Hunted (18 page)

CHAPTER 24

I plunge into the crush of students surging forward.

. . . got outta that test . . . look on Mrs. Emerson’s face

. . . is it real? . . .

The hall seems to narrow and shift before my eyes, the insistent shrill of the bell drilling through my skull. I dodge ahead, but Daniel jerks me back like our wrists are cuffed together, his rage so bright it almost blinds me.

“I’m not going to let you save them.”
I slam a shield around myself, dampening the intensity of his thoughts and the students around me, but not shutting them out. I have to listen for the others.

“Hurry!”
I urge the crowd in front of me. They’re too slow.

The screams pull me down the hall.

How can they not hear them? I squeeze past people like a minnow darting between fingers. Daniel squeezes right behind me.

“You’re not going to lose me,” Daniel shouts in my ear.

“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”
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My heart aches.
“Daniel—let them go. They did nothing to you.”

“Maybe not yet—but they will. And some have already
turned us in. Why can’t you see it?”
His mind-voice almost pleads with me.

I try to make him forget, but I am being buffeted from all sides. The clogged, sooty feeling fills my chest, choking the air away. My breath comes in tiny, rasping gasps.

Why haven’t Alex and Rachel let them out?
“Alex—”

“It’s locked! We can’t get it open!”

“The key—it’s not in the office!”
Rachel sobs.

Daniel. Of course.

Punishing me. Showing me how powerful he is. Or setting an elaborate trap for me.

But I can’t let people die. Not even Normals.
“I’ll be
there as fast as I can.”

I look at Daniel. As powerful as he is, he still has the weakness that every guy has.
“I’m sorry, Daniel,”
I send, even as I bring my knee up hard to his crotch.

I don’t wait to see him double over. I push past people, ignoring the angry grunts, the bombardment of thoughts. I race down the stairwell, not caring who I bump against, just knowing I have to get there.

The cries are more desperate now, urging me on, the aching feeling of smoke in my lungs making it hard to breathe.

I reach out as I run, try to touch all the frightened voices at once. “Get down on the ground, facedown. Get yourself away from the smoke.”

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Their terror almost stops me moving. Blackness blurs the edges of my vision.

I force my legs to keep running, my lungs to keep pumping. I push past students moving in the opposite direction, trying to get out. I don’t know if the trapped students listened to me or not.

It feels like it’s taking forever—so many people in my way. I want to scream.

Down one more flight, then two, the acrid smell of smoke burning my nostrils, my throat, my eyes tearing up, my body sweating from the heat. My head aches, the pressure building inside my skull. People shimmer in front of me.

“Help is coming,”
I send, as loudly as I can. The screams lessen.

I don’t need to know where the auditorium is; I’m being pulled right to it. I plunge through the students exit-ing and run down the hall, past the trophy cases, around the corner—

My chest aches, my breath short and heavy, but I push myself on.

There’s a thump behind me, like someone landed hard.

. . . almost got her . . .

I run faster.

Daniel slams me against the wall.

Pain shudders through my bones.

“You’re not getting away that easy.” Daniel pushes his face close to mine, his breath like rotten eggs. “You will watch them burn, and know you could have saved them, if only you’d joined us.”

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“No!”
I dodge to the right.

Daniel blocks me.

I try to stay calm. I can smell the smoke now, and not just through other people. It’s in every breath I take. I can almost see it around us—a slight mist, blurring the door at the end of the hall. “You’re more powerful than they are; they don’t even have a chance. It’s cruel.” Daniel used to care. I pull up a memory: Dad walking with us down the street. We hear a girl cry out; Daniel and I both feel the terror. Daniel breaks into a run toward the group of older boys crowding the girl. Dad runs after him.

“Let that girl go!” he roars, as Daniel kicks one of the boy’s shins. The boys turn and scatter. The girl, her blouse torn, her face dirty, bursts into tears. Daniel and I send her calm while Dad talks to her in a soothing voice. We walk the girl home.

“Those boys, they used their power over this girl. You
must never use your talent to hurt people weaker than you
are,”
Dad sends.
“That’s just cruel. Understand?”
Daniel and I nod firmly. “I’m proud of you, son,” Dad says, clapping Daniel on the shoulder. Daniel walks taller.

I throw the memory at Daniel.

Behind me he stumbles, off balance.

I run. The terror is subdued, now, the heavy, choking feeling like my lungs are filled with ash.

Rachel is standing outside the auditorium, tears streaming down her cheeks, her eyes reddened. She runs to me as soon as she sees me. “We can’t get them out!” I yank on the door handle. The metal burns hot.

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“We tried that! What can we do?” Her voice rises in a wail.

Thick smoke pours out of the cracks around the doors.

I pound on the door. “Help is coming!” Alex runs up, a crowbar in his hand. “Maybe this’ll work!” he yells over the clanging of the bell.

He wrenches the bar between the doors and yanks. The doors barely move. They’re old, heavy doors, built to last.

Alex yanks the bar again. Strong as he is, the doors don’t budge.

Daniel. He did this; he’ll have the answer.

I grit my teeth, reaching out toward him—and feel the glee at all these weak Normals panicking, not even guess-ing they’re just part of a larger plan.
. . . Caitlyn is doing better than even I thought she would. She is a worthy ally, one
I can be proud to have by my side in the long months to
come . . .

I wrench out of his thoughts, feeling sick. But I still don’t know how to open the doors. I’ve got to enter his mind.

I close my eyes, pull glee and power-lust around me, and enter.
“Locked the auditorium door . . .”
I fold my thoughts into his.

. . . the look on her face when she did it—like she enjoyed it as much as I did . . .

I see a flash of Ilene, her large doe eyes shining with excitement.

I leap out of his head. The people trapped in the fire are weakening, getting close to passing out. Rachel stares at 238

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me, her face drained of blood. “You can do something, can’t you?” she begs.

I reach for Ilene and sense a coldness so deep it’s hard to think. I dip into that low, thrumming cold, wrapping myself in it. I shudder. “After I locked the door . . .”

. . . I dropped the key in the trophy case; no one’ll ever
find it. Caitlyn will see that she needs us if she wants to do
anything in this world. She’ll see she could have avoided
their deaths if only she’d asked for our help. Though why
she cares about those Normals, I can’t fathom . . .

I push myself off the wall, my legs suddenly weak.

“The key’s inside the trophy case!” Rachel spins around and races down the hall.

I press my palm to the hot door.
“Help is coming, just
hold on. Keep your faces close to the floor. Crawl to the
hall exit if you can.”

Rachel comes back panting, holding out the key, her face hopeful and scared.

I jam it into the lock and turn it, tugging at the doors.

They resist me, then bang open, gray smoke billowing out.

The heat hits me like a kiln, searing all the moisture from my flesh.

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CHAPTER 25

Students stagger out of the auditorium, coughing and gagging, tears streaming from their eyes.

Rachel rushes in. “Emily!” she cries. “Emily, where are you?” I start forward.

Alex grabs my arm. “Get outside with everyone else.

This
has
to be a setup. There’s no way this door should’ve been locked from the outside—”

“I’m not leaving. I have to know everyone’s okay.” Their fear is mine now.

Alex looks at me, sees the set of my shoulders, the determination in my mouth. “Fine. Just—don’t go in there.” I stand back, feeling useless as Alex rushes forward to help.

“Thank god, thank god!” a boy with a soot-blackened face says, stumbling and crying.

“We couldn’t get out!” a girl wails, tears streaming down her sooty cheeks.

“You’re all right now. Just get outside,” I say.

Their stunned, frightened faces nod.

Rachel comes stumbling out, Emily leaning heavily on 240

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her, both their faces black with soot. Alex follows, helping a girl who can’t stop crying.

The ragged line of students dwindles. Sirens wail in the distance, getting closer.

. . . help me . . .

Someone’s still trapped inside, someone who’s not coming out with the others. Someone who can’t!

I run back in. The heat roars at me like a hungry beast, drying my eyes, cracking the inside of my nose.

“Caitlyn, come back!” Alex calls.

I cover my nose and mouth and bend over as I rush down the aisle. A wall of flame and smoke consumes the stage, the curtains, licking toward the ceiling. The heat presses down on me, the fire roaring with hunger. My lungs clench, rebelling against the hot, thick air. I cough deeply, struggling to breathe.

I reach out toward the flickering energy. It’s weak, but I can still feel it. I’m almost there. I trip over something—

a shoe—and then I am dragging the man back toward the door. The flames roar louder, as if they don’t want me to escape. The man is too heavy. I suck in smoke and fall to my knees, coughing raggedly.

And then Alex and Rachel are there, lifting the weight of the teacher from me, half dragging, half carrying him to the door.

The three of us carry him down the hall and out into the cool air. Students and teachers, frozen in wide-eyed clusters, turn to look.

Fire trucks roar up to the doors, lights flashing, sirens wailing. Firefighters leap out, fastening the hose to the hy-241

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drant, running into the school, coats flapping around their waists, masks dangling from their faces, oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, axes and crowbars in their hands.

Shouts, then a hose is dragged into the building.

“Move back, people, away from the school,” a fire-fighter shouts, motioning us back.

The sky is a deep brooding gray, as if it knows what happened inside.

Paramedics rush to take the teacher from us and put him on a stretcher, slap an oxygen mask onto his face.

I slip into the crowd, Alex close behind me. Rachel turns to Emily and holds her tight.

I can feel Daniel’s gaze on me, the anger prickling at my scalp.
“Do you really think no one will notice?”
Mr. Temple is watching me, too, darkness pouring from him in waves.

“You all right?” Alex asks, his voice soft and urgent.

I nod.

He wraps his arms around me. I feel his heart beating against my chest, breathe in his sweet smell, still there beneath the acrid scent of the fire.

“Scared me . . .”
He brushes his lips against my hair.

“At least nothing bad happened. Nothing seriously bad.”

“You’re all right.”

“Daniel did this.”

Alex’s arms tighten. “Daniel.”

“Yeah.”

“What is he playing at?”

“Young man, we need to talk to you.” A paramedic.

“Later,” Alex says, not even turning to look.

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“Son,” the paramedic says. “Come on.”

“Go.”
I push Alex away. His chin raises, stubbornly, and I know he’s going to argue.

“It’s better not to draw attention,”
I send firmly.

Alex sighs. “You need me, you call. Got it?”

“Yeah. Now go.”

He walks away with the paramedic.

Fear and rage, as loud as a shout, punch into me. I whirl around. Mr. Temple is jabbing his finger at Daniel, his face pushed up close, his shoulders hunched furtively.

He looks over his shoulder, then harshly whispers. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but I can feel it.

I reach for Mr. Temple’s mind.

. . . But you said! . . . only Para kids at risk . . . could
lose my job . . . protect Normal kids, not hurt them! . . .

can’t trust . . .

And then I feel the wave of Daniel’s power wrapping around Mr. Temple, calming him down, making him realize that Daniel knew Caitlyn would save them, that the Normals were at no risk, that the only way to get rid of the Para-freaks is to follow Daniel’s lead.

Mr. Temple’s arm drops, and he blinks, then looks at Daniel and smiles blankly.

My skin ripples. I inch backward, deeper into the crowd, away from them.

People are standing in hushed clumps, faces pale and still. Some girls are crying, others are shaking. The boys look like robots that have been unplugged.

Mrs. Vespa moves through the crowd toward me.

“Caitlyn—are you okay?”

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“Yeah.”

“Your face . . .” She motions.

I scrunch up my nose. “What about it?” She pulls a compact out of her purse. I open it and stare. My face is covered with soot, my eyes blinking out like an owl.

“Do you have a tissue or something?” Mrs. Vespa digs a packaged Handy Wipe out of her purse and hands it to me.

I scrub my face and hands, the white wipe becoming black, leaving streaks along my skin.

“I assume you had something to do with the rescue.”

“Yeah—but don’t go thinking I’m a hero.”
“There’s a
renegade Para here, with a thing against Normals. He’s trying to get me to join him—by force.”
Mrs. Vespa harrumphs.
“Stay away from him. You
don’t want to get mixed up in that.”
She touches my arm. “If there’s any way I can help—and I mean any—you let me know.”

My eyes tear up. “Thank you.”

Mrs. Vespa squeezes my arm.
“Call to me if you need
me,”
she thinks at me, waiting until I nod to show her I heard her. Then she slips back into the crowd.

A hand clenches my shoulder from behind and I stifle a scream.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Daniel says.

I didn’t sense him behind me until he touched me.

How can that be? I turn, slowly.

His face is smooth as a mask, but a muscle twitches in 244

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his square jaw. His faded blue eyes are almost gray, like dirty cement. I can’t see into them.

“I’m going home. Mom—she’ll be worried. She’ll have heard about the fire on the news.” Daniel looks over his shoulder.

Mr. Temple starts toward us, as if beckoned. “No student is allowed to leave the school property without parental consent.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I reach out to Mom as hard as I can.
“Mom, I need you
to come pick me up—right now. At school.”
I can’t sense her. I don’t even know if she’s heard me; she’s been cut off from me for so long, I can’t tell. I reach for my cell, but it’s gone.

The school trooper comes to join us, and behind him, another trooper. One I’ve never seen before, pulling a ParaController out of his breast pocket.

“My appendage. My handler.”
Daniel curves his lips into a predatory smile, his bone white teeth gleaming.

“Don’t go anywhere. Those reporters are going to want to talk to you,” Daniel says.

I glance at the TV and radio vans pulling into the parking lot, the reporters and crew spilling out. Car doors slam, cameras are hefted onto shoulders.

“Why are you doing this?”
I send.
“You know I can
out you just as easily as you can out me.”

“I’m already in their servitude; what difference would
that make? The reason they put me undercover here was to
catch you.”
Daniel shakes his head with a fake-sad 245

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smile.
“Come, now—I thought you liked Normals. I thought
they were your friends.”

“Why would the reporters want to talk to me? I didn’t do anything,” I say.

“Oh, no?” Mr. Temple arches one eyebrow and stares pointedly at the traces of soot on my hands.

My chest is too tight. I cough. “It was another student—two of them, actually—who are the heroes. I just tagged along.”

I send this to Rachel and Alex.

“That’s bullshit,” Daniel says, too loudly.

People turn to look.

“Daniel—”

“I saw you in there,” Daniel says, his face impassive, his eyes bright.

People gather around.
. . . saved us . . . what’s happening? . . .

I have to stop this. But I don’t know how. I’m too tired to think it through. Even my brain feels mired in soot.

“I’m right here, Caitlyn. Tell me what to do and I’ll do
it,”
Alex thinks at me.

“Stay close.”

I reach out to Daniel, sending waves of confusion, but I am too late.

“She’s the one who got them to unlock the auditorium door,” Daniel says, pointing at me. “She went straight to the fire before anyone even knew there was one. And that was from three floors up. It’s like she knew what would happen—before it did.”

My hands grow cold, even though my skin’s burning.

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Daniel’s eyes open, falsely wide. “Maybe she’s the one who set it. Unless—”

The school ParaTrooper looks back and forth between us. Daniel’s trooper rests his hand on his gun and keeps looking between Daniel and me and the ParaController in his hand.

Daniel’s about to say I’m a Para.
I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

Alex bursts through the ring of people, knocking into Daniel. “Caitlyn is the last person who’d do that! I think that’s more your kind of thing. Setting people up like that.” He puts his arm around my shoulders.

A reporter strides toward us like she smells a story, the camera operator close behind.

Daniel’s trooper turns to him. “Fallon, have you got something to tell me?”

That’s not our last name! So Daniel did try to protect us, once upon a time.

“I don’t know yet,” Daniel says.

His trooper glances down at the ParaController, then shrugs.

“You see how good I am?”
Daniel smiles at me.
“I can
fool even my own handler when I want to. I don’t think
there’s another Para who has the talent to do that. Except
maybe you.”

Rachel shoves through the crowd to stand on my other side, with Emily close behind her. “I’m the one who pulled the fire alarm.”

“Then how did Caitlyn know where the fire was?” Daniel asks, triumphantly.

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Everyone’s looking at me. I turn so the reporter can’t see my face, and lower my voice an octave. “I could smell it.”
“Come get me, Mom! Now!”

“So could I. That’s why I pulled the alarm,” Rachel says, her voice rising.

Mr. Temple turns his head sharply toward Daniel, like he’s listening to something no one else can hear. Then he looks at Rachel. “And your classroom was on
what
floor?”

“The fourth,” Rachel says miserably, squeezing her eyes shut.
“I’m sorry, Caitlyn.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I think I’ll go get checked out by a medic,” I say, wiping at my forehead. “I don’t feel so good.”

“You stay where you are,” Daniel’s handler says, pulling out his gun and pointing it at me.

“Afraid the Normals will know what you really are?”
Daniel sends.
“But they’re your friends.”

“Can you tell me what happened here?” The reporter thrusts her microphone toward me.

“Yes, Caitlyn, do tell them. Your face will be all over
the news. But you’ve got nothing to be afraid of, right? Normals are such reasonable people.”
I shake my head.

“Answer the question,” Daniel’s handler growls.

The school’s floor plans flash through my head. “I just know I smelled the smoke. I’m sure that if you look at the blueprints, you’ll see that the auditorium vent connects to the classroom I was in.”

Daniel’s handler narrows his eyes.

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The school trooper barks at Mr. Temple to show him the blueprints.

“Oooh, good save,”
Daniel sends.

The school trooper and Mr. Temple walk toward the school office while Daniel’s handler watches me through slitted eyes.

“Your cries to the poor victims almost left me deaf,”
Daniel sends,
“And your plea to Mom gave me a splitting
headache. Your talent is going to such a waste.”

“Mom, where are you?!”

Right on cue, our beaten-up car screeches to the curb.

Mom runs toward the crowd of students, her hair flying behind her, her hand clutching her purse-strap with white fingers. Her eyes frantically search for me.

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