Sophomore Freak (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 2) (9 page)

Rhapsody turned toward the door and ran through it. I followed her, except she had forgotten to turn me intangible. With a full running start, I smashed through the closed door, sending a heavy shower of dark brown splinters blasting into the hallway wall.

Everyone within a close distance ducked, except for a red-haired candy striper staring in my direction. Refusing to look at her, for fear she’d recognize my face, I pulled my mask down over my head.

“Sorry!” Rhapsody yelled from down the hall in a disguised voice. “You’re fine!”

I swallowed hard and dashed full speed through the crowd, passing through the panicked bodies of doctors, orderlies, and nurses.

A brown-haired security guard with a phone in his hand called a “Code Black.” He repeated it after we had run past him.

Code Black – that can’t be good.

At the end of the hall I panted and whispered, “What . . . was
that?”

“Lost control. . .for a second,” Rhapsody managed to spit out. “502. C’mon.”

Heat rushed to my collar. “Are you insane? How are we gonna get him out? You can’t ghost all three of us.”

Rhapsody was quiet for a moment. The ruckus surrounding us got louder. Every time we spoke people searched around for the source of the voices they could not find.

“I can’t do it alone. I need you.”

She sounded real, vulnerable. Not like she was giving me a line of crap, which she didn’t do, anyway. And I knew she needed me, and better me than Selby this time.

“Okay.” I held Rhapsody at the waist. With our powers working together, we made it to the fifth floor just in front of the elevators.

Side by side, we jogged over to George’s room and passed through the closed door. His condition was similar to Peters’, minus all of the hair. He didn’t have any bedsores. The medicine drip was there, and so was the ventilator. Unlike where we came from, this floor was quieter and smelled of bleach cleaner and medicine.

Rhapsody appeared in front of me. Her red eyes brimmed with tears.

“Are you sure?” I flailed my hands. “This might not work.”

She nodded and pursed her lips. “Do it. Please.”

I lifted George’s limp palm, cupped it so that he could hold them, and slowly emptied the bag of emeralds into his hand. Rhapsody took my place and held his fingers shut. Her eyes darted back and forth, from George to me and back to him.

Beep. Beep.
His heart monitor was steady. The ventilator
pssshed
, whisking a steady stream of air into his lungs. His chest rose, then fell.

“Why isn’t it working?” she asked. A renegade tear trailed down her cheek. “Peters woke up in a hurry,” she cried. “Why’s Pápa still laying there?”

I bit my lip to keep myself from saying what I really thought – George was brain dead. Our powers are wired to our minds. If his brain doesn’t work, he might be gone.

We waited longer. The thin white drapes at the window moved in the cooling system’s airflow, but I didn’t need it. Every part of my body covered by the suit was the perfect temperature. Was it designed that way?

Moving my mouth to say something, I coughed instead. If Courtney and Peters had teamed up, she’d tell him where we were, and he’d come after us. Odds were that he’d have a hard time getting to us without exposing his powers.

I flexed and relaxed my fingers, focusing on the metallic crunching sound of the gray, scale-like plates on my gloves bumping against one another. In these suits we looked like futuristic comic book heroes. 

George’s condition did not change. More beeping and hissing.

I paced back and forth beside his bed to keep myself from screaming out at Rhapsody. Risking everything by standing here was kind of stupid, but if my mom had been lying there, I might’ve wanted someone to do the same thing for me.

Rhapsody’s lips trembled. “Pápa,” she muttered. She wiggled free of her suit enough to free her right arm. She stroked his face with her bare hand. “Please.”

CHAPTER TEN

escape to the middle of nowhere

Ten minutes had passed, and nothing had happened. I’d kept my word.

The hospital staff might have thought my crash through Peters’ door was faulty equipment. Even worse, a
bomb
or something. They would move the patients around.

Meaning we
really
had to go.

“Rhapsody.” I spoke her name softly but with force. I had to get through to her.

She nodded, knowing what I intended to say. “A second.”

I couldn’t go out in the hallway dressed like I was going to Comic-Con, so I manned the door. I’d use my strength to hold it closed for now.

Rhapsody cursed and backed away from her father.

I flinched. Had he died? Trembling, she rambled in Spanish – a prayer? I couldn’t really tell. My Spanish was terrible. The only reason I might have passed that class was an extra credit project I’d finished right before the school had blown up.

“What the h– ?”

Saying nothing, she pointed at George’s hand – the one with the crystals. The color of its fingers flushed a healthy pinkish-brown color. Like Peters had done before him, George inhaled on his own. The crystals were working.

He blinked twice and turned his head toward Rhapsody, who dropped to the floor. George tugged at his ventilator tube with his left hand. “Ra. . .na,” he mumbled.

Shock arrested my limbs. I froze, unable to do anything but stare. My thoughts rolled to a halt. I wished these crystals had existed back when my mother was this sick.

Rhapsody got to her feet without my help and rushed over to George, smothering him with kisses on the face. She stroked his sweaty head and smiled, her tears still falling. “You’re gonna be okay, Pápa. You’re getting out of here.”

George rolled his head to the left and noticed me standing in the corner. I bowed my head. A month ago he’d asked me to take care of his daughter. Rhapsody and I had our ups and downs, but so far, I think I’d done okay – including being here now.

“H-how?” he asked. He must mean his ability to speak. Though I wondered why he hadn’t reacted to the crystals the same way Peters did.

She pointed to his right hand. “That’s how.”

Two mint green-colored prisms hit the floor. When they lose power, their color fades from a dark shade to clear, like a diamond.

“These,” she said, picking them up and holding one in front of his face. Jason, he’ll get you as many as you need, and. . .”

George hacked and thrashed around on his bed. The heart monitors dinged double time as his pulse raced. Rhapsody steadied him as well as she could, but the prisms must have made him too strong for her to restrain.

“Don’t just stand there!” she shrieked. “Help me. He’s dropping them all.”

I abandoned my post and rushed to his bedside. Holding George down without hurting him was difficult for me.

His eyes swelled with panicked tears. Not only did George know what the green emeralds did, but
they scared him. Why? 

“He’s seen these before,” I said. “Not when I gave him one. Before that.”

“What?” Rhapsody picked up the crystals bouncing on the floor and placed them back into George’s hand. “Have you seen these before?” she asked him.

His head wildly nodded. “Y-essss. . .bul. . .low. . . ”

“Pápa,” Rhapsody said, her voice trembling. “You’re not making sense. ‘Bul-low’, what is that?”

She started with the Spanish again, but she spoke so slowly I understood bits and pieces of it.
Su carta
meant “your letter” – the one he wrote to her? Rhapsody had shown up at Aunt Dee’s house a day after Reject High exploded. I gave it to her then. I hadn’t read it, and we’d never talked about what George said in it.

Sniffling between sobs, Rhapsody talked a little faster, too fast for my amateur translation. Suddenly I remembered that I’d left the room unprotected. George had calmed down, so I left him in Rhapsody’s hands and crossed the white linoleum floor.

Whatever she’d said to him, he’d lost the ability to respond. The color of his skin paled and darkened. I couldn’t see the green emeralds from where I was standing, but by the look on Rhapsody’s face, I knew they were quickly losing power.

The silver door handle clicked underneath my hand. I grabbed it before the person on the other side could enter. Whistling loudly enough to get Rhapsody’s attention, I jerked my head toward the door. “Time’s up,” I mouthed to her.

“Not yet,” she said, kissing George on the forehead. “You promised.”

I’d given her my word to give him crystals every day, not to stand here and get caught by our enemies. He’d burned through most of what I’d harvested over the past month in less than twenty minutes. At that rate, no way I could keep him alive until the crystals exploded, even though I wanted to do it. We needed to revise the game plan.

Rhapsody touched her father’s chest and leaned her head against his.

Suddenly she perked up. Had George said something? She pulled the ventilator tube fully away from his lips. I didn’t hear anything and couldn’t see his mouth, but the back of his neck tensed, then relaxed.

As I watched them my right leg buckled. Compensating with my left, I found it difficult to breathe, like I’d been stabbed in the side. My powers were slipping away. Someone outside of the room was using goshenite against me.

“Have to. . .” I tried to yell. My normal strength wasn’t enough. With another push from the other side, I’d smash into the wall. Whoever it was would have us in custody.

Rhapsody laid her midsection across George’s chest and sobbed.

That’s it. We’re done. Our enemies have won.

I closed my eyes and waited for the final push.

When I dared to look again, Rhapsody was dropping us down through the hospital floors. We stopped falling when my shoes smacked hard against the concrete parking deck. Waving my hands to the sides, I steadied myself, and then I patted my chest.

I was invisible.

The choking scent of car exhaust and gasoline was strong. I looked around – we were on the deck’s bottom level.

My friend was nowhere to be seen. Where was she?

“Rhapsody?” I called out. All I heard was the shallow echo of my own voice. I yelled her name again, patting the cold, gray concrete. “Are you here? Are you hurt?”

Silence.

“Answer me!” I screamed long and hard, at the top of my lungs. 

“I’m here,”
she said in a shaky, small voice.

I tried to guess where her voice came from. “Well, I can’t see you.”

Although it was the middle of the afternoon, the closed-in level was dark, except for lights at the corners where people would make turns. The tubes in the ceiling in front of me had blown out, and Rhapsody’s voice originated somewhere behind me.

I reached my hands out for her and stated the obvious again. “We gotta go. We’re sitting ducks down here.”

Rhapsody’s emotions were all over the place. She couldn’t control her powers enough to reappear.

I followed the audible trail of her tears. Finding her calf first, I patted the ground until I reached her other leg. Gently, I picked her up in my arms. Still invisible, she nuzzled close to me. The smell of her flowery perfume was strong. Holding her made me feel odd, but I put that aside. My best friend needed me.

I carried her to the edge of the parking lot and kicked the wall, sending chunks of concrete and metal wiring flying with each kick. Once I’d made a big enough hole, we stepped through it onto the sidewalk. Above us, the bright yellow sun shone. In broad daylight anyone could see us, recognize us. I hoped we looked good online for whoever was going to film us.

Looking down at my feet, I saw Rhapsody had pulled it together and turned me invisible. It was a good thing. Policemen had set up red and white roadblock barriers in both directions. They crowded the streets, wearing black riot gear. Several black police vans lined the street. I wondered if they were packing white ice.

“Unzip my suit,” I said, rushing her into an alleyway. “Reach into the inside pocket for a card.”

Rhapsody sniffed. My suit loosened and separated as she tugged at the zipper. Soon she had slipped her hand against my sweaty t-shirt and finished the job. She placed the card into my right palm.

I let her stand on her own and backed away, hoping the distance would turn me visible. Sure enough, it worked.

Besides the word “Walsh,” I read a series of numbers and dashes – coordinates. Other than the “E,” which meant east, I had no idea where to go.
How am I supposed to read these? Perfect
. I hid the truth of my confusion from Rhapsody. She didn’t need to know.

Two hours away in the middle of nowhere was the
perfect place for a secret hideout. Walsh was a farming town with nothing around but corn fields and Hidden Potential a.k.a. “the Black Hole” – a boot camp for problems waiting to happen, like me. Vivienne Coker ran it. People said it was
worse
than going to Reject High. Once a kid goes in the Black Hole, he doesn’t come out until he turns eighteen, and she has to free him.

After mumbling the coordinates to myself a few times I found Rhapsody sitting on the ground with her back against the grime-caked brick alley wall. Her chest and shoulders spasmed every couple seconds. She stopped weeping. I was surprised she had any tears left after crying so much. “My mom had to go and flush my last cigarette. Figures.” 

I held out my gloved hand to her. “I can’t do this alone,” I said. “I need you, too.”

Rhapsody’s face brightened a little. She grabbed my hand and I helped her up. “Funny.” Her voice evened out. “Somebody smart must’ve told you that.”

I pocketed the card. “We’re supposed to go to Walsh. Wanna blow it off because of that whole Peters thing?”

Her face screwed with displeasure. “Right. Can’t be someplace we might
want
to go either. Why can’t we get sent to someplace fancy, like Xobai or something?”

Maybe Courtney had a good reason.
“Do you trust her?”

Rhapsody hissed. “She told you to wake up the dude who tried to kill you.”

She had a point. “You alright?”

“Not really.”

Walsh was west of town and we were facing east. I brought us to the flat roof of the hospital, where the trauma center had a landing pad for its helicopter. Thankfully no one was around in the tower. Rhapsody turned us invisible, anyway.