“Yeah, they tried to kill Mason.”
Kathryn took my hand. “Are you okay?”
I nodded.
“The truth.”
My lip quivered.
“I thought so,” she said.
“I don’t think I can do this, Kathryn. I still have nightmares about how you almost died. And now Mason gets kidnapped and goes all heroic on me and wants to take on the Knights—he was chained to a stone slab and still tried to fight. He’s going to get himself killed, and it will be my fault. I don’t want him to die. I have to stay away. I couldn’t handle it if anything happened to him.”
“Mrs. Simmons told me the Whisperers have Mason under surveillance. Nobody can get near him.”
I sighed in relief. If the Whisperers were watching, Mason would be safe.
“She also told me to make sure nobody notices that you’re tired.”
“Good luck with that.” I clunked my head down on the table.
Mrs. Simmons, awesome librarian at the Greensburg Public Library by day, Whisperer by night. The Whisperers help the Psi Fighters in our battle against evil. They are our eyes and ears in the outside world. Mrs. Simmons is the coolest of them all, and she recently took in Kathryn to train as a Whisperer.
“Time for study hall,” Kathryn said, taking my arm and pulling me up from the table. “A nice way for you to start your day. I’ll be your guide.”
“Awesome.” I closed my eyes and laid my head on her shoulder. “Lead on.”
At some point after leaving the cafeteria, I opened my eyes and noticed two things—one, Kathryn was actually pretty good as a seeing eye dog, because I hadn’t smacked into anything, and two, I was beginning to wake up.
The high school library where study hall was scheduled was empty, as usual. At the back, behind the bookshelves, were several small study rooms with doors and windows. The perfect place for us to talk without being overheard. Kathryn closed the door behind us, took her seat, and mumbled something.
“Huh?”
She raised an eyebrow then re-mumbled.
“What?”
Shaking her head, she put her finger to her lips and spoke, but unless she was speaking at a frequency only dogs could hear, nothing came out.
I clonked my head down on the table. It was nice and cool, so I decided to stay there and take a nap. “Kathryn, being a Whisperer doesn’t mean talking so nobody can hear you. Especially when they’re tired.”
Kathryn rapped her fingers against the table. “One, we’re in a library. Respect the institution. Two, I have a new job, which I take very seriously.”
I looked up. “That worked. I heard that. Let’s take it from here.”
“Okay, Rinster,” Kathryn said in her normal, less-than-quiet voice, apparently forgetting the respectfulness of the institution and the seriousness of the job. “We have a problem.”
“I can’t handle problems. Not now. I have terrible morning brain.”
“You’ll handle this one. You know how the Whisperers are supposed to bring hope to the downtrodden? Well, we all know that the trodding in this school is done by the Red Team—”
“Trodding?” I said. “Trodding is a word?”
“Verb. To stomp mercilessly into the ground using abnormally large feet.”
I nodded. “I’ve seen Tammy’s feet.”
“You know the hierarchy in this school. The Red Team is top of the food chain, everybody else is next in line, and the Dweeb League is the grunge at the bottom. That’s the World According to Tammy.”
Tammy Angel. Beautiful, well-endowed, totally evil, and backed by Boot Milner, a backbiting nasty. Tammy and Boot were known as the infamous Red Team. They used to have three members, but Agatha Chew got fed up with Tammy’s crabbiness and quit.
“The Dweeb League,” Kathryn continued, “our favorite little band of misfits, is about to throw a wrench in the works, and I’m pretty sure they don’t know how to use a wrench. They have a new member who’s all gung ho about ‘thwarting the perpetrators of heinous criminal activity.’”
I did a half-awake eyebrow raise. “Why, in my sleep deprived state, would you make me guess what you’re talking about?”
Kathryn did a totally awake eyebrow raise back at me. “Robberies. Where have you been? There have been robberies across the whole city and never a witness. So the Dweeb League plans to go after the thieves, and they actually believe they’ll come back alive.”
I yawned, laid my face back down on the nice, cool table, and closed my eyes.
“Mrs. Simmons told me that the Psi Fighters have started patrols,” Kathryn said. She leaned across the table, cupped her hands around her mouth, and whispered, “That’s you, Rinster.”
“Not me. The Kilodan has another group of Psi Fighters on that one. I have murders to stop.”
“Okay, when I say you, I mean the royal you.”
“You mean the royal we.”
“I mean you’re a royal pain in the butt. Here’s the problem: the Dweeb League is growing. All the geeks, outcasts, and generally-not-popular-crowd are joining. I’m afraid they think they’re ready to take on real criminals.”
“Let them,” I said, just as the bell rang. “They’ll run around the city like lost puppies, and stay out of trouble because they won’t be able to find it.”
“I just hope it doesn’t find them,” Kathryn said.
I opened my eyes and extended my arm. “Lead on. We’ll be late for class.”
Kathryn took my arm and I followed her in a daze. I love the adventure of being a Psi Fighter, but the morning after is so rough. Apparently I was waking up, because I noticed some new kid walking in front of us, followed closely by Art Rubric.
“Who’s that?”
“Who’s what?” Kathryn asked.
“That boy.”
“Rinnie, there are a thousand kids in this hall, and you expect me to pick out the one named That Boy?”
“There aren’t a thousand kids in this entire school district.”
“Point. I understand pointing.”
I pointed. “The new kid walking in front of Rubric.” With unfortunate timing, said new kid turned and looked right at me. I hurriedly pointed to the sky and made my mouth move like I was describing something on the ceiling to Kathryn.
“Hey, Drake,” Kathryn said as we got closer. “How are you liking your first week so far?”
“I wasn’t, but it just got better,” he said, gaping right at my face, where his gaze lingered for only a second before cruising all over the rest of me. “Who’s your friend?”
Kathryn pushed me in front of her. “She was wondering the same thing about you. Drake, Rinnie. Rinnie, Drake. Now you’re not strangers.”
“Her real name is Peroxide,” Art said.
Drake stared at my hair.
“It’s not bleached,” I said quietly. Back when Mason was a bully, he called me Peroxide because my hair is naturally white-blond. Mason got better, but the name stuck, and all the bullies and low-IQ nasties still use it on me. Especially Art Rubric. Like the Avada Kedavra curse, there is no defense against it.
“Hey, Art,” Kathryn said. “Still charging a toll to unsuspecting students who walk your halls?”
Art shook his very large head. “Not anymore. I got religion.”
Art’s past religion had been beating people up, and his idea of giving to the poor was charging only five dollars to pass him unscathed in the hall.
“Do you kill chickens and hold them up to the moon?” Kathryn asked.
“I wish!” Art said. “But the people who do that are heathen scum, according to Tammy Angel. She was explaining real religion to me. I remember when I was little, my mom fed me this stuff about God creating the universe and making people from clay, but Angel said that’s just a myth. You know that picture of the monkeys who get taller and taller, and then one of them turns into a dude with a suit? Well, according to Angel, some guy named Chuck Darwood made a YouTube video in the 1800s to prove that Adam and
Eve came from monkeys instead of God.”
“So you worship primates,” I said.
Art’s eyes twisted and his face scrunched. “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Tammy.”
“She’s an ape,” I said. “She would know.”
Kathryn put both hands on her forehead and squished her eyebrows together. “See, Art, the guy you’re thinking of is Charles Darwin. And he said that God isn’t real, and everything was created by random chance after some random lightning hit some random sludge in a random mud puddle, which is random bunk. The man had no life. Think about it, Artsy. If he was right, the Twinkie would have come before people.”
Art looked even more confused than usual. “The Twinkie?”
“Yes, the Twinkie. If stuff evolved from sludge, easy stuff would have evolved first. Twinkies only have two parts. Inside and outside. They’re easy.”
Art nodded, enlightenment filling his face. “Yeah, that’s right. Heh heh. The Twinkie. Hey, wait, dinosaurs have lots of parts. Does that mean Twinkies are older than dinosaurs?”
“No, Art. Dinosaurs came first. Then the world’s first junk food chef had to escape being eaten by a dinosaur long enough to invent the Twinkie. If Twinkies happened by a lightning strike, they would be lying all over the ground in random spots. Cavemen would have had terrible cavities. Dentistry would have been the world’s oldest profession. But it didn’t happen that way, did it? Everybody knows cavemen ate mastodons, not Twinkies.”
Art frowned. “Are you saying the Twinkie proves that God is real?”
“It does. Although, you probably evolved from sludge. Consider yourself enlightened.”
Art pursed his lips and nodded. “I never thought of it that way before.”
Then he walked away in a daze, with Drake following like a puppy. Drake winked as he passed me, then he rounded the corner, happily out of my line of sight.
“See you around, Drake!” Kathryn shouted after him.
“Is there anybody you don’t know?” I asked Kathryn.
“It’s my job,” she said. “Drake Reynolds just moved in from out of state. His dad’s here on temporary assignment for his work. Looks like Art’s taken him under his slimy wing.”
“Not surprising. Drake looked like a jerk.”
“Oh, come on, you think everyone’s a jerk,” Kathryn said.
“Not everyone. Just the ones who look like jerks.”
“He’s hot! Admit it, Rin.”
“No. Mason is hot. Drake is a stump. He ogled me like I was a chocolate sundae. I don’t like being ogled.”
“I can’t even spell ogled.”
“Let’s get to class.”
“So you admit Mason’s hot?”
“Did I say that? I never said that.”
“Denial is the first phase. Go back to sleep.” Kathryn pulled me in the direction of Algebra, and a familiar voice caught my attention.
“Hot, huh?”
Mason stood right behind us, looking as tired as I felt.
Chapter Six
Ruth Draudimon
“Hey, Mason,” Kathryn said. “How are the bumps and bruises?”
“I’m a quick healer,” he said, holding up his cast. “Doctor said I’ll be rid of this in a week or so.” During our battle with Egon a few weeks earlier, he didn’t realize I was a Psi Fighter, but he knew Egon was a Knight—and deadly. Mason tried to protect me anyway, and his wrist was broken in the fight.
Kathryn patted him on the good arm. “I think I’ll excuse myself to let you escort Rinnie to Algebra.”
“We’re all in the same class,” Mason said. “No need to leave.”
“You can’t talk out here in the hall,” Kathryn whispered. “I’m giving you a reason to take the long way to class. Outside.”
A few weeks ago, she wouldn’t have given Mason the time of day. But he had done a complete one-eighty. Whereas he had been a total butthead for as long as Kathryn and I had known him, he was now a complete sweetheart—one I sort of wanted to get to know better. But with Nicolaitan hot on my trail, I knew I couldn’t. The further I distanced myself from him, the safer he would be.
“How did you sleep?” I asked. We walked across the parking lot to the entrance by the gym. “Not that I know what a good night’s sleep feels like this morning.”
“Not bad,” Mason said. “Considering some dude with a hood and a rotting face tried to murder me a few hours ago.”
I nodded. “Yeah, those things can be annoying. Looks like he didn’t do a very good job of it. I mean, you still seem to be breathing.”
Mason smiled. “You look different without—”
I immediately covered his mouth with my hand. I couldn’t believe he was bringing up my mask in public. “You know things you shouldn’t, Mason. Please be careful.”
“I was going to say you look different without that annoyed expression you used to have when I was around.”
“Oh. Well, you’re much less annoying, now.”
“Really?”
“Really. I almost enjoy being around you.”
Mason scrunched his eyebrows to look angry but couldn’t hide the massive grin he was fighting. “Almost?”
“Almost.” My face heated.
“That’s almost the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. Be careful. I might get the wrong idea.”
“I’m always careful.”
Mason lowered his voice. “Egon wasn’t the only Knight in our school. Do you believe it?”
I nodded. “Scallion planned to kill us both. He had no reason to lie. One more thing to worry about.”
Mason turned somber. He looked into my eyes and whispered, “Do you think Nicolaitan was lying? Is my mother really alive?”
“He only said that to be cruel. He’s angry because he couldn’t kill you. I don’t think that’s ever happened to him before.”
“What if he’s telling the truth? Rinnie, my dad never allowed me to go to her grave. We had to act like she was being treated in the Old Torrents Mental Facility.”
“Nicolaitan doesn’t tell the truth,” I whispered. “He is the world’s biggest liar. Mason, you watched her die.”
“I never saw her die. I saw Nicolaitan hit her with a shovel. I saw my dad carry her body into the garage. I saw the car leave.” Mason shook his head. “I have to know the truth. If she’s alive, I have to find her. If she isn’t, I want proof.”
“Maybe you could hire a private detective. With all your dad’s contacts, he should know somebody.”
“My dad is the problem. I don’t know what strings he pulled to cover this up, so I can’t trust anyone he has ties to. But I know someone who could do the job.”
“That’s good,” I said. “You should ask him.”
“Her,” Mason said. “I know a girl who’s good at uncovering secrets. Just like Batman.”
“I don’t have a cape.”
“Rinnie, you’re my only hope.”
I shook my head. “My name isn’t Obi Wan. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“I know where to start. Livermore Burial Grounds.”
“Why?”
“That’s where Nicolaitan said I’d learn the truth.”
I reached out and touched his forearm. “Mason, you watched Nicolaitan murder your mother. He beat her to death with a shovel. Why would you believe him that she’s still alive?”
Mason closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t really believe him…but I want to. He told me something else—that he used my mom to develop Psychedone 10. I told you how she used to abuse me. The day Nicolaitan killed her, she was trying to light me on fire. I had given up hoping that she might love me one day like she did when I was really little. Rinnie, this changes everything.”
“I don’t understand.”
His eyes grew bright, and he smiled as if a huge burden had just been lifted from him. “If he used her to develop a mind control drug, then she didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t hate me. If she’s really alive, I c
ould have my mom back.”
I pushed out a breath. “I would do anything to have my mom back. Nicolaitan took her away from me, too. But Mason, Nicolaitan is a liar.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m going to the Livermore Burial Grounds. I need to find her grave. Will you help me?”
“I’m not even sure I’d be allowed to take on a mission like that.”
That’s what I said. But I was thinking, wow, if Mason’s mom really is alive, she could lead me to Nicolaitan. Find him in his hidden lair and take him down, once and for all. But I’d have to do it alone because it would be too dangerous for Mason to tag along. Besides, he’d be a distraction. Which I’d never admit to his face.
“That’s okay,” Mason said, raising an eyebrow. “This isn’t about Egon, is it?”
“No.” I shot him a nastier glance than intended. “Why would this have anything to do with Egon?”
“I know how you felt about him,” Mason said.
“Yeah, well that didn’t work out so well, did it?”
“I’m not him, Rinnie. I’ll never hurt you.”
I sighed. “I know you won’t. I guess I’m just a little jittery.”
“You deserve better. Egon was a jerk. A real man would treat you like a princess. You know, slay a dragon for you. Storm a castle. Indulge you in fine dining. Speaking of, what are you doing for lunch today? I hear they have some awesome spaghetti in Line 3.”
Chapter Seven
Enter the Dweeb League
Next morning, Mason and I met Kathryn in the school library study room, where she sat with pencil in hand and books stacked a mile high on the table in front of her. She ran her hands through her long hair and twisted it above her head like a hat then plunged the pencil through to hold it in place.
“Putting on your thinking cap?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Trying to look adorable so you won’t hate me when I mention a slight faux pas that I may or may not have committed. So, Mason, how’s the wrist?”
“Almost healed.” Mason smiled. “Looking adorable and slyly changing the subject.”
I pursed my lips. “How slight?”
“You know how I said the Dweeb League thinks they’re ready to take on real criminals?”
Live and Let Psi Page 4
