Sophomore Freak (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 2) (7 page)

“It’s the summer, Dee.” Debra waved her hand. “He was in the bed by. . .”

“Eleven,” I confessed. “Woke up around three and never went back to sleep. Walked right past you. You were asleep in your chair.”

Aunt Dee seemed satisfied with my answers. Half of them were true. She always fell asleep in her chair. She left the room in search of her bathrobe.

Debra and I smiled at each other. Finally,
someone
was on my side.

CHAPTER EIGHT

meeting a secret agent

I woke up in Aunt Dee’s home office. She’d moved enough of her junk around for me to sleep on the day bed and to store a small amount of clothes. This was my room.

“Thank you, Lord, for this day,” I kissed the framed picture of me and my mom. With that, I rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom at the end of the hall.

While showering I flashed back to everything that happened last night. I’d made out with my best friend. My girlfriend had brain damaged a police officer. I’d learned the provenance crystals are going to explode in a week. Everything was all
out of control.

Once I threw on a white Raiders t-shirt and a pair of black shorts, I thought about leaving the house from the roof, but anyone could see me. Debra always reminded me to be careful. Instead, I took the staircase and headed for the backyard. I passed Aunt Dee, who was feeding Zachary in the kitchen. I served myself some orange juice and took my Adderall pill, making sure to stash some extras in my pocket, just in case.

“Afternoon,” she said. Thankfully, she had put on a pair of red sweatpants, a tank top, and a bra. “Hate how ya’ll teenagers stay up so late and sleep half the day away in summer. We’re painting the cabinets today, remember?”

I finished sending a text message to Sasha. “Hi, Auntie,” I kissed her on the cheek. Zachary continued munching on the green paste in his mouth. I waved at him. “Hey, lil’ bro. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

The news played on the TV, which half distracted my aunt. She played the lottery and would not miss the numbers being called for anything. “Uh uh. Clean up the room first and make the bed.”

I knew she’d say that. “Yes ma’am, I did that already.”

“You need to stick around so we can po. . .” Aunt Dee stopped talking when photos of Spivey and Julia flashed on the TV screen. “Lord Jesus! Debra!” she shouted.

Crap. I should’ve changed the channel when I had the chance.

“Police are investigating the disappearance of local police officer Stuart Spivey,” said the anchorwoman. “Officer Spivey was last seen around 7 p.m. Thursday at a Harleysville restaurant, apprehending a suspect. The suspect was allegedly connected with the stabbing of twenty-seven-year-old Julia Mosri-Champion, wife of prominent Harleysville attorney Ray Champion.”

Aunt Dee placed a hand at her heart and turned up the TV’s volume. I looked away, but I felt her eyes burning holes on the side of my face.

We listened to the rest of the report.

“Mosri-Champion is in stable condition. The suspect was released and police have no leads as to Ms. Champion’s assailant or Officer Spivey’s current whereabouts.”

Debra appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eyes and yawning. She must have called in to work last night. I didn’t know she had any days left.

“What’s the big commotion?” she asked.

“Whoever stabbed Julia got this officer, too? Did you see it, Jason? Who’s the suspect?”

“Deidra Lee,” Debra said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Let him visit his stepmother and stop asking so many questions. Whatever he knows, the police know.”

Aunt Dee’s face softened. “Sorry, Nephew. Don’t pay no attention to your ol’ auntie. You need a ride to the hospital? I’ll throw on some better clothes.”

I patted my empty right shorts’ pocket. “I’ve got a bus pass. See you later.”

I left. Debra watched me, silently mouthing “be careful” before shutting and locking the back door behind me.

I nodded and went straight to the basement’s above ground doors. Unlocking them, I carefully walked down the steps. Behind some of Grandma Barbara’s old dusty mementos was my stash of scarlet emerald, green emerald, and goshenite prisms. I grabbed the entire bag of green emeralds and surfaced.

As I walked out of the back gate I wondered where I should go first. I checked my cell phone – Sasha hadn’t answered me and it had been fifteen minutes. It went straight to voicemail when I called. Nobody answered the house phone, either. Going over there meant talking about last night, which I definitely did not want to do.
She’ll call me when she’s ready, I guess
.

I dialed Rhapsody’s cell and she answered on the first ring. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said. “Headed your way in a sec.”

“See you.” Her voice sounded flat. Was she still upset about last night?

As I got to the overgrown oak tree in the backyard, a rusted, black late model van parked at the curb. Two people got out of the sliding passenger side doors – a tall, bald black man and a woman with dark hair bundled into a ponytail. Both of them wore dark suits and white shirts, no ties. What did they want?

“Jason Champion!” yelled the man. He waved something gold in his hand – a badge? Heliodor rock?

The two of them walked towards me, but hesitantly, like they knew what I could do to them. “We’re from the DHS,” she said with a heavy Asian accent.

DHS – Department of Homeland Security? And I had a hundred nuclear weapons in my hand.

I focused my thinking past my racing heart. They could be with Welker or King. Either way, I didn’t think they were trying to help me.

And if I was in this kind of trouble, so were Rhapsody and Sasha – even Selby.

I took off for Rhapsody’s house, soaring faster than I meant to go.

Slowing down on the downward arc was too hard, but I tried. When I landed the ground shook. Rhapsody looked up from the broken steps of her back porch. She wore a pair of blue cut-off denim shorts with black spandex beneath them and a white golf shirt. Her hair, dyed black everywhere but the roots, hung down past her shoulders. She was dressed to see her dying dad, George, who hated it when she looked Gothic. 

We weren’t alone.

Ruby, who was with her, did the Catholic cross thing over her chest when she saw me. She held the white gold crucifix hanging around her neck, looked at us and prayed, saying a whole lot of words in Spanish I didn’t understand besides “¡Dios mío.”

The blonde from the police station stood next to them. Like the other two at Aunt Dee’s house, she wore a black suit with no tie. Up close, she was prettier than I first thought. She had a pointy nose and a nice figure, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d busted us.

Rhapsody could have easily escaped. Why hadn’t she?

The blonde has white ice and knows how to use it.
For some reason, though, she wasn’t using it on me. I could still breathe and my knee was holding up.

“Are you going to play nice, Jason?” she asked me.

A large, silver box the size of a guitar case lay next to her foot. What was in it?

I jammed the bag of prisms into my back pocket and held up my hands in surrender. “It’s not like I have a choice.”

“You always have a choice,” she said, touching a tiny bluetooth headset in her ear canal. “I’ve got them,” she said after a second or two. “Meet me at this location when you finish with Sasha.”

Finish with Sasha? My insides boiled with anger. What did that mean?

The woman lifted the case by the handle. “After you, Ms. Martinez.”

Ruby, dressed in her restaurant manager’s outfit of black pants and a red shirt, led us. It was the first time I had been inside of Rhapsody’s house past the living room in the front. The decorations were modest throughout and the white appliances looked yellow. I’m sure they weren’t dirty – it was probably from age and use.

We passed Rhapsody’s room. I expected the walls to be painted black and covered with some heavy metal posters or something. Instead, the room was white. Her bed had a tan comforter on it, and the carpet was a dull shade of brown. Spread out on the floor was a jewelry-making kit – necklaces and ring settings for the prisms.

Hidden in the far corner underneath a bed sheet was the safe we stole from Welker. The blonde paused in front of us. She noticed it, smiled, and moved forward. Curious, I took a peek myself.

“Quit it!” Rhapsody said, poking me in the back. “Eyes ahead. Keep going.”

Her mom showed us to the living room, where we sat in off-white furniture pieces patterned with flowers. The DHS agent took the biggest chair. Rhapsody and I sat next to each other on the loveseat.

I put most of my weight on my left butt cheek, since the prisms were tucked inside of my right back pocket. Rhapsody reached over and held my hand to keep me from moving around so much. My neck got hot when she did that, so I let go of her fingers and made a fist. Ruby stood in the middle of the room and avoided eye contact.

“I guess I’ll start,” said the agent. She rubbed her hands against her gray slacks. “My name is Courtney Stafford and you should think of me as a friend.”

“Why should we be friends with a Department of Homeland Security agent? Immigration, IRS. . .these are not friendly agencies to me.” Ruby posed a good question.

Courtney sighed and eyed both of us. “We are your friends. Hear me out.”

Ruby excused herself to the bathroom down the hall. Our “friend” lowered her voice to just above a whisper.

“Honestly, I’m not really from the DHS, but you need to know. . .”

“You showed me a
fake badge?”
Ruby shouted. “That’s it. I’m calling the cops, like I should have done in the first place.”

I threw up my hands. Rhapsody cursed and Ruby gave her daughter a look.

“Really with the staring?” she asked her. “Whoever-she-is from wherever lied about her identity! She’s sitting in our living room and you’re mad I said ‘sh. . .”

Ruby opened the front door. “Get out of my house, Lady, right now.”

“Wait, Ruby!”
I said. “She might know. . .about us. Who are you
really?”

“That’s actually kind of. . .tough to explain
,”
she answered.

“Really?” Rhapsody said with all the sarcasm in the world. “Hi,” she said, extending her hand to me. “I’m Rhapsody Lowe. Who are you?”

“Jason Champion.” I played along, but didn’t shake her hand. Things were still weird between us. “Not real complicated to me,
Courtney.
What do you think, Ruby?”

She waved her hand at her throat. Ruby wanted no parts of this conversation.

Courtney pursed her lips. “My real first name is Eris. Stafford is my last name. Call me ‘Eris’
just
once
, Jason, and I’ll shoot you with goshenite in your good knee.”

I doubted that. “How much do you know?” I asked with immediate regret. I wanted her to say next to nothing, but that’s not the way my luck works.

“Everything.
Including what really happened at Giovanni’s last night and what you plan to do with those isotopes in your pocket.
”

The answer shut me and Rhapsody down. We were at Courtney’s mercy.

“Can I get something to drink?” Courtney rubbed the back of her neck.

Ruby tapped her wristwatch. “I’m late for my afternoon shift.” She held an open red flip phone in her hand. “You need to go, whoever you are. Now.”

Courtney reached into her pocket and retrieved a white envelope. “Tell you what,” she said, pointing to the kitchen. “Two year’s worth of salary and an open ticket to Panama are in here. Give me a cold glass of water and ten minutes with these kids. If you still disagree with me after that, I’ll leave and you can keep it all.”

Ruby took the bribe and hurried to the kitchen.

Neither of us thought it was for the money or the ticket. She was afraid for us and whatever kind of trouble we’d gotten ourselves into.

Courtney scooted to the edge of the chair. “There’s this story in the
Bible where Jesus puts out everyone in the room to perform a healing. You know that one?”

I slept through church practically every Sunday, so I had no idea what she was talking about. “Uh huh,” I said. “Jesus. Right.”

Rhapsody playfully punched me in the arm. “We read that in mass. He kicked out everyone who doubted. What’s your point?”

She licked her lips. “‘DHS’ means don’t ask. That’s why we say it. Some questions can’t be answered. Others you won’t want the answer to. Same kind of deal with us. We’re not terrorists or government. Think of us as a utilitarian collective.”

I could have used Sasha to translate
utilitarian collective
. I thought I understood. “A collective,” I repeated.

Courtney synced a video she’d stored on her large screen smartphone and showed it to us. “You got on our radar last May, when you did this. We weren’t sure it was anything unusual until Reject High exploded six days later.”

They called it Reject High, too? Rhapsody huddled close to me to watch the video. I tried to move away but couldn’t.

The screen played a looping flash of an object streaking through the blue sky. It was an amateur recording of my first jump.

Courtney flipped to a blurry photograph that had been blown up. In it a small part of my face was visible.