I push the door to the library open. The hall has emptied mostly, just a few kids hurrying by. The thought I’m going to be late for gym passes through my mind, but I ignore it. Tate is still there, the hulking Donnelly standing over her. Gripping her arm.
“I think something’s going on,” I whisper to Mrs. Moore. From the pinched expression on her wrinkled face, she agrees with me.
Phew, so I’m not imagining things? There are times I do worry I let my overactive mind make things up that aren’t really there. But it’s clear from the way Mrs. Moore puffs her way across the hall to interrupt the conversation she’s as concerned as I am.
I hurry away, trusting her to take care of it, but can’t resist looking back over my shoulder. Donnelly scowls at me, Tate staring with huge eyes and her bottom lip clenched between her teeth as Mrs. Moore does her teacher thing and the kids scatter. Hopefully Tate will see the light now and steer clear of Donnelly and his friends.
When I see her at her house later, I’m sure she’ll thank me for stepping in.
I’m halfway down the steps when I hear feet running behind me and turn, look back. Tate huffs to a halt one stair above me, face pinched and red.
“Just leave me alone, why don’t you?” She looks like she’s going to say something else before she turns and runs back up the stairs. Behind her, watching from the computer lab door, Tom Brown points at me with his thumb and index finger before pulling the trigger on his imaginary gun.
Well, that was rude. And what does he have to do with this? I always thought he liked me. Am I wrong? It doesn’t matter, I guess. I’m not wanted, regardless of what I saw in Tate’s eyes a few minutes ago. I read the situation wrong, she doesn’t want or need my help and I guess it’s time to just move on.
No new friend for Kit MacLean.
I feel my lower lip tremble a moment before clenching it firmly against my upper just as the bell rings.
I hate being late for class. But worse is how I feel as I try to muster the energy to run, only managing a hanging head shuffle all the way to gym.
***
Chapter Twelve
I fumble the basketball, my hands unable to coordinate with my feet even though I’m giving it my all. Betsy Bearston shoulder checks me and takes it away, running off like a gazelle toward the basket. Her delicate hooves make tiny tapping sounds, her long, arched neck showing off perky ears while her front legs leap upward, tossing the ball with a grace I can only dream of. When her hooves hit the ground, she’s a girl again and everyone cheers, including me.
The shoulder of my t-shirt is already wet from wiping at the sweat on my face and I grimace a bit at the grossness of the whole process. I much prefer the more sterile and comfortable environment of a traditional classroom to running around in sneakers and shorts trying to master sports that elude my meager skills. Clare and Calvin are the athletes in our family—soccer stars—and I’m okay with that.
Mr. Shute, our gym teacher, blows his whistle and points at the doors at the far end of the room. The sound echoes uncomfortably in the stale air, the squeak of rubber on plastic floor jarring and giving me a bit of a headache.
“Hit the showers.”
I still feel bad for showing up late and show my appreciation to Mr. Shute by staying behind to gather up the basketballs and pylons, stacking them neatly in the equipment room while he trudges off to his office. Funny how he didn’t reprimand me for being tardy. I’m just grateful he was kind enough to let me have a pass. I’m about to wave and smile at him when he slams his door shut, rattling the glass.
Hmmm. I guess he has something important to take care of. I’ll thank him later.
Gym class has had one big benefit. I seem to have sweated out most of my hurt from earlier. There’s a bounce back in my step when I enter the locker room, smile returned. One class to go, then home. I wonder what chemistry will be like? Maybe Ms. Richard will let me do some experiments this year.
I pull my locker door open and retrieve my gym bag, but it takes me a moment to realize my boots are missing. Huh. They were here when class started, I locked them up inside personally. Maybe I have the wrong locker? But, no, all of my other stuff is here, safe and sound.
Where are my boots?
A frantic ticking sounds off in my head as I check the lockers beside me, gaping open. No boots. Not under the bench behind me or tucked away beneath the sinks in the shower area. When I finally finish my search, I don’t have time to shower and I don’t have my boots.
My eyes sting, throat tightening as I pull on my striped socks over my pale pink leggings and stare at my sneakers. I don’t have anything else to wear. Guess I’ll have to check in at the office and see if someone turned in my boots. They must have thought they were lost or something.
A faint hiccup builds in the back of my throat when I exit the locker room and head for my last class. It’s just not the same without my stomping boots.
Chemistry drags by while Ms. Richard talks endlessly about what she has in store for us this year. I like her well enough, but she enjoys the sound of her own voice a little too much. By the time class wraps up, we’ve done nothing but listen to her talk.
So much for experiments. Not like I’m in the mood now, anyway. I hurry to the office, pushing past a few other students and try to smile at Miss Nigel, the receptionist. She looks down her narrow nose at me, sour as usual. I know it’s not very nice to think of her that way, but she’s such a grump, always has been and I just can’t muster the energy to think otherwise.
“Has anyone turned in a pair of black boots?” They must be here. I peek over her shoulder at the big cardboard box behind the desk, the lost and found. My heart pounds faster as she sniffs, shakes her head, her thin, brown hair bravely holding a bare curl at the very bottom, already stringy as though she has an excessive oil problem. I’ve tried to offer her hair advice in the past, but she’s never taken it, obviously.
“No,” she says, looking past me, the whiskered snout of a shrew twitching, tiny pink nose quivering over sharp fangs that protrude from her pale brown muzzle. “Next.”
I fight the urge to cry. No? She didn’t even check. “Are you sure? Can you check again?” They have to be here. Where else could they be?
Miss Nigel’s furry face curls into a snarl, her beady black eyes glittering, giant pink ears flickering back before she’s just a nasty young woman again.
“I said no. Now, if you don’t mind, there are others you’ve butted in front of, Kit MacLean. The world does not revolve around you, despite what you might believe. Or your ridiculous boots.”
Someone laughs behind me, but it doesn’t matter. My boots aren’t here.
And they aren’t ridiculous, thank you very much.
She won’t be further help, it seems. I retreat, heading for my locker. I don’t want to miss the bus for a second time. I’m already running behind and will have to hurry. At least I have my sneakers on, right? Silver linings. They will make me faster. But, it’s just not the same.
Something white flaps on the surface of my locker and, as I come to a halt and stare at it, I feel warmth spread through my chest. A missing poster! My boots! Someone has posted it for me. I pull it down and hug it to me. I’ll have to find whoever it is and thank them for being so kind. My gaze scans it as I open my locker door with absent glances at my lock and spot a link at the bottom of the page. Maybe my mystery benefactor has their own website and is doing a lost and found there? My phone beeps as I turn it on and quickly type in the address.
The screen darkens, then flickers to a photo. My boots! It’s my boots, in my gym locker. Have they been returned? Then, the slideshow begins and my entire world clenches into sharp focus.
Image after image, just my boots. Being photographed as they leave my locker, down the hall outside the gym to the parking lot. Where they slowly disintegrate through each picture as though decaying on their own. Sliced open, driven over by a car and, finally, set on fire on a grassy spot I don’t recognize.
>
Something wet drips onto the screen of my phone and, with a start of surprise, I wipe it away, noticing then the wavering difficulty I’m having seeing clearly. My jacket sleeve is damp when I’m done wiping at the tears on my face.
I can’t muster a single thing, not more tears, not a scream, not anger or anything.
My boots. Who would do this to my boots?
My phone pings. I click the message button automatically, without thinking. And read the text in all caps glaring back at me.
YOU WERE WARNED.
I almost drop my phone as I think of Tate and Donnelly and, to my utter shock, Tom Brown. The fake shot he took at me, the finger gun. He’s a computer guy, right? He would be capable of building a website and putting the slide show together.
No, I won’t think badly of a fellow student, not when I don’t have proof of wrongdoing. And he has no reason to hate me, or do such horrible things to my poor, poor boots. And yet, as I stare at them, at the devastation that was polished black leather and lovingly shined silver buckles, my heart clenches.
It’s him, I know it. He’s clearly lost his mind, doing something like this. Just in case he missed it, ruining my things won’t endear him to me. There goes his chance of ever having his crush realized.
Wait. What if he doesn’t like me after all? Then why trail after me all these years? And, what in the world does he have to do with Donnelly bullying Tate?
It doesn’t matter, I realize, as something I’ve never felt before bursts in my stomach, swelling with fire through my entire being, sending tingling prickles through every cell in my body as the final image comes to a halt and stays there. Ashes with blackened buckles poking through. All that’s left of my darling boots.
Rage. Utter rage. I’m about to tear someone apart. And his name is Tom Brown.
***
Chapter Thirteen
I’ve missed my bus for sure, but I don’t care. I have no idea where this incredible fury has come from—I blame Kitalia—but it’s consuming me and I have to let it out. Whatever reason Tom Brown has for destroying my most favorite possession in the entire world, he’s about to discover Kit MacLean is less kitty cat and more lioness.
I don’t remember running up the stairs to the computer lab, or if I encounter anyone along the way. The only memory I have is pausing outside the door for one moment, taking a breath past the fire in my chest, before pushing it open and stepping inside.
Tom sits at one of the computers, leaning back, one sneakered foot crossed over his lanky knee while a handful of other guys hang around him, their collective glasses and bad haircuts, pale complexions and matching outfits inform me I’ve walked into the dragon’s den.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Not that I’d been thinking clearly when I made the decision to storm the castle…
***
I shudder off the touch of the blindfold and take in my surroundings, the banks of monitors, the bullies hulking in dark corners, but my focus is entirely on my quarry. I can’t see his face, shadowed as it is, but he seems familiar to me and my mind does its best to identify him as he speaks.
My adversary. At last.
“Kitalia Ore. Welcome to my humble abode.” It was easy enough to find the place. He’d left it wide open to me in Ms. Ming’s mind, on purpose I now believe. Why he’s waited this long to taunt me, however, I can’t guess. Still, I wonder if he was prepared for this. I could have snuck in, or used my power to push past his guards. Instead, I strolled up to his front door and let him think he has the upper hand.
I like having him where I want him. Line of sight makes my job so much easier.
“Thanks,” I say. “You know why I’m here.”
I can hear the smirk in his voice as he speaks, the chair he sits in swiveling gently as he shrugs. No one seems nervous—they should. They’ve underestimated me, allowing me in here like this.
“Because I invited you here, of course.” He gestures around him, the screens lighting up. Images of me flash, on missions, with the British Prime Minister, with J.J. and C1, C2. Of the red dress and the opera house. And of him waving and smiling at the camera just before he spray painted my mirror.
He did that personally? He has bigger balls than I gave him credit for.
While it might be fun to toy with him, I’m all out of patience with this particular scenario. I just want him out of my life so I can move on to my next assignment. My mind gathers, leaps at his.
And he laughs as he blocks me before throwing my attack back in my face.
Fear. Tingling, aching, painful fear lashes at me. Of being a small child, abandoned and alone, hiding in the dark. How? How does he know my deepest fears? Where did he get his intel? It doesn’t matter, though my mind flashes to the little girl, the bot in Ms. Ming’s mind. The one whose hand I held, who wrapped her power around me even as I did the same to her. She lunged into my brain before I escaped Ms. Ming in Prague. And I felt the same, sizzling fear then.
What had his bot uncovered? I jab back at him, gasping for air, pulling my wits about me. And uncover a secret I’m sure he didn’t want me to find.
“You’re one of us.” CIA. An operative. I hear him growl, crumble as he forces my mind deeper into the memory of being so small, so alone, so afraid, barely able to whimper as he speaks, voice echoing from very far away while I retreat into my terror.
“Very good, Kitalia,” he says, leaning forward so I can finally see his face.
“T.B.” He was with me in Prague, the waiter operative who handed me my champagne. He’s been with me all along, watching me, studying my techniques. But, he’s ordinary, not a special ops agent, talentless. Where did his psychic ability come from?
He was supposed to be my backup. And while the two of us have never been friends…
I need to tell my bosses. They have to know he’s a traitor and a liar, hiding his ability.
T.B. laughs in my face and I’m a little girl, smaller and smaller, heart aching, mind awash with darkness and the kind of fear that makes me want to wail.
“Just try and tell them,” he whispers, looming over me, a monster in black while I weep. “No one will ever believe you. I’ll make certain of that. Your days as an agent are over. Say goodbye to the life you knew, Kitalia Ore.”
I fight, I have to. I have no choice. I can’t go down like this, drowning in my own terror, torn apart by the desperate, terrible blackness—
***
“Are you just going to stand there? Or was there something?”
I shake off Kitalia as Tom’s slightly nasal voice cuts through her panic. My panic, too. I’m stripped of my anger as I shiver under his gaze, rubbing at my arms and the goosebumps standing out under the thin fabric of my jacket.
“Did you take my boots?” I hear myself ask the question as if from a great distance, echoing and soft. He nods, smirking still. I can’t believe it. I’ve known him forever and he’s never done anything like this before. “Why?”
He shrugs, grins, teeth far too big for his mouth. I wonder if his mother and Dr. Pache worked out their issues. From here, his smile looks like it could use some work.
He’s about to comment when someone steps into the room behind me. I flinch away, but Mr. Barrister doesn’t notice. The computer lab teacher just raises a hand at Tom and the others.
“Don’t forget to email me that assignment, okay?” He blinks at me from behind his glasses. “I don’t remember you from class.”
“She’s getting special help.” Tom’s totally changed, from tight-faced evil mastermind to goofy, grinning geek. I stare at him with my mouth hanging open—I honestly can’t make it close—while he waves back at his teacher, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. “Hope that’s okay, Mr. Barrister?”
“Sure thing.” The teacher smiles at me then at Tom. “That’s so like you, helping other students. I wish I had more like you, Tom.”
The boy I now know to be my mortal enemy shrugs, manages a blush. “Always my pleasure, sir
. Guess I just want to be a great teacher someday. Like you.”
I choke on those obvious lies, but Mr. Barrister just smiles.
“Have a great afternoon, kids. See you tomorrow.”
He leaves while I stare after him, wishing I could just slink out in his wake. But my boots.
My poor, poor boots. I can’t seem to muster the anger from earlier, but I can find curiosity, oddly. It helps me with objectivity and then, to my relief, optimism.
This has to be a giant misunderstanding. I’ll figure it out. But, when the door swishes closed, Tom’s loose, easy grin returns to nasty as he stands and strides toward me.
I find myself clenching my messenger bag to my chest while he looks down at me from his long lankiness.
“Listen up, MacLean,” he says in a hissing voice that lisps slightly around his big teeth. “This is my school. I’ve been saving up for this for a long time. And I’ll do whatever I want to whoever I want whenever I want. Got that?”
“Whomever,” I whisper.
His eyes bulge, cheeks pink again but I don’t think it’s a fake blush this time. “You just don’t get it, do you, dumb freak girl?” There’s that word again. I flinch from it as Tom shakes his head, thin, brown hair ruffling around his big ears. He could have those pinned back and no one would ever know he used to look like an elephant. “I don’t get it. You’ve never interfered before. And I’m willing to give you the chance to step back and rethink your strategy.” He folds his thin arms over his narrow chest. “Stay out of my business or I’ll make sure your boots are the least of your worries.”
There it is. An open threat. This has to be about Tate, about her being bullied by Donnelly. I don’t see the hulking brute in here, but he’s part of this, I’m sure of it. And, before I can back out, think better of my reaction, just do the good girl thing and escape with what shred of confidence and optimism I have left, Kitalia opens my mouth and speaks.
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