Mutant Academy (The Fundamental Society Book 1)

by Yumoyori Wilson

  His eyes were swimming with desire. I met his gaze, the moment incredibly intense and erotically charged. I didn’t know what had come over me, but I was insanely attracted to him too. It didn’t make any sense in my mind.

  Pete tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “You are really pretty.” His voice was a tranquil whisper that made my heart skip a beat.

  “You are really handsome,” I said back.

  My mind was racing a million miles a minute. My senses tingled as Pete gently stroked the hair that had delicately fallen over my shoulder. He looked like he wanted to make a move and kiss me but something was blocking his confidence.

  I took his hand. It was warm and strong, sturdy and large. Pete glanced down at my hands cradling his.

  “You are a really sincere guy,” I said and gave him a soft smile.

  “Do you really think so?” Pete’s eyes brightened with amusement.

  “Of course.” I chuckled and edged closer to him. He was backed against the brick wall of the courtyard. I glanced to my left and right. “There’s no one around. We’re alone.”

  I noticed Pete visibly swallow. “Yes, we are.”

  I gazed at our intertwined hands again. Pete lifted my chin and looked adoringly into my eyes.

  “Do you mind if I give you a kiss? I’ve wanted to since we met.” His voice cracked nervously.

  I gave him an inviting smile. “Yes,” I breathed. “In fact, I was wondering what was taking you so long.”

  As Pete’s lips pressed to mine, I felt an instant rush of pleasure flood my senses. Adrenaline pumped in my veins. I didn’t understand why I felt compelled to kiss Pete after my time with Jude, but I felt an exceptional bond to all of the guys who’d brought me here to the school. It was almost as if our souls were linked somehow, connecting us spiritually.

  When Pete pulled away a few seconds later, I was left craving more. It was just a tease to the flirtation and the heat between us. I knew that we couldn’t do anything else here in the courtyard where tons of students filtered in and out.

  My head was spinning and I needed to relax. “I think I want to go back to my dorm room and take a little nap,” I said.

  Pete softly touched my cheek. “I can take you.”

  “Thank you.” I continued to gaze up at him with fondness.

  A few minutes later, we stood at the entrance to my closed dorm door. Pete took my hand and squeezed it.

  I looked up at him. “Thank you for everything.”

  “You’re welcome.” He gave me a look as if the world spun only for me.

  I opened the door and was getting ready to invite him in, but as soon as I walked inside, I stopped in my tracks.

  There was a girl standing there with straight, shoulder length silver hair. Her back was facing me and she was so immersed in her laptop that she didn’t notice me walking into the room. She was leaning over her screen at her desk as if she were intently studying something.

  “I guess that’s my new roommate,” I whispered to Pete, who shrugged.

  “I’ll leave you two to get to know each other,” he said.

  I felt slightly disappointed and knew that I would miss him, but I nodded in agreement.

  “See you later?” I asked with an air of optimism ringing in my voice.

  Pete beamed. “I can’t wait.”

  I closed the door behind him and turned to face my new roommate.

  Nothing could have prepared me for what I would soon learn about her and who she was.

  17

  Tara

  I walked toward the girl. “Um, hello…” I said in a slightly more reserved tone than I had expected to sound when meeting my new roommate for the first time. I wanted to believe that we would become close friends.

  The girl had been engaged in work on her laptop, so immersed in whatever she was studying that she hadn’t seemed to notice when I walked in the door. Her face was buried in the blue light of the laptop screen.

  As soon as I greeted her, she spun around in her chair with curious wonderment flickering in her eyes.

  That’s when my heart galloped with excitement. I saw the red, familiar eyes that I had looked into so many times when I needed to vent or a shoulder to cry on. I recognized the soft cheek bones and the rosy complexion at once. Could I be imagining things or was this some true miracle of fate where I was reunited with my best friend on the entire planet? What were the odds of this happening? Surely slim to none, but if I blinked, I was afraid she would disappear.

  It seemed too good to be true, but nevertheless, I jogged over to Maddie and enveloped her in a hug. I roped my arms around her so tightly that I heard her grunt a little in response. My heart was stretched to the moon and back with a flood of relief at finding her once again. I couldn’t wait to catch up with her and figure out where she had been hiding out the last few days, as well as find out how she got to the school.

  “You’re here!” I pulled away to take her in, size her up. I beamed at her and jumped up and down, feeling an enormous weight instantly lifting off my shoulders at her presence in my dorm room.

  Maddie didn’t react as I had expected she would. Her eyes didn’t brighten with surprise. She didn’t return my hug. Her arms were draped loosely by her sides as if she was uncomfortable and I was invading her personal space. She glanced at the floor as if she wasn’t sure how to react to me. She was aloof and standoffish which further deepened my confusion about her behavior.

  Why wasn’t she happier to see me? I tried not to immediately jump to conclusions or feel offended. What if she had been through some kind of significant trauma and her memory had been tampered with? I wouldn’t put it past the Fundamental scientists to do something like that to her as a punishment for attempting to escape.

  Then a horrid thought drifted into my brain and pierced me with paranoia. What if she was working for them now as a spy of some sort? What if they were using her to get inside information to bring back to the Home Base camps? What if it was some sort of punishment for fleeing and Maddie was just the unlucky one who got caught?

  I couldn’t explore that as an option until I figured out more about how Maddie got here in the first place.

  “Aren’t you excited to see me?” I asked as I let go of her arms and took a tiny step backward.

  “Who the hell are you?” The girl wrinkled her forehead and gave me a puzzled stare.

  “Maddie?” I asked. Now we were both swimming in befuddlement. “It’s me, Tara. Why don’t you recognize me?” I didn’t understand what was going on.

  “My name is Megan.” The girl pointed her index finger to her chest.

  “Megan?” I shook my head.

  This couldn’t be. Something was amiss. She looked exactly like Maddie.

  The girl’s features sharpened. Her eyes grew larger and the rosy tint of color drained somewhat from her face.

  “You called me Maddie?” she asked and stared at me expectantly.

  “I’m…sorry,” I fumbled. “I thought you were someone else. I had a friend back at the Home Base camp I lived at who looked incredibly similar to you. I guess I was mistaken.”

  I glanced at my hands. I was back to feeling disenchanted by this lookalike’s apparent disconnect.

  My stomach rolled. I was being swallowed up by massive confusion. I peered at the girl, really inspecting her. Her resemblance to Maddie was uncanny.

  “You aren’t Maddie?” I asked again, still not entirely sure what to believe.

  The girl shook her head. “No, but I had a sister named Maddie.”

  “Had a sister?”

  The girl nodded. “I’m Megan, but I had a twin sister named Maddie.”

  “What happened to her?” I asked.

  Megan cast her eyes down to the floor and pressed her lips together somberly. “I honestly don’t know.”

  What if this girl was the sister of my friend Maddie, and she thought that Maddie was dead in just the same capacity as Maddie had assumed she was dead? We never pressed
each other for information that we could tell that the other didn’t want to divulge. It was a coping mechanism. It was easier to forget the pain of our pasts than to face it head on.

  “I’m sorry about the loss of your sister,” I said and gently cupped my hand over Megan’s shoulder. I was surprised when she didn’t shy away from my gesture.

  “Thanks.” She didn’t make eye contact. “She was my twin.”

  My heart plummeted through my chest and splattered into my stomach. “She was your…twin?”

  Megan eyed me suspiciously. “Yeah?”

  Her eyes were so familiar to something that I had known, something so safe and inviting.

  Yet here I was staring into the soul of someone I didn’t recognize, and she didn’t know me. It was like being faced with a stranger who looked exactly like a long-lost loved one.

  “Yes.” Megan nodded. “I had a twin sister named Maddie. And you say that she was your friend?”

  “That’s right.” My heart pounded.

  “What if we’re talking about the same Mutant right now?” Her voice was an enchanted whisper.

  I stared deep into her eyes. “I think we might be. She thought you were dead. If she’s really your sister, she would be beyond thrilled to learn that you survived against the odds.”

  As quickly as Megan’s jubilance appeared, it suddenly faded once again. “Where is she now?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said reluctantly. “We escaped our Home Base camp together, but we got separated in the woods.”

  Megan’s eyes remained hopeful. I understood her drive to remain optimistic. “Maybe she’s still out there hiding.”

  “I have some friends here,” I explained. “They vowed to help me look for her every chance we get.”

  Megan gave me an assertive nod. “I can help search for her too. I would love to find out if it’s really my twin out there somewhere, afraid in the forest.”

  I shuddered, not even wanting to think about the torment Maddie might be suffering. It was unimaginable. I felt guilty that I had been rescued and she was still out there…compromised.

  “Where did you come from?” I asked her. “Who brought you here?”

  A shadow of reservation darkened Megan’s features and she suddenly became guarded as she tucked her arms around her chest and blinked at me. Her hair cascaded down half of her cheek. It was incredible how similar she looked to Maddie, but then again it wasn’t a stretch, because they were twins.

  “I was rescued from a Home Base camp just this morning,” Megan said after a few moments of hesitancy.

  “How?” I frowned.

  I didn’t want Megan to feel like I was interrogating her, but she was the one who just popped into my life and my dorm room out of nowhere. I reserved the right to dive into her background somewhat.

  I still found it to be a peculiar coincidence that she was here when I was still worried about Maddie’s whereabouts. The only way I could tell them apart was by the small birthmark Maddie had. It was shaped like a star and tucked alongside her collarbone.

  Megan didn’t have this same distinct marking on her body. I knew that she wasn’t Maddie in disguise, under the pretense of a false identity for whatever reason.

  Megan let out a long-winded sigh.

  “One of the idiot guards left the south gate open. I climbed the wall and ran as fast as I could through the woods. I didn’t stop until I got to the sea. There were two male Mutants there practicing what looked to be some sort of jujitsu. They stared at me as if I was an alien from another planet. After a lot of rounds of questioning, they decided to bring me back with them to the school.”

  “You were alone?” I asked. “You were the only one who escaped?”

  “Yes.” Megan scratched the bridge of her nose and glanced at the window.

  “That’s kind of the same way I was able to flee with Maddie,” I said. “Only it wasn’t due to a guard’s carelessness. There was a security breach. The computer system went haywire for some reason. It had never done that before. It was as if all the circuits were tripped. All the doors and gates were unlocked, and Mutants were running left and right trying to escape the grounds.”

  “And you made it out with Maddie?” Megan stared at me expectantly, leaning closer.

  I nodded. “That’s right.” I pointed to my wrist. “But the trackers in our wrists started to go off after a few minutes. That’s when we knew that the security breach had ended, and they had the system up and running again. We got the electric shock. When I came to again, Maddie was nowhere to be found and I had been rescued by guys who went to this school.”

  “Were their names Chad and Jim?” Megan asked.

  “No.” I shook my head. “Is that who took you in?”

  “Yes.” Megan glanced down at her hands folded in her lap. “They seemed nice at the time. They took me to the headmaster. He asked me all sorts of questions. Then I had to complete registration.”

  I nodded. “I had to go through the same process a couple of days ago.”

  I still didn’t know if I could trust Megan a hundred percent. I didn’t have all the facts about her. I wanted to believe that she was Maddie’s long-lost sister, but I couldn’t let my guard down long enough to trust her wholeheartedly.

  One thing was certain. According to Maddie, her sister had died a long time ago. If this girl standing in front of me really was Maddie’s twin, then I needed to know everything I could about her. Having her help meant that I might be able to gain clues about where to find Maddie. There was potential for Megan to change everything, even if she didn’t know it yet.

  18

  Tara

  I noticed that Megan had started fretfully pacing around in the tiny dorm room. It was a tight squeeze, but somehow, she managed to get the job done. She was on the brink of a meltdown. I could sense she needed to get some fresh air before she spontaneously combusted or something.

  “Do you want to get out of here?” I offered.

  “Get out of here?” Megan briefly halted her long strides across the room and gave me a puzzled look.

  “Yeah.” I shrugged. “Maybe it would be good for both of us to get some fresh air and a change of scenery for a little while.”

  “But you just got here.” Megan frowned.

  “I just figured that maybe we could go somewhere and talk. I know a great place and it’s not a long walk from here.”

  I hadn’t been here at the Mutant Academy for long enough to formulate an opinion about where the popular hot spots were around the campus, but I remembered a place on the tour I received that made me feel welcome, warm, and cozy.

  I wanted to bring Megan there in an effort to pacify her whirling mind, not to mention my own. My head was spinning. If Megan was in fact Maddie’s sister, and she just had to be, then I wanted to discover more about who she was as a person.

  Megan seemed more reluctant than I had expected. “Where?”

  I smiled. “The library.”

  “The…library?” Megan frowned.

  “Have you had a chance to check it out yet?” I asked.

  Megan shook her head. “No. I haven’t even been here long enough to catch my breath or get my bearings and here I am finding out that my long-lost sister’s best friend is my new roommate.”

  “I know it’s a lot to process,” I said. “I’m still trying to figure out how this happened. It seems too good to be true, like an exceptional coincidence.”

  “Maybe it’s not a coincidence at all,” Megan whispered. Her eyes were twinkling with mystery.

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head and stared at her as if I was hypnotized for several seconds.

  I didn’t have the answers, but I wanted to dive into the past so that maybe some would come to light.

  Megan grabbed a pink zip-up jacket with a hood and put it on. “I’m ready when you are.”

  I smiled. “Excellent.” At least she was going with me. We were off to a good start.

  I led her to the library, which
was connected to the main building of the campus. “Over here they have tables overlooking the cliffs and the water,” I mentioned.

  Megan’s eyes lit up with wonder as we approached them. She pressed her hands to the floor-to-ceiling windows that offered breathtaking panoramic views of the coast. I did the same. The glass felt cool and refreshing against my open palm.

  “It’s so beautiful up here,” Megan whispered.

  “I think that this might be my favorite part of the entire school,” I admitted. “It’s so peaceful to look out there at the waves crashing against the rocks.”

  “It just makes me feel safe to know that I’m as far away from the Fundamental Society scientists as I can possibly be.”

  “I agree,” I said and felt bitter inside for all the years those wicked humans stole from me. I glanced over at Megan. She had a scornful expression on her face that mirrored the way I felt inside. Used, broken, abused, all laced with underlying hope that was trying to rise to the surface.

  “You don’t have to feel like you’re alone anymore,” I said. I stared at her until she was forced to turn her head and meet my gaze.

  “I have trust issues,” she said.

  I chuckled. “Don’t we all?”

  Megan gave me a sentimental smile as she sat down at the wooden table. She interlocked her hands and glanced at them. She looked nervous. When she finally peered up at me again, her eyes looked distraught.

  “We can make a plan to find Maddie,” I said in a reassuring tone. Suddenly I felt compelled to soothe this stranger who had my best friend’s face.

  “How can we do that?” Megan shook her head with doubt.

  I sighed and leaned back in my chair. “I don’t know yet, but I know who can help us.”

  “Who?” Megan leaned over the table as if she wanted to know more.

  “The guys who brought me here. They are awesome and trustworthy. They already told me they were willing to do anything I needed. And that was before you came into the picture."

  "I don’t know…” Megan trailed off hesitantly.