“So...where’d you guys meet?”
“Dad!”
“What? You can’t expect your old man not to be curious.”
I take a deep breath and try to think of something other than She fell from the sky, due to being shot. “We just sort of...ran into each other.”
“Do you have a lot in common.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Absolutely nothing,” I say. “Actually, I don’t really understand what she’s doing with me.”
Dad lets out a chuckle. “Funny you should say that. That’s what I thought about your mother back in high school.”
The stairs creak, and Dad and I turn. In a light blue dress with a V-shaped collar, Sammie glides down. There is shimmery stuff above her eyes, and glossy stuff on her lips, and her hair is pulled back in this complicated-looking bun. I develop a strange breathing problem.
“Damien, shut your mouth,” Dad hisses.
“D-dress?” I say.
“One of my old ones,” Mom says, walking down behind Sammie. The dress cinches around Sammie’s waist, then gets all long and flowy, like a rainfall. I’ve never noticed how...nice she looks...in the body department. I guess I’ve only ever seen her in baggy jeans and T-shirts. She eyes me curiously.
“Are you alright?” she murmurs.
I nod, but don’t manage to say anything.
“Do you want us to drive you to the dance, Damien?” says Mom.
“Kay,” I say.
We all trek to the garage and load into the minivan, with Mom and Dad in the front and Sammie and me in the back. The experience is surreal, a bit like when Sammie was in my high school. From the seat beside me, she smiles. Since I’m not certain I’ve regained my verbal facilities just yet, I smile back but remain silent.
We roll down MacRearigan road and, before long, swing into the school parking lot. It’s packed with cars, with the sun on the horizon casting orange light off of rows and rows of rooftops. Dad pulls into the line of cars inching toward the school’s entrance. I recognize some of the people I see: a quiet girl I usually pass on the way to physics hops onto the sidewalk in a short pink dress, followed by a group of guys from my calculus class in tuxes and neon-colored sunglasses. I turn to look at Sammie. She leans forward in her chair, her eyes on the scene outside.
Finally, it’s our turn to get out of the car. I slide open the van door, but pause when Mom calls my name.
“Have fun,” she says, and I’m shocked to see that her eyes all watery.
“Mom?” I say.
“I’m fine,” she gargles.
“We’re just very happy,” Dad says, looking a little choked up, too.
I gape at them.
“Go on in,” Mom says, wiping her eyes. “Have a good time.”
“Bye, Mr. and Mrs. Savage!” Sammie says she unbuckles her seatbelt.
“Um, bye, Mom and Dad,” I say.
I hop out of the van, then turn around and hold out my hand for Sammie. A jolt of happiness goes through me when she takes it and leaps out. The van pulls away, leaving us standing on the sidewalk. Sammie eyes the entrance of the school eagerly.
“Should we go in?” I say.
She jerks her head, as if surfacing from a trance. “What?”
“Are scary men going to rush in and capture you if we go into the dance?”
Her face darkens, and she turns to look out over the parking lot, her eyes traveling over the rows of cars. “I probably shouldn’t stay very long.”
“How did you get free?”
She turns her head away from me.
“Sammie?”
An SUV spills a crowd of seven or eight onto the sidewalk, and we’re quickly surrounded by squawking, giggling individuals. I yank my head toward the entrance. Sammie sees, and we walk toward it.
As soon as we’re through the doors, the song “Don’t Stop Believing” hits my ears, wafting from the direction of the cafeteria. I hold my arm out, and another jolt of happiness goes through me when Sammie slips her arm through it. We walk toward the cafeteria, Sammie’s shoes clacking against the oily yellow floor.
“You look...really, really nice, by the way,” I say, keeping my eyes forward because I’m certain my face is flushed red.
Sammie gives my hand a squeeze. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”
I let out a strange, strangled-sounding laugh. Sammie laughs, too. All at once, I’m reminded of how awful it was to believe that she was gone forever.
“I was scared,” I say. “That I’d never see you again.”
There’s a moment of silence. Then, she says, “Me too. That I’d never see you again, I mean.”
My heart skitters. She’s never said anything like that to me before. “Really?”
“Of course.”
I pull her aside. “Please, stay here in Boorsville.”
She shakes her head and drops her face towards the floor. “I can’t.”
“So you’re just going to leave again?”
“Don’t you think I’ve screwed up your life enough?”
“No!” I say it loud enough that the people walking into the cafeteria turn and look. More quietly, I say, “Look, you’ll be screwing up my life more if you say goodbye forever.”
She looks up at me. “I don’t want to get you killed, Damien.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do.” She takes both of my hands and steps closer, so that I can see tiny gray flecks in the blue of her eyes. “Why do you think I gave myself up for you, back when Thorne had you? You think I’d do that if I didn’t...if I didn’t.” She shakes her head, then releases my hands and pulls away from me. “Thorne is dead. I killed him.”
I take a sharp breath.
“I—I didn’t mean to,” she says. Then her face goes hard. “He made me angry.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault—”
“Stop,” she says. “I’m telling you this because it means you can be safe again. With Thorne gone, the scientists are going to need to regroup. By the time they do, they’ll have to start fresh looking for me. And I’m not gonna be anywhere near Boorsville.”
“No,” I say, sounding choked.
She closes her eyes. “Let’s just...can we just go into the dance? Your mom got me all dressed up, and I’ve always wanted to go to one of these things, and I just want to pretend that this isn’t happening for a little while.”
“Sammie—”
“Please.” She opens her eyes and stares at me, hard.
I let out a sigh and hold out my hand. She takes it, and we walk toward the entrance. The cafeteria is dark. The chairs and tables have been cleared. Spinning from the ceiling, a disco ball bounces spots of lights across the dance floor, while mob of students pulses in the center. The outskirts of the room contain small clusters of students standing together and chatting.
We saunter inside, and just about every student not dancing turns to look at us. My skin burns, and Sammie squeezes my hand. I wonder if she realizes how much of an outcast I am, how badly Joe Butt’s bullying and my own hermitish-ness have alienated me from the rest of the student body. I flush Butt from my mind. This is the last night I have with Sammie, ever. I am not spending a minute of it thinking about him.
We make our way to the dance floor, but stop before we reach the mob of dancers, hovering near the edges. The song, “Call Me, Baby”—one of those pop-culture diseases you manage to hear over and over, even if you don’t listen to the radio—booms from the speakers. The tempo is fast, the lyrics stupid. I turn to face Sammie. The awkwardness of my body is tangible. For the record, I dance about as often as I sprout leaves.
My helplessness must show on my face, because Sammie laughs and holds out her other hand for me to take. I clasp it, hyper-conscious of the fact that my palms are clammy. Sammie begins to bob back and forth. I try to copy her, but can’t seem to get our rhythm in sync. Sammie begins to laugh. I pull my hand away from her and attempt the robot, and she laughs even harder.
The song changes, and this time it’s a slow rock song. The gravelly-voiced singer croons about how he promises to be someone’s crying shoulder. It’s tacky, but at least it’s better than “Call Me, Baby.” Sammie holds out her hands again, and I take them. Perhaps possessed by some sort of school-dance bravery, I take a step closer to her, until we are almost touching. In a moment that knocks my breath away, Sammie throws her arms around my shoulders and closes the gap between us. My hands drape over her back, and her hair brushes my cheek as we bob back and forth, like before. I change my mind about the song: it may be the most phenomenal piece of music I have ever heard.
When that song ends, the heavens smile upon me and another slow song begins to play. Sammie shifts her head against my chest and adjusts her arms around my neck. What I would give just to keep her here, like this.
“Can I ask you something?” she says, her breath puffing into my ear.
I nod.
“Why were you embarrassed that I fought for you?”
My spirits sink into my socks. Why must she select this particular topic of discussion? I feel the muscles in my back tense up, and Sammie must, too, because she pulls her head away from me to see my face.
“Damien?”
“It’s complicated.”
She clenches her brow. “What’s complicated about it? He was going to hurt you. I didn’t want him to. So I punched him.”
“Do we have to talk about this?”
“Yes.”
Before I can stop myself, I snap, “There’s a lot of things I want to know about you, but I don’t force you to talk about them.”
Her face falls, and she pulls away from me. I grasp her shoulder. She blasts forward so quickly that I know she used her flying power. I freeze, confused. Several people turn and stare at us.
“Please put your hand down,” she says without turning around.
I drop it to my side. “But...we were just touching, and it was fine.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The music switches to another fast-paced pop song, this one full of grunting and groaning. I feel like swine. I didn’t mean to snap something mean, then freak her out, especially the last time I’ll ever see her.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She turns around, looking sad. “You’re right, I guess. You never forced me to say anything I didn’t want to, so why should I force you?”
I take a deep breath, then jerk my thumb toward the outskirts of the cafeteria. We walk over, and I lean against the wall. Sammie leans next to me, her arm touching mine.
“Guys are supposed to be able to defend themselves,” I say.
“Sort of like proving you’re tough?” she says.
“Yeah.”
There’s a moment of silence, and she says, “Damien, no offense, but that guy would kicked the crap out of you.”
“I know.”
“But you’d still rather not be defended?”
“No. I mean, yes. Look, guys are supposed to defend girls. Girls aren’t supposed to defend them.”
She cocks her head. “Why? If the girl is a good fighter, and the guy is a bad one, the girl should do the punching.”
“Logically, you have a point, but—”
“I’m pretty sure I just have a point.”
I shift uncomfortably. I guess there is no good reason why a guy can’t be defended by a girl, other than the guy having to take a blow to his pride. But I guess that doesn’t make much sense, either. Who decided on these rules, anyway?
“You’re right,” I say.
Sammie smiles with satisfaction. “Thank you.”
“It’s just...” I pull my eyes toward the floor. “I was always worried I wasn’t good enough, and when you saw, you know, what happens to me at school, I thought you’d think I was even more of a nobody.”
“Not good enough?”
“Yeah.”
“For me?”
I lift my head and take in her large blue eyes, the delicate curve of her cheek, and the way her skin seems to glow beneath the cafeteria’s moonlit skylight. “Yes.”
Unbelievably, Sammie begins to snort.
“What are you laughing at?” I say.
“You’re deranged,” she wheezes.
“I’m not...understanding you.”
“You seriously think I’m too good for you? Me?” She throws up her hands, as if the idea is preposterous. “I’m a total freak. I grew up in a science lab, for God’s sake. Now I’m a criminal, and a failed one at that. I have literally nothing to offer. You’re the one who’s been making all the sacrifices, not me.”
“Yeah, but I’m—”
“A good guy.” She holds my gaze, her face serious. “A smart one, too. And thoughtful, and kind. So some guy pushes you around at school. I don’t really see how that relates to what I think of you.”
I gape at her. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Really?”
“Yes.”
I shake my head around, in an effort to ensure that I am not dreaming. Then I turn to her. “You’re not a freak.”
She laughs. “I fly through the air, Damien.”
I can’t help but laugh, too. “Okay, good point. But maybe you should use a different term.”
“Screw-up? Weirdo? Mutant?”
“Unique. Let’s go with that.”
“What’s unique?” says a loud, snide voice.
I turn to see Joe Butt, the Leslies, and Hank walking toward us. Joe Butt wears a sort of nose cast, a white bandage that arches between his eyes. One of the Leslies has a black eye, and the other limps.
Butt stops about two feet in front of me. “What’s unique?” he says again. “How bad I’m gonna mess you up?”
I swallow hard and stand my ground, but can’t think of anything better to say than, “No.”
Joe Butt throws back his head and laughs, along with the rest of his goons. I look around for help—it’s a crowded dance, after all—but no one seems to notice us.
Sammie springs toward Butt. “Can I ask you something?”
I swear he flinches. “No.”
“What is the deal with you?” she says. “Why do you act like this?”
Joe Butt looks back and forth at the Leslies and starts to giggle. “What is this, some kind of...interview?”
Butt and his goons explode with laughter, and Sammie and I look at each other in confusion. What was funny about that?
Butt turns to me, still laughing. “Can you get your cousin to stand down, so we can duke this out like men?”
Sammie gets even closer to Butt, thrusting her face toward his. “You just don’t want to get beat up again.”
“Nuh uh!” he says.
“Uh huh!” she says.
“Sammie!” I say, and she whirls around. “Let’s just...go. I don’t want to spend any time with these guys. Not tonight.”
Sammie stares at me for a long moment, then nods. “You’re right.” She begins to walk away. I do, too.
A hand clutches my shoulder and spins me around. It’s Butt. He pulls back his fist, and I squeeze my eyes shut. But before the blow comes, there’s a blast of cold air at the nape of my neck, and my whole body jerks to the side. It feels as if someone has grasped my shoulders and moved me. I open my eyes, shocked, and see Joe Butt’s fist extended. He has punched the air.
The Leslies rush at me, one coming for my right side, the other for my left. There’s another blast of air at my neck, and I zoom backwards, my feet dragging on the floor. The Leslies collide with a smack! Before I can move, Butt wraps his huge arms around around me. But I blast right through them and fly over his head, landing softly on my feet behind him. I stand frozen, the back of my neck prickling oddly.
Butt turns around slowly. “What the hell?”
Sammie glares at him. “You’re going to leave him alone from now on. Got it?”
Butt begins to laugh, but Sammie jumps closer to him, and the smirk falls off his face.
“Come on, guys. Let’s go,” say
s Butt, and they all go stumbling off.
I remain where I am, too much in shock to reactivate my body just yet. I just jumped eight feet in the air. Typically, that is not something I can do. In fact, I know of only one person in the world who can.
“Sammie?” I say.
Her eyes dart away from mine. “Yes?”
“What the heck?”
She glances around. Clouds have converged over the moon, so the cafeteria is darker, the only light from the frantic reflections of the disco ball. We are still near the outskirts of the dance, near a wall, and there is no one close to us. Joe Butt and his goons have disappeared into the crowd.
Sammie leans back against the wall and slides to the floor, stretching her legs in front of her and rubbing her temples. Uncertain what to do, I slide down beside her.
“Are you okay?” I say.
“It makes my head hurt,” she murmurs.
“What does?”
She drops her hands into her lap. “Double-fly.”
“Double-what?”
“Damien,” she says, “remember when I disappeared?”
“Vividly.”
“That’s what I was working on.” She shudders, as if remembering something very unpleasant. “The boss...since I can’t kill anybody...the only way he’ll keep me around is if I can pull off double-fly, because then I’ll be useful again. Somebody else can do the killing.” She turns to me, eyes wide. “But it’s never worked before.”
I squint at her. “Let me get this straight. You can make other people fly?”
“Not usually. Most of the time, it feels like I’m trying to use a muscle I don’t have.”
“Then why did it work with me?
She stares at me for a long moment, as if trying to figure it out herself. “I’m not sure. The boss was muttering something about how if I actually cared about the other person, it might work. Guess he was right.” Her expression goes distant, and she lifts her face toward the ceiling. “It might work with Jiminy, then. We’ve never tried that.”
“Jiminy?” I say. “I talked to him!”
She whips her head toward me. “What?”
Thrown off by her response, I mutter, “Yeah. That’s how the criminals knew to go rescue you. I called Jiminy on your cell phone.”
Her eyes bulge. “They didn’t rescue me. The plane crashed, and I got out the emergency exit. You talked to Jiminy?”
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