Molly sent a questioning glance at them and Rebecca and Izzy nodded.
"Sure. Sounds good to me," Izzy said. It wasn't like she knew who else had good speed, and, anyway, she'd rather team up with two nice people than two people who were fast but also jerks.
She spared a glance at the irritatingly cute but angry-looking kid from the classroom and found he looked slightly more engaged now. Maybe he just wasn't a good classroom learner and preferred showing over telling.
She turned away and was surprised to find Trent walking toward her.
“Do you want to be on my team?” he asked with a crooked smile.
She returned his grin, and shook her head. "I would, but I've already got my team set here."
“Cool.” His smile wavered and he leaned in closer. "Look, I do this thing when I feel awkward, I joke around to break the tension. Do you think people feel like I'm a jerk for the whole thing that happened with Baxter in class?"
"At first, maybe, but you handled it really well afterward," Rebecca piped in. "And it gave him a really good opening to teach us something. I wouldn't worry about it."
Trent let out a sigh of relief and scanned the gym with a critical eye. "I'd better start asking more people before I get stuck with the one kid I saw picking his nose."
Izzy wished him luck and he walked away.
"I think he likes you," Molly whispered when Trent was out of earshot.
"I think so, too," Rebecca agreed. “He came right over to you.”
"He seems nice," Izzy said, her cheeks going warm, "but I can't focus on guys while I'm here. I need to make sure I'm soaking up everything they have to teach me, like a sponge." She'd basically run away from home, betraying her father's wishes to be here. The least she could do was excel and make it worth it. Hopefully, then, he would find it in his heart to forgive her. She made a mental note to write him a letter later that night.
"All right. Now that everyone has a team, let's have the first runner for each come forward. My advice? Save the fastest for last," Baxter said, tugging a stop watch from his pocket.
"Izzy's a track star, so she should go last. Do you want to go first or second, Molly?" Rebecca asked.
Molly winced. "Is 'not at all' an option?"
Izzy patted her shoulder gently. "Nope. But cheer up. When it comes to testing our sniffers, you'll be the anchor and Rebecca and I will be the ones dragging you down, so don't feel guilty. Just do your best."
Izzy wasn't too concerned about their team performance on the whole. While this was the quickest way to test all the Enhanced students at once without calling attention to any single person's potential failures, their teacher would surely be taking note of their individual times. The decision to handle it this way ramped up her esteem of the already likable Professor Baxter even more.
Molly sucked in a breath and nodded. "Okay, I'll get it over with, then."
She accepted a baton from Baxter, lined up with the other starters, and mimicked their position with minimal success.
"Wow, it looks like she's never even been to Phys. Ed. class or something," Rebecca marveled, but there was no malice in her voice. Izzy was starting to suspect there was no malice anywhere inside the girl.
"You can do it, Molly!" Rebecca called.
"On your mark...get set...go!" Professor Baxter shouted.
The students all leapt forward and began to sprint. Molly fared far better than Izzy had expected, largely because all the teams had clearly put their weakest links first. By the time she'd circled the track, she was in second place as she handed the baton off to a waiting Rebecca. Izzy was surprised to see Trent accepting the baton for his team and realized with a start that he wasn't running anchor.
So, who was?
As she watched the progress of the runners, she scanned the group standing beside the track waiting alongside her. A guy she recalled hearing others refer to as Ivan, a few people she didn't know, and, last but not least, the guy with the chilly aura who looked even more intense now. He clearly thought he was too good to be here and seemed to resent every second of it.
So why accept the invitation?
"Take your positions," Baxter murmured, distracting her from her thoughts as he watched the runners turn the corner toward the starting line.
She lined up and took her mark, noting that Rebecca was a good distance behind Trent now. Which meant, Izzy was going to have some catching up to do.
It’s fine. This is what you do...who you are, she reminded herself. She closed her eyes for a second and drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly through her nose.
Get there. To the space where nothing else exists. Feel the blood pumping through your veins. The power spreading over you.
She opened her eyes just in time to see Trent blow past her and hand off his baton to Ice-boy. That fit. Trent had already shown his abilities, proving to be both strong and quick—albeit not as quick as Professor Baxter. The fact that this other kid still thought he would reign supreme as anchor only supported her theory about him being too cool for school.
Her feelings of goodwill and not caring about winning as a team evaporated, leaving behind a burning desire to pass that finish line in first. She'd been dealing with snooty Jessica and her snide comments all morning. She wasn't in the mood to deal with yet another person with an attitude.
The wait for Rebecca was probably only ten seconds, but it felt like an eternity. The second their hands grazed, Izzy snatched the baton and took off like a shot.
She sucked in a breath and blew it out, focusing only on the movement of her body. The muscles in her legs. The metronome-like rhythm of her motions. The bleachers went by in a blur as her speed increased and she clicked into the sweet spot with an almost audible snap. Nothing could stop her. She was invincible here, in this space.
A black shirt snagged her attention just a few yards ahead in her periphery now, but she stayed focused as she cut through the air like a knife. Black in front, black in front, black on the side, pass black…
And then she did it. For a single instant, she tipped her head not ten degrees to the right and locked gazes with Ice-boy.
Her steps faltered and, all of a sudden, the piston-like perfection of her limbs in motion felt awkward and wrong. Like someone had thrown a cog in the wheel.
No. No, no, no…
Frantic, she poured it on, willing her legs to cooperate and move faster, but by the time she found her rhythm again, Ice-boy was crossing the finish line with her pulling behind a not-so-distant second.
Bitter disappointment filled her mouth like bile as she slowed her pace to a trot and then a walk, circling back around to where the other runners were still trickling in.
“Good job. If you stayed in the zone, you’d have had him, Izzy,” the Professor murmured, reaching out to pat her on the back. She nodded and set the baton down on the bleachers as Ice-boy jogged lightly back to where Baxter stood.
“Excellent showing, Jake.”
So, Ice-boy had a name.
Jake.
She tucked that away in the event that there was a voodoo doll making class on the horizon and turned away. But not before she caught the Professor’s next words.
“Your mother would be proud.”
She turned back just in time to catch Jake’s steely stare in response. Oookay, then. Apparently, even winning and compliments from the professor didn’t improve his mood.
Duly noted.
“Just FYI, running isn’t my primary power,” a low, husky voice intoned flatly as she began to walk over to where Rebecca and Molly stood on the sidelines, waiting.
She turned to find Jake standing there, brow raised as he looked down on her. For the first time ever, she found herself wishing she was taller than her already above average five seven and straightened.
“Good for you!” she said without missing a beat. “I’m fresh out of medals, though, sorry.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“No medal necessary. Maybe if you focused on trying to excel and beat your own best time instead of worrying about what anyone else is doing, you’d have more success.”
He strolled away without a backward glance and left her staring after him. Who the hell was this kid, and what was his damage?
“You were so good!” Rebecca shouted as she and Molly crowded around her, eyes wide. “Like, I’ve never seen anything like that. You could barely even tell your legs were moving they were going so fast. It was like real superhero stuff! If we hadn’t slowed you down, you could’ve beaten him.”
But even as she smiled and accepted her teammates’ compliments with grace, a gnawing sense of unrest settled deeper into her bones.
If she wasn’t even the fastest kid in her group, never mind the school, how was she going to be able to maintain her scholarship?
Chapter 7
Izzy was still reeling from her loss when Professor Baxter announced that the strength tests would begin.
“First up will be the bench press. Gather in this area,” Baxter said as he pointed to a large open area in the enormous weight room. There was equipment for any type of exercise that Izzy could imagine in the room, and it was at least triple the size of the one at her high school.
Lifting had never been her forte, so she didn’t feel nearly as much pressure to perform as she had in the race. She had barely been able to keep up with Sam in most exercises when she was back home. How could she expect to beat someone with a physique like Jake’s or Trent’s?
Sam.
She missed her friend and made a mental note to write to her ASAP.
“My assistant, Connor, will record your lift and we will be testing you for improvement as the year progresses,” Professor Baxter continued, gesturing to a man off to the side with a notebook. “I know that some of you aren’t going to be noticeably stronger than a normal person, but you will learn, in time, to use your ability to augment your strength. You should see this as a way to establish a baseline so that you can gauge how much you improve at using your ability. Try to show us the maximum you can lift for one repetition. First up is Isabelle, Jake, and Molly. The weights that are pre-loaded, plus the bar, currently weigh about 100 pounds. You may add some if you already know you can do more. Set up your starting weight and I’ll pair you up with spotters according to strength.”
Jake shuffled quickly over to the bench and nonchalantly added a few hundred pounds to each side. Izzy tried not to roll her eyes and added forty pounds to hers, knowing that her max was 140 pounds but hoping she could push it further. A wary-looking Molly left the bar as it was.
“Trent, you pair up with Jake. Rebecca, pair up with Molly. Ivan, you pair up with Isabelle,” said Professor Baxter.
“How do I even do this?” Molly asked, staring at the bench in bewilderment.
In the moment that it took for Trent to walk over to her bench and show her, Jake lifted his bar, so full of weights it actually bowed in the middle a little.
“Six hundred,” Connor said with a clipped nod. Izzy’s breath caught in her throat.
“Next time, wait for your spotter, Jake, I don’t want any injuries on my hands. The medical team already has their hands full with the Elemental types today,” Professor Baxter said, not looking very impressed.
“Just trying to get the work done,” Jake said, his tone short, “I’ll wait next time, though.”
As Jake casually added more weight to the bar, she got into position, determined to at least beat her personal best. She lifted the 140 pounds with more ease than usual and added five pounds more to each side. As she was putting the weights on, Molly was removing weight from her bar.
“You got this, Molly!” she shouted, waiting to watch Molly lift before she went.
Molly strained, face contorting and arms shaking, but managed to complete the lift.
“Eighty pounds,” the recorder said, recording the weight in the log. Molly pumped her fist in triumph.
“Good job, Molly,” Izzy said. Rebecca patted her on the back, grinning, as she got off the bench.
“Good work,” Jake said, looking sincere, “you really pushed it to your limit. You’ll get better if you keep pushing hard like that.”
Izzy got back into position and gave Ivan a smile, which he returned as he held his hands above the bar, at the ready. It was a struggle, but she managed to lift it. She set it down and raised her arms in triumph at surpassing her personal best as Connor said, “One fifty.”
“Nice,” Ivan said with a nod.
Rebecca came over to give her a high five and Molly said, “Wow, I wonder if I’ll be able to lift that much eventually.”
“I’m sure you will, just a year ago I was maxing out at about eighty.”
Izzy glanced over at Jake and got a thumbs up from Trent. Jake, however, was getting into position wordlessly for another lift. She exhaled heavily, trying not to let her annoyance get to her. At the same time, she couldn’t figure out what he had against her.
Jake kept his face totally composed through the lift and his arms never wavered. Trent’s eyes were wide and he grinned as Jake completed the lift.
“Nice! Seven hundred.”
But he didn’t stop there. To the amazement of the rest of them, he just kept adding. Jake’s final lift, and the weight that was recorded in the book, ended up being eight hundred pounds.
“Can I go next?” Trent asked, his grin gone now and his face a mask of concentration.
“Sure, everyone switch places with your spotter.”
“I’ll start with six hundred, first,” Trent said while taking a few weights off of the bar Jake had been using.
Izzy, along with the rest of the class, was watching intently. She crossed her fingers as Trent began to lift the bar. His face was red and his arms were wobbly, but he managed to lift the bar.
“Six hundred.”
Trent smiled as he began to put more weight on and Izzy noticed him glancing in her direction. Rebecca had removed some weight from her bar but it was still too much. She needed Molly’s help to get the bar back down safely. After removing a bit more weight, she managed to just barely complete one repetition.
“Sixty-five.”
She walked over to Izzy, sweating profusely. “Phew, glad that’s over,” she said with a grin. Izzy gave her a high five. The girl probably weighed less than 100 pounds and was only fifteen years old, so 65 pounds wasn’t bad at all given that she didn’t seem to be the weightlifting type anyways. They both turned to watch Trent when he started trying to lift the bar.
After about ten seconds of grunting and pushing himself to get the bar up, he needed Jake’s help to lower it. “Thanks,” he said, “I’ll get you in the next exercise.”
“I’m not worried about it.”
Of course he wasn’t.
The rest of the strength testing went about the same way. Trent was chasing Jake’s numbers, though he never quite beat him, and everyone else was far behind. By the end of the testing, Izzy was ready to tear her hair out. Jake had done the most in every strength test, in addition to beating her in the race. The words at the end of the Nightgrove contract loomed large in her mind.
The Administration at Nightgrove Academy reserves the right to retract a student’s scholarship at any time, for any reason.
She resolved that she would make the races as one sided in her favor as the strength tests had been in his by the end of the semester.
“Good work, class,” Professor Baxter said after the last test concluded. “Feel free to head to the lunch room to grab a bite to eat, we will resume in an hour.”
An hour should be long enough to soothe her wounded ego with food. Then, she’d be in a better headspace to really compete during afternoon class.
“You should eat lunch with us,” Izzy said to Molly as they approached the cafeteria.
“Sure. Hopefully your roommates aren’t as smelly as mine,” she said, touching her nose with a smile. “I can turn it on and off a little be
tter, nowadays, but since it started this past year, it’s been tough getting used to.”
Izzy chuckled and winced simultaneously. She hadn’t even thought of how everyday scents might be overwhelming for someone like Molly.
As they entered the lunchroom and saw the lasagna that was on everyone’s plates, Izzy’s mouth began to water. Before going up to get food, however, she found the rest of her roommates, with the exception of Jessica, eating at the same table as last time and waved.
“Hey, guys, this is our new friend, Molly.”
Molly looked at Max and her eyes lit up. “I love your hair. Super punk rock. Your shampoo smells nice, too, is that honeysuckle?”
“Yea, it’ll look even better once these scabs go away,” Max said, itching the side of her half-shaved head. “How’d you know what kind of shampoo I use?”
“In high school, they called me The Nose. I have a really good sniffer.”
Aiko, who looked as sweaty and tired as Izzy, asked, “So, guys, how was your class?”
“It was interesting, I’m not as down on my power as I was before. Our professor is really awesome and he told us that, as Enhancers, we will likely be able to build all of our physical abilities up, not just the one related to our primary power. It gives me hope that I will be able to do some amazing things with some time and discipline. How was yours?” Izzy asked.
“It was friggin sweet! Sloane taught us how to force our powers to work. Look!” She put her hand out and a tiny ball of fire rose and puffed out before it got even an inch above her hand. “He says it’s like a muscle that we have to keep using to make it stronger. Speaking of muscles, we had a workout session after he showed us that. He’s sooo strong.”
Izzy laughed and turned to Max and Ashley, who were talking to each other quietly. “How about you guys?”
Ashley’s cheeks turned pink. “See my shirt? She had me and the others trying to move a pen, but I accidentally blew it up,” she said while pulling her shirt up a bit so they could see. “It got on the professor, too, and she let us out an hour early because she wanted to clean it off. She is not happy with me, needless to say.”
Nightgrove Academy Book One Page 6