Sophomore Freak (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 2) (14 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

trouble and pizza

When I laid the source crystal down next to us the ground trembled a little. Slipping my hand into my bodysuit, I located my phone and punched star. Instead of ringing, it did this awkward-sounding set of high-toned beeps.

Camuto picked up. “Make the delivery and proceed to location two.”

Her aloofness caught me off-guard. “We’ve got the green,” I said through my mask. “Sasha and Selby are missing.”

“No,
they’re not.”
Camuto’s anger played out well over the phone. “They’re halfway to location three.”

Mexico?
I should have known – Camuto and the others are tracking us.
“They went without us?” I said loudly enough for Rhapsody to hear.

She rolled her eyes. “To the white source? That doesn’t even make sense. Who’s going to move it?”

I had my doubts about Sasha’s choice in boys, outside of me, of course, but I never questioned her intelligence. If it was her idea to go there, she had a good reason.

“Green and red are the
priority,”
Camuto insisted. “Bring it back and head to location two.”

The sharpness in her voice was getting on my nerves, so I hung up the phone. We were much closer to Colorado from here than we would be from the base.

“How far out are we from them?” Rhapsody asked.

I tried to calculate the distance in my head. “It’s. . .I don’t know, two hours? It would take us almost an hour-and-a-half to go back.”

“What if you up your speed – faster than they said you should go?”

How fast was above transonic? “I’ve never tried.”

She touched my arm with her gloved hand. “Put it back into the cave. I’ll stay.”

“No,” I shook my head. “Way too dangerous. I’ll put it back and you leave with me. If King’s coming here, he’ll find it and you alone. He’ll
kill
you.”

“On the real? We can’t risk leaving it here, either. What about Sasha and Selby?”

Maybe we should do what Camuto told us to do, after all. I lifted the source crystal and heaved it over my right shoulder. “Come here, please,” I told her.

Rhapsody moved to my left and wrapped her arms around my neck. I grabbed her tightly and leaped for the underground fortress.

When we landed, I could barely wait for the entryway to open, so Rhapsody ghosted us down to the basement level. We rushed to meet Courtney, Camuto, and Hughes in the room where they stored the pink source. Only Camuto and Hughes were there.

I set it in the hole to the far right and unmasked. “We abandoned our friends for your ‘mission’,” I said. “Here’s your crystal. I’m going to Mexico.”

“W-w-wait!” Hughes yelled. “Stick to the plan. You’ve got to hit location two.”

A vein in my neck pulsed with the anger boiling in my brain.
“You
hit ‘location two’,” I shouted. “What are you doing down here while we risk our lives, anyway?”

“Monitoring detail, in case one of you does something stupid, like going to the wrong location,” Hughes said to me. “Sasha and Selby can protect themselves.”

Camuto’s eyes narrowed. “Can they, Solomon? I hate to admit it, but none of this would’ve happened if we had trusted them in the first place.”

“Trusted them?
They went against orders, Amauri.” Hughes was fuming. “They’re
children.
They’re not worthy of our trust.”

Rhapsody waved her hand, pointing to us. “Hello? Standing right here. . .”

“. . .whatever happens – it’s not on our heads. I’m not leaving the future of humanity in the hands of four children, even if you and Eris are.”

“I’m a child who can knock the teeth out of your mouth,
Brad,”
I said.

While we argued and cursed at each other, Rhapsody stepped away. She whipped out her phone and dialed. Holding it to her ear she paced, stopping to redial.

“Neither of them is answering,” she yelled over the noise.

Camuto stopped us from talking. “Michael can’t stop on a dime to answer your call, Rhapsody,” she said with regret. “He’ll have to gradually decrease his speed and slow down to a normal run.”

“This is all we do,” Hughes said. “If either of you goes to Mexico now, you could be risking everything for nothing.”

I stood so close to Hughes that I heard him breathing. “Sasha and Selby aren’t
nothing
,” I said, my teeth clenched. “You said you don’t keep ice down here?”

“No,” he admitted. He was wondering what I was thinking.

“Then help us and don’t try to stop me.”

I stormed off. Rhapsody followed close on my heels. “Jason, wait!” she said, hopping into the elevator before I closed the wire mesh gate.

Pressing the unmarked button, I turned away from her. “I’m going alone.”

The elevator rattled and started going up. “No, you’re
not,”
she argued. “They’re my friends, too.”

“I can get there faster by myself.”

“Yeah, but I’ll keep you off the grid,” she said. Her eyes flitted back and forth. “Eventually the military will figure out how to track you if you keep taking risks.”

We arrived at the top level. “I’ll take my chances.”

We stood in the dark. Rhapsody was within arms’ reach. She moved closer. My heart thumped hard in my chest. I smelled the faint scent of her flowery perfume.

“Even if you don’t need me,” she said, her voice trembling. “I need
you.”

There, in suffocating silence, I listened to Rhapsody pour out her soul to me.

“I just said goodbye to my dad. Ruby is. . .I don’t know if she’s safe or not. I’m not losing you, too, Jason. So I’m going, whether you like it or not.”

Are they going to open this thing or do I have to punch through it?
“Alright,” I said.

“Good.” Her voice bounced with enthusiasm.

We must have gotten to Hughes or Camuto – the gears of the fortress’s opening turned and whirred. Soon afterward we walked outside and departed for Mexico.

We needed to make a pit stop on the pier. By the time we reached San Diego, it was close to four. Stopping at a pizza place, we pretended to be extras from a movie set to excuse the bodysuits. Apparently there was a nearby costume play event going on soon, so we fit in.

Eating was the last thing on our minds, but both of us were on the verge of passing out from using our powers so much. It amazed me that my medicine hadn’t worn off yet. We unzipped our suits to the waist, sat in the sand beneath the pier, and leaned against one of its weight-bearing beams. We’d inhale our pizza slices and soda in five minutes and make up the time in the air.

After saying a quick prayer, I dug in. Rhapsody did her sign of the cross and started eating. I couldn’t help thinking about Sasha. Was she in trouble? My chewing slowed. What if we got there too late? Would King do to them what we thought he’d done to Selby’s parents and Asia?

Suddenly I wasn’t as hungry anymore.

Rhapsody slurped her drink. “Mmm, what’s up? You thinking about them?”

“Is it that obvious?”

She nodded. “From the way you look, you’re either worried or constipated. I’m hoping it’s worry. Otherwise, you probably shouldn’t be eating so much cheese.”

A small laugh escaped me. I looked down at the slice and a half I had left and my almost full cup of Sprite. A salty mid-afternoon breeze blew in from over the water. The water came in small waves, wetting the sand just feet in front of us.