Sophomore Freak (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 2) (21 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

we lose and win

I’ll be the first to admit it. I’m a terrible student
.

Not that I was ever any good at school
. When I was supposed to be doing make-up work after Reject High exploded, Sasha and I were hooking up. She was smart enough to skip the books and still make As. I wasn’t. If I had opened one up every once in a while, I might actually know what “Castling” meant in history.

Welker kicked me through the hole in the wall he’d made. I hit the floor and slid, eventually rolling over onto my side. I checked my bodysuit pocket. The prisms were still there, for now. While he gave me time, I hid one of them inside my clothes in one place I hoped he’d never look. 

He grabbed me by the ankles and swung me toward the contact room wall. I landed back first and dented the metal. Prying myself from the indentation, I got to my feet.

“That’s all you got?” I asked, making a “come here” sign with my hands.

Out of nowhere one of the hospital beds flew at me. I caught it, tore its metal frame in half, and dove for Welker.

Swinging each side like a baseball bat, I smashed them into his head, one at a time. Then I clapped them together at his ears, bent them around his head, and punched him in the mouth. It might not have hurt my former principal much, but it sure confused the crap out of him.

Without my weapons, I uncorked my strength and pounded his body with everything I had. One thing about Welker being strong, I could hit him as hard as I wanted. He wasn’t going to die that way, and I didn’t plan to stop.

We continued fighting, but I always kept the advantage. It was like a no holds barred wrestling match. When we weren’t hitting each other with our fists and feet, we grabbed objects and pummeled each other with them.

My opponent got the worst of it. I was getting bored. He was wearing down and bleeding from several spots on his face.
I’m actually hurting him?

Eventually he’d have to give in. I’d keep going until he did.

While pretending to be seriously injured, Welker suddenly recovered and tried impaling me with a jagged piece of hospital bed frame. I dodged it in time.

The shard of metal disappeared in a stream of gold smoke.

“You don’t need that right now, Ron,” Hughes said.

I backed away to see the newly revived, three-member Collective.

Courtney sidled over to us. “This is the end, Ron,” she said to him.

Welker staggered to his feet. He wiped the blood from his lips on the back of his hand. “Didn’t you say the same thing
forty years ago
, Eris? No? Maybe it was in ‘89 or 2003? Perhaps 2006? Gosh, I can’t remember. It’s been over
so many times.
”

Camuto came out from behind Courtney. “I said it after we contained them the first time. We
all
should have died then, and not. . .”

“. . .but we
didn’t,”
he interrupted. “We’re here. And now David will become immortal, and I’ll sit at his right hand for two hundred years.”

Hughes shook his head. “He stole your heliodor from your precious chess set. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. Think, Ron. We’ll all die if you’re wrong.”

He was hiding his heliodor in his chess set? That’s why he made me play chess with him – he thought I had stolen the missing pieces.

“No theory becomes truth without a test!” Welker yelled. “Isn’t that what Jeff used to quote us? You’re an old slave, Solomon. No one expects you to understand.”

Hughes seethed. “There’s only one God, and He’s not some Fidel Castro-looking knockoff with a little man complex.”

“Why are we even talking about this?” I asked them. “Let me finish him off. I was winning.”

Welker shook his head. “No, you weren’t.”

“You’re the one bleeding,” I said.

He flashed a red smile. “Regardless, you don’t have the goshenite or scarlet emerald. But thanks to you we know the locations of the heliodor, emerald, and morganite.”

Although I preferred to fight him, he had a valid point. I was stronger than he was, but he was
way
smarter than I was. Esteban and I had led him straight to them.

“The fighting stops for now and we negotiate,” said Welker. “Peacefully.”

Courtney paced back and forth. “What’s it going to take? Does he allow you to answer, or do you wait until he pulls your strings?”

Welker put his finger at the corner of his lips. “Not quite. It’s simple. He gets into the pit before the crystals blow. Unless one of you wants to volunteer, instead?”

Hughes looked at his partners for confirmation. “It’s his funeral, right?” he said.

“And
a piece of aquamarine,” he added. “I almost forgot.”

A blue prism? They didn’t know where it was located. It was a big problem, considering it would trigger a thermonuclear explosion in less than a day.
Unless. . .

“No way,” I said. “Not gonna happen, Ron.”

All of them, Courtney, Camuto, and Hughes stared at me.

I stuck my chest out. “Your ears don’t work after two hundred years, either? Or did I stutter? Keep the scarlet, emerald and goshenite. Kill me, them, all my friends and family. Blow up half the freaking planet. But you’re going with it.”

Welker’s skin paled. “You found the aquamarine?”

“But you’ll never find it,” I said, bluffing him. “Especially if
one
of my friends dies. Without it, King will be a pile of ash like the rest of us.”

I watched my opponent for his reaction. His eyes narrowed, like he was concentrating on something.
Was he trying to read my mind again? Good luck with that.

Usually I hated teleporting, but it was the fastest way back to the battle. “Hughes, can you send me back?”

His expression said he hoped I knew what I was doing.

Fallen bodies lay all over the singed grass. Most of them belonged to injured Hidden Potential campers. White stones the size of my thumb stuck out from their bodies in various places – necks, chests or arms. They were bleeding profusely and twitching with seizures.

They needed help almost as much as the group still standing.

Selby, Rhapsody, Sasha, Vivienne, the force field sisters and Esteban were surrounded by six gunners near the pit.

My friends were exhausted from fighting. It showed in their weary, slumped shoulders, bloody noses and drooping mouths. Fatigue kept Esteban and Selby from escaping. Rhapsody couldn’t go invisible or ghost and Sasha wouldn’t be able to clone.

How could I take out six people at once? Shooting the other guys with Esteban had been luck. These would be a little harder to hit, and if I missed, I’d be captured, too. 

Suddenly a wave of nausea hit me. My vision blurred. I swooned and collapsed onto the grass. Rolling over to face up, I witnessed the latest round of solar flares. This time, two balloons of solar energy ruptured.

These things were getting much worse, faster than the forecasts had predicted. The episode lasted more than a few minutes. Again I recovered faster than anyone else.

I had an idea.  

I blasted off into the sky above my friends, going higher than I had jumped before. Without my mask on I couldn’t hear. My altitude peaked somewhere in the clouds.

I streaked towards the ground, feet first. When I got close enough I heard gunshots. None of them could lay a bead on me. I counted on that.

When my feet hit the ground between my friends and our enemies, they created a ripple effect. Sheets of earth swelled out from my landing point and swept everyone away in a massive wave of dirt. The boys and their guns flew off into the air.

The same thing happened to Sasha, Rhapsody and the others, except Vivienne wrapped them in a golden force field to lessen the impact.

When the tremors stopped I climbed out of the crater I’d created and met them on the other side of the damage. Esteban shook my hand. “Coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah, whatever. Let’s finish this,” Selby said, disappearing in a
whoosh.

We followed him around the hole over to the other side. By the time we got there, Selby had confiscated their gold ice. He handed everything to Esteban, who sent them away. I unhooked the ammunition clips and crushed the guns under my feet.

“So that’s it?” Esteban said, dusting off his hands. “We won, right, Ms. Coker?”

Vivienne’s face darkened. “Solar storm is tomorrow. He’ll try again.”

“We’ll be ready, though, won’t we?” he asked her.

I roamed around the scattered bodies and found Luis or Julio. Grabbing him underneath his armpits, I carried him over to where Vivienne and the others were standing. “Hi, everyone,” I said, shaking him. “My name is. . .”

“Julio,” Esteban said, identifying his brother.

Julio glowered at Esteban. “Traidor,” he said in Spanish.

Even I understood what he was saying when it was that simple. “Julio is going to tell us where the scarlet emerald and goshenite are.”

My Spanish was rusty, but I’m sure he didn’t tell me where to find them. Confused, I turned to Esteban and Rhapsody to translate.

“What he told you to do to yourself isn’t physically possible.” Esteban tried not to laugh.

Rhapsody stepped forward. “Wise guy on deck! I’ve got this.”

As I held Julio up Rhapsody ghosted her right arm completely through his body and held it there. She said something to him in Spanish before pulling her arm away.

Julio’s entire body trembled. “A-alright, alright, I’ll tell you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

a town called Traveller

With Rhapsody clinging to my back, I left for the location Julio had given us.

The directions were to Traveller – a town Walsh-like in size. Of course it had to be a trap, but Julio and Luis were along for the ride. Esteban made sure of that. Vivienne and the sisters stayed behind to guard the captives and tend to the injured. Taking them to the hospital would draw too much attention. The authorities couldn’t handle this level of conflict, anyway. 

With Esteban teleporting himself and his brothers, Sasha rode shotgun with Selby. This time, when he dropped her off, she didn’t freak out as much. Her body language toward him was different. She didn’t protest the touching as much.

Rhapsody noticed the change, too. I could tell by the mild surprise on her face as Selby’s hands lingered on the small of Sasha’s back. Sasha tapped his arm and giggled.

Unable to take it any longer, I pulled her aside by her elbow. “What was
that?”
I asked.

“What?” She pretended to have no clue what I was talking about.

“You and him!” I gestured with my hands. “Touching your back and what not?”

“Oh,” she waved her hand. “Nothing. It’s fine. A little harmless attention, that’s all. Don’t worry about it.”

It wasn’t “fine” but I didn’t have time to go back and forth with her.

“There,” Julio said, pointing. “They’re in the backyard.”

I looked around. Two-stories, with an open porch in the front, the whitewashed home looked old enough to have been around since the 1800s. Even in plenty of daylight the eerie, blackened windows made my skin crawl. I pictured someone watching us, an old, insane woman with rotten teeth and a terrible cackling laugh.

First Welker, now him. “What’s with these guys and creepy looking houses in the middle of nowhere?”

The rusted wrought iron gate creaked as I pushed it open. We filed through one by one. Once we were inside I led the charge with Rhapsody at my side. The brothers stayed behind us. Sasha and Selby brought up the rear.

I peeked back once or twice at them. The two of them had gotten
way
too chummy. Who was I to talk, though? I’d made out with my best friend.

We picked our way through the weeds and circled the building. “Hard to believe someone actually lived here,” I said.

“A lot of people lived here, once,” Esteban said from the back. “It’s an
asylum.”

We stopped dead in our tracks. I had the urge to scratch my skin.

“Say what?” Rhapsody shuddered.

“It’s true.” Luis nodded. “It was a boarding house for the mentally ill.”

Sasha hugged her arms around her body and leaned into Selby.

“That’s it.” I broke from the front and pushed Esteban and his brothers aside. Shoving Selby away from Sasha, I then took her by the hand. “What’s going on with you? Trying to make me jealous is kind of childish.” 

She shook her hand. “Not even. Let me go!”

“Do it,
Freak.”
Selby cracked his knuckles and glared at me.

I gritted my teeth and released her. We had a planet to save, anyway.

When we reached the backyard, the sight of tombstones stopped everyone but Luis and Julio. Obviously, finding a graveyard behind an insane asylum wasn’t weird to them. Or they had been here before.

A freshly shoveled mound of dirt was off to the edge of the rickety white wooden fence. My wristwatch Geiger counter went nuts. So did Sasha’s, Rhapsody’s, and Selby’s.

“Okay.” I ignored the rising fear in my stomach. “Dig up mutant crystals. In a cemetery. Behind a crazy house.” No one spoke and nothing around us made a sound. “No problem.”

With no tool to dig with, I’d have to use my hands. Thankfully, I had gloves. “Join me, Leslie!”

Esteban watched his defenseless brothers stand by while Selby and I went to work. With his speed, he cleared his part in no time. I might as well have been standing to the side. Pulsating goshenite and scarlet emerald prisms peeked from out of the earth. They must have fallen off of the provenance crystal.

Jackpot! I reached down into the earth and touched something hard. With thick gloves on it was difficult to tell what it was, so I grabbed onto it tighter.

The inside of my stomach shifted when I grasped a handle.

I shifted my attention to the goshenite and scarlet emerald. “Need a second,” I said, gesturing toward the hole. My hands were shaking. “Casket.”

Rhapsody reached her arm around my shoulders and encouraged me to sit. “Breathe,” she said in a gentle voice. “It’s not your mom.”

Sometimes I got this way in cemeteries. As much as I visited my mom’s gravesite after finding out where it was, I’d get sick about every third time I went. Susan and I were supposed to discuss it at our latest session. But I’d hulked out and chucked her door into the ocean, so that was the end of that.

Rhapsody leaned me against a chipped granite headstone and fanned her hands at my face. Then she stopped to fan herself. Pulse racing, I suddenly felt weak.

Not again. More solar flares.

I glanced over at Esteban, who vomited in the bushes. Julio and Luis tossed their cell phones, hopped the fence and ran away. We were powerless to stop them.

Sasha clutched her stomach and Selby’s face reddened.

I crawled onto the ground and laid my face against a rough patch of brown grass. The tips needled my skin. The flesh inside my mouth dried to the point that I thought my skin might crack open and bleed. Every one of my bones and muscles raged with fire. From the corner of my right eye, I saw solar flares detonating on the sun’s surface, like yellow atomic bombs, one after the other. Julio’s and Luis’ phones sparked and exploded. A circular burnt area of grass was all that remained of them.

The crystals I’d hidden in my shorts turned into hot coals that burned against my skin, but I couldn’t maneuver well enough to get rid of them.

We all wailed in turmoil, hoping for the twisting and turning on our bodies to end.

I opened my eyes and checked the time on my fancy wristwatch. It said four o’ clock. Somewhere along the line, I’d fallen unconscious for almost an hour.

Losing time wasn’t new to me. Such was the life of a kid who blacked out.

The others were in the same boat. Slowly they crawled to their feet. I helped Rhapsody, because she was the closest, then Esteban. Selby aided Sasha. I left them alone. Sorting that out would come later. Moving the crystals took priority.

“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Rhapsody said, staring at one of the headstones.

No use fighting the urge to look. I read the inscription riddled with white and green mold.
Margaret Fletcher King. Beloved Wife and Mother.

It may not have been a trap, but it sure wasn’t a coincidence we were here.

“Esteban, take Rhapsody. Sasha, you go with Selby. King’s coming.”

Selby’s mouth dropped open. “What? Are you sure?”

Sasha refused to make eye contact with me. I ignored her. “Positive,” I said to them. “Go. I’ll handle him myself.”

“Sure you will,” Selby said. They zipped away, leaving a trail of shredded grass behind them.

Esteban made his way over to Rhapsody. “Ready?”

Her eyes moistened. “I’m waiting for Jason to explain.” Rhapsody’s voice broke a little, so she cleared her throat. “Explain how the Collective is terrified of going up against King but he’s not.”

She examined my face as if the answers were hidden behind my eyes. After a month of knowing me, she’d figured me out. Truth was, my heart fluttered and I managed to again sweat past the cooling system in my suit. What good was it? I turned my head and refused to give her the satisfaction of being right.

“Live or die, Esteban, I’m staying with him.”

Okay, I might not be able to take King alone, but she and Esteban couldn’t do it, either, and they shouldn’t have to die trying unless I failed.

I had an idea.

Grabbing Rhapsody by the waist, I planted a kiss on her. Her hot tears trailed down from her closed eyes onto my cheek as she returned my kisses. Behind her back, I used my thumb to give a “get out of here” signal to Esteban. For a brief second I opened my eyes to check his understanding. Esteban nodded. He got it.

I had to do this alone.

Slowly we drew away from each other. Rhapsody placed her hands on my cheeks and gave me a short peck. She dabbed her thumbs at the corners of my mouth.

“Goodbye.” I said, stepping back.

Esteban grabbed her shoulder, and in a wisp of gold smoke they were gone.

One of the asylum’s worn window shutters dropped on the overgrown thorn bush below it. I shuddered. “It’s old. He wouldn’t announce himself like that.”

Time to get out of here before King ambushed me. I heaved the goshenite onto my left shoulder and the scarlet emerald on my right. They belonged in the pit at Hidden Potential. Maybe Vivienne had an idea of the aquamarine’s whereabouts, the storm would pass, and we could all go home.

Without Rhapsody to shield me from radar, this needed to be a shorter trip. I churned enough energy inside me to go supersonic and took off.