Book One

by K. C. Archer

  “I’m aware that you took different routes to get here,” Clint continued. “Some received glowing recommendations from government officials; some of you ran afoul of the law. None of that matters now. You are all first-year recruits, and that means you start at the same place—the bottom. If you want a space here, you’ll have to earn it. Tomorrow you will each face a series of physical, mental, and psychic-ability exams to determine your suitability for the Whitfield Institute. If you don’t pass those exams, you will be sent home.”

  Teddy felt as though her chair had just been kicked out from underneath her. No one had told her about any entrance exams. She had assumed her admittance was automatic—Clint had recruited her, after all. Why hadn’t he mentioned that she had to pass a series of exams to get in? And exactly what was she supposed to tell her parents if she returned home within forty-eight hours? Oh, Whitfield Institute? That bit about you being proud of me? Just kidding.

  She toyed again with the idea of bailing. Was an unreliable human lie detector really going to cut it on the front lines? But before she could make a move, someone sat down beside her. Teddy looked over to see the hot guy slouch down in the seat next to hers. Up close, he was even more gorgeous. Tattoos covered his olive skin, wrapping down his arms and up his neck. He looked like the kind of guy who’d enjoy breaking rules.

  He leaned toward her. “See something you like?”

  She’d known guys like this before. All ego. She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to Clint.

  “Everything we do here is classified,” Clint continued. “You will not discuss events that occur on this campus with anyone. Not your mother, not your partner, not your best friend. That’s why each of you signed a nondisclosure agreement. We have taken precautions to ensure your discretion. If you stay, you will be confined to this island until Thanksgiving, and if you leave, you will be held to this contract. Furthermore, you will turn in all electronic devices for safekeeping—that includes laptops, tablets, cell phones, and any other gadget that connects you to the world outside this institution.”

  Teddy definitely hadn’t signed up for that; a general rumbling in the audience told her that the other recruits were just as distressed by the news. Teddy looked down at her outfit, wondering if she could stash her phone somewhere. Bra, maybe.

  “This is for your own safety,” Clint said. “We will not risk having the names or faces of any of our recruits or staff showing up on Snapchat or wherever people are posting online these days. You will receive your official ID—which you will wear on your person at all times and swipe into and out of buildings—only after you’ve turned in your devices. Do not lose your ID. Do not lend it to anyone. Do not alter it in any way. And if any of you decides to play Edward Snowden and leak what’s happening here, I guarantee you will not make it to Russia. We will catch you, and you will be tried for treason. That means years in a federal penitentiary. Trust me, even this place won’t prepare you to survive there.” Clint laughed. “As if the world would believe you, anyway.”

  Clint wrapped up with general housekeeping matters, like room assignments, how their belongings would be delivered, where and when dinner would be served. Then he dismissed them.

  Teddy rose, turning her back on the hot guy. Right now he was the least of her problems.

  Jillian found her in the crowd. “That was intense,” she said.

  Teddy looked past her at two girls in the corner who were whining about how unfair it was that the faculty got to keep their cell phones.

  “I gave up mine years ago,” Jillian said. “Did you know carrier pigeons were the original text message?”

  “Um, yeah. Totally,” Teddy said, playing along. “Listen, I’m going to go check my phone before I turn it in.”

  She ducked into the hallway to leave a voicemail for her parents in which she explained that she would be incommunicado for a few months, but they shouldn’t worry. She knew they would anyway. With a sigh, she turned off her phone and dropped it in a bin by the door with everyone else’s.

  “If we end up in another Sector Three situation, we can’t even text our loved ones final goodbyes,” said one woman to another in the line ahead of Teddy. The woman tossed her phone into the bin and then twisted her braids into a pile on top of her head. She wore a denim jacket almost as beat up as Teddy’s leather one, with the sleeves rolled up, revealing a string of silver bracelets that shone against her dark skin.

  “What’s Sector Three?” Teddy asked.

  The woman looked around. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Teddy, a girl who doesn’t want to say final goodbyes any time soon. I’ll take any scoop I can get.”

  “My grandmother told me there was this secret government facility in the eighties that trained psychics for the military, and then the whole thing went to shit,” the woman said. “Mind you, my grandma also believes that they kept real live aliens at Area 51, so, grain of salt and all that.”

  Teddy couldn’t get a read on the woman, but she was beginning to understand that this would be her new normal. She would have to learn to live in a world where people could lie to her and get away with it. At least while she was at Whitfield. “So your grandmother was a psychic?” she asked.

  The woman looked Teddy over and smiled. “I come from a long line of psychics. I’m the first at Whitfield, though. I’m Dara, by the way.”

  They walked toward a fold-out table at the front of the auditorium, where Jillian stood alongside a group of students. She picked up a folder with her name scrawled across it. Inside was her ID and a stack of papers.

  “Guess who got lucky in the roommate lottery?” Jillian said, and pointed at Teddy.

  Teddy smiled. She could deal with Jillian. Though the endless enthusiasm might get on her nerves eventually. Teddy scanned the room for Molly and saw her talking to Jeremy quietly in the first row, her hand on his arm. She’d wanted to ask Molly more questions about Whitfield, since she had been through the introductory phase before, but her conversation with Jeremy looked heated—like Teddy wasn’t the only one who’d already identified a potential extracurricular.

  “Come on,” Teddy said to Jillian. “It says here we’re in Harris Hall, room seventeen.” She slipped her ID badge in her pocket.

  *  *  *

  Their belongings were piled on the steps of the building next door. Teddy and Jillian dragged their luggage up three flights of stairs and along a brightly lit hallway to room seventeen. Jillian swiped her ID in the card reader. The door clicked open to reveal a space the size of a utility room: two metal-frame twin beds that were practically guaranteed to squeak; desks and chairs that looked like office rejects; gray blankets that made Teddy’s skin itch from the doorway; white walls. Teddy figured dorms were the same, no matter if the school was Stanford or Whitfield.

  She ran a hand along the wall. “If you worked for a paint company, what would you call this color? Oncology waiting room?”

  “It’s not so bad,” Jillian said. She tugged up the metal blinds at the window. “Look, we’ve even got a view of Alcatraz.”

  “I wonder if the prisoners there had better accommodations.”

  Jillian laughed. “Well, we’ll hang some posters.”

  Teddy picked up a folder from one of the desks. Inside was a schedule with her name on it, as well as a sheet of paper labeled: Whitfield Institute Code of Ethics. The form described a range of behaviors and substances that were strongly discouraged on campus: no drinking, no drugs, no red meat, no caffeine, no refined sugar, no physical relationships between students, no infiltrating the minds of faculty or other students without permission. In other words, no fun.

  “Goodbye, hamburgers,” Teddy said, passing the form to Jillian. “We’re supposed to sign to acknowledge that we’ve read it and then turn it in tomorrow morning.”

  Jillian squinted at the small print and shrugged. “It doesn’t say anything here about agreeing. But honestly, Teddy, I’ve been a vegan since I was eight. It will re
ally clear up your aura.” She grabbed a pen from her backpack, scrawled out her signature, and then handed the pen to Teddy. “Sign it and we’ll deal with the more important stuff.”

  “What would that be?”

  “Going downstairs for dinner. Then maybe encountering some individuals to enhance our psychological well-being through emotional and physical contact.”

  Teddy looked at her and paused. “Emotional and physical contact?” It took her another second before she put it together: Jillian Blustein wanted to get laid. “Isn’t that against the rules?”

  “It never hurts to look.” Jillian winked. “Come on, let’s see what’s on the menu.”

  *  *  *

  Teddy expected the worst—soggy, tasteless cafeteria food. But the buffet was like something out of a pricey spa, featuring the sort of self-righteously organic, New Age, feed-your-soul food that people were thrilled to overpay for: roasted squash salad with mustard greens; braised lentils with simmered onions and carrots; spiced quinoa with charred eggplant.

  They sat down at a long metal-topped institutional-style table across from Molly and Jeremy. The two were debating the finer points of something called mental defense. “You have to build a wall,” Jeremy said. “It’s all about the wall.” Teddy had no clue what they were talking about. All she wanted was to build a wall between her and that hot guy from the assembly so she could avoid any temptation. But when she stood to check out the dessert table, there he was.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Teddy thought about the list of discouraged activities. If she ignored him, maybe it would be easy to stick to her promise. She focused on a strawberry acai yogurt bowl, reading the list of ingredients over and over.

  “I’m Lucas, but everyone calls me Pyro,” he said.

  Teddy couldn’t resist. “Did you pick that nickname yourself? Real cool.”

  “I think you mean ‘real hot.’ ” He winked. “That was corny, wasn’t it?”

  Teddy laughed. “Very.”

  “So what can you do?” he asked. “You know, psychically.”

  She shrugged. “I think I’m a faulty human lie detector.” Clint had been right: psychics weren’t easy to read. She hadn’t picked up anything since she’d been at Whitfield, other than that image from Molly.

  He smiled. “Should we play truth or dare?”

  “Sure,” Teddy said. “I dare you to show me what you can do.”

  Pyro’s gaze moved slowly down her body.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Psychically, dipshit.”

  His smile grew wider as he lifted his right hand and briskly rubbed the pads of his fingers against his thumb. Then he touched his fingers to the hem of the white cotton tablecloth spread over the dessert table. The tablecloth started to smolder, then a spark appeared.

  Startled, Teddy stumbled backward away from the fire.

  A second pass of his fingers and the flame was extinguished, leaving nothing but a burn mark. “It’s called pyrokinesis. Controlling fire with your mind. Hence the nickname.”

  It had to be some kind of trick. Unable to hold his gaze, Teddy turned her attention to his tattoos. Most of them were run-of-the-mill religious icons. She spotted a sword and a snake, too. But the ones that crept up his throat—now, those were interesting. Dozens of tiny flickering flames seemed to sway and spark with every word he spoke, until they disappeared beneath the collar of his T-shirt. Teddy wanted to follow that fire and see where it ended.

  “Are you one of those recruits who ‘ran afoul of the law’?” Teddy asked.

  He frowned, and the chemistry between them seemed to wane. “I was in the police force when Clint first approached me.” Teddy took a step back. But he reached for her hand and rubbed his thumb over her wrist. She tried to jerk her arm away from the heat—like when she once touched a stove she didn’t realize was on—but with each pass of his thumb, she began to welcome the warmth like a caress.

  “Make it up to me?” he asked.

  She arched a brow at that.

  He continued brushing his thumb across the inside of her wrist, tracing mysterious patterns that felt too good. It would be easy to say yes. But this was the new Teddy. She didn’t want to mess up before she even had a chance to succeed at Whitfield.

  “Your turn,” he said, voice low. “Hint: you’re also supposed to choose dare.”

  Teddy scoffed. “Not tonight. You read the Code of Ethics.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a list of discouraged activities. Not rules.”

  “I’m trying to be good,” she said.

  “Too bad,” Pyro said.

  She’d hoped for at least a mild show of disappointment, but something told her that wasn’t part of his game.

  He turned and left. She couldn’t help but stare as he walked away. The guy was cocky as hell, but it sure looked like he could back it up.

  And damn, the view was fine.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TEDDY WENT TO BED ALONE. Well, not technically alone. There was Jillian. After a few hours tossing and turning, she finally adjusted to the sound of her roommate’s light snoring and Whitfield’s not-so-luxe accommodations.

  For the second night in a row, Teddy dreamed of the yellow cottage. She followed the flagstone walkway toward the green door. She could see paint flaking around the edges of windows. She could hear the woman singing the familiar lullaby. Teddy reached out to turn the doorknob, and an alarm went off. The incessant beeping drowned out the song, shaking Teddy from sleep. She fumbled with the clock on her nightstand.

  “Nobody should rely on an alarm,” Jillian said.

  Teddy covered her head with her pillow. “They should when they have an appointment at the clinic at seven-forty-five,” she said.

  She opened one eye to find Jillian in the middle of the room in tree pose. Naked. Teddy hadn’t expected to see a tree in the morning, but she also hadn’t expected to see . . . It was really too early to think about gardening.

  “Jillian, please put all of that away.”

  Jillian untangled her limbs and pulled on her robe. “It’s a very natural way to do yoga.”

  Teddy sighed. “Just warn me next time.” She had forgotten what it was like to live with roommates. Roommates who weren’t your parents, anyway.

  Teddy sat up and immediately wished she hadn’t. Her stomach clenched, and her vision swam. She felt shaky. This was prescription medication withdrawal—far worse than yesterday. She stood. The world tilted left and then right. When the room finally righted, she grabbed her towel and staggered to the shared bathroom down the hall.

  On the way, Teddy caught sight of herself in the mirror. She looked like crap. She had cut her hair short after high school and kept it that way ever since. Normally, it worked for her—a deliberately messy look that gave her more edge, like a twenty-first-century Audrey Hepburn who had stopped by a dive bar for a Scotch on the way to an indie-rock concert. Today her hair looked more like a nest for birds who had been rejected from other, nicer, better people’s bedheads.

  She heard the water turn off in another stall. It was only seven, and she’d already seen one person naked. She tried to run into a stall before the person emerged. Instead, she managed to run right into him.

  Because it was a him. The him. With only a towel wrapped around his waist.

  “Whoa.” He grabbed her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “You don’t have to throw yourself at me.”

  Teddy searched for a comeback, but she was barely awake. “I’m just trying to, you know, to—”

  “Shower?” Pyro offered.

  “Shower,” she said, and shot past him into a stall, where she turned on the water and tried unsuccessfully to think of something other than Pyro’s half-naked body.

  *  *  *

  She arrived late for her appointment at the clinic, behind Fort McDowell. A middle-aged receptionist passed her a lengthy health questionnaire and a pen. In some ways, the reception area of the lab looked just like eve
ry other doctor’s office, with two computer stations for the receptionist and medical assistant, a seating area, and several ferns. That was if she ignored the collection of psychic pamphlets on the coffee table where women’s magazines were supposed to be.

  Teddy glanced at the receptionist hopefully. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a secret stash of caffeine hidden around here somewhere?”

  The woman frowned. “Sorry. You know caffeine interferes with psychic ability. We do have some lovely decaf herbal teas at the beverage station. Hydration always helps.”

  Teddy declined. The woman’s advice sounded like one of those awful bumper stickers you saw on alternative-fuel station wagons: Proud to Be Pagan. Envision World Peace. Hydration Always Helps. Caffeine Is for Dummies.

  Teddy took a seat and tried to focus on the questionnaire. Once she’d filled in her own health history, the Don’t Know box became her go-to. Paternal history of cancer—Don’t Know. Maternal history of diabetes—Don’t Know. Paternal history of high cholesterol—Don’t Know. Maternal history of infertility—probably not, given her existence, but Teddy checked Don’t Know to be on the safe side. The only information Teddy knew about her birth parents was that they’d died in a car accident when she was a few months old.

  Then came the interesting stuff: Paternal and maternal history of schizophrenia. Depression. Bipolar disorder. OCD. Autism. Sliding from there into telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and a host of other psychic terms she barely recognized. Don’t Know. Don’t Know. Scary, though. Did it imply that mental disorders and psychic ability were related? She didn’t know, but she hoped not.

  A male doctor wearing a long white lab coat ushered her into a private office. He introduced himself as Dr. Eversley. He took her vitals, then gestured for her to sit while he reviewed her questionnaire. “Epilepsy?” he said, his brows arching in surprise. “How’d you wind up with that diagnosis?”

  Teddy described the bombardment of sensations that had overwhelmed her as a child and the seizure-like states she’d fall into in response. The epilepsy medication had been the only thing that blunted her hypersensitivity to touch, movement, sights, and sounds.