Reject High (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 1) (24 page)

Asia made a letter “O” with her right hand, held it to her eye, and cranked her left hand on the side, like an old movie camera. “Maybe you shouldn’t have, Superstar. You’re a joke. You always were.”

Between my rambling thoughts, it hit me. Asia filmed the video. Sasha was right – Selby didn’t do it. During the minute or so I had seen, the frame had shaken, like someone was holding a camera. She must have posted it on the web, too. Why would she do something like that to a friend?

For once, I wasn’t the last one to figure it out. Sasha didn’t look like she knew the cameraman’s identity until just now. Her eyelids spasmed but no tears dropped from them.

Welker’s stared at me, his face tightening with pain. “Where is it?”

“You
can’t
read my mind,” I blurted out at my principal.

He ignored me, his eyes shifting. “Trade your friend’s life for it. Give me the source crystal in the next five minutes, and I’ll free Rhapsody.”

“And. . .” I was more than a little curious now.

He licked his lips and grinned. “I’ll tell you the location of Anna Champion’s grave.”

I didn’t see that coming, and had no idea how to refuse it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I say goodbye

Off its medication, my brain flew all over the place. One minute I thought about almost dying underground, suffocated by dirt. In the next few seconds, I was fixated on my mom, Anna.

I needed to be with her, and standing six feet above her casket would be closer than I’ve been to her in three years. How did he know where she was buried?
Did he read Debra’s mind or something?

All he wanted in exchange was an opportunity to do what? Make more superhuman students? He had that with the red ice, didn’t he? “Why do you want it so badly? You have
those,”
I said, looking at his ring.

Welker wouldn’t answer me, but he un-froze us. “Take it, or leave it,” he said.

If I left it, Rhapsody would die, if she hadn’t already. Welker wouldn’t have the green source. He couldn’t read my mind to find it.     

Sasha grabbed my arms and turned me away from Welker.
“Think,”
she said in a hushed whisper. “You
have
to give it to him. She’ll die, if you don’t.”

For me, throwing a rope around one train of thought right now was like climbing a mountain barehanded. Still, I tried. Whether or not I could outthink my heart was a different story. He’d offered the only thing that could get me to turn my back on everything.

Welker offered his hand to me. “Deal, Mr. Champion?”

Shutting down all logic and emotion, I moved on instinct. I clutched Sasha close to my body. We jumped without a clear destination in mind. My abilities were connected to my emotions, but
our stop
depended on my thoughts. Right now, it was somewhere between Pudgy Burger, Aunt Dee’s house, an amusement park, or some-place where she and I could make out.

Aunt Dee’s won, but dropping down in the backyard was awful. We rushed toward the ground, unable to slow down. Sasha curled up to me and I rolled into a ball to absorb the majority of the impact. It sent us tumbling, body-to-body. We stopped, with Sasha on top of me breathing heavily. If neither of us had been afraid for our lives, it would have been kind of hot.

“Thanks,” she said, an inch from touching my lips with hers. “Are you okay?”

“Okay” was a mild word for what I felt. “Yeah.”

She brushed her hair behind her ears, still lying on me. “Why are we back here?”

“There’s something I need to know,” I said.

We helped each other stand up and brushed our clothes off, though mud still spotted her favorite sundress. I figured she would have cloned a better set of clothes by now. Trails of perspiration dribbled down her neck and collarbone. She did sweat, after all.

I knocked at the back door. Aunt Dee let us into the kitchen after checking our identities. Before doing anything else, I went for my medicine box. Then it hit me that my ADHD was the only thing keeping Welker from reading or controlling my mind. Who knew if he could do it from a distance?

I cut a pill in half and swallowed it. Hopefully, adding half a dosage would give me just enough of a clear mind to function.

Debra entered the kitchen and read my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

Could I say “I may not see you ever again because my principal might kill me?” to my stepmom? Sasha struck up small talk with Aunt Dee and gave me and Debra some time alone.

I studied her movements. She didn’t wring her hands or talk with them at all. “You’re invincible, right?”

“So far,” I lied. As for guaranteeing a return trip, that was as close as I’d get.

“And no one else can do. . .what
you
can do?”

She struggled to finish her sentences without breaking down. We had spent the better part of three years together. She had rubbed calamine lotion on my arms and legs when I got the chickenpox in seventh grade. She bought me chocolate ice cream when Girlfriends One, Two, and Three dumped me. She was the closest thing to a mother I had.  

“No.” I hated it, all of it. But no one else could shoulder this weight but me.

Debra had a brother once. He’d died during his third tour in Afghanistan. That’s all I knew about him. She never even said his name.

“Cap,” she muttered quietly. She looked at me differently, now. I’d grown up. “Where are you going?”

“Reject High,” I replied. “It’s the only place, and this is the only way. He’ll find us there. If I don’t go, Rhapsody could die.”  

We drifted together and hugged. I pulled away, but Debra held onto me tighter.

“I love you,” she said into my shoulder. Debra slipped something into my pocket. Knowing her, it was probably sentimental.

“If I don’t. . .” I said, trying not to choke up. Digging into my back pocket, I handed her Rhapsody’s letter. “Make sure Rhapsody gets this. And bury me. . .next to my mom.”

“You’re not dying tonight,” she said with confidence. “You’re not.”

Suddenly I needed something to drink. My abilities were back to full strength! “Where’s Peters?”

Debra let me go. “He left the house just after you two did.”

As if on cue, Sasha returned to the kitchen. “Peters still has the pouch, doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” Debra admitted. “Yes, he does.”

Uh oh.

I grabbed Sasha by the hand and rushed outside for the storm cellar. There wasn’t any time to explain. She didn’t hesitate in following me there.

I flung open its metal doors and rumbled down the stairs. The inside of the basement shined emerald green. The color pulsed bright every few seconds. I’d never seen the source do that before.

Peters stood in front of it with his back to us. He leaned in, but didn’t touch it. Was he studying it? Either way, he’d tell me what I needed to know.

“It’s not what you think,” he said, edging closer to the source.

I didn’t like the idea of someone telling me what to think. Sasha nudged my shoulder with hers. “Where’s the green ice?”

“Safe,”
he said, without turning around.
“Still
think I’m
your enemy?”

He hadn’t given me a reason to think differently. I crossed my arms. This
had
to be good. 

“Tell me why Walker wants it.”

“Only
he
knows that,” he replied, moving to within a foot of the source. “I think I knew once. He’s not the one pulling the strings here. I don’t know who is.”

Sasha jumped in. “
You
want to use it to keep yourself alive. Why does he want it?”

I could hear the smirk on Peter’s face. “I thought your boyfriend was Captain Obvious. It’s the only way for me to keep breathing. Welker and I were friends years ago. He used to be easier to predict. All I have are guesses about what he plans to do now.”

“Give us the best ones,” I suggested.

Peters turned toward us. His hair and skin glowed – every bit of sickness we’d ever seen in him had disappeared. In fact, he looked younger than either of us had seen him, far closer to our age than he used to be.

“Healing isn’t the only thing he wanted,” Sasha said. “He’s
younger,
Jason.”

Younger?
“You said these prisms don’t give you powers.” I blurted out.

“They do now,” he said in a higher voice, grinning devilishly. “Youth, it appears, is part of the puzzle.”

Peters’ clothes sagged around him, like he’d wandered into his father’s closet and stolen an outfit. He kicked off his oversized shoes and hiked up his pants, tightening his belt around his waist. My science teacher wasn’t my enemy, but he wasn’t much of a friend, either. 

In either case, we had to get him away from the source. Nothing about this Fountain of Youth scenario sounded good. If only I had Selby’s speed right now.

Sasha fretted beside me. I could tell she wanted to split, but doing so might agitate him.

“Power corrupts,” I recited from US History class. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

He marveled at my memorization. “You paid attention in class. What else did you learn?”

“Not to trust adults, mostly,” I joked. Keeping him off-balance was important. “What did you say Welker planned to do with that?” I asked, pointing to the source.

He paused for a minute, scratched his head, and thought out loud. “Welker? Who
is
that, anyway?” 

“Mr. Welker, the principal, your boss?” Sasha said with a hint of confusion. “Your old friend.”

“The
principal?”
Peters’ voice squeaked.

Sasha elbowed me. Our science teacher looked like a teenager now. Constant exposure made him worse. Welker had never erased Peters’ memories –
the source messed them up anytime he got too close.

That played to our advantage. We needed to get him out of the cellar quickly before he became the world’s first superpowered toddler. “Any ideas?” I asked Sasha.   

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “One.”

Sasha returned to the house, where she briefed Aunt Dee and Debra. Meanwhile I guarded Peters – holding him close enough to the source to keep him from aging, but far enough away that he didn’t get any younger. It wasn’t easy to do, what with him asking questions about
where
it came from.

I had the same question. Was it from another planet? Made sense, sort of, but that wouldn’t explain how the thing got into Reject High – unless an alien put it there. Welker wasn’t
that
old. The school was built sometime during the sixties, I think.    

My meds helped me to focus better, but I lapsed every now and then. During one of them, Peters reached toward the source, and by the time I pulled him back, he’d lost another year or so. His pants almost fell off of his rapidly shrinking waist.

Getting him different clothes would be tough. I couldn’t leave him alone long enough to leap home to grab him some of mine. Welker might have stationed Spivey to watch for me there, or he might be too busy covering up the Selby murders.

The worst part was if Selby actually did kill his parents, there’s no way he could be caught. Say I handed over the source to Welker. All he had to do was stay close enough to it, and he’d outlive the people searching for him.