Heroes 'Til Curfew (Talent Chronicles #2) (13 page)

“Are you new? Have you met Joss?
That
was a display.” Kat turned back to me. “Spill.”

I huffed, rolled my eyes, and started a
rapid mumbling that began with my stupidity at lunch the day
before, and ended with, “and then I got to school this morning and
he kissed me, big deal, and told me about Kenny, and we were both
upset about that, which is what you saw. The End. Moving on—”

“Kenny. Not your fault, by the way,” Heather
said.

“Thanks, but—”

“So, wait,” Kat interrupted, “oh my God, I
can’t believe you asked him that, that is so not you. But it kind
of is. Okay, so last night, what
exactly
did he say?
Everything.”

“Kat, give the girl a break. He likes her,
she likes him, he’s her boyfriend, she’s his girlfriend, they’ll
live happily ever after. You’re embarrassing her.”

“Easy for you to say. I’m sure she hasn’t
been thinking of anything else all day and you’ve just been eating
it all up. Mind-readers,” Kat scoffed.

“Actually, Kat, I
have
been thinking
about something else today. I wanted to talk to you guys about
organizing. You know, like you were saying you wanted.”

“Ohhh, is that why we’re here? We’re all,
like,
under-ground
.” She did the air-quotes thing.

“Yeah. I wanted us to have a place to meet
where we wouldn’t have to worry about anyone listening, or making
connections between us. These tunnels are for the maintenance of an
outdated heating system that’s been replaced. They run all over
below the college. There are only a few access points that can
still be used, and there are some places where the tunnels are
blocked. The point is that they’ve gone unused for years and no one
seems to remember that they’re here.” And here I was, not only
revealing another one of my family’s secret safe-zones and
rendezvous points, but giving a historical tour. Awesome. Dad’s
head would explode if he found out.

At that moment we all jumped to the sound of
the grate scraping overhead.

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Dylan called down
before starting down the ladder. “Stupid detention.”

“Have you and Eric learned a valuable
lesson?”

“Yes, Miss Heather. Spitballs are wrong,
even in studyhall. We will
never
do it again. Maybe. Crazy
substitutes, the word ‘championship’ means nothing to them. Did I
miss anything?”

Be glad you missed the third degree.
I was certainly glad he hadn’t been around while I was trying to
explain “us.”

“Just Joss filling us in on your
luv
connection,” Kat teased.

“That’s cool,” Dylan said easily, leaning
down to give me a peck on my red cheek, “I’m already up to speed on
that.”

That something could be so embarrassing and
so completely awesome at the same time was really confusing.

“Where’s Eric?” Kat asked, looking up at the
grate. I started sliding it back into place. “Didn’t he come with
you?” When Dylan hesitated to answer, she whipped her phone out of
her bag. “I’ll call him.”

“Just—hang on a sec, Kat,” I said. “I…didn’t
ask Eric to join us. It’s just gonna be the four of us.”

“What? Why?”

Oh damn, I did not think this
through.
Suddenly, by the look starting to form on her face,
that much was clear. I should have realized this might be a
problem, but I just didn’t
get
this kind of stuff like I
needed to.

“Okay, see, it’s like this: the problem with
the setup at the Pit the other day, the reason I got so pissed at
you guys, was because the risk of exposure there was huge. Not only
was it a public place, but the group itself was way too big.”

“Those are our friends! At least, they
think
you’re their friend.”

“Hey now,” Dylan said, “slow down, Kat. Hear
her out.”

I liked that Dylan defended me, but at the
same time, I kind of wanted him to keep out of it.

“I am their friend.”
I guess.
“Look,
I’m not saying we’re not going to take care of our friends. On the
contrary, that’s the whole
point.
That’s why I asked you
guys to come here and talk about this. I want to talk more about
ways to take care of ourselves, how to be more aware of who’s
around us, of what we say…I want us to find ways to work together,
to share information, maybe find ways to get more. Hopefully,
eventually figure out ways we can warn each other if trouble’s
coming, maybe call for help if we need it.”

“Yes, please, take your own advice on that,”
Heather said. “If you hadn’t happened to walk by my house the other
night…”

I felt Dylan get tense. “Yes, like that. And
thank you for sending Dylan to save my ass. But let’s drop
that.”

“But I don’t get it. If you’re all about the
sharing, why is it just us four?” Kat wanted to know.

“Because what we’re talking about is too
important to be passing around casually. We need to be very careful
about how we handle the flow of information, to be sure it stays
with us, our friends. We can’t rent out a banquet hall and have a
Talent convention to fill everyone in at once. That’s too
conspicuous, and it opens too many of us up to risk at the same
time. We need to keep it more on the down-low, let it filter
through a network. Maybe something where each person only contacts
two or three other people, you know what I’m saying?”

“Like a phone tree?”

“Maybe. We’ll see. I don’t have this all
worked out yet. But that’s why I want to keep it just the four us,
who I know I can trust—”

“You don’t
trust
Eric. Maddy, Matt,
Elizabeth?”

Damn it. Someone pry my foot out of my
mouth.
I wondered if I was ever going to get better at the
talking thing.

“After all the times he’s helped you out?”
Kat added.

Because it really was just about her
boyfriend.
“Kat, I didn’t mean—”

“Dylan, Eric’s your friend. He’s been loyal
to you. What do
you
think about this?”

“I’m, uh, sure that Joss has a reason for
her decision. A good one.”

Yeah, and you sound
so
certain
about that too.

“It’s too many people,” I repeated. “Maddy,
Matt, Elizabeth, Eric…Who else, Kat? How many people do you think
we can fit down here? How many can disappear through a hole in the
ground before someone notices?”

“I guess I can see your point about that.
But it’s stupid not to include Eric. We need him. I’m gonna call
him.”

“Heather can’t vet him,” I said. I so did
not want to go into this, but Kat was going to force me.

“Huh?”

“Look, just hear me out. You guys came to
me, okay? You said you want me to organize us so we can take better
care of our own. It seems like we’re losing Talents left and right,
and we don’t know how NIAC’s finding out about them. So you’re
right, we can’t just sit around and watch them pick us off.”

“You’re changing the subject,” Kat said.

God forbid I talk about what’s
important.
“No, I’m not. I’m getting to the part where what we
do
know is what Dylan and Rob found in Mr. Dobbs’s computer
weeks ago: that he’s using his position as a guidance counselor to
spy on us while he’s also working for NIAC, and that they’ve also
got someone undercover, posing as a student. So when we’re talking
about organizing, it’s not like we can have a master list with the
names and phone numbers. Each person who knows what you can do is a
risk. Even if they’re totally trustworthy, who knows what happens
at NIAC after they leave? If they get a Talent who knows one or two
other Talents, maybe they get one or two more kids. If they get one
who knows about them all…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get that part. But what do
you mean about Heather?”

“Heather doesn’t know who the mole is. She
thinks, and I agree, that this guy—or girl—probably has training to
block psychics like her. She can’t tell me who the mole is, but she
can tell me who isn’t. It’s not you. It’s not Dylan. It’s not me.
And I’m just gonna take it on faith that it’s not Heather because
I’ve got no choice. But Heather can’t read Eric. So she can’t say
it’s
not
him.”

“That’s bullshit! You’re convicting
him—”

“No one’s convicting anyone!” I hissed,
trying to keep my voice down and remind her to do the same. I had
so screwed this up. “Look, I didn’t
ask
for this. You guys
came to me, and it’s a huge responsibility you’re putting on
me.”

“Don’t do us any favors.”

“Kat, cut it out,” Heather said, “we need
her.”

“And I’m not going to take chances with
kids’ lives just to make nice,” I went on. “It’s not like we’re not
voting him into some social club. It’s not personal, and he’s not
missing out on anything by not being here. I’ve got nothing to
apologize for and I’m through talking about this. Take it or leave
it.”

“I think I’ll just leave it to you guys.
You’re all so smart and awesome, I’m sure you’ll save us all in
spite of all our stupidity.”

“Kat…” I moaned as she started climbing the
ladder. I was trying to put myself in her place. Was I being
unreasonable? No, my logic was sound, I knew it was. I knew I was
right.

But that was me being Joss, looking at it
objectively. What if I had to look at it as Dylan’s girlfriend?
What if I had to consider that he might be working for NIAC?

What if someone tried to tell me that one of
the people I trusted most might be out to destroy me?

I shuddered and Dylan put an arm around my
shoulders, hugging me to his side and rubbing a hand up and down my
arm. We all flinched when Kat dropped the grate back into place
over our heads.

I’d like to think I could look at things
just as objectively, but I leaned into him and knew that I
wouldn’t.

Why hadn’t I seen this coming? I’d picked a
team based on what I wanted, what I felt comfortable with, and
hadn’t thought about them at all. It had already led to disaster.
This was supposed to be the brain that was the best hope of the
Talents of Fairview?

“Yes,” Heather said aloud, in answer to my
thought.

“Well, then, we’re all screwed.”

* * *

Dylan

“Where are you taking me?” Not that I really
cared. Heather had left, we were alone in the dark, and Joss was
holding my hand. But I was still kind of curious. The beam of her
flashlight bobbed ahead of us as she made a series of turns through
the tunnels.

“Not far.” She found a door—somehow—and
pushed it open. Once she had closed it behind us, she left me and
knelt in down a few paces away. A moment later, the space was dimly
lit by the battery-powered lantern on the floor.

It was a small room, but I couldn’t really
get a sense of the dimensions. There seemed to be a lot of large
machinery in the shadows. The open area I was standing in was maybe
four feet square. Near the lantern were boxes labeled “MREs” in
thick, black marker. Those are the kind of nasty, non-perishable,
instant foods the military uses. I’d seen them for sale at the
Army/Navy. There were some cases of bottled water and other
supplies I couldn’t identify just then. And there was an army cot
set up with some blankets piled at the end of it. That’s where Joss
was sitting.

Nice love nest you got here.
It was
almost out of my mouth, but I caught it in time, and silently
congratulated myself for not teasing Joss.

“This is another one of my family’s
safe-zone, rendezvous point deals. There are a few more cots, first
aid supplies, some food and water, extra clothes, stuff like that.
I think it will make a good hiding spot if we ever need a place to
stash someone until we can get them out of town.”

“Um, yeah. Does your family have a lot
of…places like this?”

“Like this, with all the gear? Not really.
We’ve got a lot of meeting places in general. My dad likes
contingency plans.”

This was hardly the first time I wondered
what it was like to be Joss, to grow up with a father whose
obsession with hiding his daughters from NIAC seemed to make up the
bulk of their childhood experience.

“It’s not something I want to share with
anyone else, until we have to, but I was thinking that I probably
shouldn’t be the only one to know about it.”

It wasn’t like Joss to use so many words to
say, “Let’s keep this between us.” It made me think she was
nervous. Sometimes I really liked that I made her nervous.

“Okay,” I answered. Simple, no pressure. I
flopped down on the cot beside, but not right up against her, and
leaned back against the cold sheet of metal behind me.

We were silent for a moment before she said,
“I can’t believe what an idiot I am. Why didn’t I see that
coming?”

I patted her hand where it rested next to
her on the cot. “I’m sure it’ll all blow over.”

“Seriously, I still don’t understand it.”
Her hand slipped away as she turned to sit sideways, facing me. The
dim light was on her face, but beyond her there was nothing. “That
was supposed to be a serious thing, you know? We’re supposed to be
trying to save ourselves from State School. It never occurred to me
that people would want to bring dates. It’s just so…ugh!” When she
threw up her hands, the cot bounced a little.

I shrugged, trying not to smile too much at
how cute she looked when she was frustrated. “Some people get weird
when their friends, or…significant others, don’t get invited to the
same stuff they do.”

Her brows drew down. “Are you upset that I
didn’t ask Eric to join us, and that I don’t want him involved at
that level?”

I wasn’t sure how to say what I was
thinking, if I should say it at all, and I hesitated. That was a
mistake.

“Spill it,” she snapped.

“It’s not like that, it’s more... I just
hate it, you know?” I heard a venom in my voice that I didn’t want
to use around Joss, but couldn’t seem to even it out. “I hate that
we have to think that way. That we have to make choices like that,
be suspicious of our friends.”