Sophomore Freak (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 2) (11 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

pink is the color of danger

Still silent, Hughes left us alone with Courtney in the giant circular room. She flashed us a weird, toothy grin. Were we a joke to her?

“Hungry?” she asked.

The aroma of the apple pie and cinnamon flashed in my memory, making my stomach clench in anticipation.

Rhapsody’s must have, too. She licked her lips. “Totally,” she said.

“I could eat,” Sasha chimed in.

“Hughes likes to cook more than the rest of us do. He’s very thorough, though, so it’ll be a while before we actually sit down and get a chance to talk. You can hang out here.”

She disappeared behind the beds, wires, and medical equipment. I spotted a double-sided, ten-foot-high cabinet back there that I hadn’t noticed before. “Incoming!” she yelled.

Courtney tossed food to us – bags of chips and cheese crackers, toaster pastries, breakfast bars, trail mix, and gummy fruit snacks.

“How did you know?” I asked her, sounding dramatic on purpose.

“Eat up,” she said. “Don’t be shy.”

Rhapsody barely hesitated before opening the bags in her hands. Neither did I. Even after using her powers Sasha picked at her food in a steady, nonstop stream instead of gobbling it down, like we did.

“Give me that.” Rhapsody snatched a bag of fried onions from my arms. She replaced it with honey roasted pretzels.

“Hey, Rhapsody, I’m sorry,” Sasha said. Her apology sounded sincere. “If there’s anything I can do, just. . .”

“I’m good, Sasha.”

Did she just call Sasha by her name and not some sarcastic nickname?
I don’t think Rhapsody was blowing her off, but it was clear she didn’t want to talk about it.

Sasha scrunched her brow and pointed to the two of us. “What was that, Goth Girl? Why did you just take those onion things from him?”

“Mmm,” Rhapsody mumbled while chewing a candy bar. “He hates them. I thought it was a breath thing, but you’d know about his dragon mouth better than anyone else would.”

I think I should have been offended, but Rhapsody’s joke was a sign she was feeling better. “And don’t call me
Goth Girl,”
she added. “Lamey Lame here can’t come up with something better to call me.”

“Lamey Lame?”
I opened my mouth and breathed in Rhapsody’s face. “Rawr!”

She giggled and held her nose. “Your breath smells like rotten meatloaf!”

I laughed. Rhapsody doubled over chuckling.

But it looked like Sasha wasn’t amused.

“Let me check.” Sasha put her hand on the back of my neck and pulled me in for a kiss. Afterward she pretended to blow a smoke ring.

“Neither one of you cared before!” I blurted without thinking.

Almost immediately I started coughing. Rather than pat me on the back because I’m invulnerable, Sasha and Rhapsody watched me choke. My eyes welled with tears. I pounded my chest with my fist. I finally spit out the tiny pretzel fragment causing the trouble. By the time I did Sasha was nowhere to be seen.

Rhapsody handed me a cold plastic bottle of water. “Awkward.”

I uncapped the bottle and swallowed half of its contents. Sasha knows. I didn’t have an idea what to do when it happened, but I couldn’t avoid discussing anymore. “I’m going after her,” I said.

“Okay,” Rhapsody said softly. “We’ll talk about it later?”

It
being the kiss. I held out my pinkie finger. “If you swear you won’t follow me.”

She hesitated for a second before locking pinkies with me. “Alright.”

Thinking Sasha wasn’t going to head back to the surface, I tried the other door leading out of the big round room. At the end of another narrow walkway, I found myself in a small, square room with two doors facing each other.

I chose the one to my left, which eventually dead-ended into the living quarters. There was a large screen TV mounted into the far wall and plush burgundy couches facing it. Wonder if they have cable down here?

Backtracking to the square room, I took the other door. Two passageways later, I found a locked door. I gazed through its window and saw Sasha staring at the morganite, the pink
provenance crystal. From a distance its prisms glowed with the color of a full-bloom carnation.

I pounded my fist against the metal door. Sasha didn’t move.
How did she get inside?
I put my hand through the window and unlocked it from the inside. “Sasha?”

When the heavy metal door slammed behind me I thought she’d at least look my way or acknowledge my presence.

Instead, she didn’t move.

“Are you okay?” When I neared the pink source I noticed the morganite were a shocking pink with gleaming edges. Next to it was a row of five holes in the wall. Had all of the source crystals been here at one point?

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked me.

“Yeah, whatever,” I said, ignoring it. “Can we talk about this?”

“Talk about what, Jason?”

Was this a game or did she want me to confess? “I kissed Rhapsody.” Sweat broke out on my forehead. “Well, she actually kissed me. I didn’t stop her.” My voice lowered. “Look, we kissed and I’m sorry.”

Sasha turned to look at me, tears rolling down her cheeks. The rose pink light reflected off of her body. It was almost hypnotic. A stream of thoughts came pouring out my brain, thoughts of kissing Sasha, of doing more than kissing her, of beating up Selby and throwing Ray’s Cougar into the Pacific. They were difficult to control.

While her eyes stayed on me, her expression was completely blank. Her emotions were completely unreadable. 

“Do you like her?” she asked, dragging out the words of her question.

The right answer was no. The wrong answer was yes. I hesitated for a second. In this case, it was worse than lying or telling the truth. “No, not at all.” I’d pray to God for forgiveness and deal with the nagging in my gut later.

Still crying, Sasha regained her focus and looked me in the eye. “Did it mean something to you?”

This time I answered correctly for her. “No.”

Sasha surrounded me in a hug. “She’s dealing with a lot and you were there for her,” she said, like she was trying to convince herself it was the truth.

“Yeah.”

Sasha stepped away from me. “But you can’t be alone with her again.”

Under normal circumstances
that seemed like a reasonable request.
Days out from a nuclear explosion, however, were not normal circumstances. Sweat formed at my neck above my suit’s collar. “How am I supposed to do that here, Sasha? Down here, eventually it’ll happen.”

She bit her lip. “If Selby came down here, would you want me alone with him?”

I flashed back to the couple seconds of their sex tape I saw. “It’s different,” I said with force. “You and he, you. . .”

“It’s
the same,”
she countered.

“Me and Rhapsody kissed. We didn’t have sex on the Internet!” I yelled.

It was a low blow, but I couldn’t take it back now. She cursed at me and fanned out her hands. “Whatever. Do what you want to do. Oh yeah, you already did that.”

I circled behind her. “I apologized and said what you wanted me to say. What else do you want from me?”

Sasha bit her lip. “The truth, not what you think I want to hear!”

While we argued, Camuto stepped around the broken glass and ran over to us. “Get away from
that,”
she said, waving her arms. She stayed at a distance.

“What? Why?” I slid back a foot or so. Sasha backed against the far wall.

“Why are you down here?” she asked, her nostrils flaring.

“Because we needed to talk,” Sasha wiped her face and raised an eyebrow. “Privately.”

“There are thirty-plus corridors in this compound, seven people, and you pick this one?” Camuto pointed to the source. “Did you harvest any of these?”

It’s not the first time I’d been accused of stealing. “What’s your problem? Look, lady, we didn’t take any prisms.”

“Prove it. Empty your pockets.”

I unzipped my suit and showed her what was in my shorts’ pockets – money, keys, and an old bus pass I used to support my lies to Aunt Dee. Sasha produced a tampon and her house keys. When I eyed the tampon she gave me a death stare, like she knew
exactly
what I was thinking.

“Alright,” Camuto said. “In the future have your little teenager docudramas elsewhere. You don’t do it in here, got it?”

I had to know. “Is this crystal more powerful than the green? What can you do with it?”

Camuto put her hands on her hips. “Nothing.”

“The green gives us our abilities,” Sasha said. “Using white can take them away, and the red is mind control and telekinesis. C’mon, the pink has to do
something.”

Camuto’s face hardened with anger. “Stay away from it.”

Her reluctance to answer sent my curiosity through the roof. “How about this – you tell us, or I’ll just take some and find out myself?”

She didn’t respond. Was she calling my bluff? Something stirred inside me, like a warning to back off. Usually I ignored it and acted anyway. This time I didn’t.

Camuto walked through the glass and held the door open from the outside. Obviously she didn’t trust us to leave on our own. “Let’s go.”

“So, what now?” I asked Sasha as we walked out.

“I don’t know, Jason.”

We could break up or stay together. At this point I’m glad the kiss was out in the open, so I didn’t have to hide it anymore. On the other hand, it gave Sasha another reason to hate Rhapsody more than she already did. What was it between them, anyway?

Sasha and I calmly talked about it as Camuto led us back to the giant circle. Courtney was gone. Rhapsody sat on one of the beds, her feet dangling over the edges. She’d taken off her suit and was in her spandex shorts and a long white t-shirt. Her upper body gently shook every few seconds. She was crying.

Sasha extended her right hand to me as a peace offering. I grabbed it. Together, we approached Rhapsody, who quickly tried to clear the tears from her face with some tissue.

“It’s okay. We’re here,” Sasha said to her. “Go ahead and get it out.”

We dropped hands and she draped her arm over Rhapsody’s shoulders.

I patted my friend’s left leg and she placed her warm hand over mine. For a quick second Rhapsody looked at me with hurt in her reddened eyes. Enough for me to know George’s condition wasn’t the only thing tearing her up inside.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Rhapsody vs. Sasha, round one

Rhapsody pulled away from us and blotted her face dry with tissues. “Bathroom?”

“There.” I pointed behind her. “Keep going until you get to the bunks. There’s probably a bathroom in there.”

“Thanks, Cap.” Rhapsody’s lips curled into a tight smile. She slid off of the bed. “Be right back.”

We were alone, except for Sour Lemon Face, a.k.a. Camuto, who pretended to be busy at her desk. Sasha and I still hadn’t really reached an understanding about our relationship. Were we dating? On a break? I didn’t want to know.

After unzipping and stepping out of my suit, I asked Camuto about a cell or Internet signal.

She stopped reading. “Three stories underground?” Camuto asked. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say no. We do have universal chargers, though.”

Without an operational phone to distract me, there was really no reason not to talk to Sasha, unless she didn’t want to talk either. No such luck.

“Truth, Jason?” She shook her head at me. “Rhapsody’s liked you since your first day at Reject High. She made out with you in the cafeteria, in front of everybody, for God’s sake. And she just kissed you again. Do you need her to hold up a sign?”

I remembered. “The first one was because Selby was coming to
cut me.”

“Why didn’t she tell you, ‘heads up’, ‘watch out’, or ‘run away’, even?”

She had a point – Selby was almost as slow as I am. “I don’t know, Sasha.”

“Yes, you do. Think about all the times she invited you over to her house. Why would she do that when you told me she was ashamed of it? You think Welker’s safe is the only thing she wanted you to open?”

“Hold up.” Rhapsody was still my friend. “It’s not like that.”

“Maybe it always was ‘like that’ and you ignored it – I did.” She paused. “Tell me you
didn’t
see she liked you, Jason, and I’ll believe it. But now that you know, if nothing changes between the two of you, I’ll know where we stand.” 

Before I could tell her what I really thought, Hughes shouted, “Soup’s on!” over the antique loudspeaker system in the compound. Rhapsody appeared with her black hair loose and down past her shoulders. I glanced at both girls and made up my mind to sit as far away as possible during dinner.

The three of us filed into the kitchen. Awaiting us was a buffet table with any kind of delicious food we could want – six full-size pizzas: two with pepperoni, two with sausage, and two just cheese. Next to them were three containers of fried chicken wings. Hughes had also roasted a side of beef and carved it. There were vegetables: collard greens, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, baby corn, seared asparagus, garden and Caesar salad. There were biscuits, rolls, and a dessert table I couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

Camuto grabbed a plate first. Rhapsody and Sasha followed. They kept their distance from each other by moving on opposite sides of the table. Hughes and I brought up the rear. I piled food on my plate carefully so nothing would drop.

Unfortunately, the dining room table seated eight and it wasn’t situated for my plan. While the girls got drinks from the refrigerator, I sneaked over to the table to stake my claim.

“That’s
my
seat,” Hughes said, poking his head in from the kitchen. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. I seriously suspect he was either Janitor Brad or Janitor Brad’s rude twin. “Camuto sits to my left and Stafford’s to my right. She’s bringing someone, so skip a chair.”

I was confused. “Dude, why does it even matter where we sit? It’s not kindergarten,” I said to him.

“Because it does,” he growled.

Sitting next to Camuto meant there was a fifty percent chance I could avoid sitting next to Rhapsody or Sasha, so I took it. Sasha came in next and paused, counting the seats across from me with her eyes. She chose to sit next to Courtney’s guest.

Rather than be arm’s length from Sasha, Rhapsody settled in next to me. All things considered, this little arrangement could’ve turned out worse. I got up from the table and opened the refrigerator for a drink. While I had my head buried in the shelves, searching for a Sprite, Courtney and her guest arrived.

“Just in time,” she said. “Get yourself a plate, Michael.”

Michael?
I cursed and accidentally hit my head against the handle of the freezer door, denting it. With two Sprite cans in hand, I returned to the dining room.

Selby was loading his plate with pizza when we crossed paths. “Oh, hey, Freak.”

It was the first time I’d seen him since he’d almost killed me. If he wasn’t faster than light, I’d have tossed both of my cans at his head.
“Leslie,”
I said, hoping his first name got under his skin as much as “Freak” did to me. “Where have you been?”

He let it pass. She must have tased him or something. “A better question is where
haven’t
I been? And why did I come here to get stuck with you and them?”

“We need all of you,” Courtney said to me in private. “Let’s eat.”

I returned to my seat and focused on satisfying my roaring appetite. Nobody said anything for a long time. We were too busy chewing and drinking.

I’d cleared a third of my plate when Rhapsody poked me in the leg and said “Courtney” under her breath.

“Huh?” I looked up. Selby and Sasha were sharing a laugh and looking in my direction. Whatever he said was stupid because he was stupid, but she laughed. Did he think I wouldn’t turn this table over, rip it in half and beat him like a Whack-A-Mole?

“Jason, you asked how I knew you’d be this hungry. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” I finished chewing the pizza crust in my mouth. What was so funny?

“The crystals you wear key off of the epinephrine, or adrenaline in your body,” Courtney explained. “Your powers speed up most of your biological processes.”

That explained why I burned through my Adderall so fast sometimes. “Oh.”

“Why do they work on us and nobody else on the planet?” For once, Selby had asked an intelligent question. We all wanted to know the answer to it. “Is it all beryl?”

Camuto answered him. “We estimate there are about seven hundred of us. And no, not
all beryl.
Only prisms harvested from the provenance crystals.”

“We have a rare protein in our blood which we can’t isolate or synthesize,” Courtney added. “It metabolizes the prism’s radiation and lets us to do what we do.”

“How do you know all this?” I turned and asked her.

“Because we’ve done the research,” Camuto snapped. “We’re not new to this.”

Why is her attitude crappy all of the time? “Yeah? How long have you ‘done research’?”

Camuto dropped her plastic fork. “A hundred years!” she shouted.

Sasha grinned. “The research is that old? They haven’t personally tried to crack the code that long. I mean, that’s not possible.”

Her lack of a response stunned us into silence for the rest of the meal. Sasha, Selby, Rhapsody, and I looked at each other. Were they on drugs?
One hundred years? Seriously? That’s impossible.
Though a lot of weird things had happened to us in the past month, eating dinner with three people that old topped the list.

Camuto left the table first, followed by Hughes. He worked on washing the pots in the kitchen. Courtney piled our used plates, cans, and utensils and then disappeared. We mouthed words to each other but did not dare to speak out loud. 

Selby slapped the table and whispered, “Should’ve jetted when I had the chance. Now I’m stuck down here with
you
and three Crypt Keepers
.”

“Don’t blame me,” Rhapsody said. “We got invited to this party just like you did. They’re not a hundred years old. That’s not even possible.”

“Yeah. Even so, if they’ve been researching that long, they’d have to be at least 120 years old, I’d think,” Sasha said.

Her constant correction ticked Rhapsody off. “Really, Girl Genius? Do you have to correct me, like right now?”

Sasha rolled her neck. “Right now, Baby Girl. I’ve got it right here for you.”

Rhapsody chuckled. “Not bad for a chick from the ‘burbs with a picket fence.”

“Heifer, I will drag your big hips up and down this place!”

The two of them pushed off from the table and stood up, facing each other.

I motioned for Sasha not to come to our side of the table. “Seriously.
Stop.”

“I didn’t start it.” She balled her fists. “I’m gonna finish it, though.”

“Let ‘em fight,” Selby said. “Chick fights are awesome, especially if they strip.”

Sasha sent Clone Sasha behind us. She smacked Rhapsody hard on the back of the head. Rhapsody stumbled forward a little and cursed. On the next swing Rhapsody went intangible and Clone Sasha missed completely. She lost her balance and fell backwards onto the floor, knocking her head against the table’s edge.  

Rhapsody ghosted across the room and stood toe to toe with Original Sasha, who cloned herself seven more times. Then Rhapsody grabbed her at the shoulders and head-butted her. Sasha lost her concentration and all of the clones disappeared.

“Stop it,” Courtney said.

Thankfully she used white ice on the girls and not us. I had too many injuries to deal with, and last I remembered, I’d broken some of Selby’s ribs, so he probably didn’t need the added pain, either.

“Follow me.”

We trailed Courtney back to the pink source corridor. “Keep your distance,” she said once we got inside. “Five feet or more. Any less and you’ll absorb the radiation.”

“What’s so bad about that?” Selby asked. “Are you really a hundred years old?”

Rhapsody shushed him. “She might tell us, if you let her talk, Fool.”

“Camuto didn’t tell you what this one does because she didn’t think you could handle it. I have more faith in you than she does. Pink beryl releases your innermost desire at the moment and makes you act on it.”

Still rubbing her forehead, Sasha asked, “Why is that so dangerous?”

“Because most people don’t know what that is about themselves,” Courtney said. “Think of how dangerous you would be with powers and no inhibitions, the sorts of problems you would create.”

Selby smiled.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of recognition in Rhapsody’s face. Had she seen this thing somewhere? “So what are you having faith in us to do?” I asked.

“Tomorrow, you – the four of you – will work together with us to collect the provenance crystals. We have a containment dome where they can safely detonate.”

There was only one small problem with her plan. “What about King?”

“He’s after them, too,” she said. “We have to get to them first.”