by Jeff Sampson
“And my Nighttime has no filter and is so reckless that she basically made me a pariah at school and also almost got me killed a lot,” I added. “But sometimes I need to be a little fearless.”
Tossing the notebook and pen on the seat next to her, Tracie crossed her arms and looked out the window at the rush of trees that we passed.
“I don’t see the benefit of the world seeming to unravel around me,” she said, sullen.
“I dunno,” Spencer said. “Remember how you were when we were inside BioZenith? How you were able to trick those flying robot spheres by going against their expectations? Being able to think like that could probably help you. If everything you always do is in a strict, logical pattern, then that just makes you predictable. And who wants that?”
With an annoyed sigh, she looked away from the street and met his eyes in the mirror. I expected her to get mad about basically being called boring, but Spencer offered her one of his warm, goofy smiles, and she couldn’t keep the corners of her mouth from turning up into an answering grin—though she certainly tried.
“I suppose I could be kind and call my Nighttime self a creative thinker,” she said. She waved her hand as though chasing away the thought. “But don’t tell my mother I said that. She’s been buying me art supplies for years even though I tell her I’m not interested. Luckily there are plenty of schools and children’s groups to donate that stuff to.”
Gravel crunched beneath the minivan’s tires and I straightened in my seat to find that we were pulling into the parking lot on the side of the school closest to the football field. The field itself was lit up with floodlights, and the meager bleachers that acted as our stadium were filling up with parents and teens. I didn’t see any players on the field yet, but they were probably still in the locker room getting ready.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked Spencer.
“I’m going to go get into costume and then join the cheerleaders in warming up the crowd when the game starts.”
Tracie leaned forward between the two seats. “You’re going to be Gary? What happened to Mikey? He’s always Gary. I had to special order the suit for him since he’s so tall, which had to go through all sorts of administrators. Spencer, it’s going to droop all over you and get messed up!”
He shrugged, then unbuckled his belt. “Hey, it was the only way I could get close to Nikki and friends. They’ve been avoiding us ever since Saturday. I figure between me and Casey, I can get them behind the bleachers during the game so we can talk.”
“So we should wait back there then?” I asked.
Spencer nodded, then glanced down at the dashboard clock. “Okay, I’m running late. I’d better get in there.” Meeting my eyes, he said softly, “Catch you soon, Em Dub.”
“Go bust some moves,” I said as he opened the door and started to climb out. “I expect the best halftime show of my life.”
With a wink, he said, “You better count on it.” Then he slammed the door shut and raced across the parking lot toward the school.
Eyebrows raised, Tracie looked over at me. “Oh my God, you two are a thing, aren’t you?” she said, then shook her head. “I’m going to have to hang around you two mooning all the time, aren’t I?”
Unbuckling my seat belt, I said, “Hey, it’ll be worth it to learn how to control your powers, won’t it? Besides, it’s not just the three of us anymore. We’ve also got Evan.”
“Who?” she asked as she leaned into the backseat.
“Emily Cooke’s cousin,” I said. “Now how about we stop talking about my love life and practice going hybrid?”
7
YOU SOUND CRAZY
In the shadows behind the bleachers, Tracie and I sat cross-legged on the grass and practiced, um, breathing.
Well, I sat on the grass, anyway. She ran inside the school and came back with a blanket, which she folded up into a perfect, plush square. Where she found a blanket in school, I didn’t know. Maybe class presidents had like a secret bedroom on campus or something.
Though our little training session had started out with me going into more detail on how I controlled my shifts, it wasn’t long before Tracie was teaching me about her breathing regimens.
“It’s all about the flow of oxygen in, and the flow of toxins out, in the correct ratios to support your goals,” she said, her eyes closed as she raised her hands up and down as a visual aid. “If you’re exercising, your body needs as much oxygen as possible. So you take a big breath in”—and she held her hands up for a count of four—“and out, but shorter, only a two count. For calming, I like to go in an equal ratio, and for a longer count on each.”
I managed to mostly follow her directions, but it was easy to get distracted as more and more cars pulled into the parking lot, their headlights briefly blinding me before the engines were turned off and people trudged over the grass to climb into the bleachers on either side of the field. The noise level grew, and above me I could see the shadow of many a butt sitting on the cold metal benches. Snack-food debris and soda cups and cigarette butts rained down from above and collected on the dead, brittle grass directly beneath the bleachers.
“Oh,” Tracie said. Then, shaking my arm she cried out, “Oh! Emily! I did it!”
Pulled from the delightful underside view of the football-viewing crowd, I was immediately caught up in Tracie’s enthusiasm. It was hard not to—she’d never been excited around me. Progress!
“You did!” I cried back and clapped my hands. “Wait, what did you do?”
“I got the Nighttime eyesight,” she said, breathless despite her practiced inhales and exhales. “I can see super far. I can see those ants walking on that wall over there, in the dark. Look!”
She pointed to the brick wall of the nearest building, and I turned to look. All I saw was a distant, shadowy wall.
“Oh, well, I’m glad you can see far,” I said as I turned back to her. “Spencer can too. I can’t, though, since normally I need glasses. But at least I can see clearly when I get my Nighttime eyes.”
She ignored me. “This is great,” she said, flexing and unflexing her fingers, feeling her strength. “This is wonderful! I’ve never been able to appreciate this before now, since the world was so out of sorts. But this…” She shook her head. “No wonder you guys were so insistent I try this.”
I couldn’t help but grin. “Yeah, it can be pretty cool. Just wait till you figure out how to pull out the claws. You’ll never have trouble getting the shrink-wrap off a DVD ever again.”
Tracie laughed and put her hands on her cheeks in glee, looking for all the world like a little girl on Christmas morning. I hadn’t seen her so lively or happy in ages, even if around school she always put on a front like everything was perfect.
Shuffling sounded above us, and the shadows cast down by the people in the bleachers shifted over our faces. I looked up to see the crowd getting to their feet and start to cheer. Close but out of sight I heard female voices shouting rhythmic phrases: the cheerleaders.
“Hey, they’re on.” I jumped to my feet and wiped my backside to clear it of grass clippings. “Let’s go watch.”
Tracie leaped effortlessly to her feet as well, then giggled, clearly enjoying the strength coursing through her leg muscles. “Let’s!” she said.
Side by side we rounded the bleachers, out of the shadows and into the glaringly bright floodlights that lit up the field as though it was the middle of the day. On the field directly in front of the bleachers, but behind the benches on which the coaches and extra players sat, was the cheerleading squad. Around a dozen strong, most of them had nothing to do with the genetically engineered superpowered teen shenanigans. All I cared about were the four that were front and center: Ruby-haired, porcelain-skinned Nikki Tate and the olive-skinned, black-haired triplets Amy, Brittany, and Casey Delgado.
It figured that the four cheerleaders with telekinetic powers would be the ones involved in most of the squad’s wild tricks.
Oh, and tricks the
y did. The crowd hollered and applauded as the girls—and the few guys who acted as lifters—chanted “Watch out! We’re here! We’re ready to cheer!” while Nikki and Amy spiraled up into the air and landed nimbly with one foot in one of the triplets’ hands, and the other in the hands of one of the guys. I could tell from the smirk on Amy’s face that I was right about her jump having a little psychically influenced assistance.
But who am I to judge? I totally would have done the same thing.
As the cheerleaders finished their opening, a spate of laughter came from the far end of the bleachers, and some guys whistled and called, “Looking good, Spencer! Shake that thing!”
Almost involuntarily, I gripped Tracie’s arm. “Here he comes,” I said.
Tracie rolled her eyes at me. “Simmer down, you just saw him sixteen minutes ago.”
I knew I was acting like a doofus as I grinned dorkily, watching Spencer run up in front of the cheerleaders. I mean, there was an impending meeting with a bunch of lying scientists and I couldn’t trust my dad and Evan hadn’t answered the text I’d sent a half hour before and I was about to confront the cheerleaders who hated me.
But seriously: He was adorable in that mascot outfit.
Tracie was right, the suit itself was built for a much taller guy, so the furry legs and arms and even the torso were all bunched up, making him look like one of those droopy puppies with all the wrinkles. And then there was the giant cartoon cougar head with its silly grin and narrowed eyes, which I guess was supposed to look sort of badass but just looked like something you’d see in a video game for five-year-olds.
Spencer had no problem getting into character. We’re talking spastic dancing all over the field. The Dougie. A botched moonwalk. The sprinkler, people. THE SPRINKLER.
I about died laughing.
Luckily Tracie and the crowd found it as hilarious as I did, so I wasn’t there cackling like a moron alone. I was legitimately disappointed when the football teams started to swarm onto the field, and Gary the Cougar had to come in front of the bleachers and take a bow. Even the cheerleaders applauded, all grins and pep.
As the teams ran by each other clapping hands, and someone on a loudspeaker began talking about the pledge of allegiance or something, Spencer removed his fake head to reveal his real one. Sweat-soaked hair was plastered to his forehead, and his cheeks were red. He spoke quietly to Casey, and then the two of them pulled Nikki, Amy, and Brittany away from the other cheerleaders.
“Come on,” I said to Tracie. “Back behind the bleachers.”
We only had to wait a few minutes for Spencer—minus the head, but still wearing the oversize suit—to come around the back of the bleachers, followed by the four cheerleaders who knew our secret.
As the crowd roared their support for the home team, Nikki and the triplets came to stand in a line across from me, Spencer, and Tracie. Amy, defiant as always, crossed her arms and pursed her lips. Brittany fussed with her hair and seemed bored, while Casey clasped her hands in front of her waist. Nikki just looked exhausted.
“So,” I said, then trailed off.
I could feel my nerves fraying, my confidence ebbing. Like I was going back to how I was a month ago, shy and nervous around the popular kids. I was tempted to pull up more of Nighttime, but I was afraid what the lack of a verbal filter would do. Hell, for all I knew I’d just end up in a wolf-on-telekinetic-cheerleader brawl.
“Well?” Amy snapped. “You and Casey and Spencer finally wore us down. We’re here.” She raised a hand and snapped her fingers. “Speak.”
Wow, okay. Turned out I didn’t need to go full Nighttime to face down snippy Amy after all. I was so tired of her crap.
I rolled my eyes. “Lovely,” I said. “Anyway, Casey”—I nodded at her—“came to me last weekend after what went down in the woods and told me all about you guys. I know your parents told you to watch over all of us for some reason, and I know now that our own parents not only made me, Spencer, Tracie, and Dalton into what we are, but they’ve been observing us while we were hunted by a man with a gun and creepy shadow creatures, and they did nothing to stop it.”
Brittany raised an eyebrow and let a ringlet of pitch-black hair fall from her fingers. “Shadow creatures?”
I nodded. “That’s what took Dalton. We can only see them when we’re in our wolf state—or, at least, have our wolf vision. They’re from another dimension and want to possess us to cross over. Or something. I’m still not clear on all the details.”
“You sound crazy,” Amy said. “Like, you know you sound crazy, right?”
“Amy, listen to her,” Casey said softly.
“No crazier than psychic powers,” Spencer said with a shrug and a grin.
Amy opened her mouth to say more, but Nikki put a hand on her shoulder, then stepped forward.
“Do you know how Dalton is?” she asked. “Is he alive?”
I nodded. “Yes. And I plan to find a way to get him back. But I need your help.”
Sighing, Amy turned from the group and began to pace behind her sisters and Nikki. “Oh, come on, are you really going to trust her?” she asked. “We already talked to Dalton’s dad. You heard what he said about her being the one who made Dalton disappear.”
They’d talked to Mr. McKinney? Well, I guess they must have. They were also there when Dalton was taken, but they hadn’t said a thing all week even when the lie about Dalton going to see a specialist at a hospital out of state was being spread around. No wonder they’d been avoiding me—I could only imagine the stories Mr. McKinney had made up about who and what I am.
“Look,” I said, “you can’t trust Dalton’s dad. Not my parents either, or Spencer’s, or Tracie’s, or Emily Cooke’s. There’s more going on than just science run amok. I talked to Evan Cooke, and he told me that there’s some sort of weird cult surrounding these shadow people who took Dalton.”
Brittany’s eyes came alive. “Evan Cooke? Emily’s cousin?”
“What does he have to do with anything?” Casey asked.
Tracie nudged me. “I almost forgot. I want to know, too.”
I quickly laid out the story, summarizing what he’d told me over webcam. When I was done, Casey shook her head sadly.
“Poor guy,” she whispered.
Brittany tucked her hair behind her ears. “Yeah, um, so…did he grow up hot or what?”
“Brittany!” Casey said. “Not important right now.”
“I’m just wondering!” she said, raising her hands mock defensively.
Smirking, I said, “I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” I said. “He definitely grew up hot”—out of the corner of my eye I caught Spencer giving me a nervous glance—“but I got the impression he’s not exactly looking to date girls.”
“Damn.” Brittany sighed. “The best boys are never straight.”
“Oh my God!” Amy shouted. “No one cares who you’re lusting for, Brittany. Just go for Mikey like I keep telling you. Seriously.” Shaking her head, she focused on me. “So, we failed to protect him, Dalton got taken, and now you’re some monster surrounded by a cult. What the hell are we supposed to do about it?”
She was answered by the crowd above us roaring in cheers and jumping to their feet. A voice over the speakers cried, “Touchdown Cougars!”
“We should be out there,” Brittany said, craning her neck to try to see the field between the stomping feet on the bleachers. “We Will Rock You” began to play. The stomp-stomp-clap became deafening.
“No,” Nikki said, low and forceful. “The others can handle it. This is more important.”
“Nik,” Amy complained.
Nikki raised a hand. “Stop it, Amy. Just think: Why would Emily lie to us about any of this? And why did our parents make us watch them all this time? I want to know what’s going on, too.” Turning to me, she said, “So what exactly do you want from us?”
I looked at Tracie, who shrugged, then at Spencer, who nodded encouragingly.
“I’d like to call a tr
uce, first of all,” I said. “No more fights in front of parties. We almost got caught the last time.”
Amy turned her lips down into an exaggerated pout. “Aw, but I loved making you fly.”
Nikki elbowed her.
Ignoring her, I continued. “I don’t know anything about your parents, or where they’re from, or why they made you telekinetic. Or even how they did that. But the scientists at BioZenith—our parents—want me, Spencer, and Tracie to come there tomorrow so they can supposedly spill all their secrets. I don’t trust them.”
“You want us to go to that meeting with you?” Casey asked.
I shook my head as another roar rose up from the crowd.
“No. Well, sort of. I was just hoping you could come as backup. Wait close enough to help us if we need it.”
The four girls looked at one another, speaking wordlessly: Casey pleading with her eyes, Brittany questioning, Amy beginning to thaw, and Nikki nodding, taking charge.
Finally, they looked back at the three of us.
“All right,” Nikki said. “We were told to watch and protect you anyway. And if you can learn more about why you’re the way you are, maybe we will, too.”
She offered me a tired smile. I was guessing she hadn’t slept well in days. Seeing your boyfriend disappear into thin air would do that to you.
“Deal,” I said, then offered my hand. Nikki stared at it for a moment, then reached forward to shake it.
“Hey, there you are,” a voice called behind the cheerleaders.
We all looked to find one of the cheerleader guys standing there, a guy named Trevor.
Trevor jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “We’re supposed to be cheering. You know, that’s why you’re wearing those matching sweaters and skirts?”
Shaking her head, Nikki said, “Yeah, of course.” To the triplets, “Come on, let’s get back out there.” To me, in a hushed, conspiratorial voice that would in no way imply that I was a drug dealer, “Text me the details.”