Jim frowned and rubbed the top of his head. His stomach was churning. All he needed was another do-gooder pretending to be a superhero and interfering in important government operations. As if his job wasn’t hard enough. This Avenger was a royal pain. That he’d surfaced now was troublesome. The problem was, there was more than enough reason to consider him credible, which meant Jim couldn’t just dismiss the potential intelligence.
You think he may have something?
Hard to say, sir. Seems unlikely he would risk contact without something to offer…and something to be gained.
Jim stood. That was going to be the real kicker, wasn’t it? What did the Avenger want? What were his demands? He had no choice—it was his duty to follow up. Once he had more confidence this guy was the real deal, he’d take the next step and pass it farther up the chain. If he couldn’t get a better feel on his authenticity, then he’d disengage. No harm, no foul.
Ignoring the headache, Jim typed his answer.
Fine. Let’s see what he’s got to offer. Set up a channel and we’ll talk.
Jim clicked off the phone and sat for a moment with it pressed to his chin. Events were now in motion. There would be no going back. If the Avenger was the real deal, then every step he took from this moment on would face extreme scrutiny.
He only hoped he wouldn’t screw it up.
Chapter Four
ANGEL SINCLAIR
My stomach knotted as I changed into my gym uniform. The last class of the day was, by far, my worst. Today for PE, we were headed outside to play softball, one of my least favorite sports. Technically, I’m not a fan of any sport, since I have no upper-body strength and zero coordination. Softball was a sport that required a lot of both, so I was looking forward to it as much as I would a root canal.
Ugh.
In my opinion, geek survival in high school is predicated—at minimum—on a thorough understanding of the following five items.
1. Where the local hackerspace is located.
2. How to crack the WEP key on a wireless router.
3. The difference between a comic book and a graphic novel.
4. How to use a proxy server to stay anonymous online.
5. How to endure PE.
Number five is ironclad. Physical education is a geek’s worst nightmare. I don’t understand the intellectual justification that makes physical education a graduation requirement. Why couldn’t it be offered as an optional course, like photography, wood shop, or art?
I’m not ignorant of the benefits of exercise. I’m all for strengthening muscles, especially the heart. I just don’t want to do it in front of my peers. I can’t think of anything more humiliating than exercising in front of an entire class when you have the ability and coordination of a limp noodle. Don’t even get me started on square dancing or the physical fitness exam.
Although I despised every minute of our school’s required physical education class, I did have to admit the swim facility at Excalibur Academy was cool. No expense had been spared. The pool sat in the middle of the gym, flanked by basketball hoops, movable bleachers, and an arched roof. When the pool was not in use, special motors automatically moved a wooden floor into place over the pool and, voilà, the gym floor was ready for basketball, volleyball, or whatever. An admirable feat of engineering. Today, the pool was open. The swim and water polo teams practice after school, which was why Mary Herman had thought it would be hilarious for me to have a morning swim in my school uniform.
I was tying my shoes on the locker room bench when Mary stalked down the row of lockers toward me. I sighed inwardly. Mary was in my PE class, too? This year was going to suck worse than I expected…and I expected bad things.
Her eyes narrowed as she saw me. I didn’t respond because I was sure she wouldn’t kill me in a room full of witnesses. Then again, it never hurt to be prepared, so I stood.
Mary was about two feet from me when the girl next to me, who wasn’t paying attention, pulled her T-shirt over her head. Temporarily blinded, she stepped directly into Mary’s path. The two collided and Mary stumbled into the lockers. Mary pushed at the girl’s chest, shoving her backward.
“Watch where you’re going.”
The girl’s head popped out of the T-shirt. Her hair was jet black and pulled back into a ponytail. “Oh, sorry about that. I didn’t see you. I’m new here. Frances Chang.”
She stuck out a hand to shake, but Mary slapped it away. “Seriously? Don’t get in my way again, fat girl.”
Anger bubbled inside me. It was one thing to bully me, but to push around a girl who’d just arrived? Heat surged into my cheeks. “Leave her alone, Mary. It was an accident.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Why did I feel a need to stand up for a girl I didn’t even know? Fly under the radar, be invisible—that needed to be my mantra for my senior year. I wanted to finish this year alive. Unfortunately, the way things were going on my first day, it wasn’t looking good for me.
There were gasps in the locker room at my bold statement. Perhaps even a few gulps. Mary’s eyes squeezed into tiny slits. She glared at me with a silent message that clearly said, you’re dead.
I glared back at her. Anyone who knows me well is aware of the fact I can’t control my mouth when I’m angry. Even when I faced down a girl nearly twice my size and weight for the second time in one day.
Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—Mary wasn’t stupid enough to hit me in front of everyone. She leaned over, lowering her voice so only I could hear. “You’d better watch your back, geek.” She glanced at the gaggle of girls who were watching us with wide eyes, then stalked past me and disappeared into the pool area, headed toward the door that led out to the baseball field.
I blew out a breath and sat down on the bench. The other students lost interest now that my life wasn’t in imminent jeopardy. Frances sat next to me.
“Hey, thanks for sticking up for me,” she said. “What’s her deal anyway?”
“No deal. She’s got it in for me and you were in the way.”
“Well, I appreciate it anyway.” She stuck out her hand. “My friends call me Frankie. I hear we’re playing softball today. Sounds like fun.”
She didn’t seem unnerved at all by the exchange. Instead, she wiggled her hand, still waiting for me to shake it. I hesitated. Just because I’d stuck up for her didn’t mean I wanted to be her friend. Still, I didn’t see an out, so I shook it.
“I’m Angel.” I clasped her hand, impressed by the firmness of her grip. “Sorry about, you know, that stupid remark Mary made.”
Frankie smiled and lifted her shoulders. She had a nice smile, perhaps because I could sense it was genuine. “Don’t be. I’m perfectly happy with my weight. My doctor says I’m healthy, so that’s good enough for me. Chubbiness runs in my family.”
My mouth quirked into a smile of my own. A little one. It wasn’t like I was starting to like her or anything. I was just being polite. Still, I surprised myself by continuing the conversation. “Where are you from?”
“Nowhere and everywhere. My dad’s in the military. We moved here from California. Before that, we lived in Nebraska, South Dakota, Florida, and Texas. He just got assigned to the Pentagon.”
“Wow. That’s a lot of places.”
“Oh, we move around a lot, but I don’t mind, because I like seeing new places and meeting people. Keeps things fresh, you know?”
Honestly, I didn’t. I hated change and couldn’t imagine having to move every year or so and being forced to meet new people over and over again. I could barely stand the ones I already knew. I turned to leave the locker room when Frankie stopped me.
“Hey, wait up. Let’s go out together, okay? I’ve got to finish tying my shoes.”
I paused, shifting uneasily. I had no desire to give her the impression I was interested in further contact, but I couldn’t think of a way to ditch her without being rude. Left without recourse, I waited. She took forever to tie her shoes, m
ostly because she was talking so much and apparently couldn’t do both at the same time. By the time she finished, we were the last ones to leave the locker room.
I led the way through the gym. Frankie oohed and ahhed over the swimming pool, the gym equipment, and the custom-made movable bleachers. She kept up a steady stream of chatter until my head hurt. We’d just slipped between two of the movable bleachers, headed for the outer gym door, when one of them rolled toward us.
Two thoughts immediately crossed my mind. First was calculating the speed we would need to run to cover the distance to slip free of the bleachers before they crushed us. The second was the realization that even if we ran at full speed, we’d never make it in time.
Chapter Five
ANGEL SINCLAIR
I caught a blur of movement from the corner of my eye just as Frankie screamed. A dark shape slipped from behind one of the bleachers and disappeared into the school. I instinctively threw out my hands to hold back the weight of the bleachers, even as I knew it was futile. There was no way the strength in my two puny arms, even with help from Frankie (if she’d stop screaming and help), would have blocked them. Still, I held my breath and braced myself anyway, just as a man stepped between the bleachers.
Vice Principal Matthews.
He stuck his foot right beneath one of the bleachers’ huge metal rolling mechanisms. The wheel rolled right up on his foot and…screeched to a stop. I squeezed my eyes into tiny slits, waiting for screams of excruciating pain. But he didn’t flinch, cry out, or collapse.
At all.
My eyes widened as I stared at him in shock. He took one look at us and jerked his head toward the tiny opening behind him. “Out. Now.”
Frankie and I didn’t need to be told twice. We scrambled as fast as we could, scooting our way with our backs against the bleachers, moving toward him as quickly as possible and trying not to bump into anything. We finally slid out from behind him and stood at the pool’s edge.
Frankie looked dazed, and I was trembling like a geek who’d gone too many hours without a Mountain Dew. I wrapped my arms around my waist to calm myself as Mr. Matthews managed to remove his foot from beneath the heavy mechanism. The bleachers slammed together with a sickening thud.
It was a sobering sound. If Mr. Matthews hadn’t come along, we’d be dead.
How in the world had he done it? Disbelieving, I stared at his foot. He walked toward us without any sign of a limp or pain. Given the inarguable forces of physics, gravity, and weight, he should be screaming in agony, the bones in his foot pulverized. Instead he stood calmly in front of us without a shred of discomfort on his face.
“Are you girls okay?” he asked.
Frankie took a breath and nodded. I didn’t answer.
“Angel?”
I slowly raised my eyes from his foot. “I’m okay, Mr. Matthews. Thank you for saving us. But how—” I pointed to his shoe.
He regarded me with amusement. “Superhero powers. What happened?”
He’d sidestepped my question, but I didn’t press. Not now. I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to think back calmly. “We were heading out to the field for PE when one of the bleachers started moving and we got trapped between them.”
“Where’s your teacher and the rest of the class?”
“They’re already outside. We were the last ones out of the locker room.”
He frowned and took a minute to study the bleachers. “Those locking mechanisms are hard to disengage. I’ll have to check all of them now. The gym is off-limits until further notice. I’ll let Mrs. Roy know to bring the students back through the front entrance. You girls ready to rejoin your class?”
Honestly, I wanted to go home and call it a day. A very bad day. But when Mr. Matthews looked at me with such confidence, it made me feel like I could handle anything. I almost snapped my heels and gave him a salute, but I settled for a half smile instead.
“Sure, I’m good to go, I guess.”
“What about you, Ms. Chang?”
Frankie straightened. “I’m okay, too, Mr. Matthews. I just got a little scared. I can handle it.”
Mr. Matthews nodded approvingly and patted us both on the back. “That’s the spirit. I’ll give your parents a call later to let them know what happened. For now, I’ll walk you out to the field and talk to Mrs. Roy myself. Let me lock the gym door and we’ll go.”
After he locked the door to the gym from the inside, we followed him out. I glanced over my shoulder one more time as we exited, but the area remained empty. What had I seen out of the corner of my eye? Was it a person? It couldn’t have been Mr. Matthews—he’d come in from the other side. Was it Mary? Did she really hate me enough to try to kill me? Even by bully standards, that was extreme.
There was also the matter of Mr. Matthews not limping or in pain. That was another mystery that needed solving.
So much had already happened on the first day of my last year of high school. I needed a quiet place to think and process the events so I could make sense of it. Too bad the quiet part wasn’t going to happen any time soon, because Frankie had started a steady stream of nervous conversation. Plus, I still had to play softball.
This day was getting as bad as a Microsoft security patch, and unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Chapter Six
ANGEL SINCLAIR
When we got to the field, students were already warming up. Some were swinging bats and others were tossing balls around or looking in a big plastic tub for a glove that fit. Mary was on the mound pitching to a catcher. If she was the one who had unlocked the mechanism on the bleachers’ wheels, she would have had to run fast to get out here so quickly. I didn’t think it likely, but it wasn’t implausible, either. She was a pretty good athlete.
Mrs. Roy looked up from her clipboard and spotted us. She was probably doing attendance. When she saw us trudging her way, relief crossed her face. She strode across the grass and met Mr. Matthews and us outside the metal fence.
“Mr. Matthews? Girls? Is everything okay?” She shaded her eyes from the sun with one hand. “What took so long in the locker room?”
“One of the locking mechanisms on the bleachers disengaged.” Mr. Matthews put a hand on my shoulder. “Luckily no one was injured. But until I can get the bleachers checked out, I want you to avoid the gym area. Please bring the class in from the front entrance.”
“Of course.” She studied me with concern. “That’s odd. It’s never happened before.”
“No, it hasn’t.” Mr. Matthews met her eyes and then looked away. I could tell he was worried. Really worried. “Stop by my office after school, Karen, would you?”
“I will.” Mrs. Roy seemed to think we didn’t need to hear any more, so she turned and pointed to the field. The whistle around her neck glinted in the sun. “Girls, go warm up. You’re both on the batting team.”
Ugh!
That meant Mary would be pitching to us. I considered arguing against the assignment, but Mrs. Roy was already deep in conversation with Mr. Matthews. So, as directed, Frankie and I headed toward the dugout.
As we walked, Frankie wiggled her arms as if warming up for batting. “I can’t believe I almost got seriously hurt on my first day of school at Excalibur.”
“Not hurt, Frankie. We would have been crushed—human pancakes. Those bleachers weigh a ton.”
“So how did Mr. Matthews stop them?”
“I don’t know.” The image of the bleacher rolling onto his foot played over and over again in my head. “Science dictates his foot should have been pulverized. I don’t have a logical explanation.”
“Well, whatever the reason, he’s my hero,” Frankie declared.
“He’s my hero, too.” I looked over my shoulder where he and Mrs. Roy were still talking. “You know, I don’t get along with many of the teachers, but Mr. Matthews always has my back.”
“I believe that. He seems pretty cool.” She tugged on my arm, speeding up. “Come on, Angel,
let’s try to forget what just happened.”
It was good advice, so I trailed her, wishing I could relax as easily as she could. Seeing Mary on the mound, warming up as pitcher, did not help. My mind began sorting through all the possible outcomes that could happen with me holding a bat and Mary pitching.
None were good.
As we walked behind home plate, Mary’s smile widened. She smacked the ball in her glove a couple of times. I darted the rest of the way to the dugout, half expecting her to throw the ball at my back. She might have if it hadn’t been for so many people watching.
I moved to the farthest corner of the dugout and remained quiet, trying to form a strategy to make it through the game. Frankie, on the other hand, cheerfully chatted it up with one of the guys in the batting circle. She didn’t seem to mind talking to people she didn’t know, even though it was her first day at a new school and she’d almost been pulverized by huge rolling bleachers. She acted like the day was wonderful and everyone she met was a long-lost friend, including me. That was just strange.
I couldn’t worry about that now. I had more pressing matters at hand. If I were lucky, our team would get three quick outs and go onto the field. If the ball came my way, instead of fielding it, I’d drop it or let it roll between my legs so we’d never get up to bat again. While I could survive the jeering and exasperation of my teammates, I might not survive being hit with Mary’s fastball.
Unfortunately, we had several jocks, both female and male, on our team. The first five batters got hits, driving in three runs. One girl hit a double. I began to think Mary wasn’t a very good pitcher. Either that or she was letting everyone get a hit so she’d have an opportunity to pitch to me. As it stood now, only two people stood between the bat and me. No one was encouraging me to step up yet, thank goodness. But Mrs. Roy would notice if the team skipped me. She always noticed things like that.
White Knights Page 3