Heroes 'Til Curfew (Talent Chronicles #2) (7 page)

“We were so worried about you last night!”
Kat was talking a mile a minute. “Eric said that Dylan said you
were okay, and that you totally kicked some ass. No surprise there,
but—”

“Volume, Kathryn,” Heather reminded. She
probably didn’t even have to use her mind-reading to pick up on
Joss’s worry that someone would overhear.

“We’re all just glad you’re okay,” Matt
said. And then to me, “You should have called me. I would have
helped.” He jammed his fist into his open palm aggressively.

“Oh yeah, what would you have done?”
Prep.
I almost said it, but I didn’t. Matt meant well, and I
guess it wasn’t his fault his mother dressed him like that.

“I’d have told them to all go fuck
themselves, of course.”

Since Matt’s Talent is putting thoughts into
people’s heads, which sometimes results in them being compelled to
do his bidding, the visual this brought on had everyone cracking
up.

“There’s, um, that other news. That Joss
might want to hear about before the bell rings,” Elizabeth’s quiet
voice barely cut through the laughter.

“Oh, right,” Kat said. “Kevin—what was his
name?”

“I forget,” Eric said.

“I don’t think we know his last name yet,”
Heather added.

“Yeah, okay. Some freshman Talent got taken
last night.”

I muttered an expletive, but Joss was
silent. She probably had a tally in her head about how many had
been taken since the beginning of school—or of time, for all I
knew. She might even know the exact rate of increase in the
disappearances in the last several weeks. There had been a lot.

“Do you know what he could do?” I asked.

“There’s a rumor going around that his
Talent was blood-typing,” Eric said.

“That just sounds gross.” Kat made a
face.

“Apparently there was no bleeding required.
He could just touch someone and be able to tell their blood-type.
You know they always do that lab in Bio? There was some girl who
didn’t want her finger pricked, so he just told her what kind of
blood she had. Some of the kids claim he guessed theirs and then
they did the test to confirm it and he was always right on.” Eric
shrugged. “I figured he was just a good guesser. I guess NIAC
didn’t.”

“That sucks,” Maddy spat.

“Chivalry is a risky business,” Eric said.
“Hope it was worth it.”

* * *

Joss

Singled out and called out of class again.
At least it wasn’t Dobbs this time, the guidance counselor from
Hell. As I made my way to the nurse’s office, I indulged in the
huge yawn I’d been holding back in Chem. Lousy nightmares kept
waking me up last night. If that wasn’t enough to put me in a mood,
it was another one of those days when everyone was whispering about
another Talent being taken, and that so set me on edge.

Yeah, I should really just be happy I wasn’t
on my way to Dobbs’s office to talk about my feelings.

I turned into the doorway of the nurse’s
office and—
whoa, that is not Nurse Judy’s butt.
Not
unless some flesh-eating virus came and ate half of it
.

The woman bent over the filing cabinet was
about half the size of Nurse Judy, and maybe half her age, too,
though it was hard to tell since I didn’t spend too much time
analyzing women from this angle. She was wearing a short, white
dress, white stockings, white comfy shoes, and when she
straightened and turned to me, tossing a long, red ponytail over
her shoulder, I saw that she was even wearing the cap!

Excuse me, is it Halloween again and
someone forgot to tell me? Who
does
that?

“Hello,” she said, smiling at me with bright
red lipstick. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you yet. I’m Ms. Chambers,
the new nurse.”

That must have been in response to the
dumbstruck look on my face at 50s pin-up nurse lady. I made sure my
mouth was closed. “Oh. I’m Joss Marshall.” I extended my hall pass.
“You called for me?”

“Joss. Jocelyn? Yes, of course, dear.
Please, have a seat.” She extended her hand toward a chair and we
sat down on either side of her desk. “I’ve been perusing some of
the student files, familiarizing myself, and when I came across
yours I found it…troubling.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t be sorry, dear,” she told me, as
though she actually thought I was apologizing for troubling her,
which we both knew I wasn’t. Why do people do that? “I’m very
concerned about these injuries Nurse Judy noted in your file
recently.”

Damn.
I kept my expression carefully
blank. After that fight I’d had with Marco, Dad and I had agreed
that we should try to downplay what we were calling a car accident
as much as possible. We didn’t want to deal with a doctor’s
questions, so I didn’t see one and didn’t get a note for PE. But
then when I tried to tough it out in the gym, Coach Penley could
tell something was wrong and I’d wound up getting poked at by Nurse
Judy.

“Oh. Well, I’m doing a lot better. All
better, really. And I’m wearing a seat belt all the time now, even
in the back seat. Trust me.”

“Well that’s good to hear, dear.” Did she
have to call me “dear” every time she spoke? Seriously, what was
she, like, five minutes older than me? “But these kinds of
injuries,” her open palm bounced up and down in the air above the
file, “are consistent with…”

She didn’t finish. We just sat there in
silence until I finally broke and raised a brow at her.

“Is anyone hurting you, Joss?”

“No.”

“Maybe someone at home, someone here at
school, someone you know, someone you care about?”

“Ms. Chambers, I was in a car accident. But
that’s history now.”

“You have an abrasion on your forehead.”

I started to reach up but then made my hand
lie still on the arm of the chair. I’d gotten a nice scrapey bruise
at some point when Corey was slamming my face into that wall. Mom
had covered it up with makeup this morning, but I guess it was
wearing off.
Great.

“I was getting a box from the stockroom at
my parents’ store. It was heavier than I thought and hit me in the
head. But it’s fine. No big deal.”

“How often do you work at your parents’
business? How many hours a week would you say?”

That was the beginning of a really annoying
Q&A involving a lot of personal questions about my family which
I answered. No sense giving her a hard time. That would make her
more suspicious when I just wanted out of there and for her to file
that file.

“And your boyfriend, Dylan Maxwell,
everything okay there?”

“Dylan’s not—”
Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa. Was
that in my file? Not damn likely. So what the hell?

“Jocelyn, Dylan’s had his problems, I know.
Often a boy like that will—”

“Ms. Chambers! I got a pretty banged up knee
here,” a deep voice called out from behind me.

I turned in my chair as the nurse got up and
moved around the desk. Coach Penley was helping some guy I didn’t
know limp into the room. Blood ran down from his knee to his
sock.

“Well ouch!” Ms. Chambers exclaimed in a
higher-pitched voice than she’d been using a moment ago. Kind of
like she was talking to a baby or pet. “I’ll bet that didn’t
tickle. I’m sure it looks worse than it is. Coach, why don’t you
help him sit down in the examination area over there and I’ll be
right with you.” She turned to me. “Jocelyn, I’m not finished
speaking with you yet. I won’t be long, so please wait right
there.” Then she disappeared behind the screen.

Coach Penley came out. “Joss,” he said, and
nodded at me. I raised my hand in little wave and he walked
out.

Alone at last.
I reached across the
desk for my file.

“Ms. Chambers?!”

I jumped in my seat, yanked my hand back,
and turned to see Bella limping into the room.

“I’m with a student!”

“I…went for a run last night,” Bella rolled
her eyes at me, “and turned my ankle. Can I get some ice?”

“Of course, dear. Have a seat and I’ll be
right with you.”

Bella limped over to a padded bench beneath
the windows along the side of the room and plopped down on it. She
just sat there, staring at her outstretched feet, and didn’t look
like she had anything to say to me at all.

I got up and sat down next to her. “I’m glad
I’m getting a chance to talk to you,” I said, pitching my voice low
so it wouldn’t be heard on the other side of the curtained divider.
“I gotta thank you for what you did last night. You really saved my
ass.”

“Yeah, like literally,” she said snidely.
“But I didn’t do it for you.”

“Okay…”

“Look, don’t think we’re friends or anything
just ’cause I helped you out. It didn’t have anything to do with
you. It’s just…Marco’s, like, obsessed with you, did you know that?
He talks about you
a lot
. I see him watching you when you
deign to show yourself in the cafeteria. And I’m not the kind of
stupid that thinks him getting a piece of you is gonna get that out
of his system. Not hardly. So if you want to thank me, you just
keep this in mind, okay? Marco is
mine
.”

Uh, yeah, okay. Welcome to him.
I
couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say.

“Don’t give me that look. Like Dylan’s such
a prize. Invisibility? Give me a break. When NIAC comes to town, am
I gonna want to be with the guy who can beat them all down without
breaking a sweat, or the guy who will disappear to save his own
ass? Think about that.”

I really didn’t need to think about that,
because Bella’s conception of the personalities in question was
clearly at odds with reality. But was this what it was coming to?
With all these Talents being taken, the paranoia rising, was this
how kids were going to start thinking? I remembered what Heather
said to me after Kat’s party, about the Talents wanting to group
together, feeling safer with their own kind. And here was Bella,
pretty much willing to prostitute herself for that false perception
of safety.

Damn.

“Bella…” I began.

“Vivian?” Mr. Dobbs strolled in with his
hands in his pants pockets, his cardigan bunched up over them, and
his Looney Tunes necktie hanging on the outside. He didn’t seem to
notice us sitting by the window.

“Neil?” Ms. Chambers hurried out from behind
the screen. Dobb’s smiled hugely, grabbed her around the waist,
pulled her to him and just laid one on her.

“Is this the
Twilight Zone?
” Bella
asked.

I kind of hope so,
I thought,
because this is a reality I don’t want to contemplate.

The public display of affection went on,
gaining momentum. There was groping. Finally, Bella coughed
“Gross!” into her hand.

Dobbs immediately released Ms. Chambers. So
immediately that she almost landed on her ass. He was bright red as
he whirled toward us. “Girls! I didn’t see you there.” He took off
his glasses and began furiously polishing them with the end of his
tie.

“Obviously,” Bella drawled.

“Joss, we can continue our conversation at a
later time,” Ms. Chambers said briskly, smoothing her naughty nurse
dress. “Let me get you a hall pass.”

“I have the one from earlier. I’m sure it’s
fine.” I just wanted to get out of there.

“All right, dear. Bella? Shall we see about
that ice?”

“Sure,” she was saying as I was skulking out
the door, trying not to look at Dobbs. “We could probably all use a
little cooling off.”

* * *

Joss

I was all kinds of jumpy when I turned the
corner of my stairwell at lunchtime and saw Dylan sitting in my
hideout. First, it was because I still wasn’t used to anyone
showing up. For years this spot, at the top of a dark, winding
stairway in the older part of the school, had been reliably
ignored. It seemed its popularity increased along with mine.

I had mixed feelings about that: people bad,
Dylan good. Which was what the other jumpy was about.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that he
showed up. He wouldn’t want to chance running into Marco and his
friends in the caf’ today. And maybe he knew me well enough to know
I wouldn’t really want to be alone, after the news about that Kevin
kid. Just because I always was, just because I was used to being
alone, didn’t mean I really liked it that way. Did he know
that?

I flopped down beside him on the landing and
dug our lunch out of my bag.
More likely he’s just following his
stomach.
Since Dylan had his big friend break-up with Marco and
was occasionally avoiding the cafeteria scene up here with me, I’d
started packing more food. I felt weird about it, because bringing
his lunch seemed kinda girlfriend-y and I didn’t want to
seem…whatever. But the boy had to eat, didn’t he?

“What have we got today?”

“Turkey and Swiss on wheat, mayo for you,
hold the tomato, and some spinach.”

“So I can grow up big and strong?”

I didn’t know how to answer that one. I
kinda
had the feeling Dylan was a little…put off, maybe, by
the fact that my brain could bench press more than he could. It was
on my long list of
Why Dylan Isn’t Into Me
. “No whining,
just eat it.”

“Yes ma’am. And for you,” he pulled a soda
can out of each pocket, “diet. I don’t know why you want to drink
that stuff.”

“‘Just for the taste of it.’ It’s what my
mom sneaks into the house sometimes.”

“So…” Dylan drew out the word and then took
a bite of his sandwich and chewed for a bit.

Usually he sat across the landing from me,
leaning against the wall, with one of his legs spanning the
distance between us. Today he chose to sit next to me. Right next
to me, so even if I tried not to look at him, his arm brushed mine
every time he moved and our legs were almost touching. He
would
do that today, when I was all wound up about him all
over again.