The Gay Teen's Guide to Defeating a Siren: Book 1: The Seeker

by Cody Wagner

  I swallowed hard, which about killed me, and said, “Wolcott came and talked to me today.”

  That ended the packing; Cassie and Roze flew to the bed. Cassie secured a surgical mask, which looked ridiculous. Roze, realizing she was unprotected from my germs, wrapped one of Cassie’s scarves around her mouth. I felt like a rat carrying the plague as they laid into me with questions.

  I stopped trying to hide all the stuff I knew and told them about the funeral and Kyle. I also told them all about my conversation with Wolcott, focusing on the part about the Siren. In my mind, there was no question anymore: someone existed who could brainwash people. How she did it was a mystery, one of about a billion.

  After I finished, Cassie trembled with excitement. “So Wolcott looked shaken when you mentioned the Siren?”

  “Yes.”

  “He obviously knows.”

  “But why does he know? Why him?”

  Cassie shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe because the Siren is responsible for Zimmerman’s Zealots?”

  I kicked in frustration. “That’s even more confusing. The Siren’s a homophobe? Really? I don’t get it.”

  We couldn’t come up with any sensible reasons, so Cassie changed the subject, saying “So Tracey said to ‘kill the seeker’?”

  Now that was something I did know. Or a least I thought I did. Leaning forward, as if I were telling a secret, I said, “I think Jimmy can tell who the Siren’s brainwashed.”

  There it was, the big reveal.

  Cassie’s eyes widened.

  “I don’t know how, though,” I added. “But that’s why the Siren went after him.”

  Roze threw her hands up and yelled in frustration. “Guys, stop being stupid. Tracey’s obviously on drugs. I can’t believe you’re still talking about this Siren crap.”

  Despite the evidence—rather flimsy evidence, I admit—Roze didn’t buy my story.

  Pacing the room, she said, “The important question is this: are they going to expel Tracey?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Roze glared at me.

  “I’m just the messenger. Don’t be mad at me.”

  “That’s just stupid,” she said. “That whole group is so nasty to everyone. But, somehow, Miss Popular might get to stay?”

  “That’s not the reason,” I said.

  “Yes it is,” she snapped.

  “Why do you think so?”

  “Because that’s the way it works.” She grabbed a book lying next to the bed and hurled it against the wall.

  We continued to argue until I felt so ill, I couldn’t function. Roze apologized and got back to work. Cassie let go of her questions for the time being and helped without saying a word, but I could tell her mind was racing. My brain had stopped working forever ago, so I just lay still, like a zombie, until I drifted off.

  Seventeen

  Isolation

  When I woke a few hours later, the entire room was piled by the door in boxes. Feeling useless, I got up and insisted on helping with the move. Roze and Cassie protested, saying they had everything under control. They were right.

  A few minutes later, we heard a knock at the door. Smiling, Cassie opened it to a group of students from our game night who’d volunteered to help. I was so touched I couldn’t even talk. It was really cool of them. Not wanting to appear weak, I tried extra hard not to look sick.

  With seven people, the move was a breeze. Each of us piled up a couple boxes (each neatly marked ‘Cassie - Books’ or ‘Blaize - Jeans’ or ‘Jimmy - Shoes’) then went upstairs to the second floor, setting them next to a door near the center of the hallway. On the way up, I fidgeted with excitement despite being sick. Living in a one-story house my entire life, the second floor seemed like a skyscraper.

  Soon, all our boxes were stacked neatly in the hallway and everyone went back to their rooms (after I offered to buy them all lunch, which was stupid). I stood, leaning against the wall, as Cassie went to get our new set of key cards. A few minutes later, she returned, handed me mine, and we looked at each other.

  “Should we wait for Jimmy?” I asked.

  “Only if you want to sleep in the hall,” Cassie said.

  “They’re keeping him tonight, too?”

  She looked at her phone. “It’s already 9:30. I’m guessing so.”

  I nodded and faced the door.

  “Go ahead,” I said to Cassie.

  Nodding, she pressed her card against the panel and pushed open the door. Same layout, same beds, same windows, same everything. I walked in and threw my duffel on the top bunk, then strolled to the window. The view was no better—same dark field ending in a line of trees. I turned back to show Cassie, but she was staring at the bottom bunk, on the verge of tears. Confused, I took a few steps toward her and followed her gaze.

  Instead of the lower bunk bed, a small couch had been shoved against the wall.

  I halted with an audible gasp and looked around. There were only two beds.

  “Is Jimmy supposed to sleep on that?”

  I already knew the answer, but had to say something to keep from losing it. Jimmy wasn’t going to be staying with us anymore. The sofa was probably brought in to make the room look less empty. That way we wouldn’t see a gaping hole where Jimmy was supposed to be.

  Furious, I threw myself in a desk chair. I thought back to the nights we stayed up, talking about random weirdness. I thought of that first morning when I yanked back Jimmy’s sheet, revealing his weird underwear. I thought of us beginning to feel like a family. I punched Cassie’s mattress. Just like that, it was over. Anger coursed through me.

  “Where are they putting him?”

  “Not sure, but I have an idea,” Cassie said, staring at the sofa like it was a troll that had eaten her books. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t think I’d ever sit on the ugly thing.

  “We have to find him,” she said.

  I nodded. “As soon as we get up, we’ll head out.”

  She shook her head. “No, now. Let’s get our stuff in and go.”

  “Now? What if he’s not in the infirmary? Do you even know where to go?”

  “I think so.”

  Normally, I would have been all about finding Jimmy, but I felt terrible and needed to sleep. Just the thought of going on a wild goose chase out in the cold made me exhausted. Putting on my reasonable voice, I tried telling her she was the one who said I needed to rest, but Cassie rounded on me.

  “Think of how you and I felt when we walked in here just now. It was awful, even though we have each other. Jimmy has no one. Can you imagine how he feels.”

  Man, Cassie could lay on a guilt trip like nobody’s business. But she was right. Seeing that empty bunk felt like our family had been torn apart. Sure, that’s melodramatic, but it was true. Jimmy surely knew by now he wasn’t living with us anymore. It must have sucked so hard for him.

  Saying, “Fine,” I pushed up, steadied myself against the bedpost for the oncoming headache, and together, we dragged our boxes into the room. Not taking time to organize anything, it only took fifteen minutes.

  My forehead was covered in sweat, which I wiped away before pulling my jacket from the duffel. Cassie—insisting on my wearing a million layers of clothes—dug through some boxes and pulled out winter clothes for both of us. All dolled up, we went out into the bitter air.

  First, we headed straight to the Admissions building. The moment we arrived at the infirmary’s double doors, I knew Jimmy was gone—the guard was no longer outside. Just to be sure, Cassie walked through the doors and looked around. She motioned me in, but I stayed behind; I didn’t want Lindahl seeing me out and about, especially late at night. The last thing I needed was a lecture and more medicine.

  As expected, Cassie emerged a minute later, shaking her head.

  “Should we go back to the dorms?” I asked.

  Cassie shook her head again and walked down the hall.

  “Where are you going?”

  “He won’t be at th
e dorms.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because no room is safer than ours. They’re all exactly the same. There’s not like some hidden room behind steel bars or anything.”

  That made sense. The dorms were meant to be open in order to foster friendships and whatnot.

  “So you think he’s here?”

  “It makes the most sense. This is where the staff sleeps.”

  I froze. The teachers lived in the admissions building? I had no idea, and looked around as if for the first time. Suddenly, my footsteps seemed to thunder off the floor. I dropped my voice to a whisper, feeling like I was surrounded by strict parents.

  “Are we going to get in trouble?”

  Cassie shrugged and turned into a small stairwell. I followed her and we climbed up a set of stairs and emerged in another hallway.

  I took one peek and knew these were the teachers’ quarters.

  The corridor was like our dorm hallway, except much nicer. It reminded me of a nice hotel, with carpet running down the hall and fancy end tables topped with vases. I noticed there was a much wider gap between doors and figured the teachers had kitchens and bathrooms.

  Cassie took one look down the hall, then raced back into the stairwell.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trust me,” she said, taking the stairs two at a time.

  When we reached the next floor, Cassie and I were both winded. I thought of making a joke about how she could barely keep up with me although I was sick. However, the second I looked down a hallway (that looked identical to the one below), I clamped a hand over my mouth.

  A soldier sat on a chair outside one of the doors. He was different than the one I’d seen earlier, but wore the same type of uniform. This guy was much taller, but radiated the same aura of authority. He had to be guarding Jimmy, and I did my best to ignore Cassie’s I-told-you-so look as we walked to the door.

  The soldier watched us, wary. He wasn’t nervous, but I could tell he’d spring to action if we were like attackers or something.

  “Excuse me,” Cassie said. “We really need to see Jimmy.”

  The soldier looked surprised for the briefest second. He didn’t expect two teenagers to know where Jimmy was staying. He quickly regained his composure and, without confirming or denying her statement, said, “It’s past curfew. No one is allowed in.”

  Cassie crossed her arms. “We’re his best friends.”

  “And we saved his life,” I added.

  The soldier didn’t budge, and Cassie said, “He needs us.”

  When that didn’t work, Cassie’s face hardened. Here it comes, I told myself. She was changing into “Debate Cassie”. Dun dun dunnnnnnn.

  I was about to feel sorry for the soldier, but it quickly became obvious he wouldn’t put up with us. The second Cassie began speaking, he pulled a speaker from his belt and muttered something into it, completely ignoring her. Cassie looked put out for a second, then regained herself for round two. I could picture her thinking, I will be heard!

  The door across the hall opened. I jumped and heard Cassie chirp in surprise. We flew around and saw Principal Wolcott staring at us. He was wearing a bathrobe over pajamas that looked like khakis. Oddly, his hair was perfect and he stood as regal as ever.

  “Miss Cook. Mr. Trales. May I help you?”

  “We need to see Jimmy.”

  I figured he’d be surprised we knew Jimmy was here, but Wolcott didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “We’re not allowing visitors this late. It’s for his own good.”

  “But it’s us,” I said.

  “Yes,” Wolcott said, “and the two of you are on a very small list of accepted visitors . . . in the morning.”

  Cassie clasped her hands together. “Principal Wolcott, please. We’re the first friends Jimmy’s had. You know how unpopular he is. He’s got to be devastated here by himself. Can you imagine how he’s going to feel living with a bunch of teachers?” She paused for emphasis, then continued, “He needs us tonight more than ever, so he’ll know he at least still has friends.”

  “And you and the soldier guy can be with us the entire time,” I added.

  “And we won’t violate his curfew again,” Cassie said.

  Wolcott looked back and forth between us for a few seconds, before nodding. “Very well. But no one hears about this.”

  Both Cassie and I grinned as Wolcott approached the soldier. They exchanged a few words and the soldier nodded. Raising a fist, Wolcott walked to the door, and knocked twice in rapid succession.

  “Who is it?” Cassie and I smiled; even in the midst of all this, he kept his voice upbeat.

  “Mr. Blackwood, some friends have come to see you.”

  “Huh?”

  The door opened and Jimmy peeked out. The second he saw us, we all broke into huge grins. I swear Jimmy almost clapped like a little kid.

  Wolcott agreed to let us go in alone. However, they kept the door open and both men stood outside. Feeling like we were visiting a prisoner, Cassie and I inched into the entryway. Both of us gasped when we saw the apartment.

  The place was huge, with a small galley kitchen off to the right and a sprawling living room right in front of us. The floors were all dark hardwood, and I felt a twinge of jealousy. That is, until I saw Jimmy’s face. He said, “Pretty amazing, huh?” but couldn’t hide his sadness.

  Cassie threw herself at him in a huge hug. “I’m so sorry.”

  That did it; Jimmy started crying. Cassie led him to a leather couch in the living room, sat him down, and held his hand.

  Feeling useless and uncomfortable, I gave him sympathetic smiles from the middle of the living room. I shifted from foot to foot, trying to make myself go to him, but I’d never seen him like this and felt weird. If it were me, I’d just want to be left alone, so I bordered on awkward uncertainty.

  After a few minutes, Jimmy calmed down enough to say, “This just sucks.”

  “I know. It does for us, too,” Cassie said.

  “Yeah, now I’m stuck alone with her,” I threw in, pointing at Cassie. Jimmy actually laughed, one of those hiccup laughs that comes after crying.

  “You’re the first friends I’ve had here.” He gestured to the door. “Do you know he has to follow me to class for the next few weeks?”

  I grimaced and looked at the soldier. Yeah that’s not going to help. I didn’t say it, though, for fear of blurting the wrong thing. I’d already decided Cassie could do the talking.

  “Every time things start going good for me, something like this happens.” Jimmy grabbed a pillow and threw it onto the floor.

  We all sat in silence for a few minutes until Jimmy said, “Do you know what I did last year?”

  Cassie shook her head.

  “I hid.”

  “Huh?” I said, before I could stop myself.

  Jimmy looked down. “Everywhere I went, everyone made fun of me. I couldn’t even go to my room. One time, they put a dead spider under my sheets. I about died. So I began wandering campus late at night.”

  “We’ve all done that,” Cassie said.

  “I was looking for places to hide,” he argued. “I sat in the dumpster behind the gym for hours.”

  When I wrinkled my nose, he said, “It wasn’t used very often. And I needed a place where no one could see me. Then I’d go back and make up a story about how I was at this person’s room or something.”

  I could feel myself nodding along with him. Under different circumstances, that could have been me. I went to the couch and sat next to him.

  “Now you have us,” Cassie said.

  He stood up and turned, eyes on fire.

  “For now. But I know what’s going to happen. After awhile, you’ll get busy with homework or whatever. Instead of coming five days a week, it will be three. And then one. By the end of the year, you’ll pretend not to know me.”

  “Do you really think we’re that type of friends?” Cassie said.

  Jimmy shrugged.

  “Frankly,
I’m insulted,” Cassie said, standing and getting right in Jimmy’s face.

  “What?” Jimmy said, taking a step back.

  “After all we’ve done for each other, you really think I’d just abandon you like that? What kind of person do you think I am?”

  Jimmy struggled. “I . . . I . . . I’m sorry.”

  “I choose my friends very carefully.”

  Cassie gave me a look that said join me, and I puffed up my chest, trying to think of what to say. Maybe I should have joined in with Cassie and acted hurt or defensive. Maybe I should have given a similar story. Instead, I felt myself deflate and, in a rare moment of vulnerability, opened up.

  “I don’t know what you think, but I was really unpopular back home.”

  Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Sure you were.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “You want to go there?” Throwing up my hands, I said, “OK.”

  With that, I began telling them stories about the bullying. I talked about the pencils in my back and the punching in the halls and the jokes at my expense. I talked about the destroyed calculator buttons and my terror at the thought of eating lunch in the bathroom at Sanctuary Prep. I talked until my throat ached. At first, it was hard opening up; I felt really weak and exposed. The insecurities vanished as I realized they were in the same boat as me.

  Jimmy told us some guys hooked him to a flagpole and tried to raise him up. Because of his weight, the hook broke, and he toppled down five feet, spraining his ankle. Cassie once had two girls pin her down and lick her eyeballs. Not her eyelids, but her actual eyeballs. We couldn’t help but laugh at that one. She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she was really secure sharing her stories.

  By the time we were done, the three of us felt better. Well, I felt better emotionally. Physically, I was a wreck. I hadn’t taken my medicine that night and I could feel the fever taking over again. My tonsils weren’t any better; I had two tennis balls in my throat. I refused to let on that I was sick, though, and forced myself to laugh and joke with them as if nothing was wrong.