XGeneration, Books 1-3: You Don't Know Me, The Watchers, and Silent Generation

by Brad Magnarella

  “So now it becomes a chicken-or-the-egg question,” he said. “Which came first: our powers or moving to Oakwood?”

  “What, do you think there’s something in the water?”

  But Janis was peering past him now. When Scott turned, he saw it too: a pale halo against the giant oak tree, starting at the top half and swelling down and around it, becoming brighter. The drone of an approaching engine followed.

  Janis stepped from the swing, and Scott stood beside her, his heart pounding the backside of his sternum. The car was coming up the hill, quickly. High beams shot through chinks in the tree’s leaf cover, penetrating their space. Scott instinctively moved in front of her, just as he had done that day in the woods.

  When the car entered the Grove, Scott sized up the headlights. He exhaled. “It’s all right.” He recognized the car’s sound too. “It’s your sister.”

  He followed Janis through the tall grass and threads of night mist to the curb, the car’s golden light growing over them.

  “Offer you a ride?” she asked.

  Scott shook his head. “No, thanks. I’ll just walk home.”

  “Hey, um, everything you told me… I believe you.”

  Scott looked at her face, in full illumination now, and remembered the morning at the end of the summer when a square of sunlight had caught her perfection. He remembered how much it had hurt to look at.

  Now he stepped closer to her. “I believe you, too.”

  The Prelude swerved up to the curb. The passenger side door flew open. Margaret leaned across the seat, glaring out at them. “Janis Graystone! You get into the car right this instant! Do you know it’s almost midnight?”

  Janis gave Scott a tired smile. “See you tomorrow?”

  “Right. See you tomorrow.”

  “Sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah.” He found it hard to meet her eyes now. “And thanks for… for what you did earlier.”

  Janis climbed in and pulled the door closed. The last thing Scott heard before the car wheeled around, its tires cutting sharply against the asphalt, was Margaret’s harping voice: “You assaulted two of their members and tried to attack one of your own sisters?”

  Scott pushed his hands into his pockets and set out for home. He could feel the late hour in his spent body and see it in the dark windows he ambled past. The entire street was sleeping save for a lone figure farther down the hill, walking his dog. Above the soft clopping of his own shoes, Scott could make out the distant tinkling of the dog’s collar. But Scott wasn’t thinking about that right now. He was thinking about the fading hum of the Prelude, only minutes old, and how, for the first time, it hadn’t sounded like a missed opportunity.

  Not tonight.

  27

  Scott wasn’t surprised when Grant Sidwell appeared in his first period biology class the next morning and asked the teacher permission to speak with him. He’d steeled himself for the eventuality. But when he found Britt waiting in the hallway as well, a part of his gut quivered like gelatin. But Britt looked nothing like the zealous priest from the night before. His stocky shoulders were rounded, his eyes downcast, and his hair dry. In his lemon-yellow Polo, he looked like just another high school student.

  “Listen, Scott,” Grant said. “We, ah, we’ve come to apologize for last night. Things definitely got out of control.”

  “Yeah, man. Sorry.” Britt barely raised his head.

  “And we want to make it up to you.” Grant placed his hand where Scott’s shoulder met his neck and squeezed him companionably. Scott held himself rigid. “Forget last night happened, all right? You’re in, man. As of right now, you’re a Gamma brother. We’re even going to waive your dues this year.”

  “Yeah,” Britt put in.

  Keep your mouth shut, and we’ll take care of you. That’s what Grant was really telling him. Sometime following the party, probably while he and Janis were talking up in the Grove, it was the solution Grant and the other officers had come up with.

  “Thanks,” Scott said, “but I’m not really interested in Gamma anymore.”

  “Did you hear me? You’re in. You’re a brother.” He squeezed his shoulder again until it almost hurt.

  “I heard you.”

  He could see the growing uncertainty in Grant’s expression. And for the first time, Grant seemed to notice that, though Scott was wearing slacks and a nice shirt, he wasn’t in Standards. No Gamma letter hung from his neck either. Grant’s hand dropped away. “Last night was an aberration, Scott. It’s not what Gamma’s about and will never happen again. I promise.”

  Grant’s eyes seemed to be pressing his now, but Scott’s gaze didn’t waver, not once. He remembered that first meeting, in August, when they had all looked like magazine models. And that’s just what they were, Scott understood, two-dimensional models. It was Grant who finally averted his eyes. His gaze seemed to search around a moment before seizing on Britt.

  “Britt here’s been put on probation,” he said.

  Britt’s head whiplashed up, his eyes huge. A new development, Scott saw. Not something they’d discussed the night before.

  “Now wait just a goddamned minute,” Britt muttered.

  Grant shook his head as if to say not now, then turned back to Scott. “We’re willing to make this right, Scott. But we need you to tell us that you’re willing to forget last night ever happened.”

  Hadn’t Britt said something similar in the midst of swinging his paddle?

  I wanna help you, son. I really do. But you have to want it!

  THWACK!

  “I’m trying to spare us both a lot of embarrassment here.” Grant pushed out a chuckle.

  Britt had stalked a small circle and now spoke through gritted teeth. “Can we talk for a second?”

  Grant shook his head again. He was in full self-preservation mode.

  “The deal is this…” Scott began.

  Both of them stood watching him. Though his pulse raced, it was all Scott could do to keep from smiling. He counted slowly to five in his head.

  “An Alpha pledge roughed up a couple of your members last night. You know who I’m talking about, right?” He waited for them to nod. “All right, then the deal is this. I’m willing to forget last night, but you have to forget last night, too. If I hear about her getting into any kind of trouble over what happened, I’m going straight to Principal Munshin. He’ll hear everything. He’ll understand there was a reason for what she did. You follow?”

  Both of them nodded again.

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Yes,” they said.

  “How about we seal the deal with…” Scott studied the ceiling in pretend thought, then snapped his fingers. “I know, did you happen to see Revenge of the Nerds? Do you remember how those nerds laughed?”

  Grant and Britt looked at one another.

  “Of course you did. Let’s hear it. Four of them.”

  Grant grimaced. “I really don’t think that’s necessary.”

  Scott started to turn away.

  Britt’s first honk-laugh ripped down the hallway. He elbowed Grant in the side and shot him a look that said, C’mon, man, this is getting off easy — no probation for me, you’re clear. Grant sighed and joined Britt in the final three honks, though with far less enthusiasm.

  “Not bad, gentlemen.” Scott clapped Grant’s shoulder. “For half a second there, you were almost half interesting.” He watched their eyes trying to compute that. “Well, I’ve got to get back to class.”

  “Listen, if you ever want…” Grant started to say, but Scott didn’t hear the rest. The door had already swung closed behind him.

  * * *

  The Steak 'n Shake past the university was about as far as you could go for lunch and still make it back in time for fifth period, depending on the wait. Janis peeked over at Blake, who was skipping his final lunch with the other Gamma pledges. Until that day, his pledge card had been perfect. She wondered if he’d brought her out here to break up. She wonde
red, too, why the idea only made her feel vaguely numb.

  “So, is everything all right?” Blake asked her after they had been seated at a small corner table and ordered.

  “Yeah. Sorry about last night.” It came out sounding hollower than she meant it to.

  “I’ve never seen you like that. You were really… upset.”

  Upset? Her brain felt like it had been drenched in gasoline and set ablaze. But that part of the night seemed distant now, as if she had only stood behind that person, observing.

  Janis watched their waitress twist back toward them, past tables of college students, brown-suited businessmen, and a group of telephone technicians with hard hats in their laps. She set their fountain drinks down, two vanilla Cokes. When Janis looked up, she found Blake’s hand over his chin and his brows drawn together as though he was trying to decide who she was.

  “Look, Scott and I were good friends growing up.” She traced a line through the condensation beading over her glass. “I was taller than him back then, so I used to pretend I was his older sister. I looked out for him.” She shrugged. “I guess the instinct’s still there.”

  Blake took a swallow of his drink and set his glass down. When he looked out the window, the light paled his face. He crunched a piece of ice between his teeth, then let out a long breath.

  Here it comes, Janis thought. The “maybe we should be friends” speech.

  “You were right, you know,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “The Pact. I should have done something before it went that far.”

  Janis’s gaze fell back to her glass. “My dad says hindsight’s always twenty-twenty.”

  “Is Scott okay?”

  “I think so.”

  “I tried calling both of you last night. Him, to see if there was anything I could do. And you to make sure you’d gotten home all right.”

  “Yeah, my dad gave me the message. Thanks.”

  She could see in his eyes that he was waiting for her to explain why she hadn’t been home when he called. But what could she say? Oh, a funny thing happened, babe. It turns out Scott and I took a trip to the past together a couple of months ago. That’s right! Only neither of us knew that the other had had the same experience until last night. Ha, ha! So one thing leads to another, and next thing you know, I’m telling him all about my dreams of mushroom clouds and out-of-body experiences, not to mention this newfound power to tip away shots on goal and blast ex-friends who turn bitch. And Scott, he tells me about his power to fly inside telephone lines and blow up federal taps. So yeah, we decided to stay up late talking instead of going home.

  Janis couldn’t even tell him an approximation of the truth, and a part of her mind clenched with anger — anger toward him for being so damned normal and anger at herself for holding his normalcy against him. She started to reach past the condiment basket for his hand, but the waitress returned, setting two steaming plates of steak burgers and fries between them.

  “Well, it’s too bad about the grounding.” Blake uncapped the ketchup bottle and coaxed a fat dollop onto his burger. “My parents were really looking forward to meeting you.”

  She signaled for him to add some ketchup to her plate, beside the fries. “I was looking forward to meeting them, too.”

  Truth was, dinner in polite company with Blake’s parents felt like the very last thing she wanted. Maybe the two-week grounding her father had handed down for her curfew violation last night wasn’t such a bad thing after all. It would give her a reprieve, time to think.

  Blake tucked a napkin over the knot of his tie, then paused, his dripping burger poised in front of his mouth. “No Standards today?”

  Janis looked down at her purple sweatshirt. She shook her head. “Not for me.”

  The realization crept over Blake’s face. He set his burger down and wiped his hands. “But you’re just one day from completing your pledge period.”

  “Margaret and I already had that conversation this morning, thanks.”

  “But have you thought it through?”

  She stared at him.

  “What I mean is…” He held up his hands in a gesture of appeasement. “There are going to be service days, socials, weekend trips, that sort of thing. I was looking forward to us doing those things together.”

  She kept staring at him, the french fry she held between her finger and thumb growing cold. “Do you honestly think I can just go traipsing back into that club all fa-la-la after what happened last night? You were there, Blake. You saw what they did to Scott. Jesus.”

  “Look, I talked to Grant afterwards. He and Britt are going to apologize to Scott and grant him full membership. They’re even going to waive his fees.”

  Janis gave a sharp laugh. “Yeah, to save their own asses.”

  The muscles at the hinges of Blake’s jaw tensed. “At least they’re willing to own up to their mistake.”

  “Big of them.”

  “What about you, Janis? Have you given any thought to the girl who injured herself trying to get away from you?”

  The fry caught halfway down Janis’s throat. She reached for her Coke. “Injured?” she managed. “Amy was injured?” The fight fell out of her like the checkers from a game of Connect Four.

  “Sprained her ankle when she took that spill.”

  Janis closed her eyes and saw herself storming into the audience, her fury soaring inside her. She watched Amy’s eyes fly wide as the pulse collided into her; heard her scream, a sound shrill with terror, with pain. And Janis could feel the pain. Because in the moment the pulse had hit her, they were connected, she and Amy. It hadn’t lasted long, less than a second, but in that instant, Janis could feel her own ankle wrenching, the tissue tearing like a nylon stocking.

  Janis pushed her plate aside and held the sides of her head.

  “Hey, there’s still time to make it right,” Blake said gently.

  “How?”

  He took her hand. “I’m not supposed to know this, but early tomorrow morning the older Gamma brothers and Alpha sisters are going to surprise us at home and take us to breakfast to celebrate our first day as full members. Maybe you can use the opportunity to apologize to her.” The thumb that stroked the back of her hand felt sensible and reassuring. “You should think about it, anyway.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, but her head had already begun to nod.

  * * *

  Scott bit into his pizza slice, a paper plate poised under his chin to catch the dripping cheese. A cracked-open can of grape soda fizzed softly on the knob to his right. Nestled in the roots of a giant oak tree, he was in the same spot he’d eaten the first day of school. Indeed, he was eating the same lunch. But Scott didn’t feel the same.

  He peered around at the pair of food trucks parked at the curb, at the students spread over the leaf-covered lawn, most of them in jackets now, a cool wind tossing their hair. Scott’s own jacket was padding the ground beneath his bruised bottom, but he didn’t feel alone like he had on that first day of school. And better still, he didn’t feel like he had to hide anymore. His worst fears had come to pass, and strangely, he felt freed from them.

  Now tails, now heads.

  Scott took a swig of the grape soda. That’s what Grant didn’t understand. It had never been about Gamma. The club had only ever been an access way to something else. To someone else.

  For the untoldth time, Scott relived his and Janis’s journey last night, through the band of woods, up Oakwood’s main street, the past three years dissolving into a void, then and now sliding together. And where then and now met stood the same swing set on which he and Janis used to whisk past one another as kids, over the same sweet-smelling mulch. But their time on the swings last night had reached beyond the blithe doings of kids.

  Far beyond.

  “There’s a wood shed in Mr. Leonard’s backyard,” Janis had told him. “I went inside twice, in my out-of-body state. Passed right through the wall. The first time I found a hatch hidden b
eneath the pile of kindling. It was surrounded by some kind of energy field that I couldn’t push through. And then Mr. Leonard opened the shed door, and I flew, screaming, back to my body. Do you remember when I ran out of the classroom that first day? Well, that was me remembering. The next time I went into the shed, the lock had been changed, the floor covered with plywood. But I was able to feel a keypad beside the hatch. And that’s when I knew for certain he had something hidden down there.”

  The details of the account remained with Scott. He wiped his hands with a brown paper towel and removed a letter from the small pocket of his backpack. It was a note, really, a few handwritten lines that had taken him all of third period to compose. After rereading the note, he folded it back up, more or less satisfied.

  I’ll give it to her seventh period.

  The casualness of the thought was another way Scott felt different. It wasn’t like those hand-wringing moments past when he used to tell himself he was going to approach her — today is the day, the chant went — and then shied away. Last night had changed that, too.

  Which reminded him…

  In his backpack, he swapped the note for a thick envelope, pushing it into his shirt pocket.

  There was something else he needed to do that day.

  He stood and shook the sand from his jacket, collected his trash, and slung his pack over his shoulder. Then he began walking toward Titan Terrace, toward the bend near the repaired tennis courts, where Jesse’s black Chevy Chevelle leaned against the curb, Creed and Tyler standing beside it.

  * * *

  Janis reached her locker at the same time the bell rang overhead to start fifth period. With pale fingers, she began twisting out the combination on her Master Lock. After their perfunctory kiss in the dirt parking lot beside the practice fields, Blake had sprinted to make his next class, but Janis had drifted through the thinning students toward her locker. Being late didn’t matter. Nothing seemed to matter — only what she had done.

  I injured Amy.

  The thought repeated itself like a self-flagellation. She could tell herself that Amy had asked for it, had deserved it. And maybe she had. But in the pulse, Janis hadn’t experienced only their old connection; she had glimpsed something else, pressed deep down into the shadows of her former friend. A secret whose contours Janis couldn’t quite make out. And underneath it, a plea for help?