Nerve

by Kirsten Krueger

  “Adara was there, too!” Seth defended, waving a piece of bacon in the air to draw attention to himself. The Rosses ignored him, but Nero scowled.

  “Stromer didn’t do shit to thwart the Wackos.” His friends, seated at their usual table, snickered in support. “I took down that Wacko, and then the other Stromer helped her escape. Anyone who associates with that family should be locked—”

  “Nero, unlike others, has made the safety of this town and its inhabitants his utmost priority,” Artemis cut in, barely hiding the strain in her tone. “This is why we have agreed that he will be this school’s student leader—a commander, per se, in the war against the Wackos. He has mastered his Affinity well, and you will all learn from him. His authority is to be treated as equal to that of a teacher—”

  Tray spluttered, springing upright in his seat. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re excused, Stark,” Nero sneered, nodding toward the doors. “Maybe you should leave before I give you detention.”

  “Are you blind?” Tray demanded, his attention on the stone-faced Reggs. “You want to give him power?”

  William’s composure didn’t waver. “Nero is exactly the kind of leader this school needs. He understands that weakness cannot be tolerated if we are to win this war.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you intend to do any fighting.” Lavisa narrowed her yellow eyes in a challenge.

  “Our job is to organize and instruct,” Artemis said, “which is what we will do, starting today. We’re aware that this school has put an emphasis on classroom education while lacking in the area of improving your Affinities physically. That is why, from now on, all classes have been canceled. Instead, students will spend eight hours a day in the training gymnasium.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Tray exploded, his chair flying back as he stood from it. “Our mental education is far more important than our physical education! Most of us aren’t even old enough to join the army!”

  William licked his lips, the first sign of agitation. “You have been gifted with an ability that can save this country from ruin. Your knowledge of science, mathematics, and history is irrelevant, as is your age. All students in Periculand, as well as all citizens, will be expected to march against the Wackos once the president-elect is inaugurated in January, and any who resist will be treated as terrorists themselves.”

  “And what do you plan to do with the terrorists you apprehend?” Tray questioned through his teeth.

  “Confinement with the possibility of execution.” Artemis stated this without shame or remorse, her dark eyes boring into him. To Eliana, it didn’t seem like mind control necessarily, but Tray felt no inclination to argue. “In preparation for this conflict, Periculand has been placed under the protection of armed guards, who will monitor the perimeter of the town, as well as scout the campus for any signs of intrusion. These guards have been outfitted with gear designed to withstand all types of Affinities, so although they are Reggs, they will stand a chance against the Wackos in the event of an attack.”

  “If you can make Reggs equal to Affinities with these suits, why do you need a bunch of dumbass teenagers to fight your war?” The familiar voice diverted all attention to the girl seated alone at a red table in the corner. When the Rosses registered the cherry-tinted hair and eyes of Adara Stromer, clean of soot and no longer sporting her prisoner garb, they didn’t take a moment to observe that her cargo pants were orange instead of green.

  “Apprehend the criminal!” None of the seated students moved at William’s command, but Nero rapidly prowled across the room, Nixie at his heels and Calder following hesitantly.

  “Shit.” Adara fumbled out of her chair and darted toward the kitchen door. Before disappearing, her eyes flitted back to the primaries, but she didn’t wink at Seth or Tray or Ackerly—she winked at Lavisa.

  Her mustard-colored eyes were still wide with realization when Nero and Nixie flew by their table and followed Adara into the kitchen. As soon as they did, the panicked screams of the cooks wafted out along with the smell of freshly cooked food.

  Calder paused in the open doorway, his eyes on the scene within but his thoughts carefully aimed at Eliana. It’s not her, is it?

  In the instant he opened that question to her, Eliana also collected the speculations that had led to the recognition. He’d noticed the orange cargo pants, the too-dark hue of her eyes, and the fact that she hadn’t even looked in his direction—as if looking at Calder was the first thing Adara Stromer would have done upon escaping from jail. Eliana smirked at that notion, and Calder seemed to understand what she’d glimpsed, because he swiftly shut off his mind as a frown formed on his face.

  Though he’d concluded, along with many others, that Adara would have been idiotic enough to publicly announce her breakout, he hadn’t needed Eliana to shake her head in affirmation to know the person fleeing from Nero was Ruse Dispus. He also didn’t seem particularly disappointed when, a few moments later, the brute pushed through him to reenter the cafeteria with murder written on his face.

  “She got away.”

  “Search the town for her.” At Artemis’s command, the gray-eyed boy dipped his chin and beckoned the Pixie Twins to follow him. “Everyone else, search the campus. Fraco, alert the guards of the prisoner’s escape.”

  Nodding servilely, Fraco scurried from the cafeteria after Nero and the twins, the rest of the school trailing fervently behind. Eliana knew no one really planned to apprehend “Adara” if they found her, but they were all excited to watch this event unfold.

  “My brother loves to cause a scene,” Lavisa mused as the seven primaries rose from their table and trickled out of the cafeteria last. To combat the cold weather, students had been granted white sweatshirts with the Periculand Training School logo, but the November chill still bit at Eliana when they passed through the double doors of the Naturals Building.

  As they paused on the path, Lavisa watched the Reggs and Fraco scamper around campus in search of the escaped prisoner. The other students stood by the Residence Tower, observing with their own silent amusement. “He’s probably pissing his pants with hilarity right now.”

  Kiki flipped her hair in admonishment. “Your brother is an idiot. He’s gonna get arrested for pissing them off.”

  “No, he’ll shift into some other form and they’ll never find ‘Adara,’” Hartman said, bouncing on his toes. “Well, they will find Adara—in jail, where she’s been this entire time.”

  “Won’t they know it was Ruse, though, when they realize Adara never broke out?” Ackerly’s question was directed at the culprit’s sister, who just shrugged.

  “Probably. I won’t break him out of jail if he finds himself there.”

  “Hopefully he does get thrown in jail,” Seth said before receiving an incredulous look from Lavisa. “Then Adara will have company. She must be lonely.”

  Eliana’s focus trained on the police station, barely within sight at this distance. “Don’t forget Angor’s there.”

  “Yeah, but that guy’s a murderer.”

  “Seems like the type of company Adara would enjoy,” Ackerly piped up timidly.

  Before Seth could retort, his twin shook his head vigorously and snapped, “Stop talking about Adara. As I’ve been saying for days, we have more important issues, like the fact that Nero has been given authority! But not only that—he’s answering to the Reggs! Nero’s never bowed down to anyone before.”

  “It’s hard to say never when we’ve only known him for three months,” Lavisa countered. “What do you think, Hartman?”

  The teleporter licked his lips, orange eyes darting toward where Nero and the Mardurus Twins had disappeared into town. “Tray’s right. Nero’s never accepted authority; he’s always wanted to be in charge. He didn’t even listen to his own mother when we were young, and I think he might have actually cared for her, so…”

  “He survived juvie,” Seth reminded them, waving that flimsy piece of bacon around as he spoke. “Maybe this is how�
�by getting in with the right people, even if it meant groveling.”

  Tray blinked in bemusement. “I didn’t know you knew the word ‘groveling.’”

  “My life’s gotten so boring without Adara that I’ve resorted to reading dictionaries for fun.”

  “I always knew her absence would be intellectually beneficial for you.”

  “Nero survived juvie with his strength, not through groveling. Hastings…” Eliana started, but she was unable to finish her sentence—unable to dredge up those memories of Hastings telling her things, of Hastings talking and being alive.

  “Well…” Ackerly awkwardly cleared his throat. “If Nero’s never bowed down before, why bow down to Reggs? Doesn’t he…hate them?”

  Tray scratched his chin, brooding. “They must have given him a good offer. Eliana, were you able to read his mind?”

  “He knows how to block me…because of his mind reader friend.” She nodded toward the crowd of students at the center of campus, where Nero’s pink-haired mind reader stood tall and expressionless. “And, er—Calder has been avoiding me, I think. He won’t tell me what happened during the meeting. William’s mind was fairly open, but he wasn’t thinking about it at all…and Artemis’s mind is…strange, like Angor’s.”

  “Her…mind is like Angor’s?” Ackerly’s green eyes brightened with the realization. Tray tried not to cringe as his roommate discerned what he and Calder had suspected. “What if Artemis…has an Affinity? A Mental Affinity? A…mind controlling Affinity? What if they’re forcing Nero to work with them?”

  Hartman shook his head. “Nero would crush their skulls.”

  “He wouldn’t be able to if they had control over him,” Lavisa reminded him. “If she’s a skilled mind controller, he wouldn’t even know he was being controlled.”

  A memory struck Eliana suddenly, and the implications of it were harrowing. “I-I had a dream…of Hastings…the other night. He said she when referring to the person who controlled his mind. What if Artemis is not only controlling Nero now but was also controlling Hastings then? What if she wasn’t the target, but she was trying to murder Angor?”

  Groaning, Tray massaged his temples. “I miss having only Seth and Adara as company. You people are too intelligent.” They all looked to him in bafflement, so he sighed. “You all know I suspect that Angor doesn’t have a mind controlling Affinity, but on Saturday, Calder and I came to the conclusion that it could be Artemis. Seth and Adara never would have had the brains to figure—”

  “Why isn’t this information you would pass onto us immediately?” Lavisa demanded.

  “Because it’s just a theory, and I didn’t think they would use it to get Nero on their side. Now…it seems like the only viable option.”

  “Hastings’s murderer…is walking around free?” Eliana’s voice remained deadly calm, even as rage swelled within.

  “And running this town, instead of the man she accused as his murderer,” Hartman added. “Should we start a protest? Expose her? Boycott training? March around with posters?”

  “No, we should do something that will actually lead to progress—something that won’t waste our time,” Tray dismissed as he monitored the new security guards who now stomped around campus in search of “Adara.” Their suits were solid gray, exposing not even an inch of their skin. They wore tinted helmets atop their heads and had guns slung over their shoulders as casually as backpacks. “I wish I could get a good look at that gear—the anti-Affinity material. I want to see what it’s composed of.”

  “Okay,” Lavisa said, startling Tray out of his pensive trance. When he saw the impassive expression on her face, he glared.

  “Don’t get Adara-sassy with me and just say ‘okay’ to every word I say to piss me off.”

  “No, I meant I’ll get it for you.”

  Tray’s lips parted. “You’ll get…”

  “I’ll get the gear for you,” she repeated slowly, as if speaking to a toddler. “Just give me some time to assess the situation and find the perfect timing. Hartman, I’ll probably need you.”

  “Oh, yes!” He teleported around them in excitement. “Is this plan progressive enough?”

  “It’s…a start,” Tray replied, eyes drifting toward the Naturals Building. “I’ll need to steal some equipment from the science labs.”

  “Stealing, Stark?” A smirk spread across Lavisa’s face as she backed toward the town’s entrance, where there would surely be a concentration of guards. Hartman teleported after her in three-foot spurts.

  “I… You’re stealing, too,” was Tray’s lame response, eliciting only an impish eyebrow jump from Lavisa before she spun on her heel and stalked toward her mission.

  His twin clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll come with you, bro. I’m probably the only one who’ll be able to keep you on this path of immorality.”

  “It’s just borrowing,” Tray insisted with a cough. “Ackerly, I’m assuming you’ll be more useful in collecting the right equipment than my brother?” After fidgeting with his glasses, Ackerly acquiesced. “And you two will deflect attention from the fact that we’re not present?” Eliana gave him a nod while Kiki rolled her eyes.

  When the boys departed, leaving the girls on the outskirts of the crowd, Eliana wasn’t quite sure what to do with this vague task. More than anything, she wanted to get in a room alone with Artemis and delve into the woman’s mind, thoroughly exploring every crevice until the truth was unveiled.

  Kiki had other plans of interrogation. Grabbing Eliana’s arm and demanding she meet her eyes, the girl hissed, “What’s going on with us?”

  Eliana’s mouth opened in surprise. “With…us?”

  “You have a dream about Hastings, and then he shows up at our door—”

  “That was Ruse,” she said evenly, banishing any hope that Hastings could ever come back. “It was probably just a coincidence.”

  “Just like it’s a coincidence that, in your dream, Hastings said she and now everyone’s suspecting Artemis killed him?” Her eyebrows perked, daring Eliana to refute the logic. Within a few days, Kiki’s hair and eyes had changed colors rapidly, the blue and blonde now nearly a dusty rose-gold, and if that meant her Affinity was accelerating as well…

  “You think…I’m subconsciously interpreting your subconscious visions of the future…and they come to me in the form of dreams?”

  “I was going to say you’re stealing my dreams, but if you want to put it that way, sure. Our minds are…connected, or something.”

  Eliana bit her lip as she surveyed the girl before her. A few months ago, she never would have thought a person like Kiki Belven would give her a second glance—but Kiki had wanted to be her roommate, and she’d expressed a desire to be her friend. She had psychologically tortured Adara, Eliana knew, and she still wasn’t a kind person, but if the two of them could find a way to work together, perhaps to prevent calamities like Hastings’s death…

  “We should…explore this connection more,” Eliana finally conceded. “And I should teach you how to block mind readers. I…almost always know what you’re thinking.”

  Color crept onto her pale cheeks, but Kiki kept her posture dignified. “You can’t blame me for admiring your hair color, okay? I would choose blue over pink any day.”

  Eliana smiled coyly, knowing the other girl’s opinions of her appearance were rooted deeper than shallow envy. “Thanks, I think…”

  It hadn’t been difficult for Calder to convince Nero to let him stop by the police station and ask Officer Telum about Adara’s location; so hell-bent on finding her, the brute only grunted before continuing his prowl through town. Adara would hear about this shenanigan, even if Calder wasn’t the one to tell her, but he wanted to be the one to tell her. Though Ruse had done it merely for fun, this felt like an unexpected gift to counteract the otherwise dreadful direction of Calder’s life.

  “Telum,” he greeted the moment he barged through the front door. The officer lounged with his feet propped up on his desk a
nd a small device in his hands, but he swiftly scrambled to a more proper sitting position. “Are you…playing handheld Yahtzee right now?”

  Awkwardly, Mitt glanced down at the red piece of plastic. “It was the only electronic device they’d let me bring into town.”

  “This is what they’re paying you to do? Play electronic board games?”

  Silver eyes slivered, Mitt stood and chucked his little game onto the desk. “I would be patrolling the town for danger, but I’m required to be here at all times now that we have prisoners. They won’t even let me leave for ten minutes to go find a book in the library. They bring me my food and the prisoners’ food, and I sleep on the floor.” He motioned toward a pile of blankets and pillows in the corner. “Don’t tell Adara; she’ll make fun of me.”

  “Because you’re as much of a prisoner as she is? I might make fun of you for that—and for the fact that, while you were playing Yahtzee, Stromer managed to escape.”

  Mitt blinked once, processing Calder’s words and complacent expression, and then he whirled around and darted into the back corridor where the jail cells resided. Calder followed at a leisurely pace, pausing to lean on the doorway and watch in cruel amusement as Mitt realized Adara was still locked behind bars, lying on that metal slab and staring up at the blank ceiling.

  “Something wrong, Mitt?” she droned without bothering to glance in his direction. Her eyes were strikingly red in comparison to the shade Ruse had given them. Calder wondered, if it weren’t coated in soot and grease, what color her hair would be now.

  “You—you—” The officer spun toward him, simmering. “Get out.”

  “I wish I could, Mitt, but only you have the power to free me,” Adara sighed dramatically.

  “Get out.”

  Before she could give another sassy retort, Calder finally replied, “It was an honest mistake, Officer. You see, Adara Stromer really has been running around Periculand, causing mayhem—”

  “Pixie Prince,” she breathed, springing up to meet his gaze. There was undiluted enthusiasm in those red eyes—an expression he’d never quite seen on her—and it made him pause a moment before dipping his chin.