• • •
“Nica, wait up.” Maya chased me down the hallway, breathless.
“Hey. Can we talk after school? I’m late for Spanish.” My unpleasant encounter with Chase suddenly came thundering back. I knew I had to tell Maya about it, but I didn’t want to get into it right then and there. We were alone in the corridor.
“What’s going on?” she responded, not letting me go, clearly distressed.
“You mean about the pulse last night? I’m as mystified as you are.” I was also still flustered by my run-in with Mr. Bluni.
“No. With you and Chase? Everyone saw you in the hall.” I saw the hurt in her eyes.
“Maya. It’s not what you think.” No matter how I tried to explain what happened, I knew it would sound like I was making excuses.
“I thought you were my friend!” Maya was trembling, near tears. An insecure mess. I felt horrible.
“I am your friend. Chase cornered me. Wanted me to come over. I told him no. But he wouldn’t leave me alone.” Moving around so much since I was five, I wasn’t used to navigating these kind of messy emotional dramas with girlfriends. On top of that, I’d been totally blindsided to discover that another pulse had hit the night before. High emotions plus the pulse were a recipe for disaster.
“Liar. Chase loves me. You’re just jealous and trying to steal him.” Maya was really working herself up into an agitated state. “I’ve been nothing but nice to you since you got here.”
Suddenly the glass panes in all the classroom doors started vibrating and rattling. I worried that Maya would go ballistic in the school hallway and smash all the glass.
“Maya, listen to me. Chase is a snake. You can’t trust him.” Painful as it was, I had no choice but to be honest with her.
“You don’t know him,” she insisted, terribly upset, her voice raised. “He wouldn’t do that. We’re perfect together. Perfect!” Her body was practically trembling with rage.
Lockers shook and rattled all around us. Doors burst open. Ceiling tiles were bending and buckling, causing a deafening racket. If Maya’s anger wasn’t curtailed, I was afraid the entire hallway would explode into a tornado of metal, glass, and tile.
Classroom doors swung open as concerned teachers and startled students poked their heads out into the hallway, fearful that an earthquake was hitting the school. Their wide eyes and shocked stares riveted on a very emotional Maya shouting at me. I could read their stunned expressions. They’d never seen Miss Cool, Calm, and Normally Collected lose her shit like this.
I knew if I didn’t react quickly to defuse this situation, not only would Maya be exposed before the entire school, but ultimately so would Oliver, Jackson, and I. I grabbed Maya in my arms and wrapped her in a tight embrace—the way parents sometimes do a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.
“Don’t lose it,” I commanded Maya, whispering in her ear. I hoped she wasn’t too far gone to come back from the brink.
Maya glared at me with her wounded-doe eyes and then at everyone else in the corridor, realizing the precariousness of the situation. I felt her take a deep breath.
And then all the shaking and rattling ceased. Just like that. Drawing looks of bewilderment and confusion from students and teachers gathered in the hallway.
Maya broke free from my embrace and rushed off in tears. I felt awful about hurting her. But this was no time to wallow in regret and self-pity.
I blurted out: “Did you all feel that tremor?” I desperately hoped that I might convince at least a few people that what they’d experienced was an earthquake and wasn’t caused by Maya.
• • •
Oliver and Jackson were already huddled at a table in the quad by the time I arrived during lunch. They both looked unusually serious.
“Our girl Maya had a bit of a meltdown,” Oliver glumly declared, glancing at Jackson.
“So you heard,” I replied concerned. “I knew too many people saw what Maya did in the hallway for word not to spread like wildfire.”
“Hallway?” Jackson asked, a bit confused. “Everyone’s talking about her nearly destroying a classroom.” He locked locking eyes with me.
“What classroom?” I looked back and forth between Oliver and Jackson, trying to read their expressions. “What are you both talking about?”
“She had a huge fight with Chase,” Jackson continued, unemotional.
“About you,” Oliver added sheepishly. I knew he wasn’t trying to embarrass me in front of Jackson, but it was painful to hear nonetheless.
“Oh no. Is Maya okay? I can explain everything.” I was anxious to get out my side of the story of what had gone down between Maya and me in the hallway—especially to Jackson. Not that he and I were dating or anything, but I couldn’t help feeling incredibly guilty. I’d never been accused of being the “other woman” before. It wasn’t fun.
“She went home. Doesn’t want to see anyone,” Jackson said, looking at me with what felt like accusatory eyes. What it really seemed like he meant was that Maya didn’t want to see me.
“Chase is a liar. Nothing happened between us,” I asserted defensively, intent on telling my best friends the truth. More to the point it was important to me that Jackson know.
“We’ve got bigger problems,” Jackson interjected, shutting me down. “Now that Chase knows. He saw Maya nearly destroy that room. She told him about the pulse.”
“How do you know?” Now I was the one trying not to freak out.
“I ran into Maya as she was leaving school.” Oliver answered. “She was nearly hysterical. Blurted out everything that happened.”
“Holy shit.” As if it weren’t bad enough that half the school had witnessed Maya’s wrath unleashed, this was potentially even more threatening. “If Chase knows about Maya and the pulse, it won’t be long before he figures out about the three of us. And the reason we’ve all been hanging out together.”
“He promised Maya he wouldn’t tell anyone about her ability,” Oliver exclaimed, rolling his eyes, obviously not buying that Chase would keep his mouth shut.
“I wouldn’t count on his silence,” I replied, afraid of what Chase might do with such explosive information about his girlfriend.
“He’s going to sell us out,” Jackson affirmed, knowing Chase all too well. “The bigger issue is: What do we do?”
“Stop him,” I insisted, my blood beginning to boil with rage. “We’ve got to do a preemptive strike.”
“What? Kidnap him and hold him forever?” Oliver asked, making a valid point.
“I don’t know. But I’m certainly not going to sit around and twiddle my thumbs. I’m going to find out what that creep’s up to,” I proclaimed, grabbing my books and getting up from the table.
“Just how do you plan on doing that, Jane Bond?” Oliver asked, intrigued and more than a little worried about my declaration.
“I’ll figure something out,” I countered, walking away from them and back into school. No way was I going to sit idly by waiting for Chase to expose my friends and me.
• • •
My initial impulse was to track Chase down and use my Thai kickboxing training to whip his pathetic ass out in the quad. But I knew that wouldn’t stop Chase from blabbing. In fact it would probably only spur him on. I had to be shrewder and turn the tables on that pompous jock. That was when I realized I had the perfect weapon right at my fingertips.
I had the ability to disappear.
True, it was risky and dangerous. And my control over my power sucked big time. But desperate times called for desperate measures. If I didn’t do something before the evening, my advantage over Chase would vanish when the twenty-four-hour window passed. And there would be no predicting exactly if and when the next pulse would occur. Now was the time for me to act.
I dumped all my books in my locker, then went directly to the nearest restroom. I locked myself in a stall and waited for the place to clear out as the class bell rang. Utilizing Master Kru’s breathing techniques I slow
ly relaxed my mind. Harnessing all my energy I focused it on making my entire body disappear. In seconds my limbs vanished, but the rest of my body was still visible. I shut my eyes and kept breathing steadily. The familiar tingling began to spread up my arms and legs and into my stomach, up along my torso and neck, and into my head. By the time I opened my eyes, I had evaporated into thin air.
After emerging from the stall, I cracked open the restroom door just wide enough to slip out into the hallway. I snuck along the corridor, carefully passing the occasional teacher and student without incident. Once or twice I nearly collided with someone but managed to sidestep them before impact. Luckily, they seemed totally unaware that anyone was in the hallway with them.
I caught up with Chase after sixth period and followed him to his next class, eavesdropping unobserved on all his conversations with his friends. It was kind of trippy at first getting a real inside view of BMOC jockdom. Kyle, Vox, Alex, and Chase argued heatedly about who had the hottest girlfriend. I kept waiting for Chase to spill the beans about Maya, but he never said a word to anyone about what he’d witnessed. By the time eighth period rolled around, I’d gotten the hang of this disappearing and reappearing at will. Unfortunately, I was bored out of my mind with spying on Chase. His conversations were dull and totally self-centered—he always managed to be the main topic no matter whom he talked to. Usually the talk was about how awesome he was.
Meanwhile he never once let anything slip about Maya.
I wondered if I might be wrong in my assessment of Chase Cochran. True, he was obnoxious and egotistical, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was also a slime bucket who’d rat out his girlfriend. Perhaps he really would stand by his promise and keep Maya’s secrets. However, before I could be absolutely certain what his intentions were, I had to follow Chase home to see how he acted behind closed doors.
• • •
Chase lived in an enormous house in the same upscale neighborhood as Dana Fox. Except the Cochran house wasn’t some new monstrosity designed to look like a European château. Theirs was a sleek midcentury glass-and-steel fortress. The house was meant to impress and intimidate, and that it did.
I slipped inside through a rear entrance, trailing closely on Chase’s heels through large, expansive rooms with soaring ceilings. The place was beautiful but also austere and cold. Few photos or personal memorabilia were displayed anywhere. The floors throughout the house alternated between blond wood and polished concrete. I did my best to keep in step with Chase’s movements so as to not betray my presence. Every sound and footfall was amplified and echoed off walls of glass overlooking hundred-year-old towering pines and aspens. All that nature was breathtaking. I couldn’t help but pause for a moment to take it all in, transfixed. But when I looked around, Chase was gone.
I was suddenly lost in a maze of interconnecting rooms. I wandered through a vast kitchen and family room into a music room with a grand piano. How had I gotten so turned around? Where did Chase go? I felt myself get agitated. My blood pressure started to rise, which caused my right foot to suddenly reappear. I stopped moving, closed my eyes, and regulated my breathing so that I regained control of my body.
As my right foot disappeared safely into the ether with the rest of me, I heard several voices coming from the far end of the house. I tiptoed through a vast library with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, which finally deposited me at the double-door entrance to Richard Cochran’s home office and private sanctuary. There I discovered Chase meeting with his father and another man. As I crept into the room and discovered this other man’s identity, I had to stifle myself from crying out.
The third person in the room was my own father. And he was questioning Chase—about Maya’s meltdown at school. I stood behind the low-slung sofa, unseen, quietly listening in total shock.
“Tell me exactly what you saw,” demanded my dad, hanging on Chase’s every word.
“Maya was ragging on me about something stupid. I tried calming her down, but you know how girls get.” Chase smirked. “Anyway, all of sudden she’s flipping out, doing emotional one-eighties. Then everything in the room is freaking whirling around my head. And I’m like, ‘whoa, this is some serious whacked-out bullshit; what the hell happened to you?’ Afterward she’s crying and begging me not to say anything about what she did. Saying it’s not her fault. Blaming it on some mysterious green pulse that lights up the sky.”
I was horrified at how easily Chase betrayed Maya, eagerly divulging everything he knew. It took every ounce of willpower to stifle my rage and stop myself from kicking his bony ass.
“Did she say if anyone else was affected?” Richard Cochran grilled his son, wanting details.
Chase shook his head. “No. Claimed she was the only one. But Maya’s a bad liar.”
“Stick close to her.” Chase’s dad patted his son on the shoulder. “See what else you can find out. Remember—you’re my eyes and ears.”
“I’m on it, sir,” Chase replied enthusiastically before exiting the room. He acted as if spying on his friends was as easy as throwing a football.
Once Chase was safely out of earshot, Richard Cochran turned to my dad. “There must be others by now.”
“Blood tests are still inconclusive. I haven’t taken samples from everyone yet.” My father stated this with a slight hesitation—which made me wonder if he was holding something back.
Cochran must’ve felt this too, since he pressed him harder: “But you’ve identified a positive marker.”
My father nodded his agreement. “That doesn’t mean everyone that has the marker has converted like Maya. Or that they ever will.” He took a beat before continuing. “As with any genetic mutation, some develop the disease or condition while others stay carriers. I have no way of predicting which ones will exhibit enhanced abilities and which will remain dormant.”
“Then it’s time to accelerate the progression,” insisted Cochran. “Step up our timetable.”
My father balked. “And risk overexposing these kids? There’s a precarious balance between just enough radiation and too much.”
“Marcus, we’re on the verge of a major discovery Darwin never imagined.” Cochran was speaking with an almost religious fervor. “Who could’ve predicted that a spy-satellite explosion seventeen years ago would ignite the greatest leap in human evolution?”
I knew they were talking about the incident. The first pulse had been an accident. The explosion must have irradiated our pregnant mothers and somehow mutated our DNA. It was a somatic mutation, just like Mr. Bluni had explained. And now Bar Tech was deliberately setting off the pulse to bring out our abilities. They were using us as scientific guinea pigs. Or worse . . . I was so spooked and freaked out by what I was hearing that I lost my footing and stumbled back.
“Still, we need to proceed with caution until we know how many we’re dealing with and who they are,” my father admonished Cochran. “These kids are still developing, maturing. Their powers are erratic and unpredictable. Maya’s a perfect example. She could’ve inflicted serious harm today.”
“You focus on the science. I’ll worry about the rest,” Cochran pointedly instructed my father. “Our timeline has accelerated considerably. Bar Tech is on the verge of closing one hundred billion in technology deals.”
Before I realized what was happening, I actually started to rematerialize in the room. I could see my feet! I gasped, in a panic, losing control over my own body, my own power. If I didn’t act quickly, in a matter of seconds I’d be exposed.
Cochran, having heard me, raised his hand and silenced my father. “Chase? Is that you?” He looked around the room, suspicious, sensing my presence. My dad looked around too, unsure what Cochran had heard.
Not hanging around to get caught red-handed, I escaped out the door and booked the hell through Chase’s house before I completely reappeared. I raced out the back door and across the yard as the lower half of my body started materializing. I was desperate to make it to the safety of the woods. B
y the time I found cover among the trees, I was nearly back to myself again. But I didn’t stop running. Adrenaline coursed through my body.
My mind reeled as it hit me full force that my dad was actually in league with Richard Cochran. I couldn’t deny the truth any longer. My impulse was to run as far away as I could and never look back. But where would I go? Home? I didn’t have another home to go back to, thanks to my mother. Lydia was holed up in Antarctica for the next six months. Even if I could reach her by phone, which was doubtful given the spotty service down there, what could she do? What would she do? After all, she’d sent me to live with my father. I was a virtual prisoner in Barrington.
I finally stopped running in the middle of the street, nearly ready to collapse from exhaustion. I looked around and discovered I was standing in front of Jackson’s house. How the hell did I get there? Was it on instinct? Whatever it was that had led me there, I had to tell Jackson everything I knew.
I hurried up the walk and rang the doorbell. No answer. Jackson must be home. His car was parked out front. I pounded on the front door. I started to freak, worrying that something awful had happened to him. Maybe my dad and Cochran already know about Jackson?
I ran around to the back of Jackson’s house, peering in through every window and door, trying to find out if Jackson was all right. But there was no sign of him. Anywhere. I called his cell, but it went straight to voice mail. I feared the worst.
Next thing I knew, I was yanking out the screen to a bathroom window. It had the same lock as my dad’s house. Using my trusty Swiss Army knife I wedged and pried the small wood window open and squeezed inside. The house was eerily silent.
“Jackson,” I called out, creeping into the long hallway between the bedrooms. There was no response. I made my way down toward Jackson’s bedroom, hearing sounds the closer I got. They were the sounds of running water.
I stood in the doorway, looking around Jackson’s room. The clothes he’d worn to school were strewn across the floor—jeans, T-shirt, boxer shorts, and socks. I hadn’t intentionally snuck in. Well, I had, but I was honestly so concerned about him. I didn’t mean to stay when I discovered that the real reason Jackson hadn’t answered the front door or taken my phone call was because he was taking a shower. Not only that, he was singing to himself!
Overpowered Page 23