Overtaken (10 page)

Along with natural selection, mutation, and migration, genetic drift was one of the basic mechanisms of evolution. In each generation, some individuals might, just by chance, leave behind a few more genes than other individuals. The genes of the next generation would be the genes of the “lucky” individuals, not necessarily the healthier or “better” individuals. When I probed Bluni for specifics about how this impacted his secret lab work, he'd curtly shut me down and ordered me to focus on my own research.

On a few occasions when Bluni was stuck in an after-school meeting, I'd practice making myself invisible for longer and longer sessions so that I could snoop through his meticulously ordered research files. The man was beyond anal. He was a super control freak who kept everything password protected on his laptop. As if that weren't secure enough, all his notes were written in an alphanumeric scientific code, which I couldn't decipher. I needed Oliver's expertise and help for that. Help I wasn't going to get until I had something concrete that proved a connection with Bar Tech.

Ever since Dana's return to Barrington, I'd gone from being part of a team of warriors to a solo army of one. Except for my one-time mystery texter, who'd vanished as inexplicably as he'd first appeared, I had no one to rely on but myself.

Which meant I had to prepare for eventual battle. I arrived at school bright and early one morning. I always liked to get a head start on my day, but that day was different. No one would know I was even here. I planned to spend the entire day invisible. It was going to take a massive amount of control and energy to make it through the entire day without reappearing, but I wanted to try it for a couple reasons. First, the stranger things got in Barrington, the more I needed to know I could count on my power. While I'd proven to myself that I had the ability to control my invisibility under many different circumstances, I'd tested only it in relatively short bursts. If I was successfully able to use it for minutes at a time, why not test it in a more challenging situation? Not only did I need to know if such a thing was possible, but I also needed to know how my body would respond. Were there unseen dangers involved with being invisible for hours at a time? I couldn't afford to find out in the middle of an emergency at some point in the future. I had to troubleshoot now so I could be prepared for when everything turned to shit.

Here I was the next day, on one of Barrington High's sleek, eco-friendly school buses, humming its way to the local ski resort on nearby Whiteface Mountain. I could see how that might not be regarded as any great defeat, but I was not an organized-activities kind of girl. Or a “choosing to be outdoors in single-degree windchill” kind of girl. I liked winter sports just fine: with snacks, an oversized hoodie, and Bob Costas bringing the Winter Olympics straight to my cozy living room.

The bus was full of kids, most of whom had been put on a pair of skis or a baby board before their training wheels had come off. Ski Club was just a way of life for them. I'd made the mistake of YouTubeing videos of Jackson's old snowboarding competitions on my phone at lunch. Athletics suited him. He was strong, precise, agile, and fearless. And it was his fault I was in this mess in the first place.

The wheels on this bus had really started turning at school yesterday, while I was perusing the student body's bulletin board. I couldn't get Blackthorne out of my mind. There hadn't been any more communications between my mystery texter and me. Or, as I reminded myself, at least not any that I'd found yet. I'd scoured the school high and low for anything new hiding in plain sight and coded to catch only my attention. This had landed me at the school's social activities board—my very first visit. I read over each and every flyer, hoping to spot another piece of the Blackthorne puzzle.

What is Blackthorne?

I had no idea, and I was beginning to doubt the cast list for the Drama Club's rendition of
Beauty and the Beast
was going to tell me. I rustled past a few more notices—the brackets for the Chess Club tournament, a couple glittery signs advertising tickets to the upcoming Winter Formal, and flyers reminding students about the first basketball game of the season.

Then I'd spotted it: my name.

Not in the cast of the musical—thank God—but on a separate list right next to it. It was a sign-up sheet for Ski Club's first trip of the season to Whiteface, and I had definitely not signed up.

I ripped the sheet off the board and flipped it over in anticipation . . . but there was nothing waiting for me on the other side. Deflated, I turned it over once more and reexamined the list. Also included were Jackson, Oliver, and Dana. All in the same handwriting. I realized that in my excitement I had missed another detail. The
i
in “Nica” had been dotted with a heart. Deflated, I decided the mystery texter would have to wait. I had a more immediate problem to solve.

I tracked down Jackson outside of his locker to ask him about it. We hadn't talked in several days.

“Hey.” I leaned up against the locker next to his, trying to play it cool. Mostly it just hurt my bony shoulder. “I was hoping you could solve a mystery for me.”

“If I can,” he answered with the slightest hint of hesitation.

“Saw my name on the Ski Club sign-up sheet. But the mystery part is . . . I didn't put it there.”

“Oh, right. Ski Club. I guess she didn't talk to you about it yet.” She. It dropped a few decibels below the other words, like he was afraid to speak it. The silver lining was that it was finally Jackson's turn to feel awkward. “Dana signed us up.”

“Well, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I think she'll understand that I don't want to spend junior year with a full leg cast as my major accessory.”

“It's not about the skiing, Nica.”

“Then maybe someone should rename it.”

“No, I mean it's more than just skiing. It's mostly about hanging out with friends.”

“I hadn't pegged you as a sitting-around-the-fire-and-singing-Coldplay kind of guy,” I joked, trying to keep things light.

“Didn't say that I was,” Jackson snapped back. “But I like to keep myself open to new experiences.”

This made me laugh. The mental image of Jackson Winters 1.0, the former lone wolf of Barrington High, trying just about anything besides his James Dean routine was pure comedy.

He continued. “Don't be mad at Dana, okay? She's just trying to reach out. She really likes you.”

Dammit, Jackson. I could feel it coming, an itch I wouldn't be able to resist scratching. I just wished I could turn and walk away from him.

“Just come.” Jackson's blue-green eyes bored into me. In that moment, I was willing to jump off a bridge, wire money to his Nigerian prince friend, and give him a choice of my kidneys.

“I'll be there,” I muttered as if all my willpower had evaporated into the thin mountain air.

A roar of laughter from the back of the bus rudely interrupted my memory of Jackson's appreciative smile. I turned to look over my shoulder, to see what was going on and then dismissed it with equal speed. It was jock one-upmanship of the lamest variety—exposed butts pressed against freezing bus windows to moon unsuspecting drivers in the oncoming lane. How they thought this would result in timeless glory was foggy at best. But, apparently, Jackson disagreed. I could pick his laugh out among the others, and I risked a second glance to verify.

Dana was laughing, too, but curled in against Jackson's chest, shielding her eyes from anything sun starved and untoward. I wanted to shout down the length of the bus how much fun I was having with her, how bonded I already felt. Instead, I pushed my sarcasm back down, internalizing another dose of acid to my probably growing ulcer.

Borrowing Dana's move, I leaned in to my own seat partner, Oliver, for support. Luckily, things between us had cooled off since our flare-up over Cochran. For the time being, it looked like we had reached a truce: We were both firmly invested in pretending like nothing had ever happened.

I gave him my most pathetic pout, the same one I used when my dad tried to order our takeout pizza with vegan cheese. “What are we doing here?”

He shrugged. “I don't know about you, but I'm going to shred some gnar and tear it up.”

“Don't be gross.”

“You have no idea what that means.” Oliver was amused by my ignorance.

“And I'm pretty sure I don't want to.”

“Take a chill pill,” he said flippantly. “Everything's crunchy, dude.”

“Now you're just messing with me.” I felt irritable and inexplicably anxious about the trip.

Oliver's poker face cracked under the pressure. “Ha-ha, fine. I might not be the best boarder, but it's pretty fun. And the lingo is straight out of the Keanu Reeves School of Bodacious Phrases.”

Something behind me caught Oliver's gaze, and I turned to follow it. Topher was seated across the aisle, a large Ebinger's Bakery box situated in his lap. Opened just a moment ago, the box's still-fresh scent of caramelized sugar and spiced vanilla wafted over in sinful invitation.

Topher angled the box so we could see inside. It was a medley of doughnuts and sweets, at least a couple I'd be happy to put out of their misery. “This morning's castoffs,” he offered. “Noah can't eat all of them, so I might as well grease some palms.”

“In the most honest sense of the words,” Oliver agreed, not needing any further encouragement to snatch up an oversized Boston cream. As he devoured the treat, I took a second glance at Noah, the boy seated with Topher. He had served me coffee at Ebinger's the day I'd found the Blackthorne clue. I hadn't been able to place him at the time, but now, in context, I was almost certain he was Topher's boyfriend. Played on a sports team, too—lacrosse, maybe? Or hockey? Something with muscly guys and scoring goals, anyway. As for whether or not he was my mystery texter, Noah didn't strike me as the shadowy whistleblower type, but maybe that just meant he was a great shadowy whistleblower.

“Please, take them away. I'm pretty sure I could eat the whole box, and that would be disastrous,” Noah said, as he tried to pawn the pastries off on me.

I looked into the abyss of desserts, a plump apple fritter catching my eye. I was already on my way to an afternoon of torture, which meant I was not about to deny myself a momentary refuge of sugary pleasure.

“I'll eat the whole box if it means they'll take me home early,” I kidded, savoring the flaky cinnamon glaze and sticky apples below.

“You too, huh?” Topher asked as he playfully ribbed Noah. “I'm glad to know I'm not the only person being dragged into this against their will.”

“That's not what you said this morning!” Noah said, teasing right back. “Besides, you owe me after that entire night of subtitles last month.”

“It was a J Horror retrospective at the coolest theater in Denver. And I paid.”

They exchanged grins. Normally, bickering sent me into immediate wallflower mode, but it was obvious that Topher and Noah were just playing.

I considered a second doughnut, but remembered how susceptible I was to the sugar crash and didn't want to be on the slopes for that. I tried to pass the box back over the seat behind us, but Oliver stopped me. He snagged a third pastry and then, with a pained reluctance, relinquished the box.

“What you said this morning,” Noah started, “was that you're keeping your mind open to new experiences.”

“And I owed you one,” Topher rejoined.

The chatter quieted when I noticed that Noah's phrasing—keeping your mind open to new experiences—was the exact same thing Jackson had said to me at school yesterday. It was just a coincidence, but still, not the stuff that was usually bandied around by teenagers. I wondered if it might be on an airbrushed inspirational poster in the school somewhere, subconsciously penetrating our group vocabulary.

Thirty minutes and forty dollars later, it was official: There was no turning back. I was shackled into a pair of downhill skis, being pushed up Whiteface against my will.

As I ascended higher into colder temperatures and noticeably stronger winds, Oliver pointed out the bunny hill, our destination. By our truly torturous speed, I guessed we were still a minute or two away from the exit point. The bunny hill, a deceitful name that made it sound much more fun than it looked, was packed with beginner skiers and snowboarders—almost all of them elementary-school-aged.

“As long as you don't knock down any of the kiddies, you should be fine,” advised Oliver.

I noticed Oliver's phrasing had a distinctive lack of “we.”

“You're not coming with me?” I was trying not to panic.

Oliver pointed farther up the lift, to where it deposited more advanced riders on a higher, steeper slope. “I was just going to head up to the blue trail. I guess I could stick around down here for a few runs, if you'd like.” It sounded like he wanted to snowboard the bunny hill just as much as I did. I considered forcing him to stay, but I knew that would just result in two miserable people instead of one. I decided to let him off the hook.

“Oh, don't worry about it. I'm just being a baby. I just lean forward and point myself toward the bottom, right?”

Oliver laughed. “That'll probably get you there, one way or another.

“This is your stop,” Oliver reminded me, as we reached the top of the bunny hill. I tried to mimic the eight-year-old gliding off the T-bar in front of me, but my sideways stumbling was decidedly less graceful.

Oliver shouted a “Good luck!” over his shoulder . . . and then I was on my own. As I navigated toward a pushing-off point, nothing seemed to work the way it should. Instead of gliding, it was a full upper-body workout just to move ahead a few feet at a time. My ski pulls felt like just more weight I had to carry around rather than providing me with any help. The bunny hill hadn't looked impressive from the entrance, but peeking over the edge, I wasn't so sure.

Scooting my skis up the beginning of the incline, inch after inch, I waited for the moment when gravity would take over and I would tip, descending like the heavier side of a see saw. Teeter, teeter, teeter . . . and I was off, finally getting that glide I'd been looking for. Getting it, in fact, a little too fast and continuing to accelerate. Nervous, I coiled myself in tighter, but as my center of gravity lowered, I only slid down the hill faster. Still completely unaware of the purpose of my ski poles, I dug them into the snow like an emergency brake. It worked, but instead of spraying a puff of snow in a dazzling stop like I had envisioned in my head, I tumbled headfirst, my upper body's momentum too far ahead of the impromptu anchor I'd made out of the ski pole.

I tried to catch my breath as I stayed still in the fresh powder. It looked light and fluffy, but it sure didn't feel that way against my face. I could hear a few nearby giggles as I sat upright, trying to brush the snow off myself. A mom nearby, arresting in head-to-toe hot pink, looked over to see if I was all right, but I waved her off. The concerned mom lost interest when I successfully hobbled to my feet. Just standing still would have to do for a minute. As I looked back over my shoulder, it was daunting to see all of that adventure had gotten me only about a third of the way down the hill. Surveying the remainder of my journey, I spotted two other people actually my age. It was Topher and Noah. Topher seemed to have about as much raw talent as I did, but he also had a patient boyfriend helping him along the way. It was adorable, and I was a little jealous.