Elusion

by kindle@abovethetreeline. com

  “No,” Josh says, shaking his head. “And now it seems that she isn’t the only one we should be trying to help.”

  Patrick sets the shopping bag on the entranceway table and shrugs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Josh lets out an irritated laugh. “Yeah, right.”

  Patrick walks around Josh and approaches me again. “What’s his problem?”

  I glance over at Josh, who’s clasping his hands behind his head, waiting to see what I’ll say. Since lying to my friend’s face isn’t something I’ve perfected yet, I just go ahead and tell him the truth.

  “There’s a story on the Net about this kid in Miami. The cops found him lying on the streets in a coma, without any ID or passcard. They showed a photo of him and there were these indentations—”

  “Christ, that’s what this is about?” Patrick spins around and points at Josh. “You think the kid is sick because of Elusion?”

  “I think there’s something really wrong with Elusion and you know it,” Josh says, pointing right back at him.

  Patrick takes a step toward Josh, saying through clenched teeth, “You’re paranoid, you know that? And blaming me isn’t going to make that guy better any faster”

  “Why didn’t you meet me at the warehouse? I told you I had proof.”

  “IV bags? Empty pill bottles? That doesn’t sound like a problem with Elusion. That sounds like you stumbled onto a bunch of druggies!” Patrick says, nearly shouting.

  “Hold on a minute, Pat. Let him explain,” I blurt out loudly, trying to interrupt the rising tension in the room.

  Patrick quiets down but begins to pace back and forth. Then he shrugs off his coat, nearly throwing it on the floor.

  “There’s some kind of loophole, Patrick. People are figuring out how to break the signal between the Equip and the app so they can disable the automatic time-out. I’m telling you, you have to do something,” Josh says coolly. “Recall the device, shut down the server, anything.”

  But when Patrick just turns away from him without answering, Josh can’t contain his contempt any longer.

  “You just can’t admit that your precious product is dangerous, can you? What’s it going to take? Does someone need to die before—”

  All of a sudden, Patrick lunges at Josh, grabbing his shirt and shoving him up against the wall.

  “Patrick, stop!” I yell.

  Josh doesn’t move. Even though he has a few inches on Patrick and at least twenty pounds—all of it muscle—he stands still, nose to nose with him, staring him down without any flinching.

  With some effort, Patrick breaks eye contact and swallows, loosening his grip on Josh. Patrick lets go of him and stares at his shaking hands, as stunned as I am by his outburst. His gaze slowly turns toward me, pained and desperate. My childhood instincts kick in, and I race to his side to see if he’s okay, putting my arm around him.

  Then I look at Josh, who is breathing hard and, from the way he’s squinting at me, wondering why I’m not comforting him.

  Honestly, I’m wondering the exact same thing.

  “I should go,” Josh says, tightly.

  “See you tomorrow” is all I can bear to say.

  As Josh walks out the door, I’m filled with emptiness. This is such an utter and complete mess.

  Why didn’t Josh just stay in my room?

  Patrick lurches away from me and drops down on the bottom step of the stairs, loosening his tie. “I’m sorry. Losing it like that. I don’t know what got into me.”

  “What were you thinking? That’s not the type of guy you are,” I say.

  At least not the guy I grew up with.

  He puts his head in his hands, running his fingers through his hair, but when he looks back up at me, his eyes are like daggers. “And what the hell were you thinking, Ree? Inviting that guy into your house?”

  And into my bedroom.

  “I was being polite.”

  Not the best comeback in the world, but how can you argue with that?

  Unfortunately, Patrick seems stumped for only a split second. “Did he tell you about his sister?”

  I sit down next to him on the stairs, hugging my knees to my chest and preparing myself for a fight, because he’s not going to be happy about the next bit of truth I’m about to share with him. “Yes, and I saw the warehouse.”

  I pause for a moment, thinking about whether or not I should tell him that I saw 5020 spray-painted on the wall there, and in a split second decide to hold on to that little piece of information until I can confer with Josh. Even though our kiss in Elusion may not have changed the shape of our relationship, we’re a team now, and I don’t want to jeopardize our plan by revealing too much.

  “I can’t believe he took you there,” Patrick grunts with displeasure.

  “Why does that bother you so much? If there’s something wrong with Elusion, don’t you think I deserve to know about it?” I snap. “Josh just wants our help. His sister is missing and he’s scared. Don’t you get that?”

  Patrick lets out a condescending laugh. “Nora is way beyond our help. She’s unstable, Regan. Really troubled. She has been for years. Now Josh is acting just as crazy.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “I bet Nora took off, like she always does, and didn’t tell Josh where she was going. And he’s just freaking out. He called me yesterday, and when I said I was busy, something snapped. Now he’s on some sort of vendetta or something.”

  I wonder if Patrick is aware of how crazy his ramble just sounded and how much he’s sweating right now.

  “Vendetta? Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, like the second he feels I’m not taking him seriously, he goes and befriends you. Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious?”

  Patrick knows me so well. He’s aware of all my insecurities—and how I thought my father, and most people, favored Patrick over me. This little comment definitely presses that hot button, but I’m going to resist the urge to give in to him.

  Resist, resist, resist.

  Or . . . not.

  “For your information,” I say with sheer grit, “Josh and I ran into one another in the administrative office at school. He was registering and I’d just gotten my ass handed to me by the principle for pushing Avery, because I was standing up for you.”

  Patrick rubs his face with both hands, and then his eyes soften. “I’m just trying to—”

  “Protect me? You keep saying that, but I’m not a little kid anymore.”

  “I know,” he says. “I just want you to be careful. He’s got a temper. Always has, but after his parents split, the kids kind of lost it. Nora started getting into trouble, Josh was out of control . . .”

  “He hit a guy and got sent to military school. I know. He told me.”

  “Hit a guy?” Patrick says, sarcastically. “He almost killed someone, Ree. Beat up a kid so badly he was in the hospital for three days.”

  I snort at the accusation. It seems so exaggerated. “Josh doesn’t seem capable of doing that. And he certainly kept calm just now when you slammed him against the wall.”

  “Trust me, that was for your sake. He thinks you know something, and he’s willing to exploit your friendship to get to me. Isn’t that obvious?”

  I spring up from the stairs, stone cold angry. “Don’t twist this whole thing around. This is about how you’re not being honest with me. About Elusion, about Josh, about—”

  “Wait, I’m not being honest?” Patrick gets up and stares me down. “What was he doing over here tonight? He was in your bedroom, wasn’t he? Did I walk in on something, Regan?”

  I’m shocked by how tongue-tied I become at his accusation, but I manage to squeak something out of my vocal cords.

  “Now who’s paranoid?”

  Patrick smirks and pulls out his tab. “Josh’s name was kept out of the papers because he was underage, but Trent was older, so there might be something about it in the local news archives,” he says, typi
ng and scrolling away. “Here we go. Trent Sasder. That was the name of his victim.”

  I glance down at the tab Patrick has shoved into my hand.

  Brutal Attacker Cops Plea

  The assailant of local college student Trent Sasder, 19, who was in critical care for days after suffering a brutal attack, is being set free. Insiders say the high school sophomore, who attacked Mr. Sasder outside his home, is being forced to attend Ashville Academy, a military school known for the hard-core tactics used to rehabilitate its students . . .

  “How can I be sure this is even about Josh?” I say, forcing the tab back into Patrick’s possession. “I bet there are plenty of other people who were sent to Ashville for the same reason.”

  “If you looked closely enough, you’d see the timing of the article is an exact match to when Josh left for the academy.”

  Maybe he’s right. Maybe I don’t want to look closely enough where Josh is concerned. But I’m so tired of Patrick turning the tables tonight, which is why I keep the pressure on him.

  “If you were so worried about me hanging out with Josh, why didn’t you say anything about this at your party?” I growl. “You knew he was driving me home. Anything could’ve happened, right?”

  “It seemed like Ashville had straightened him out,” Patrick shoves the tab back into his pocket and shrugs. “Guess I was wrong. About a lot of things.”

  I reach out and grab him by the shoulders, hoping to get through to him. “You know what you’re wrong about? Me. You can tell me anything, Patrick, even if it’s really bad. You have to trust me and let me help.”

  For a moment there’s this look in his eyes, like he’s drowning and he wants me to throw him a rope. But it vanishes in a flash. Patrick picks up his coat off the floor and walks out the front-door without saying another word to me. I don’t tell him to wait, but I follow him outside and stand on the stoop, watching him get into his black luxury car.

  He doesn’t look back. Not even once.

  I realize now that my friendship with Patrick might be coming to an end, and my relationship with Josh might be over before it’s had the chance to get started. But does any of this matter? When today people are missing and dying . . .

  And possibly alive somewhere when they’re supposed to be dead.

  When the car is out of sight, I go inside and notice the shopping bag Patrick left behind. I peek inside and see a small box with Xr47 printed on it in large bold yellow lettering.

  It’s a new tablet, intended for me, I assume. Top-of-the-line, of course. The fastest one on the market, and the most expensive.

  I suppose nothing’s too good for Patrick Simmons’s best friend.

  Except for the truth.

  “Regan, wait up!” I hear a high-pitched voice call out into the seven a.m. rush crowd at the Hills Sector Traxx station.

  It’s a dreary but wind-free day, and O2 shields aren’t needed, which makes it easier to see everyone’s faces. Still, there’s a bitter chill and a lot of dampness in the air. I grabbed my dad’s black fleece jacket as I ran out of the house early this morning, but right now it’s doing little to keep me warm and dry.

  I spot Zoe in the distance, waving from one of the mammoth escalators and moving her petite frame around the masses as she trots down the steps. She’s wearing a bluish-violet knit cap and the hottest accessory on the market—round oversize Florapetro glasses. The tinted lenses are designed to make the world seem bright even when the sky is under siege by oil clouds. She’s also sporting a tight black leather jacket and a navy cargo skirt that’s only slightly longer than the one that landed her in detention.

  I don’t really feel like talking to anyone right now—after last night, I feel so drained. Still, I wait until Zoe catches up with me and manage a smile.

  “Well?” she says, a hint of warm breath escaping her lips in a puff of white.

  “Well, what?”

  Zoe loops her arm through mine and pulls me closer, as if we’re old friends out for a stroll. “You’re not going to tell me what happened after I left you with Josh?”

  I realize that the last time she saw me was the day before yesterday, right before Josh and I left school and he took me to the warehouse.

  It seems like worlds ago.

  “I would, but there’s really nothing to tell. He and I . . . we barely know each other.”

  Although it’s not like I haven’t been trying to remedy that. After Patrick left my house last evening, I spent hours on the Net looking for everything and anything I could find on the assault case. While my search didn’t turn up anything new, the article Patrick showed me had other background details that proved the assailant was Josh. The timing was right, of course, but specifics about his family, where they lived, and the fact that the perpetrator’s sister was somehow involved—all of it added up.

  The scariest thing, though, is that Patrick wasn’t lying about how bad this Sasder guy was hurt. He was on life support at one point.

  How could Josh be so vicious?

  “He’s gorgeous. What more do you need to know?” Zoe grins mischievously as we walk out of the station and start off on the express pedestrian route to school.

  At first, I don’t really want to confide in Zoe what Patrick told me, but then it occurs to me that my best friend—the one person I could talk to about everything, the only one I could trust, might not be either of those things anymore.

  “Zoe, do you know anything about Josh’s . . . violent streak?”

  “Violent streak?” She rolls her eyes. “That’s a gross overstatement.”

  My eyes widen in surprise. She knows exactly what I’m referring to.

  “That fight with Sasder wasn’t his fault,” she says defensively. “Seriously. I would know. Our parents are friends with Josh’s mother, and I heard all about it.”

  “There was a story on the Net. It said that Josh nearly killed that guy.”

  “It’s a lot more complicated. After Nora was assaulted—”

  I practically trip over a crack in the pavement. “Nora was assaulted?”

  “Yeah. Sasder was a total bully and ran with this group of thugs. He had been asking Nora out for weeks, and she kept turning him down. I guess he snapped one day and went after her. Gave her a concussion,” Zoe says, zipping up her leather jacket as she quickens her pace. “Once Josh found out, he confronted Sasder, threatening to destroy him if he ever touched Nora again. Then Sasder and four of his goons ambushed Josh, thinking they would teach him a lesson. They didn’t know Josh was Mr. Black Belt, so they had no idea he could beat the crap out of all of them.”

  “Wait, more than one guy attacked Josh? How come that wasn’t in the article?”

  “The media has spun this story at least ten different ways,” she replies. “Sasder was injured the worst, and his dad’s the deputy DA, so his father went after Josh with a vengeance. Couldn’t get a conviction, but he used his connections to get him sent to Ashville.”

  I tuck my cold hands in my skirt pockets. As relieved as I am to hear that Josh isn’t the monster Patrick made him out to be, I’m also just as angry. Patrick has to have known the real story about Sasder and Nora. Just how many more lies does he intend on telling me?

  “What the hell is going on at school?” Zoe says, as we turn a corner.

  The long stretch of campus is right in front of us. Dozens of reporters stand in the central quad, some talking into their tabs as they hold them up in front of their faces, broadcasting their reports, while other press members frantically scramble after students.

  A throng of teachers is outside too, trying to escort the kids through the commotion and inside the school. I glance around to see if there are any ambulances, police cars, or other signs of trouble, but there’s nothing.

  “Excuse me, coming through!” a voice booms from behind us.

  Before I can move, I’m shoved into Zoe by a man in a hunter-green peacoat who is flanked by three women in khaki trenches, all hurrying toward the school.


  More reporters?

  I grab on to Zoe, steadying her. Our tabs both start to buzz at the same time—I bet someone has sent a mass text, alerting us to what’s going on. Zoe reaches into her bag to answer hers, but I ignore mine. The main building is a short distance away and I’d much rather see what’s going on myself.

  “Come on!” I urge Zoe.

  She puts her tab away and we jog toward the central quad. Once we reach the heart of the action, we stop to watch a blond reporter interview a scrawny kid whose features are relatively generic—brown floppy hair, brown eyes, medium build—but as soon as I hear him talk into her tab, I recognize him from my tech ed class, although I can’t remember his name. He’s smiling at the screen, his two idiot buddies behind him doing their best to attract attention to themselves with lewd gestures and silly faces.

  “Are you afraid to go to Elusion now?” the reporter asks.

  Elusion? Afraid?

  I step forward, getting a little closer.

  “Me?” He grins as he points his thumbs toward the chest of his down-filled black vest. “No way.”

  “So you wouldn’t hesitate to go there again, even knowing that Anthony Caldwell may have been in Elusion when he lost brain function?”

  My knees start to wobble as my head begins to throb.

  Zoe leans forward, whispering in my ear, “Anthony is Principal Caldwell’s son! He and I went to preschool together, but then he moved away with his mom years ago.”

  I hold up my hand, motioning for Zoe to be silent.

  “Nah,” the boy says. “Elusion is awesome. That kid probably just screwed something up.”

  “Like disabling the safety settings on an Equip?” the reporter asks.

  “Wait, you can do that?” he asks with interest.

  The reporter turns back toward the camera, as the boys begin shoving one another, desperately trying to stay in the shot. “Tragedy hits close to home as the students at Hills Sector High attempt to come to grips with the fact that their principal’s teenage son, Anthony, was found unconscious in Miami yesterday, and an anonymous source close to the scene says that a possible connection to Elusion is suspected,” she says, tucking her hair behind her left ear with a leather gloved hand. “Attempts to contact Orexis and senior product designer Patrick Simmons about whether they believe CIT rushed their approval of Elusion, or whether Equips can be tampered with, have been unsuccessful. But we will continue to bring you breaking news as the story develops.”