Overpowered

by Mark H. Kruger

  Before any questions could be answered, Richard Cochran appeared on stage beside Principal Hellinger. Hellinger stepped away from the podium as a grim-faced Cochran took center stage at the microphone. He paused before speaking.

  “My son, Chase, was brutally beaten yesterday afternoon by an unknown assailant. He’s in a coma, fighting for his life. Bar Tech Security is leading the investigation.” Cochran took a breath, scanning the faces of the audience.

  “Hey, Dad,” Oliver muttered softly, barely audible but loud enough for me to hear.

  I looked at Oliver and gently squeezed his arm in support, knowing how painful this moment must be for him. Seeing the man he’d just discovered was his dad standing up there, talking about his son.

  Cochran meanwhile continued: “I’m offering a hundred-thousand-dollar reward for any information on who was responsible for this heinous attack. If you know anything, please come forward. All tips will be kept confidential.”

  Cochran then turned on his heels and walked out of the auditorium without saying another word. The audience was left momentarily thunderstruck.

  Principal Hellinger quickly returned to the podium and was inundated with a barrage of questions. Students stood up, shouting over one another. Who’d do such an awful thing to “wonderful” Chase? Was it a random attack? Another student?

  “Please! One at a time.” Hellinger tried responding in an orderly fashion but was drowned out by the chorus of angry voices.

  Meanwhile my mind was working overtime formulating its own theory about what might have happened to Chase. And it all led me back to one obvious conclusion about who was involved.

  “You think Maya did this?” I whispered to Jackson, voicing my growing suspicion that her absence from school wasn’t coincidental. Especially after what had gone down between Chase and Maya the day before.

  “I don’t know,” Jackson replied, trying to wrap his head around my hypothesis. “But it sure is a great excuse to launch a witch hunt. Flush us out.”

  I could tell Jackson was disturbed by what was unfolding in the auditorium.

  “This whole thing is creeping me out,” Oliver whispered, huddling closer, visibly nervous.

  I nodded in agreement, unable to deny that I was also feeling an unsettling brew of fear and dread. That’s when I realized that students all around us were staring and pointing accusatorily . . . at Jackson. Including Chase’s boys, Kyle, Alex, and Vox, who were seated a few rows ahead of us.

  “What about Winters?” “. . . always been jealous . . .” “Where was he yesterday?” I couldn’t believe Chase’s friends were scapegoating Jackson, blaming him for Chase’s injuries. They actually thought he was Chase’s attacker. I knew it was completely crazy. After all, I had been with Jackson yesterday afternoon, which meant he couldn’t have attacked Chase. True, I’d been invisible, and Jackson hadn’t exactly known I was hiding in his bedroom. But that was beside the point.

  Jackson was innocent.

  Of course I couldn’t exactly tell everyone in school the reason I knew this for sure, for a couple of reasons. First, it would betray my secret. Our secrets. And second, it would make things even weirder than they already were between Jackson and me. Which left only one thing for the three of us to do.

  “Time to go,” I whispered, grabbing Jackson and Oliver’s arms as I stood up.

  The mood in the auditorium had shifted and turned ugly. Principal Hellinger left the podium, giving up trying to control the crowd. Everyone’s confusion and anger suddenly seemed to be directed at Jackson. His outsider status put him squarely in the blame-game crosshairs. All Jackson’s former pals from the football team—like Kyle and Alex—not to mention his fellow students who had known him their whole lives, were vilifying him. They were ready to string Jackson up as if he were a terrorist or something. I was afraid of what might happen to Jackson if we didn’t leave the hall immediately.

  I forced my way through the row toward the aisle with Jackson and Oliver close behind me. From two rows ahead I heard Kyle shout, “We know it was you, asshole.”

  “What did you do to Chase?” Alex yelled angrily, pointing directly at Jackson.

  “He didn’t do anything!” I snapped back at them, pissed as hell.

  “Don’t waste your breath, Nica,” Jackson insisted. “No one’s listening.”

  “Can we discuss this later, guys?” Oliver nervously interjected. “When we’re not fighting off an angry mob?”

  “Good point,” I retorted, barreling up the aisle toward the nearest exit.

  “Remember. Whatever happens . . . ,” Jackson whispered to Oliver and me, “don’t expose your power.”

  “Believe me,” I snapped back, “that’s the last thing on my mind.” I had absolutely no intention of doing anything so crazy as exposing myself in front of the entire school.

  Oliver and Jackson swiftly followed my lead toward the exit doors, practically on my heels. Kids were already spilling out from the rows and jamming the aisles. The three of us hustled out of the auditorium and through the lobby, while the rest of our classmates remained inside.

  “Where are we going?” Oliver asked, nervously glancing over his shoulder.

  “Anywhere that’s not here,” proclaimed Jackson. “Remember: No matter what happens . . . don’t use your power.”

  As I shoved open the exit doors into the quad, I immediately noticed that it was dark outside, as if an enormous thunderstorm were about to blow through town. Except that there weren’t any threatening clouds in the sky above us.

  In fact there wasn’t a cloud anywhere in sight.

  “That’s weird,” I muttered, gazing up at a blue sky, confused as to why it was suddenly so dusky at only nine in the morning. And it was quickly growing darker by the second.

  Jackson and Oliver both looked up at the sky. Oliver was as perplexed as I was. Jackson’s face, however, registered immediate alarm.

  “Grab something!” Jackson barked to us as he reached out for a nearby bike rack.

  Before Oliver or I could react, let alone process what Jackson meant, a blinding flash of phosphorescent green light blazed up the sky.

  Oh my God, I thought. The pulse is happening again. We’re totally exposed.

  I instinctively shielded my sensitive eyes from the intense glare as the most forceful WHUMP of energy I’d ever experienced in my life hurtled me back against the large oak tree . . . WHAM!

  A searing jab of pain exploded throughout my entire body as I ricocheted off the tree like Dorothy in that Kansas tornado . . . plummeting to the ground in the middle of the quad with a deadening thud. . . .

  I was completely dazed and in excruciating pain . . . with no idea what had happened to Jackson or Oliver . . . or whether they were seriously injured.

  15. HIDE AND SEEK

  * * *

  “Ow . . . ,” I groaned, rubbing my throbbing head. Although barely a few seconds had passed since the pulse hit, I felt extremely groggy and disoriented. As though I’d been unconscious for hours.

  I opened my eyes, squinting in the light. Trying to focus on something . . . anything.

  “Nica? You okay?” a distressed voice asked with some urgency.

  I looked up as a blurry figure came toward me. I started to make out the details of Jackson’s face. “Think so . . . ,” I muttered, incredibly relieved that Jackson was all right.

  But then I saw he was frowning, looking as disturbed as I’d ever seen him. Deep concern flashed in his baby blue-greens. He extended his right hand toward me and I latched on to it, never wanting to let go.

  As he helped me to my feet, I noticed a thin stream of blood running down his face.

  “Oh my God. Your forehead . . .” A nasty two-inch gash ran along Jackson’s hairline. Now I was the one who was alarmed.

  I gently touched his wound, wiping away the thin trail of blood running down to his eyebrow. Our faces were only inches apart.

  “I’m fine,” Jackson insisted, brushing my hand away from hi
s face as if he were swatting away an annoying fly.

  “Hey, O. You alive?” Turning away, Jackson shifted his attention to Oliver, who was splayed across the courtyard at least thirty feet away from us. We’d been the only ones out in the quad when the pulse hit.

  “And kicking,” Oliver quipped back, flashing an enthusiastic thumbs-up. I was thankful he hadn’t lost his biting sense of humor, even in the face of adversity.

  It was then I heard screaming and shouting emanating from inside the school. I turned toward the front entrance, my senses on full alert as . . .

  . . . a barrage of panic-stricken kids charged out through the doors. Scores of students flooded the quad like a giant tidal wave . . . pushing and shoving and fleeing in every direction . . . yelling for help. Driving Jackson and me apart.

  It was complete chaos. A massive teenage freak-out, unlike any I’d ever seen.

  Momentarily stunned by the onslaught, I suddenly found myself stranded in the middle of all this pandemonium. I was frozen with fear, unable to move an inch. Scores of terrified kids rushed by me, nearly trampling one another, desperate to escape the school grounds. The running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, would have seemed tame by comparison.

  Fights began erupting all over the quad like flash fires. Best buddies Kyle and Alex were throwing serious punches at each other, going at it like they were mortal enemies. And BFFs Lisa Hooper and Amanda Morovich were suddenly kicking and scratching and yanking each other’s hair. It seemed like the entire student body had lost their collective minds.

  “Nica! Nica!” Jackson shouted at me, shaking me out of my trancelike confusion.

  My eyes found him trapped across the yard with Oliver. They were yelling and waving for me to come over. But I couldn’t hear much more over everyone else’s crying and shouting.

  I fought my way through the dense crowd, desperate to reach Jackson and not lose my shit in the process. At the same time, Jackson was pushing and shoving his way across the quad toward me. Luckily, somewhere in the middle of the crush of people he snagged my arm. Jackson didn’t let go of me until I was standing safely beside him and Oliver, protected by some trees.

  “Now what?” I asked, watching in utter disbelief as kids mobbed the parking lot and spilled over to the surrounding streets.

  “We get the hell out of here,” Oliver snapped back, eager to get going.

  “Easier said than done,” Jackson responded, staring at the jammed parking lot with an uneasy expression. “It’ll take twenty minutes at least.”

  Car horns honked and blared, as agitated students tried navigating their vehicles out of the gridlocked maze. Bam. Jaden’s red BMW coupe rear-ended a scrawny mathlete’s new black Ford Focus. Doors were kicked open as Jaden and the mathlete got into a fever-pitched screaming match, angrily waving accusatory fingers into each other’s faces.

  Elsewhere in the parking lot random kids were hopping out of their cars and getting into ridiculous brawls with each other. Others simply abandoned their vehicles and hoofed it. Creating even more havoc.

  “Why isn’t security doing anything?” I exclaimed, pointing at the more than two dozen Bar Tech Security guards scattered around the yard along with various members of the school faculty, including Mr. Bluni. They were just standing there and hanging back, watching the frenzy unfold. But they were most definitely not getting involved. “It’s like they’re deliberately not intervening,” I observed.

  “Not all of them,” Oliver countered ominously. He discreetly nodded toward something that was happening across the quad.

  My eyes followed Oliver’s gaze to find Officers Korey and Lorentz jostling their way through the crowd. They were the very same two officers who had stopped me during my motorcycle joyride soon after I arrived.

  They were heading straight toward us.

  “Am I imagining things, or are they heading this way?” I questioned aloud, my body tensing up with apprehension.

  “I doubt they’re coming over to see if you got your license,” Jackson declared caustically, shaking his head. “This can’t be good.”

  “Let’s split before we find out.” Oliver looked over at me and could read the anxiety in my face.

  It was clear to me that we had limited options. The quad was still thick with kids pushing their way out. The three of us were as vulnerable as a flock of sitting ducks.

  “Follow me,” Jackson ordered, whipping around and taking off, bulldozing his way through the crowd. I followed in his wake, clutching on to his jacket so I wouldn’t lose him.

  I kept glancing over my shoulder to check on Oliver and saw Officers Korey and Lorentz barreling after us. They were maybe three car lengths behind us. No doubt about it—we were the target.

  “Don’t look at them,” Oliver admonished me. “Just keep going.” His hand pressed firmly against my back so that I’d have to keep moving forward with Jackson.

  “They’re gaining on us,” I warned Jackson as he pushed ahead, forcefully shoving kids out of his path. He was avoiding the parking lot and heading directly for the nearest street instead.

  All of a sudden this hysterical girl with a mane of wild red hair crashed into me, almost knocking me off my feet. I held on to Jackson so as to not fall and get trampled underneath the crush of kids. Once I regained my footing, I became aware that Oliver wasn’t holding on to me. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure he was still following us.

  Oliver wasn’t behind me anymore. But those persistent officers still were. And they were quickly closing the distance gap.

  “We lost Oliver,” I shouted to Jackson in a growing panic. The last thing I wanted was for Jackson to have to zap Korey and Lorentz or for me to go stealth invisible so that we wouldn’t get caught. But we were running out of time and options.

  Just then I heard someone shouting. I scanned the crowd and was shocked to discover Oliver leaping thirty feet over the astonished crowd like a puma in the wild.

  “Over there.” I tapped Jackson on the shoulder, pointing at Oliver across the quad.

  “Catch me if you can!” Oliver giddily taunted the guards. He was purposefully sprinting in the opposite direction toward the parking lot. Obviously hoping that our pursuers would take the bait and follow him instead of Jackson and me.

  “So much for keeping a low profile and not exposing ourselves,” I remarked, amused and impressed by Oliver’s newfound fearlessness.

  “Classic military strategy. Create a diversion,” Jackson quipped back, nodding approvingly with enormous respect.

  Sure enough, Oliver’s plan seemed to be working. Drawn by his extraordinary display of agility, the storm troopers temporarily forgot about Jackson and me. They were now hot after the leaping geek, along with the more than two dozen other Bar Tech guards who’d suddenly been alerted. In seconds the entire security force had mobilized and was chasing Oliver as he loped through the school parking lot like a gazelle on the African savannah. Meanwhile the rest of the students pointed and gaped in awe as the once-nerdy Oliver vaulted over their heads like an Olympian God.

  Which gave Jackson and me just enough time to flee the school grounds and escape Bar Tech Security undetected.

  • • •

  I was shaken by the morning’s events and hoped to stay off the Bar Tech Big Brother grid until Jackson and I figured out our next move. Luckily, the towering ash-white aspens in South Mountain Park and Preserve hadn’t yet shed all their golden leaves, providing just enough cover so Jackson and I could lay low and think. Unfortunately, it was also a total dead zone as far as any cell-phone service. Which meant no sending or receiving texts. No way to contact Oliver to find out if he was okay. I felt isolated and alone—like Jackson and I were the only human survivors in one of those gruesome zombie flicks.

  “I don’t understand—how could there have been another pulse so soon?” I questioned Jackson, as the two of us trudged through the dense woods. “In broad daylight?”

  “They caused it, Nica,” Jackson asserted, glar
ing at me, his eyes brimming with rage. “To see exactly who’d be affected.” His downcast expression suggested that he was as unnerved as I was by the morning’s dramatic events. But that didn’t stop him from constantly scanning the area to see if we were being followed.

  “And Oliver took a bullet so we could get away,” I apprehensively countered, not feeling any relief at evading capture when my best friend’s fate was so . . . uncertain. “Think he’s all right?” I begged, my voice cracking with emotion. I desperately tried to fight off this overwhelming hopelessness rising up from the pit of my stomach, without success.

  “No way they could catch him,” Jackson proclaimed optimistically, softening his tone. “Not even a cheetah could,” he quipped with a quiet chuckle, trying to placate me as much as himself.

  “You really believe that?” I snapped back, refusing to buy into his delusion that we’d somehow prevail over the forces of darkness. “We’re not in some stupid-ass video game where we can take down the bad guys in a few hours and progress to the next level. This is the real world—with real-world consequences. And in the real world, kids get screwed.” I was so worked up and upset that I was practically breathing fire.

  Jackson grabbed my arm, pissed. “Stay focused. I need you to stay focused. Otherwise we will be screwed.”

  “Why don’t we just face facts?” I lashed back at him, getting even more riled up. “We’re outmatched by Bar Tech. And by whoever else is behind all this shit. We’ve been outmatched from the beginning.” I yanked my arm free and broke away from him. “If they killed Mrs. Henderson, who knows what they’ve done to Maya or Dana?”

  “Then what do you suggest we do?” Jackson charged after me, pissed as hell. “Let them use us?”

  “No. We leave town. Go to Denver. Then spill our guts about the whole conspiracy to the police or the FBI or the CIA or the CDC. Whoever the hell we can get to listen. Before it’s too late.”

  “Really think they’ll believe a couple of hysterical kids?” Jackson shouted back, dismissive. I’d never seen Jackson that upset with me before. “Besides, it’s not even like we really know the full story.”