Reject High (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 1) (19 page)

“What’s your code name?” she asked me.

Code name?
I stared at her. “Rhapsody calls me ‘Cap’.”

“Good night, Cap.” She patted my sneaker, saying “Cap” like she was proud. For once, it didn’t make me want to gag.

“Wait!” I said to her. “What about Sasha? What do you think?”

Debra didn’t say anything about it, which was more a blessing than a curse in my book.

The next morning, following our church service, I pulled Debra aside. “Can I go over to Sasha’s for lunch?”

She snapped her head to attention. “What?”

Even when I take my meds, asking for permission is hard for me – especially when it’s something I really want to do. It caught her off guard.

“Sasha’s. . .can I go?”

“Sure. As long as I meet the Andersons next time.”

I’d been dating Sasha for three days, and the only way I knew she had parents was their pictures on the mantle. She looked like Joyce in the eyes and cheeks, and she had her dad’s nose. I looked at Debra.

She glanced at me, then up at in the air.

“No,” I said. “Remember, kid UFO? Not in broad daylight. One of our rules.”

“Our?”

I kept quiet until we got to the rental car. Once we were on the way to Sasha’s, I explained. “My rule, really. But there’re four of us.”

“Four?”

I crossed my arms. “We’re all different.”

“You’re all different?” she asked in a high-pitched voice. “Who are they?”

“It’s probably a good thing if you don’t know that.” It wasn’t just my secret to tell – Rhapsody, Sasha, and even Selby had a right to privacy. And if Debra turned on me, I’d bear the consequences, not them. “That okay?”

She sighed, turning into the upscale development. “I guess it’ll have to be, for now.” 

The front of Sasha’s house was even more impressive during the day. Neatly-trimmed landscaping complimented the home’s dark red brick facing and white door archway. Debra drove up the long driveway and stopped short of the open garage door.

“Hi!” Sasha greeted us with a wave. She wore flowery pink and white shorts and a matching tank top.

“Jason, hold on for a minute.”

I stopped with the door half-open. “Yeah?”

“When I was your age, I wasn’t a saint. I admit that.”

This sounded like the start of a sex lecture. “Okay.”

“I know Sasha likes you, and you like her, probably a lot. And she’s not. . .like you anymore.”

She was right. “And?”

“Wait.
And call me when you’re ready to come home.”

She trusted me? I didn’t know quite what to do with that.

After Debra pulled off and I stepped into the garage, Sasha pressed the button to close the door and invited me inside. We kissed in the doorway, and she showed me to the dining room, where Rhapsody chowed down on some Lo Mein. She’d washed her face free of makeup, straightened her hair, and dressed in regular clothes – a black and gold halter top and a pair of jeans shorts. She’d been to see George. But why was her neck bare?

“Where’s your crystal?” I asked with a mixture of curiosity and anger. “Was it Selby?”

“Not Selby,” she calmly said. “I gave it away.”

I slapped the table, which crackled beneath my growing strength. This wasn’t happening.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

our enemies become not so clear

This didn’t make sense.

Peters, who had already tried to kill us once, was out there. Selby had disappeared a day ago. Welker and Spivey had some plot against us, and she
gave
away her lone piece of protection? I had to know
why.

Sasha rubbed my shoulders until they loosened again. “Sorry about the table,” I said.

“You didn’t break it. I don’t
think
you did, at least.”

Confused but starving, I helped myself to the brown rice and delicious General Tso’s chicken she’d ordered while Rhapsody confessed.

“Pápa fell into a coma yesterday,” she said. “Ruby called in a priest and everything.” She teared up and Sasha handed her a fast-food napkin so she could blot her eyes. “So I gave it to him when we were alone – thought it might help. Now he’s not in a coma.”

Anyone who saw Rhapsody with George could tell she’s a daddy’s girl. There was no way we’d talk her into getting the crystal back – especially if she was convinced it had healed him. Couldn’t it have been God, or something else?

That left Plan B, which was borderline suicidal without Selby and Rhapsody. Sasha and I would have to do the heavy lifting. “Alright.” I gobbled up what was on my plate and stood up. “Might as well do it now.”

“Do what?” Sasha was the clueless one this time. “Wait, go to Reject High? It’s locked up.”

I cracked my knuckles. “Not for us, it’s not. Will your parents be home soon?”

She looked worried. “Dad’s in Chicago. Joyce’s at some event that starts at one. Rhapsody can stay here. If she comes home, just make up something, okay?”

“Yeah. Sure. ‘Hey, Mrs. Anderson, I’m a kid you don’t know eating your food’. Right. That’ll go over well.”

Sasha shook her head. “Nah. She won’t even notice you.”

Rhapsody carried the weight of her decision on her face. She knew what she was asking me to do by going back to the source, and someone might get hurt covering for her. The last time I touched the crystal in the dungeon’s wall, it knocked me out cold. But if Peters or Welker caught my friend without one, she could die. Rhapsody needed another piece of emerald crystal, and we were the only people who could get one for her. 

“Have you figured out how to clone clothes yet?”

“Yes!” She punched my shoulder. I probably should stop sharing embarrassing things about my girlfriend in front of other people. “We’re out Rhapsody.”

“Alright,” she said.

I waited until we got outside to ask her the next question. “Where does Selby live?”

“Midtown. . .Delancey Street. Why?”

We needed to make a pit stop. “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the best plan, but it was
something.

I needed a lookout. Before she gave away her crystal, Rhapsody would have been perfect.

At least I had Sasha – her left brain side could come with me in case I got into a bind that I couldn’t figure out quickly enough. Her clone could be an extra pair of eyes. Both of them needed to be bulletproof, like me. And the one
other
thing I remembered about Selby was that his father is a cop – cops have bulletproof vests.

“He’s got one, I bet,” Sasha said. “In his gun room.”

Since she’d dated Selby, Clone Sasha could distract Officer Selby. Original Sasha could sneak in the gun room and get a vest. It was a risky, dangerous, and stupid plan, especially if Mrs. Selby was home. We knew that.

I wish we could be sure Selby’s dad would be on duty. Then, the house would be empty. Short of me smashing up everything, we didn’t have any other options on such short notice.

Delancey Street was in the heart of Midtown, so I concentrated on getting us behind the rock-climbing section of Centre Park. We landed softly – a split-second before a climber reached the crest of his climb, where he might have seen us.

For all the jumps I’d been doing in public, I half-expected some secret government agency to pay me a visit someday.

“You’re getting a lot better at that,” said Sasha of our in-air trip.

Hand-in-hand, we walked, pretending we’d been doing so for hours instead of minutes. My stomach growled, and she patted it. Using my powers had burned up my plate of chicken and rice, and I was ready for some more. Food would have to wait.

“Ever wonder where these crystals came from, what they’re for?” she asked me.

“Lots of times.” They seemed to help people – me, Rhapsody, George, Sasha, even Selby – not hurt them. Debra was alive because of them. Wherever they came from couldn’t be all that bad.

“I mean, why
us?
That basement’s been around for a long time. Why did
we
find it, and nobody else did first?”

Hmm. “I don’t know, Sasha.”

She perked up. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. You’re
flying,
not jumping.”

That floored me? “What? No way!”

“I figured it out one of the times I split. Think about it. You’re not landing because you’ve lost the ability to stay in the air. You’re coming down because you
think
you should.”

“How you figure?”

“The same way I put clothes on my clone. Now, I can reproduce anything in my closet. Make up your mind to do it a different way, and see what happens.”

“Right.”  I junked the idea.
Flying? I’ll stick to jumps.

Four street blocks later, we reached Delancey. “His number is. . .13251,” Sasha said. She struggled to remember it, which made me happy.

Sure enough, there was a police cruiser parked at the curb. I passed it, touching the painted black hood – it was cool. Sasha knelt between it and the car in front of it to clone herself. Both girls stood up – Clone Sasha wore the outfit I’d seen Original Sasha in a minute ago, and Original Sasha was in a pair of black skinny jeans and a baggy white t-shirt.

“Alright,” said the Sashas at the same time. “We’re ready.”

Original Sasha picked her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed Selby’s home number. No one answered, even after the machine picked up and she left a message.

By then, Clone Sasha was up the steps and ringing the doorbell. I helped Original Sasha over the fence and into the alley, and then I followed her. She pointed to the back window, which opened into the Selby’s master bedroom.

That’s when Clone Sasha screamed.

I rushed to the fence, hopped it, and found her convulsing with fear. She screamed at the top of her lungs and pointed inside. Through the brown tinted glass, I saw two bodies lying in the foyer. They were face down, unmoving.

“Hey!” someone yelled from a few houses down. “What’s going on down there?”

I covered Clone Sasha’s mouth and practically carried her onto the street and around the corner. I hoped Original Sasha had enough time to get a vest and to find out what really went on in the Selby’s house. Calling the police would have been the right thing to do, but neither of us did it.
Man, I wish Rhapsody hadn’t given up her necklace. We could use her right about now.

Around the corner, Clone Sasha vanished and Original Sasha appeared, out of breath and shaking. She had a Kevlar vest in her hand. The only thing I understood from that she said, was “. . .bodies. . .ripped apart. . .awful smell. . .”

Running four blocks with her wasn’t happening. We found the most heavily-wooded area around to mask our liftoff and jumped for Reject High.