Mind Games (Mindjack Origins)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  Maybe I’m a praver after all.

  I second guess everything and sourness climbs up my throat. Maybe Tony is right. Maybe I shouldn’t think that way about her. Then Kira peers up from her locker. Her small smile unlocks my legs and I stumble forward, looking like an idiot. I wish more than ever that she could hear my thoughts, so I wouldn’t have to find the right words to say out loud. So she would just know what I think and how I feel. That I want more than anything for her to forget about what other people think. That I want her to come to the Gamesdance with me, my last night in town before I leave for Indiana.

  “Hey,” I say. Wow, I’m incredibly brilliant and witty.

  She sighs and examines her locker again before answering. “Hey.”

  “Look, I was wondering if …”

  Raf, Raf, Raf! There you are! The sound of my name pulls my attention behind me. It’s Jessica, the girl from the hall who wanted to run her hands through my hair. Tony said you would be here.

  Tony’s not here. I move closer to the locker wall to let her pass, but she comes to a stop next to me. Her perfume is like a toxic cloud that makes my eyes water.

  “And you must be Kira,” Jessica says out loud. Kira arches her eyebrows, mirroring the shock that must be on my face. Why is Jessica talking out loud? And to Kira? Are they friends? By Kira’s pinched look, I doubt it.

  “Um, that would be me,” Kira says. I’m struggling to figure out what’s going on, glancing between them. Jessica’s thoughts are meant for me, even though she’s smiling at Kira. Tony says you need a date for the Gamesdance and that I would be the perfect girl for you.

  Tony’s wrong. I’m not looking for a date. I don’t even know you.

  We can certainly change that. Jessica beams a fake smile. “Kira, you’re so cute!” she says. “I could just pinch your cheeks if I had some Second Skin!” Tony says you need a real girl for the dance. Everyone knows you’re making a mistake with this zero, Raf. Just say yes, and I promise you’ll be glad you did.

  My mouth drops open as I stare at her. I’m startled by the metallic bang of Kira slamming her locker shut. “I’ll take a pass on the cheek pinching,” Kira says, her voice dripping with ice. “Thanks for the offer, though. See ya around, Raf.” She turns to leave.

  “Kira, wait!” I say, barely recovering from the crazy images in Jessica’s mind of me and her at the Gamesdance, slow dancing in formal wear. “I…I wanted to talk to you. About going to the Gamesdance.” I flash a look at Jessica. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but why don’t you go play it with Tony?

  Well, that would defeat the purpose. Tony’s not the one who needs help, Raf, you are. Out loud, she says to Kira, “Oh! The Gamesdance! Are you going?”

  “I wasn’t planning to.” Kira examines Jessica like she’s not sure if she’s crazy or just stupid. Then she looks at me. “Not quite my scene.”

  “Oh, but it could be!” Jessica says. “You don’t need a guy to have fun. You don’t even have to play, you can just watch. There’s a group of us girls going together, to cheer the Gamers on. You should come with us!” Her voice is chipper and light, but her thoughts are filled with dark amusement. She’s enjoying this deception thing she’s doing with Kira, like it’s a shiny new toy, being able to lie. The bottom drops out of my stomach as she pictures her gang of friends tricking Kira into a darkened alley behind the Games. Come with me to the Gamesdance, Raf, or I’ll have Kira as my date.

  “Wow,” Kira says, slightly bemused. “That’s really, um, great of you. What was your name again?”

  Jessica’s smile is a hideous mask over the thoughts beneath. “Jessica!”

  “Ok, Jessica.” Kira gives me a look that says, What in the world, Raf? “I guess that could be fun. Not sure what I’ll do, but I could give it a try.”

  “No!” My outburst garners a frown from Kira. “I mean, I don’t think you’d enjoy it.” It sounds lame, but I don’t want to validate everything she’s been thinking about the world. How she doesn’t fit in. How she should assume everyone is out to get her—even though they are.

  “Wait,” Kira says. “Didn’t you just say something about going to the Gamesdance?”

  “No, Raf’s right.” Jessica schemes for a more devastating way to hurt Kira. My stomach churns. “The Gamesdance isn’t the place for you. You’ve never been, have you, poor thing? It’s not all that great. But we should do something girly and fun, just the two of us. How about shopping? Do you like to shop?”

  “Not really.” Kira’s brows pull together.

  “Not even for clothes?” Jessica gives a muted shriek. “I know! Makeovers!”

  Kira looks uncertain, and my stomach starts to chew a hole in itself. Jessica glances at me. Take me to the Gamesdance, Raf, or I’ll make sure she has a good time with me and my friends.

  My mouth goes dry. Jessica and her friends targeting Kira. All summer. While I’m gone. I won’t be here to ward them off or threaten them with retribution. Her brother Seamus will keep an eye on her, but he leaves for WestPoint soon. My mind spins. When is he leaving? Is it the beginning of summer or the end? I can’t remember …

  Jessica smiles as she hears my doubts. My fears.

  No. I drill into her eyes with mine. Leave her alone. “I don’t think Kira likes makeovers.”

  Jessica’s smile grows. You know what I want. “Don’t be such a spoiler, Raf.”

  The image of a bright red zero on Kira’s cheek swims up in my mind. Jessica sees it and smirks. I can’t tell whether she did it herself or if she’s echoing the images that circulated through the rumor mill for weeks afterwards.

  I clench my fist, take a breath and let it out slow. Okay. Fine. I’ll go with you, if you promise to leave her alone. Belatedly, I tinge it with a threat of my own. If you hurt her, I’ll make sure you regret it.

  “Hello?” Kira snaps her fingers in my face. “Still right here…” She looks annoyed. “And I can arrange my own playdates, Raf. Thanks for the help, though.”

  Jessica has a cat-eats-bird smile of satisfaction. You won’t be sorry, Raf, I promise. She tosses a smile at Kira, like an afterthought. “See you later, Kira.” She says it brightly, but I hear the threat underneath it.

  Jessica saunters down the hall, throwing extra sway in her walk. I glare at her back. You won’t be fooling anyone, Jessica. Everyone will know you blackmailed me into this. I’ll make sure of it.

  Everyone will think I’m brilliant, she thinks without glancing back. I’ll be the girl that finally got you back on track, saved you from making a desperately tragic mistake with that zero.

  I think several nasty curse words that would horrify my mother, but Jessica’s out of range. When she finally disappears around a corner, Kira folds her arms and fixes a stare on me. “So, you want to tell me what that was all about?” she says. “I swear your girlfriends are getting stranger all the time.”

  My head whips back to her. “She’s not my girlfriend!”

  “Really?” Kira says. “With the way she was looking at you, and you checking her out all the way to the corner?” She shrugs. “You could do worse, Raf. She seems nice and she’s cute in a trying-way-too-hard kind of way.”

  My shoulders drop. “She’s not my girlfriend.” My voice is low, weak. Of course, that’s precisely the rumor Jessica will stir up after the Gamesdance. If I’m lucky, Kira won’t hear it. I grit my teeth. Tony is behind all of this, helping me out by stabbing me in the back.

  “Whatever, Santos,” Kira says. “So, are you going to come over this Saturday to help me get through some of those sim-casts?”

  Saturday? That’s the Gamesdance. The one I’m apparently going to with Jessica. “Um, no. I can’t, I’m … busy.”

  Kira glances down the hall. “Right,” she says. “How about Sunday? No school on Monday. We can stay up late and eat that awesome popcorn my mom likes to buy from the Boy Scouts.”

  “I’m…” I swallow. “I’m leaving on Sunday.”

  “Oh.” Kira frowns a
nd picks up her gym bag from the floor. “Well, I’m doing Mr. Hampton’s take home test tonight, along with my other finals. Finishing up early. Don’t really see the point in sticking around here, you know? With nothing to do but study, this zero’s getting some A’s and getting out.”

  I grimace at her use of the word zero.

  “I guess…” She pauses. “I guess this is goodbye then.” She puts on a million watt smile, the one she brings out when things are bleak and getting worse. “Well, have a nice summer, Raf. Have fun with the Twisters, and, you know, don’t break too many hearts in Indiana.” She turns to walk away down the hall.

  I should say goodbye. I should tell her to stop, explain what really happened with Jessica. But I don’t say anything, just watch her go.

  Maybe Tony is right. Maybe I need to stop waiting for Kira to go through the change. Maybe I need to forget about the fact that I know everything about her: the way she likes her hot cocoa lukewarm and her ice tea ice cold; that she likes her music classical and her runs long and strenuous. Maybe a summer in Indiana is just what I need to forget the way she makes my skin prickle and my heart pound. Maybe I should date someone like Jessica—only less horrible—to help me forget. Even if I doubt it would work.

  But I’m certain of one thing: the next time I see Tony, I’m going to punch him in the face.

  Kira and Raf’s story is just beginning!

  Open Minds

  (Book One of the Mindjack Trilogy)

  Available in ebook and print

  Amazon, Barnes and Noble

  When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep.

  Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can't read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can't be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf's mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she's dragged deep into a hidden underworld of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her.

  praise for OPEN MINDS

  “Open Minds pushed me to the edge of my imagination and then tossed me over the edge as I screamed for more. Quinn has created an intensely dangerous world both inside the minds of her characters and outside—a world that left me asking myself questions I would never have asked before. When you can literally control the thoughts of others, how far will you go? Quinn takes the reader to this reality with breathtaking control and sparkle. Read this and you'll never look at your thoughts the same again.”

  — Michelle Davidson Argyle, author of Monarch and Cinders

  “Open Minds boils with action, adventure, and surprises. I was fully invested in this inventive world and the protagonist. A story that had me imagining what if, long after I finished it.”

  — Terry Lynn Johnson, author of Dogsled Dreams

  Coming May 23, 2012

  Closed Hearts

  Book Two of the Mindjack Trilogy

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  other works by

  Susan Kaye Quinn

  Life, Liberty, and Pursuit

  a teen love story

  Full Speed Ahead

  a short afterstory to Life, Liberty, and Pursuit

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  About the Author

  Susan Kaye Quinn grew up in California, where she wrote snippets of stories and passed them to her friends during class. Her teachers pretended not to notice and only confiscated her notes a couple times. She pursued a bunch of engineering degrees (Aerospace, Mechanical, and Environmental) and worked a lot of geeky jobs, including turns at GE Aircraft Engines, NASA, and NCAR. Now that she writes novels, her business card says "Author and Rocket Scientist" and she doesn't have to sneak her notes anymore.

  Which is too bad.

  All that engineering comes in handy when dreaming up paranormal powers in future worlds or mixing science with fantasy to conjure slightly plausible inventions. For her stories, of course. Just ignore that stuff in her basement.

  Susan writes from the Chicago suburbs with her three boys, two cats, and one husband. Which, it turns out, is exactly as much as she can handle.