by K. C. Archer
There’d been a reason she couldn’t read plain ol’ Nick’s hand that night in Vegas. And the reason had been not so plain ol’ Clint Corbett. How could she have been so stupid? Nick must have been—what? CIA? FBI? Homeland Security? Vegas PD? Here Clint was, telling her to play by the rules, when he was the one who’d set up a long con to trick her into coming to school. The guy in charge of the ethics class.
Teddy ran through the options in her mind. She could confront Nick and Clint in front of all the instructors and other students. Or she could get drunk first and then confront them. But Pyro (or, more specifically, his flask) was nowhere to be seen. Time for Plan C.
She turned to Dara. “Do you know who that guy is talking to Clint?”
“No clue, but I’d like to.”
Teddy sighed, exasperated. “Never mind.”
Dara nodded to where Molly and Jeremy were sneaking out of the dining hall. “I think Molly and Jeremy managed a trade for lab keys. Want to see if we can grab some Internet time?”
Two words were at the forefront of Teddy’s mind: Google search. If Nick knew so much about her, the least she could do was find out more about him. She was done playing by the rules. If Clint didn’t have to follow them, then she didn’t have to, either. “Hell, yes.”
Dara and Teddy made their way to the back of the dining hall to catch up with Molly and Jeremy. “Mind if we tag along?” Teddy asked. “Desperate for some Internet.”
The two looked at each other, hesitating a moment before Jeremy responded. “That would be fine.”
They left through the back of Harris Hall and cut through the meditation lawn to the lab. Jeremy fished a key from his pocket and opened the door. For a second, Teddy expected an alarm, a flashing light, something, but nothing happened. Inside, it was just the same office space, the two shiny Macs powered down for the night.
Outside, they heard footsteps. Boots on gravel. A shadow slipped across the glass of the door. Dara sucked in a breath. “Of course, we’re going to be the ones who get caught doing something one time that the entire school gets away with.”
“Shhh,” Molly whispered.
Teddy’s heart pounded. Was she about to throw her entire life away, her shot at Whitfield, just to get revenge on Nick and Clint for setting her up in Vegas? Clint had forced her hand, but he’d done it to give her a second chance, Teddy could see that now. Her convictions had seemed stronger back in the dining hall.
The noise grew closer, and then the lab door creaked open, revealing . . . Pyro.
“Hey, heard you guys got Internet.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” Dara said. “You nearly gave us all coronaries.”
“I just wanted to see how the Chargers are doing. Heard Rivers got hurt.”
“Is that English?” Dara asked.
“Football,” Pyro said.
“There are two computers in the reception and two more in Eversley’s office,” Molly said. “I’ll use one in there, it’ll likely have a password on it, but I can break in, no sweat.”
“I’ll keep watch,” Jeremy said.
Dara and Pyro booted up the computers in the reception.
“I’ll come with you,” Teddy said to Molly, who looked at Jeremy as if for permission. “Is there a problem?” Teddy said to him. Maybe Molly was nervous. Using two unlocked computers was different than breaking in to Eversley’s office.
“Go,” Jeremy said. “We don’t have much time. Ava and Liz have the next spot. I have to meet them after at Harris. Brett’s been letting the entire school in and out of here all night.”
Molly reached for the office door. Locked. Molly tried the key again, but it didn’t work.
“This,” Teddy said, “I can do.” She grabbed a paper clip from a desk drawer, fashioned one end into a shallow hook, and inserted it into the lock. After a couple of jiggles and twists, the lock clicked.
“Something you picked up in Vegas?” Molly asked.
“Maybe one day I’ll learn to do it with my mind.”
They entered the dark lab. Teddy fumbled for a light switch. The fluorescent bulbs flickered on. There were two computers on one side of the room and a patient table on the other. All around them were floor-to-ceiling cabinets.
“Kind of a depressing office, huh?” Teddy said.
“Tell me about it.” Molly was already at work on one computer and Eversley’s password.
“Just tell me it’s not something like ILOVEBOOBS or PSYCHICSSUCK.”
But Molly didn’t seem in the mood for jokes. She took out a USB drive and plugged it into the computer. “This program does the hard work for me.” In a few seconds, she was in. “Not too bad—49ERSFAN#1!—didn’t peg Eversley for a sports guy, though. He and Pyro should hang out.”
“You came prepared.” Teddy typed the password onto the second computer in front of her, watched the screen come to life. All right, Nick, Teddy thought. Let’s see what you’ve got.
Jeremy appeared at the door. “About fifteen minutes or so?”
Molly nodded, furiously typing away, the number of windows and boxes and programs running simultaneously on her screen astounded Teddy.
“Wow, that looks intense.”
It took Molly a second to realize that Teddy was talking to her. “Oh. Sorry, I’m trying to help a friend. Nothing serious, I promise.” She glanced at the clock. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
Teddy went back to her computer, clicking on the file STAFF & FACULTY LIST—UPDATED. And she’d thought this would be hard. She clicked on the search bar and entered Nick. There were three Nicks on campus. One who worked in janitorial. One in security who had been at the school since 2015. And one Nicholas Stavros who had joined the faculty a month ago as an FBI liaison. She closed the document and looked over at Molly, only to find that Molly was staring right at her. “What?”
“N-n-nothing,” Molly stammered. “I just—” She swallowed. “I have to tell Jeremy something, and then I think we should wipe the history on these computers and get going. I’ll be right back.” She stumbled out of her chair and left the room. Sometimes Molly seemed fearless, like when she was being all super-spy, hacking a computer, and other times it seemed like she needed Jeremy in order to put a sentence together.
Just as Teddy closed the faculty file, she noticed another one on the desktop marked FIRST-YEARS: MEDICAL REPORTS. She opened it and saw a list of her classmates’ names, including her own.
She couldn’t resist clicking on her own name. Teddy opened the folder and clicked the first file. Lab tests. DNA samples. She couldn’t decipher most of it. She scrolled through to the bottom to see if Eversley had written some kind of note or summary. She heard footsteps down the hall, Molly’s voice at the door: “Someone’s coming.”
“One second.” This was important. More important than finding out about Nick. There! At the top of the page: FINDINGS.
“Teddy, now.” Molly was shutting down her computer.
Teddy scanned the page: Evidence suggests that there are both maternal and paternal DNA markers present in subject’s makeup—
Then the screen went blank.
“Hey!” Teddy said.
Molly hit a button and powered it back up. Then performed a command. “I’m deleting your history. We have to go.”
Teddy pushed away from the desk and followed Molly from the room, her head reeling.
Maternal and paternal markers. Psychic markers? Eversley said that they hadn’t hadn’t proved the existence of such things.
Pyro grabbed Teddy at the door. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Teddy said. “Just got some news from home. Need a minute to digest.”
Teddy looked around the room. Dara was waiting by the door. Molly was packing up her hard drive. “Where’s Jeremy?”
“Bathroom,” Dara said, shrugging on her fur coat. “Let’s go. This place gives me the creeps at night.”
Teddy turned to Molly. “I thought you said that we had to leave? That someone was coming?�
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“We do,” Molly said, zipping her bag closed. “But I’m not responsible for Jeremy’s bladder.”
They heard a noise—a slam, followed by a lock clicking shut. Molly put her finger to her lips.
“Do you think someone else is in the building?” Dara asked. “We can still get out of here before—”
“I gave Jeremy the key,” Molly said. “We’re waiting for him. We can’t lock up without him.”
“And we don’t leave anyone behind,” Pyro said.
Steps in the hallway, getting closer, then Jeremy’s even voice: “Ready?”
“You know you scared the crap out of us, right?” Teddy said. “What is with everybody tonight?” Her nerves were on edge. She just wanted to get out of here. “Come on, if we hurry, we’ll make it in time for best costume.”
“I hardly think you’ll win, Teddy,” Jeremy said. “Your costume is not very original.”
Teddy snorted. “Look who’s talking.”
“Please,” Molly said. “Enough.” She stopped Jeremy as he was locking the door. “Got everything?” Jeremy put the lab keys in his doctor’s bag, adjusted his stethoscope, and nodded.
The group walked back across the meditation lawn.
“That was risky,” Teddy said to Pyro.
“It was worth catching up with my partner’s family.” Pyro looked down. “His kids got so big.”
“I thought you were just checking sports scores.”
Pyro shrugged, avoiding Teddy’s eyes.
She didn’t want to press him for more, but this was rare—Pyro being Lucas, the cop who watched his partner give up everything for the job, for him. She reached out to touch his arm, then caught herself. She couldn’t lead him on. “You wanna talk about it?”
He shook his head. “I just want to forget about it.” He walked on without her.
She was reeling, too. Teddy leaned against the cool stucco of the dining hall facade, where she was shrouded in darkness, invisible. She looked up into the clear San Francisco sky. What she’d read in her file. Maternal and paternal psychic markers. Both her parents were psychic, too. It changed everything she knew about herself, her life.
And then she saw Nick passing beneath the lamppost on the corner of the path. Instead of feeling lost or confused or sad, she felt anger. He’d tricked her. And lied about it. “Hey!” she said, shoving him. In a split second, he’d pinned her against a tree. “Stop! It’s only me,” she said.
Nick let out a breath and released her. “Next time you do that to a federal agent, you might get your head blown off.”
“FBI,” she said. “I should have known.”
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I go to school here, remember? You tricked me into it.”
He folded his arms. “I was just doing my job.”
“I assume that’s what you were doing the other night at the Cantina, too, huh?”
“Yeah. New assignment.”
“As what? Barfly?”
“FBI liaison. And teacher.”
She stared at him, her poker face revealing nothing. She couldn’t let him know that she already had that information. “Why you?” she asked.
“Because I’m good.”
“How good?”
“Good enough to know that you and your friends just sneaked into an office where you didn’t belong.”
Teddy kept her expression even as she tried to figure out her next move. “If you’re that good, you’d know that half the campus sneaks into that office.”
“But they don’t get caught.”
She swallowed hard. She couldn’t risk getting into trouble. Not when she had so much more to learn. About being psychic. About her birth parents. She looked back at Nick. She could play this. Find another move. Like she always did. “When do you start? Your first day as a Whitfield teacher, I mean.”
“I don’t start until next semester.”
“So, technically, you don’t have to report me. You don’t really work here yet.” Teddy reached out and put a hand on his arm. He looked at her hand and then back at her. “Technically—” he began.
“I’d consider us even,” she said.
“Even?” he asked.
“For Vegas,” she said. “It was a dirty trick. For both you and Clint.”
“Okay,” he said, as if it were no big deal.
Teddy blinked, surprised. “Okay?”
“I won’t report you,” he said. “But not because I regret what happened in Vegas.” He took her hand off his arm and started to walk away.
“Why, then?” she called.
“Read my mind,” he said, and disappeared into Harris Hall.
Teddy followed a few minutes later. “There you are,” Jillian said. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I can’t find Brett, either. They’re about to announce the winner of the costume contest.”
Dunn took the microphone at the front of the room, announcing that the prize for best costume went to Brett Evans. The room erupted in cheers and catcalls. When Brett didn’t appear to claim his prize, lewd shouts suggested where he might have gone (and with whom). Jillian picked at the hem of her dress, eyes downcast. Teddy scanned the crowd but didn’t see him. Hopefully he wasn’t off somewhere hooking up with Ava. For now she had more important things to worry about: a score to settle. Teddy was a player, and she’d let herself be played.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IT WAS JUST AS WELL that Professor Dunn was late to class the following morning. Normally, Seership began with deep-breathing exercises designed to focus the mind, but the morning after the Halloween party, Teddy ducked into the classroom to find the Misfits and the Alphas assembled together—an unprecedented occurrence.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Someone broke in to Eversley’s office,” Ben Tucker reported. “It’s not like everyone doesn’t use the front-office computers—I mean, I gave Brett a box of cigars for time last week. We’re not supposed to know about it, but the news is all over campus. Apparently, once Clint catches whoever did it, they’ll automatically be expelled.”
“Expelled?” she said. “For trespassing?” She’d been the one to pick the lock.
“No, not just for that,” Ben clarified. “Whoever broke in also stole vials of blood.”
That didn’t make sense. Neither she nor Molly had taken anything from Eversley’s office.
“They’re already trying to track any students who were near the lab last night,” Ben said. “They’re supposed to go straight to Boyd’s office for questioning.”
Boyd would be more than happy to see the backside of Teddy. If Boyd found out Teddy had broken in . . . Teddy shared an uneasy glance with the other Misfits. Her mind shot to Nick. She couldn’t count on his silence now. Not when there’d been a theft. She had to find him. Convince him they were innocent.
“I’m sure it was just some stupid Halloween prank,” Dara said.
“It wasn’t just the blood,” Ben Tucker said. “One of the lab computers was hacked.” Teddy risked a look at Molly, whose gaze was focused on her lap.
“Why would someone steal blood?” Pyro said.
“Eversley’s research was top secret,” Kate said. “I couldn’t begin to guess.”
But Teddy could. He had said that the Whitfield Institute was a leader in the field of human genome research. And if what she’d read last night was correct, they’d discovered the genetic markers for psychic ability. Any number of people might be interested in that information.
“Brett’s missing, too,” Ava said.
“What do you mean?” Teddy asked, looking at Ava.
“No one’s seen him since last night. He didn’t turn up for breakfast, and he missed his tutorial this morning.”
Ava appeared more thoughtful than upset. Teddy glanced at her roommate, who looked devastated.
“Maybe he’s the one who stole the blood,” suggested Jeremy.
Teddy considered other possibilities. Brett Eva
ns was one of the school’s biggest success stories. A highly respected third-year, he had a plum internship waiting for him next year at the FBI. But she had overheard Brett complaining to Jeremy and Molly that the pace of his studies at Whitfield was holding him back. So maybe he’d gotten tired of everything and walked away. But in the middle of the night?
“He’s not dead,” said Dara. “I didn’t see anything at all.” She paused to take in the appalled glances of the other recruits. “Oh, please. Spare me. You know you were all thinking it. Wherever he is, he’s okay.”
The door swung open and Dunn entered. The students waited thirty seconds before bombarding him with questions about the break-in, the theft, and Brett’s disappearance.
Dunn held up his hands to quiet the class. “I don’t know anything,” he said. “And if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.” He plunked a large physics textbook down on his desk. “We’re starting a new subject today.”
Teddy closed her eyes, focused on her breathing, and slipped into her meditative state. She put the threat of expulsion, Boyd, Nick, Clint, Brett, all of it, out of her mind. Admittedly, she was nowhere near the divine state of nirvana Dunn went on and on about, but after a lifetime of tumbling from one crisis to the next, the ability to calm herself felt pretty damn good.
“To date, we’ve focused our energies on forming a simple mental connection with our partner,” Dunn said after a few minutes. “One person looked at a playing card, or a photograph, or an object, and transmitted that information via an auditory message. A rudimentary psychic task.”
More often than not, Teddy had managed to successfully connect with her peers (though she was better with her fellow Misfits than the Alphas, and much better at projecting than receiving). And she’d stuck with her promise to Clint: she’d practiced only physical telepathy, the basics. She hadn’t tried anything like the astral telepathy that had brought the class to a standstill.
Professor Dunn continued, “Now you are ready to move beyond a simple psychic connection. What I’m talking about is expanding our mental communication. Instead of sending messages, we’re looking now to begin a discussion.”
