by Jena Leigh
And that was just fine by Alex.
Tonight’s study group was for the chemistry class Alex was in imminent danger of flunking. If she wanted to make heads or tails of the final project that was due the following Friday, then she really couldn’t afford to miss it.
Putting her phone on silent and slipping it back into her pocket, Alex broke into a run, the locker-lined hallways rushing past her in a grayish blur.
Now that Declan had Cassie distracted, Alex actually stood a fair chance of making it to the finishing point with the flag. If she could get there fast enough, she might just be able to make it to Bayside Brews in time to catch the last half of the study session.
This would have been so much easier if she’d just accepted Declan’s offer. One touch, and she could have absorbed his ability. One touch, and they would have won the game and Alex would have been able to jump over to the boardwalk and make it to tonight’s meeting with time to spare.
Not worth the risk, she reminded herself.
No matter how enticing the thought of Declan’s touch might be, for the sake of everyone around her, she simply couldn’t allow it.
She still wasn’t off the hook for starting her abilities training—she’d merely earned a reprieve in the form of four days of lousy weather. This morning, however, the sun had finally started to peek out from behind the ceiling of hazy gray clouds.
It was just dumb luck that Nathaniel and Aiden were out working a job for Grayson tonight, and so Nate wasn’t available to start her telekinesis training.
Nate volunteered Declan to lead the training session in his stead, and Declan—who resented the extra assignment, anyway—proved unexpectedly easy to manipulate.
Her abilities training would start first thing tomorrow, bright and early Saturday morning. Tonight, Alex was going to enjoy her last few hours of normalcy, and she could rest easy in the knowledge that she wouldn’t accidentally hurt someone.
Not yet, anyway.
Alex edged toward the glass doors at the end of the hallway, peering out across the faculty parking lot and the school’s front entrance.
It was late afternoon. Most of the other students and the majority of the faculty had already gone home for the weekend.
They’d chosen Bay View High’s campus specifically so that no one (namely Declan) would be tempted to use their abilities to gain an unfair advantage over the other team. Not that it had made much difference. Declan had jumped anyway.
And from the middle of the flippin’ hallway to the commons of all places. Why not just announce it over the PA system?
“Hi, I’m Declan O’Connell and I can teleport.”
Alex shook her head. With the way that boy flaunted his ability, it was as though he wanted the Agency to come down on him. It wasn’t expressly forbidden to use one’s powers in public, but it definitely wasn’t encouraged.
Alex slipped through the glass doors at the end of the hall and out into the sticky, smothering heat of a Florida afternoon. She moved quickly around the side of the entryway, placing the towering stucco wall of the main entrance between herself and her objective: the junior-class parking lot.
Peeking around the side of the building, Alex caught sight of her beloved black jeep sitting by itself in the gravel lot a few hundred feet away.
They’d been late this morning on account of Kenzie’s malfunctioning coffee maker—an unfortunate turn of events that caused the jeep to be even farther out of reach than it might have been otherwise.
It was a long distance to cover, and she still wasn’t sure where Cassie’s partner had disappeared to. As Alex weighed her options, she kept a firm hold on the tiny souvenir flag that was their objective for this round.
One more victory and she and Declan would earn a free dinner at the expense of their opponents. All Alex had to do was make it back to the jeep, flag in hand, without being intercepted by the other team.
And—total bonus—as the person holding the flag at the finish line, she’d also win dessert.
She could practically taste the cinnamon roll sundae at McRae’s already.
Yum.
Yeah. Losing was so not an option.
Now, to figure out how to sneak across the parking lot.
This had all been Declan’s idea. In an attempt to get around Alex’s no-touching rule that night, Declan had thought up the games. Each one was designed in a way that forced her to think tactically and kept her moving.
A way of training without actually training.
At first she resisted.
What good could one night of game-playing possibly do? Why not just take the night off instead?
Her protests dried up by the end of their second match. The games were actually kind of fun. Declan made for a surprisingly good partner. They worked well together.
On top of that, she was actually learning a few things.
Declan had been right.
Not that she’d ever tell him that. He’d be insufferable.
After stealing another look toward the out-of-reach parking lot, Alex blew out a breath. Hiding out here was only wasting time. No matter how long she stood there strategizing, she couldn’t avoid the obvious answer.
There was only one way she was getting to that jeep.
She would have to do what Declan had instructed her to do in the first place—Alex was going to have to make a run for it.
Her eyes swept the deserted parking lot for movement one last time and then she broke into a run.
* * *
We agreed not to use, Decks! Now cut the crap and play fair!
The words struck like daggers inside of his skull, razor sharp and searing in their absolute clarity. Massaging his temple, Declan ignored his sister’s telepathic rebuke and crept closer to the edge of the roof.
The thoughts Kenzie projected didn’t have to hurt.
She’d only added the pain out of spite.
It was okay, though, because bending the rules had definitely paid off. His jump aggravated Cassie so much she followed him all the way to the science wing before realizing that he didn’t actually have the flag.
Even at a dead sprint, she’d never make it back to this side of campus in time to cut off Alex’s run for the jeep.
That only left Kenzie.
I’m not kidding, Declan.
He would have thought it impossible, but her mental shout was even louder that time. Declan worked harder at tuning her out.
Quit cheating and get back on the ground.
She was one to talk.
To be fair, he thought back, you’re using, too.
Kenzie’s reply wasn’t so much a coherent thought as it was a wave of distilled exasperation—the telepathic equivalent of rolling her eyes.
He shook his head to clear it. If Kenzie knew he was on the roof, then she was doing more than just projecting her thoughts.
There were other perks to being a telepath besides getting inside of people’s heads—Kenzie’s brain also came hardwired with a sort of psychic GPS.
If you were unlucky enough to be within a couple miles of Kenzie, she could not only read your mind, she’d also know exactly where you were hidden. Declan might have years of practice concealing his thoughts behind a telepathy-proof wall, but there was still nothing he could do to prevent her from finding him whenever she felt like it.
If Kenzie had scanned the area for his location, then Alex’s hiding place wasn’t much of a secret anymore, either.
Declan knelt at the edge of the building and looked down. On the ground directly below him, Alex had inched forward and was now peeking cautiously around the side of the building.
If all that fidgeting was any indication, she was working up the nerve to make a break for it. Maybe not her best option, given the flash of red Declan saw disappearing around the side of the gym, halfway between Alex and the finish line.
Just before Alex could launch herself from her hiding place, Declan jumped and materialized two feet behind her. He snagged her aroun
d the waist before she made it half a step, careful to release her before her bare arms could do more than brush against his.
The slightest shiver of electricity rippled across his forearms.
It would take at least three seconds of sustained contact to fully trigger the absorption process, but Alex wasn’t the sort to take any chances. Even this brief contact meant Declan was probably in for a lecture.
Alex swiveled into a defensive position. Annoyance replaced her look of surprise.
The shiver faded and Declan fought back a smile.
Bring on the lecture. It had totally been worth it.
“I—You—Why did you do that?!” she snapped.
He shrugged. “Had to stop you before you made it out into the open. Kenzie’s hiding on the other side of the gym. She would have picked you off in a heartbeat.”
“Oh.” Her body lost some of its rigidity, but her frown lines seemed fixed. “Well, watch it, O’Connell—”
O’Connell? Oh, yeah. She was pissed.
“—because the next time you leave me stuck with your ability, I’m using it to singe that windswept hair of yours right off your forehead. Try flirting with Sandy Bleaker with no eyebrows and see how far you get.”
“Is it really windswept?”
The hostility in her glare was diluted by a subtle uptick at the corner of her mouth. “Where’s Cassie?”
“Left her in the science wing. By now she’s probably made it back to the commons.”
Something drew her attention toward the roof, and her frown returned in full force.
“Did you hear something?” she asked.
He looked up, but could see nothing.
“No. Why?”
“Probably nothing. Just being paranoid,” Alex gazed back out over the parking lot. “Okay. So if Cassie’s reached the commons, that means we’ve got less than a minute to figure out how to get to that jeep before she catches up with us.”
“We could easily beat both of them to the jeep, if you would just—”
“No means no, Declan.”
Declan shook his head. Her stubborn refusal to use her ability was going to get her in trouble one of these days. Didn’t she understand what she was risking by leaving herself defenseless?
“Alright, fine,” he said. “We’ll do it the hard way. Now what’s our move?”
Declan could practically hear the gears turning in Alex’s head as she surveyed the route once more and tried to find a solution.
It had been interesting to watch her progress as the game went on. For the first two matches, she took his orders without question, relying completely on his strategies to make it through to the end.
But that wasn’t going to help her in an actual crisis.
By the third match, Declan purposely started making stupid mistakes—even to the point of throwing the match—all in the hopes that she would be frustrated enough to step up and take the reins.
It worked.
She called him on it almost instantly, but it worked.
For the last three matches, Alex called the shots and led them to victory with her unorthodox plans.
Eventually.
It might have required falling back to Plan C a couple of times, but Alex, he discovered, was nothing if not persistent.
Alex turned back around, frown lines more pronounced than ever. “So much for making it to group tonight,” she muttered.
“Have an idea?” he asked.
“That depends,” she said. “How much do you know about stoichiometry?”
— 8 —
The things I’ll do for a cinnamon roll sundae…
Alex gripped the trunk of a nearby cypress tree and used it to wrench herself free from the muck that had swallowed the lower portion of her legs. Her mud-covered Chuck Taylor’s slipped loose from the swampy earth and she staggered forward, fighting her way back toward solid ground.
The forest floor belched and gurgled, mud slowly creeping back in to fill the vacuum created by her footsteps.
Oh, man… Oh, that is so gross.
Well, one thing was certain: Cassie and Kenzie wouldn’t be following her in here.
You know those “hypothetical situation” games you play with friends when you have nothing better to do?
The ones where you list the most outlandish things you’d do for a million bucks? Or draw the line at just how far you might go to live out that plot twist in the movie The Vow, and wake up to find you’re married to Channing Tatum?
Alex was currently knee-deep in one of those scenarios.
Only she’d totally screwed it up. Instead of millions of dollars, she’d be settling for a pizza dinner.
And a sundae.
Can’t forget the sundae.
Warm, gooey cinnamon roll…
Alex cringed and flicked a giant beetle off of her shoulder.
Two scoops of homemade vanilla bean ice cream…
Was that…? That was definitely a snake. Time for a new path.
A drizzling of caramel syrup and crunched up honey roasted pecans…
This not-so-brilliant idea had seemed so much more appealing when she’d been staring at the woods from the safety of the school’s main entrance.
The plan—Plan D, as Declan had been so obnoxiously quick to note—had been to circle around to the back side of campus, sneak into the forest, run the school’s nature trail halfway through, and then break off into the woods.
Since these woods bordered the junior class parking lot (and since the jeep was parked right at the edge, a mere thirty feet from the tree line) it seemed like Alex’s best means of approach if she wanted to make it to the finish line without being intercepted by the other team.
She hadn’t considered the possibility that the steady rain over the last few days might have turned the low-lying forest grounds into a swampy mess—or that it would take her quite this long to make it through.
She’d planned on ten minutes. Now she was pushing twenty and she still had a long way to go.
Up until a few minutes ago, Alex had been clinging to the dim hope that she might somehow make it to Bayside Brews in time to catch the end of that meeting.
When she’d joked to Declan earlier that she’d be needing help with chemistry if they went through with this plan, she’d only sort of been kidding. If she didn’t make it to that meeting tonight, she really would need to find someone to help her make sense of their final project.
And if she wanted to pass that final exam, it wouldn’t hurt to schedule an extra review session. Or, you know, five.
A shadow—one that was roughly human-sized and moving fast—flickered through her peripheral vision.
Alex scanned the area off to her right, but could find nothing lurking between the close-set trees except bunches of stringy moss and a scattering of palm fronds.
She didn’t think Cassie or Kenzie would have followed her into the woods. They weren’t exactly the outdoorsy sort. After nearly a minute passed with no further movement, Alex gave up and continued on.
It definitely couldn’t have been Kenzie. The closest Red ever got to mud was an exfoliating mask.
Out of the two of them, Cassie was the more likely culprit since, as an artist with four constantly roughhousing brothers, she was no stranger to getting her hands dirty. Although the odds that she would intentionally expose her new Hollister jeans to the ravages of swamp water existed somewhere between the neighborhoods of Slim and None.
But maybe Alex had underestimated just how badly the girls wanted this win.
The ground beneath her feet began to solidify and she said a silent prayer of thanks as the jet-black mud gave way to slate-colored sand.
Another shifting shadow, this time on her left. Alex spun around, but once again found nothing.
“Hello?” she called out. “Kenzie?… Cass?… Cassie, is that you?”
Alex’s words were met only by the chirping cry of cicadas and the rustle of a squirrel moving amongst the branches of a nearby tree
.
Chalking it up to equal parts exhaustion and paranoia, Alex resumed her trek toward the junior lot and tried to distract herself from the slick substance squishing between her toes by daydreaming about dessert.
Next time Declan would be the one on swamp detail. And if he thought he was stealing a bite of her sundae after this, he was sorely mistaken.
Shimmering rays of sunlight peeked through the trees up ahead, allowing Alex a glimpse of the parking lot.
The end was officially in sight.
Before Alex could breathe a sigh of relief, her view of the sun-drenched finish line was broken by a fast-moving column of darkness, one that rocketed past her before disappearing into the trees just behind her.
Something brushed against Alex’s shoulder and she panicked. Stumbling over a tree root, she landed hard on her side, her left arm scraping across the detritus of the forest floor.
“Hello, pet,” said a whispered voice.
Masterson’s voice.
Alex sat up and searched the trees above her for the source of the sound.
Finding nothing but the shifting branches of the towering pine and cypress trees, Alex scrambled to one knee and tried to teleport.
Nothing happened.
Stupid, Alex.
What had she expected? No abilities meant no means of escape. She was alone in the middle of the woods with the subject of her nightmares… and she was defenseless.
Alex cried out. The shadow she had seen shifting through her peripheral vision returned and now shimmered in the air high above her, an oily mirage sliding against the backdrop of the sunlit treetops, twisting and reshaping itself as it dove toward the ground.
In her haste to shuffle backward, Alex reached out blindly, her hands sinking deep into the moisture-laden soil. Slipping in the mud, she found herself flat on her back, staring up at the plummeting black mass.
And then the darkness began to grow.
The shadow hung there, suspended above her head, billowing outward like an ink blot in a pool of water and spreading itself thinner and thinner until it evaporated entirely and nothing but daylight remained.
Instinct took over.
