Hush Money (5 page)

“Oh! Niiiice.” I couldn’t help but crack a
smile at that. It was the kind of jab I’d make at myself. It was
kind of ok to have her make it instead.

“So come on. I know Krista must have had a
Talent. She wasn’t the first kid to ever be taken to a State
School, but she is the first one I ever met.”

“She wasn’t the first one from around here,
ok? There have been…a bunch.”

“What’s a bunch?”

“I don’t know. Enough so it’s a thing here. A
thing we don’t talk about. Enough so we start to think there must
be more. And we wonder if the person sitting next to us is hiding a
Talent.”

“And there’s probably a bunch of Talents
around wondering if the person next to them is gonna figure them
out and turn them in.”

I took a bite of pizza while she was talking,
not caring how it burned the roof of my mouth. At least she
couldn’t read anything from my expression except
Oh my God,
cheese burn!
Kat bit into hers too, with more care than I had,
and we ate in silence for few minutes. But of course I knew she
wasn’t finished.

“So these kids who disappear, they never come
back?”

“No.”

“No letters? Phone calls?”

I wiped my mouth, trying to figure out what
to tell her and thinking that Dad was so right about how having
friends would just complicate my life, make me constantly have to
decide what to say and what not to say.

“A long time ago, there used to be some
letters. But they were censored. You know, lots of lines marked
through with black marker so you couldn’t read them. Then there was
this big deal where someone managed to reconstruct what had been
censored. I think it was someone with a Talent who did it, but I’m
not sure how it happened. It was just a flash in the
media—something that came out and was hushed up really fast. Most
major news outlets, papers and stuff, didn’t run it. It would be
hard to track down anything about it now.”

“But you heard about it.”

“Like you said, I listen a lot.”

“Ok, so the reconstructed letter. What did it
say?”

I looked around. I didn’t know why I was
telling her this stuff. I had this feeling like I
wanted
to
tell her. It wasn’t like I was getting more comfortable with
talking to her. But it almost felt like some kind of release to
tell her, to talk to someone about this stuff I knew. It was weird,
but I liked it. So I was going to keep going.

“It talked about what it was really like at
the State Schools. Like prison. It talked about working the kids to
improve their Talents, but like hard. Like you can make your
players do laps to get them in better shape, or you can make them
run until they drop and then kick them until they get up and make
them run some more. It was like that. It talked about experiments.
Torture. Food and sleep deprivation. Just all kinds of horrible
stuff. That sense that everyone has that they do
not
want to
go to a State School, despite what the government says about
helping Talents? The Koenig Letter—that’s what they called it—is
part of that. Even if they missed it when it happened, that’s what
started the rumors flying. That’s when NIAC became the
Boogeyman.”

“Wow, you even remember the name.”

I flushed.
Damn.
“Yeah, well, it’s
just, living here where it’s been more common, I guess it’s more
interesting to me than it is to other people. Plus, I’m good with
names. I know a lot of crap.”

“Uh huh. Yeah, I guess I can see that. So
after the…whatever Letter thing, then no more letters?”

“Right. Supposedly the point of the State
Schools is to help kids with Talents control them—so they don’t
hurt anybody. And at first that’s mostly who they took.” Part of me
was telling myself to shut up, but I was just in it now, wanting to
be able to tell someone how wrong it all was. “But that didn’t
cover the kids who didn’t electrocute the cat, or shatter all the
windows, or start f-fires—” I took another drink so I could
swallow. “But they wanted control over all the kids. So they said
that scientists should have access to all the Talents. That’s when
they made it mandatory for parents to report their kids. But since
the ‘dangerous’ Talent kids never came back, who’s going to do
that, right? Not a lot of parents did.

“Then, not too long after that, came the R.J.
Smith Elementary School Disaster. Allegedly there was one psychic
kid who could put thoughts in other people’s heads. You’d think he
would have made himself the most popular kid in school, but I guess
he wasn’t really bright. He had some family problems, and other
kids made fun of him because of that, so rather than change their
minds, he got back at them by screwing with their heads. Scaring
the hell out of them. Until some of them started killing in
self-defense—against whatever was in their heads—killed each other,
a teacher. It was a whole big mess.”

“My God.”

“Yeah. Total psycho little kid. So there’s an
example of a Talent you can’t really see, and that you wouldn’t
necessarily
think of
as going to go out of control. Not like
toddlers who turn the babysitter into a popsicle. But obviously
people can still be hurt by stuff like that, so the government
says, that’s it, we don’t know what the kids can do, what they
will
do. They’re just kids, and we need to look out for all
of them in a controlled environment. So that’s when the scare
campaign really got going and, unlike the Koernig thing, the
government was all over publicizing the Smith School Disaster. They
made it everyone’s civic duty to turn in Talents. So now it wasn’t
just parents, it was teachers, day care, neighbors, anyone who saw
a kid use a Talent should report it. Because if something awful
happens, it’s gonna be on your head.”

“I never heard that before. But then, my
parents aren’t really into talking about national events and
politics and stuff. We hardly ever even watch the news.”

“It was a long time ago. Like when we were
really little, I guess. I bet if you ask your parents, they’ll
remember the school thing.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She gave me that look again,
that sort of assessing look that made me nervous. “So, you really
can talk when you get into it. It’s a different you. You’re
all…animated.”

Yeah, great, thanks.
“I should go.
Saturday’s busy sometimes. My parents might be swamped.” I pushed
my chair back.

“Ok. Look, Joss, thanks for telling me this
stuff. I’m sorry I’m so pushy. I get that it makes you
uncomfortable.”

“No big deal.”

“I’m sorry for that crack earlier about
who’re you gonna tell.”

I shrugged. “It’s true enough. Don’t worry
about it.”

“Yeah but, I was kind of hoping that we could
be friends.”

I opened my mouth to ask her why, but then
shut it again. That’s what she expected me to say; that was how she
was going to keep me here, talking to her. And who knows what I’d
say if I did that.

“I should go. Thanks for lunch.”

Joss

There were footsteps on the stairs, heavy and
quick, jogging up, then down again.

False alarm.

I went back to my book. I was sitting on the
uppermost landing of the stairwell at the end of the science wing.
Fairview High was a Frankenstein Monster of a building, with all
kinds of additions grafted onto an old building. It was a desperate
attempt to keep up with the times, without actually tearing it
apart and starting over. My spot, the one I had found in the first
months of my freshman year, was in the older part of the school.
The stairwell was one of those dark, steep, wrap-around deals, far
away from everything else that it didn’t get much traffic. Most
kids just stuck to the more central stairs.

This landing I was perched on was the end of
a road to nowhere. The stairs continued up, past the second floor,
for no apparent reason. I think maybe they meant to put in a roof
access door or something like that, but it didn’t happen. So there
was no reason for anyone to come up this far. Plus, because of the
way the stairs were all but stacked on top of one another, you
really couldn’t see from one landing up to another. Although you
could see down if you leaned forward and looked through the
railing. All in all, it made it a really great place to hide and
get a little peace in the chaos of Hell on Earth. Which I really
needed, regularly. That’s why it was My Spot.

I wasn’t supposed to be in that part of the
school so early in the morning. No one was. But it was one of those
days when the pouring rain was so bad that they couldn’t make
everyone stay outside until the first bell, so they had to let them
all into the lobby and the gym. School, after all, is a place of
learning, and you can’t just have students roaming its halls. Who
knows what might happen? But, even when they open up the gym, it
gets really crowded and there are kids, like me, who always manage
to escape the corral. Even if it means manipulating a locked gate
or two along the way.

I heard the footsteps again, slower this
time, and a few more of them. My heartbeat picked up as I shoved
the novel back in my bag and reached for the Chem text. After all,
maybe the appearance of scholarly duty would soften the heart of an
over-zealous Hall Monitor and save me from detention.

But since when did Hall Monitors travel in
packs?

Marco rounded the corner and stopped as soon
as he saw me. He was clearly surprised. In the next moment, when he
started up the steps toward me and that predatory smile started to
spread across his face, you could tell he was pleased in his evil
way.

“Hey, Joss…You know…you’re not supposed to be
here.”

I suck at this, I really do. There must be
some way, some right thing to say to diffuse this and make him go
away. But I didn’t know what it was. During the recent cafeteria
incident I had tried not saying anything, but that hadn’t worked.
So this time I went for mild sarcasm.

“Huh. You don’t say?”

Marco sneered at me and continued up the
steps, made a show of easing himself slowly down to sit beside me.
And of course, since I was leaning against the railing and there
were only four whole feet of floor beside me, he had to sit right
up against me.
This is what crawling skin feels like, when your
whole skin wants to crawl away from something noxious, whether the
rest of you is coming along or not.
I wasn’t about to give him
the satisfaction. He’d probably make himself comfortable and bug me
until the bell. I could deal that long without shoving him down the
stairs. Probably.

Jeff came up next, pulling some girl behind
him. Some girl who seemed reluctant to follow. He pulled her up
onto the landing and pushed her back into the corner. Not a shove,
not violent, but it was a push. I felt a flare of something, rage
or human decency, probably some combination of the two. But I
breathed in and beat it down. Whatever this was, it was not my
business. Still, it seemed not good, and I was starting to feel
uneasy about more than just Marco occupying my personal space.

In that moment, before Jeff blocked her from
my view, she looked up.

I jumped back on instinct, right into Marco
who used the opportunity to throw his arm around my shoulders. I
don’t think Trina saw me. She might have seen a flash of someone,
assumed Marco was watching them. Leaning away from Marco again I
took a chance, leaned toward the railing again and peeked through
the bars.

Jeff had Trina completely caged, almost
completely hidden by his tall body. I could see part of the side of
her, one leg, covered in black tights below her skirt, bent at the
knee, her whole body sort of trying to turn protectively away from
him. His hand skimmed up the sleeve of her light jacket, caught the
strap of her bag that she wore over one shoulder, and pulled it
off, dropping it to the ground beside them. The move tugged her
jacket and sweater out of place to bare her shoulder. She didn’t
move to fix her clothes, but she didn’t look at him either.

Beside me, as my stomach clenched, Marco
leaned into my ear. “Do you like to watch?”

I wanted to ask him what was going on, but I
was afraid to turn my face toward his, afraid and disgusted by the
intimacy of our conversation as well as the scene below us. I was
afraid to ask because I was afraid to know. Because knowing for
sure that something was wrong would morally obligate me to act to
stop it, wouldn’t it?

And I couldn’t do that.

Jeff leaned in and was saying something to
Trina. Her face was turned away, toward the corner, but I could see
her body language, see her cringe. Unconsciously I mimicked her
movement. That caused Marco to chuckle softly. He lifted his arm
from around my shoulders, but before I could be relieved, he
quickly shifted his position, sliding up and back, getting one leg
on the other side of me. He wrapped his arms around my waist and
hauled me back snug against him, dropping his chin on my shoulder
so that we were both looking over the railing.

Somehow I had let that happen. That
disgusting pig had his whole body wrapped around mine and I just
sat there and took it. I didn’t shriek, throw him off, pummel him
senseless—all the kinds of reactions that I would never allow
myself because they would draw too much attention. Maybe that
doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I’d spent my whole life learning
to tread as lightly as I could, always concerned about not making
anyone notice me. If I started yelling my head off and teachers
came rushing to my aid, I’d have to explain why I was up here
illegally in the first place. They’d remember me. I’d be on their
radar. Other kids might see or hear, start wondering aloud why I
was up there with Marco in the first place. Start talking about me,
noticing me. I couldn’t have that. I had to stay cool.