Julia. You did the same thing for Debra. She’s on our side. Who’s to say Ray won’t be?”

“He promised to put me in jail if she dies,” I said, exhaling loudly.

“Juvie,” she corrected me. “Your birthday is still a month away, baby.”

“Thanks.” I didn’t want to laugh, but a chuckle sneaked out. “He forgets my birthday on purpose. He probably thinks I’m already sixteen.”

“Why would he do it on purpose?” Too late to stop her from asking, she realized the answer – it was three days after the anniversary of his first wife’s death.

She laid her head on my shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”

“For what?”

“Doing the right thing,” she said, kissing me on the cheek. “Let’s go.”

We held hands and started for the exit. Reject High’s former Student Resource Officer, Stu Spivey, met us there with a heavyset white woman beside him. She wore a blue dress shirt, black tie, and black slacks. The Giovanni’s manager. Crap.

“That’s him!” she shouted, pointing at me. “He stabbed that lady, Julia.”

Dazed, I stood there and watched the scene unfold. Spivey gripped my forearm and pulled me toward his squad car.

“Resist,” he said under his breath. “I dare you.”

I wanted to take him up on that, but I played along.

Sasha piped up. “You know he didn’t do. . .”

I hushed her. Now wasn’t the time for Sasha to come to my defense, or for a show of super strength. “I’ve got this,” I mouthed to her.

The manager stared at me as I got hauled away. God only knows what else she’d said besides that I’d attempted to kill my stepmother. Sasha, Ray, and anyone with two eyes knew exactly how Julia had gotten stabbed. I saved her life. I didn’t try to take it.

Spivey handcuffed me and put me in the backseat. From inside the caged windows, I watched Ray motion to me not to talk. He still didn’t get it. Nobody forces me to do anything I don’t want to do.

I yanked at the metal cuffs, but they didn’t give. Suddenly a streak of fire shot into my right leg around my knee.
Did he stab me? Why can’t I breathe?
I shifted my wrists and the handcuffs nicked my skin.
What’s on them? Is it a different kind of ice?
I couldn’t tell.

Everything Ray said replayed in my mind. He never went to church, so he thought little of what God could do. That wasn’t a surprise. He didn’t think much of me, either. No shocker there. He’d put me in jail?
I don’t think so
.

Good thing Debra decided letting me stay with him over the summer was a bad idea, after all. Otherwise, I might have thrown a chunk of his penthouse into the Pacific. I’d saved his wife’s life. To thank me, the last thing he’d said was that he was right all along –
I’d grown up to become nothing.
A part of me had died inside when he said that.

Spivey had one of his men show me to an interrogation room. It was nothing like the cold, dingy space I’d thought it could be. It was a regular room, with white walls and no outside windows. It was hot. The brown table at the center had seen better days.

I wiggled in the seat cushion of my metal chair.
Where’s Ray?
He couldn’t have been that far behind us, and he’d broken all sorts of traffic laws to get to Julia. I gasped for breath and tasted blood in my mouth, so I spit it out on the carpet.

Spivey entered the room alone, without my father or someone else to play “good cop.” He took off my handcuffs and I got a quick look at them. They had white stones all over them. White ice.
That’s what it does – you can use goshenite to take away someone’s powers.
Mine hadn’t returned, so he must have more white ice nearby.

Spivey shoved the table to the side, propped his chair close to mine and sat. Our knees almost touched, which made me squirm. “Hand over the chain,” he said, making a “come here” motion with his hand.

“Turn my powers back on . . . and I will,” I said, blinking through the tears forming in my eyes. It stung to breathe. I told him the truth. Normal human beings can’t bend titanium with their bare hands. “Where are the . . . real policemen?”

He laughed and pulled out everything in my pockets – my money, cell phone, Ryan’s necklace, and my ring of house keys – and set it onto the floor.
Is that even legal?

“You blew up the school,” he said, sitting back down. “Thanks to you, I’m back on the street. Good thing I was on duty tonight. I’ve got witnesses saying you stabbed Julia Champion and enough red crystals to make them say whatever I want them to say.”

I’d done quite a few illegal things in the past month – beating up Selby, breaking into Peters’ house and Reject High, bribing a janitor, destroying school property . . . and this was the one I’d go down for? “Ryan stabbed Julia. You know that?”

“With floating knives? Tell that story and I’ll get you committed.” He scooted his chair closer and his left knee bumped into my right one, sending shocks throughout my leg. “Talk about the provenance crystals. Where did you hide them? Let’s start with the green.”

He couldn’t read my mind to find their locations. I moved them once a week to keep the trail cold. I tried shuffling my thoughts, just in case he got past my ADHD and tried to find out. That’s when another officer showed Ray into the room.

“I’m Ray Champion – his . . . legal counsel.” Ray gathered my things from the floor. “We’re leaving. Unlock his handcuffs. You can’t hold him without a charge, and he didn’t stab my wife. I don’t know who or what did it, but it wasn’t my son.”

“He can’t leave yet. Not until he answers my questions,” Spivey said.

Ray faced me. “We can’t leave yet. Not until you answer his questions.”

I cursed out loud.
What’s the point of having a lawyer for a parent if he can’t withstand a little mind control?
“What are your questions, Spivey?” I sighed, bracing myself.

“The crystals – including the gold one – where are they?”

When adults use ice, it eventually wears off. To stall him, I figured I’d wisecrack my way through this until the effects disappeared. Since he wanted information, he wasn’t going to kill me. I wasn’t sure he could do it, anyway, white ice or not.

“Until your gofer tried to kill Julia, I didn’t know there was a gold source. Search your feelings. You’ll find the truth, my son.”

“You think that’s funny? I’ll throw you in a cell right now. Laugh all you want.”

I hadn’t been charged, photographed, or finger-printed.
Don’t I get my rights read to me? Does anyone even know I was in here?
My breathing got easier all of a sudden. The pain in my knee faded. There was nothing Spivey or anyone else could do to stop me.

“C’mon, Ray,” I said to my father, who was basically a well-dressed statue at this point. I stood. “He’s not putting me anywhere.”

Spivey drew his gun and aimed at my father’s head. “Another move and he dies. Remember, you’re not the one with the speed, Selby is.”

I stepped in front of Ray and grabbed Spivey’s right wrist. When he squeezed the trigger, a flash of heat surged from the fingertips of my hand to the rest of my body.

The bullet exploded from the chamber with a small trail of smoke behind it. The bronze-tipped slug slowed down in midair before pausing squarely in front of my face. I felt a pointy surface under Spivey’s uniform sleeve. Red ice bracelet. Both Ray and Spivey stood frozen in time. After removing the bracelet, which also had white ice on it, I held it in my right hand.

I touched Ray’s shoulder and he snapped to attention. Ducking down, he breathed heavily and frantically checked his body for holes. “What happened?”

Reaching out for the paralyzed bullet, I crushed it in my palm. Then I pushed Spivey into his chair and handcuffed his wrists behind his back. “You’re in the police station,” I said, taking Spivey’s gun, cell phone, money, and the keys to open the cuffs. “Friendly neighborhood lawman here shot at you.”

Ray rubbed his eyes and straightened up as I filled my pocket with Spivey’s stuff. “This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening... wait, are you crazy? You could be tried as an adult! Think about this.”

“Okay.” I paused for a second before backhanding Spivey across the face. “Thought about it. Now he’s going to answer
my
questions.” I looked Spivey in the eye. “It’s been months. What are you waiting for? Why now? Why haven’t you and Welker come after us?”

Ron Welker, his boss and my old principal, had powers, too. We had duked it out in the Reject High gymnasium and destroyed the school. He’d been missing ever since.

“King can’t find the gold,” he repeated it.

Ray scratched his head. “Stop it, Jason. Let him go now and I can plead you out.”

I shushed Ray.
King can’t find the gold? What does that even mean?
He wasn’t making sense. “What ‘King’? What does finding the gold source have to do with me?”

“You’re the only one who can move them fast enough. We have a few days.”

A few days? The solar storm? Next Friday, Sasha and I planned to picnic with my family at the park – so much for that. “Why? The storm...”

“Days until what?” Ray asked him. Spivey didn’t answer.

I pressed the issue myself. “What if I don’t?”

He had to answer my questions, as long as the red ice held power. Spivey writhed in his chair. “They’ll explode – all of them. Nuclear bombs.”

The apocalypse. I guess all those parents were right about me, after all. Sasha was on target about the solar flares and their effects on the crystals. If Joyce paid her daughter any attention, she’d send Sasha to a charter school. “Who’s King, or ‘the King’?”