The Felix Chronicles: Freshmen (73 page)

Allison’s forehead wrinkled in confusion for a half-second and then smoothed over, her lips twitching up in a smile. “That’s pretty cool.” She ran a lone finger over his stomach. “Not even a scar.”

“Just like my nose,” Felix replied, recalling how surprised he’d been when he looked in his dorm room mirror and realized his broken nose from tangling with the Faceman had fixed itself in just a few hours. But this time, the healing process was faster, significantly faster. Tripoli had stabbed him in the gut fifteen minutes ago at most. His, whatever you wanted to call them,
abilities
,
powers
—words like that sounded corny and comic bookish to him, evoking images of capes and masks—seemed to be escalating. He wondered for a moment where it would all end and shivered.

“Just like your nose,” Allison repeated. Then she added with a groan: “Must be nice. I hurt everywhere.”

A thought occurred to him as he stared at the trunk and he blurted, “Where’s the spare tire?” There were five latches on the floor: One in each corner and one centered in the front. He tugged on the corner latches. Nothing happened. Then he slid his fingers over the latch in front. It felt like the ‘on off’ switch from the old printer he’d had in high school. He pressed down on one side of it—the raised side—and the floor flipped open like the mouth of a giant clam, revealing a false floor.

“Holy shit!” Felix shouted. On TV, false floors were primarily used to hide drugs, guns, money, and the occasional dead body. Life was imitating art: Bill’s concealed the biggest gun in the world.

Allison’s mouth formed a big letter O and her eyes bulged. “Did you know that Bill drives around with a cannon in his car?” She pointed at it, startled. “What the hell is that thing?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said softly, staring at it. The polished barrel was black and as thick as Felix’s wrist. “Damn. This thing’s huge. I think it’s a military shotgun. Lucas and I play this computer game sometimes—that’s the gun we use. It’s an automatic, I think. I’m pretty sure Bill’s not supposed to have it unless he’s like a cop or special agent or something.”

“He’s not just a groundskeeper, is he?” Allison didn’t get a response from Felix—there were only so many head shakes and shrugs in his arsenal—so she continued to look down at it suspiciously, standing back from the trunk as if she was afraid the gun might go off all on its own.

“We better hide this,” Felix said, thinking that one of these days he really needed to get together with Bill and ask him some questions; he knew almost nothing about the guy. He pressed down on the floor panel, trying to muscle it back into place, but it only gave way in front, bending down slightly.

“Here.” Allison stepped up to the car and nudged him aside with her hip. “You’re going to break it. I bet you need to press this.” She pushed down on the other end of the switch with her thumb—the raised side—and sure enough, the floor panel silently closed. No more cannon.

A long silence followed as Felix considered what to do with the gun, finally deciding the best place for it was right where it was. “I guess we should go.” He slammed the trunk shut and started for the driver’s side door.

“What about our clothes?” Allison said, sounding troubled. “If a cop pulls us over for speeding we’re screwed.”

Felix stopped and turned back to her with a grin on his face. “How do you feel about unwashed gym clothes?”

“My favorite.” She smiled, then abruptly squinched up her face in pain, putting her hand to her mouth. She glanced down at the blood on her fingertips and added wistfully, “Is that all you brought?”

“We’re lucky I even have ‘em. I was planning to do a load of laundry at the dorm before I head back.”

Her expression stiff with skepticism, Felix led Allison around to the back seat where she watched him dig through his grandma’s floral print duffel bag until he found shorts and hooded sweatshirts for them both, hers orange and green, his blue and gray. He set his aside and lobbed hers over his shoulder. Allison snagged them with one hand, using the other to affect an exaggerated pose: a dramatic pinching of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

And then they took off their clothes.

Allison’s undergarments had survived the fight unscathed. Felix’s hadn’t—his underwear was soaked through with blood—and he didn’t have a spare pair in the bag so he was forced to keep them on. They smiled at each other, though not out of nervousness or insecurity; after what they’d just endured, stripping down to their pale goose-bumped skin seemed both trivial and the most natural thing in the world. Allison shivered as the shifting winter winds tore across the parking lot.

Felix should have probably realized it earlier, but once he did, it came as a shock, like a punch to the face: He felt the cold, but
he
wasn’t cold. He watched Allison’s breath puffing out in little trailing clouds. It was like he could see her body heat dissolving away as the winds nipped at her exposed skin. He knew the bitter coastal air was just a few digits north of refrigerator temperature. But he felt… comfortable.

He must have had a strange expression on his face because Allison narrowed her eyes at him. “Let me guess—you’re not cold.”

Felix shook his head apologetically.

“You suck.” Allison laughed as she pulled the extra-large hoodie over her head. The sweatshirt bagged on her and hung down straight to the hem of her shorts. She pushed back the puddles of fabric on her sleeves. “Okay. Ready.” She started for the passenger side, walking with a mild limp.

He hid the clothes they’d had on—now little more than blood-stained rags—at the bottom of the bag, covering them up with the rest of his laundry. He slid the bag onto the floor and stuffed it under the seat, then closed the door. As he turned to head toward the front of the car his eyes were drawn to the black Mercedes SUV parked just two spaces away. He swallowed convulsively. He’d been trying not to look but now that it had him in its grip, he hesitated, and his eyes roamed over it. Tripoli, Parni, Bianca and the now headless man whose name he didn’t know, had left the engine running. The streaming clouds of idling exhaust chuffing out from the dual exhaust pipes rose up but only as high as the bumper before the scouring gales carried them away. The cocky bastards had expected a quick kill and a quick escape.

But it wasn’t the Protectors’ arrogance that bothered Felix. Just a little while ago, four people—
people,
he reminded himself—had climbed out of that car. A lot of things about the world and his life confused him. But there was one thing he knew for certain: Those four people wouldn’t be climbing back into the car. They wouldn’t be driving out of here. That reality, the absolute finality of that fact, was terrifying. Four people—four
actual
living, breathing people who had
existed
just an hour ago—no longer existed. They were no longer living and breathing. They were gone. Gone because of him.

The sound of overstressed tires on pavement sent shock waves running through Felix’s body. His eyes snapped away from the Mercedes and he looked to the mouth of the parking lot. What he saw made his stomach clench.

A silver sedan was speeding toward them.

Felix stepped away from Bill’s car and glanced over at Allison. She nodded at him. She didn’t have to say a word because her expression told him everything he needed to know: They were thinking the same thing. Her thoughts mirrored his.

Felix raised a hand toward the sedan, staring ahead blackly. His jaw hardened. A burst of adrenaline pulsed through his veins. Whoever was in the car—the fifth Protector late for the party?—was going to deeply regret coming to the Cliff Walk.

Felix had been stabbed enough for one day.

The sedan skidded to a screeching stop, writhing plumes of blue smoke rising up from the asphalt beneath the tires. The car puffed out exhaust which wafted for only a moment before whipping away in the winds. Then the engine cut out. The driver’s door swung open as sheets of sunlight shone down through a swirling veil of cloud cover. Felix stared at the windshield, squinting against the glare, but all he could make out was that the visor was in the down position. He couldn’t see the driver’s face.

A foot emerged from the car—a dark brown riding boot—followed by another. The driver—a woman, Felix concluded quickly, based on the boots—stood up. Above the door her head appeared; long wavy blonde hair whipped around her face in the wind, covering it up almost completely. Felix still couldn’t see her face. Yet there was something familiar about her. He didn’t know what it was—the color of her hair? the shape of her head?—but he felt his throat tighten. She turned and started running toward him, her hair falling back from her forehead, dancing on her shoulders. When he saw her face he nearly passed out on his feet.

It was Harper.

Felix felt his mouth fall open in astonishment as he watched Harper running toward him. A smile stretched across her face, her cheeks turning instantly pink from the chill. As Harper drew near, she hesitated, some of the newfound color draining from her face. Felix exchanged an uneasy glance with Allison while Harper looked at them suspiciously, no doubt puzzling over what they were doing at the Cliff Walk parking lot in the freezing cold wearing only shorts and sweatshirts. The three of them looked from one to the other, waiting for someone to say something. It was hard to decide who looked the most surprised.

The silence dragged on, weighing heavier with every second.

“Hey Harper,” Felix finally muttered, awkwardly, sinking his hands deep into the pockets of his sweatshirt.

And then, to his surprise, Harper ran right up to him and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly, squeezing him like she was afraid someone was going to rip him from her arms. “Thank God you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” he murmured.

“Hey.” Allison came around the front of Bill’s car, giving Felix a questioning look.

“I was so worried about you,” Harper said to Felix. “I’ve been looking for you all morning.”

Felix couldn’t believe Harper was here—actually here, at the Cliff Walk, in his arms, right this very second. A thousand different things were going through his head all at once, choking off whatever synapses are responsible for speech and higher thought. His few non-oxygen-deprived brain cells were trying to come up with a plausible explanation as to why he and Allison were hanging out at the Cliff Walk with a Range Rover and a Mercedes at their personal disposal—not to mention why their faces were spattered with blood and grime.

Harper took a step back, giving Felix’s eyes the space they needed to settle on the familiar features of her face: her gorgeous blue eyes, her broad shapely mouth, and the little spots on her cheeks where dimples formed when she laughed. She looked up at him, smiling shyly. “So do you want to tell me what happened to you guys?”

“Whose car is that?” Allison broke in, pointing at the sedan, a newer model Nissan Altima with Washington plates.

“Fallon’s friend.” Harper’s eyes stayed on Felix. “I have to get it back to her today ‘cause she’s going back to Olympia tomorrow. I can’t even tell you how worried I’ve been. The same goes for Caitlin and Lucas. You shouldn’t have just left without saying anything.”

“I know. It’s just that…” There was no way to explain to her what had happened in Bill’s office, and even if he could, he knew that he didn’t want to, so he let the sentence trail off in the wind.

“I didn’t know you were so close to our RD,” Allison said, her voice guarded. “You’ve talked to Fallon like three times all year.”

“We’re not.” Harper paused. “But no one’s around the dorm but her and some of her friends.”

“How’d you find us?” Allison asked.

“Your text.” Harper’s eyebrows pulled together. “You told us you were in Cove Rock so I went to Felix’s grandma’s house—thank God for the Internet—but no one was there. It’s a good thing it’s a small town ‘cause I was about to head back to Portland, but I saw you guys driving this”—she looked over at the Range Rover—“when I was getting gas on Main Street. I followed you, but I got caught behind some cars and couldn’t see where you’d turned off. I kept going for like another thirty minutes. I knew you must’ve gotten off the main road somewhere, so I hung a U-ey and went down a few roads looking for you. And then I drove down Cliff Walk Road and saw Felix’s car in the parking lot.” She smiled brightly at Felix. “And now here I am.”

He smiled back, but it felt strained, like he was posing for a school photo.

“Felix’s car?”
Allison said, confused.

Harper tilted her head as though she didn’t understand the question. “Yeah,” she said after a moment of hesitation, nodding at the Range Rover. “Felix’s car.”

“You think
that’s
Felix’s car?” Allison asked with a faint, skeptical laugh. “You’re joking, right?”

“Of course I’m joking.” Abruptly, Harper started to giggle.

Felix laughed along, although he didn’t really get the joke—maybe he was just too fried for humor.

Allison wasn’t laughing. She crossed her arms, watching Harper with wary eyes. “So tell me about Felix’s car.”

“What do you mean?” Harper’s tone was defensive.

“What kind of car is it? What’s it look like?”

 “What’s she talking about?” Harper said to Felix, shaking her head and rolling her eyes as if to say
Allison’s losing it
.

“C’mon, Harper,” Allison persisted. “Simple question. What kind of car does Felix drive?” A sharp edge had crept into her voice.

“It’s a car!” Harper snapped through tight lips, throwing up her arms. “Who cares? I don’t remember.”

“How can you not remember?” Allison said doubtfully. “You’ve been in it.”

“Hey,” Felix interjected. “I’m not taking it personally. My car’s kinda forgettable. It’s not a big deal.”

“Forgettable?” Allison shouted over the wind as she uncrossed her arms. “Are you being serious? Your car’s a disaster—but definitely not forgettable.”

“Whatever.” Harper smiled, but it didn’t reach up to her eyes.