Learning that the others had decided to spy on the Blues and purposefully kept it from her had made Priya feel left-out and lonely. The feeling had come on so powerfully she’d almost committed the unpardonable sin of crying in front of Rod.
This had never happened to her before. Priya had always fit in sweetly with any group she found herself with—assigned study groups and summercamp kids and boyfriends’ friends. That night, however, lying in bed in Stephanie’s guest room, she realized that this was the first time fitting in had come in conflict with her principles. Once she thought of it that way, it was actually pretty impressive that she’d chosen her principles.
That sounded like a self-serving myth, but she was pretty sure it was true anyway. It made her feel better, though she was still faced with the depressing thought that if she embraced having enemies, she’d have more friends.
The next day she woke up past noon. She thought about going home—she’d have to move back before her parents returned anyway. But instead she lolled in bed watching movies on her laptop. When Connor texted, she asked him to leave her be for the day. She didn’t want the reminder that he was the only one who liked her.
Two and a half movie-lengths later, someone knocked on the door.
“Connor, I told you…”
“It’s not Connor,” said Stephanie’s muffled voice. She inched the door open and stuck her head inside. “I was worried about you. Normally you just pop up in the morning. Like a daisy.”
“Thanks. For worrying, I mean. I just didn’t feel like a daisy today.”
“It’s been really fun, having you live here. Like being in college and having a roommate. You like it here too, don’t you Priya?”
“Steph, why didn’t you tell me about the spying?”
“I knew it would make you upset.”
“And then I’d try to stop you.”
“Well yeah, that. But mostly I just didn’t want you to be upset. I don’t think anyone should be upset if they don’t have to be.”
“Then why did you agree with the spying idea in the first place?”
“If the Blues surprise us again we’ll all be upset.”
“That… makes sense, I guess.”
Stephanie smiled. “Come on. Everyone’s out back.”
“I’d really rather stay here and finish watching this movie.”
“Seriously, Priya. You have to come out. Can’t you feel it? This is gonna be one of those good nights, when—when—” Stephanie shook her hands in the air as she tried to come up with words “—when everyone’s ready at the same time.”
“Ready for what?”
“For fun.”
#
Priya had to admit, when she got outside, that Stephanie was right. She could “feel it.” The Reds gathered in the backyard were talking and loud-laughing and there was electricity in the air (should she be using electrical metaphors these days? It seemed vaguely disloyal.) This was the sort of atmosphere she usually appreciated more than anything, a bunch of people wanting and waiting and willing to enjoy themselves. Connor grinned when he saw her.
People were doing tricks. Somersaults, backflips—with their strength, the Reds could all jump at least as high as they could on a trampoline. To get bigger reactions from the crowd, boys threw themselves higher and higher until Harry crashed to the ground, which got the biggest reaction of all, whistles and applause and stomping.
Rod threw Stephanie into the air. She flew up startlingly high, but she was too busy kicking her feet and laughing to do any actual flips. Rod caught her on the way down. “Come on, Steph, I wanted to see you twirl.” For once his smile didn’t seem to have any aggression in it.
“Priya used to do gymnastics,” Connor announced.
She pushed at his arm, but not too hard. “I told you that in confidence, Connor.”
“Ha. You’re smiling because you can’t wait to show off.”
“I haven’t done it since middle school…” But even as she said it she stepped out in front of the crowd.
And even though she really hadn’t done gymnastics seriously in years and years, it came back to her smooth and easy, like her strong new body had been waiting to show what it could do. She ran and jumped—so high!—and did a double flip. She landed neat and solid on her feet and immediately jumped again, whirling in the air.
“Yeah, Ya-ya!” Rod shouted. Then he threw back his head and yelled “Ya-ya-ya-ya-ya!” like a battlecry. Soon everyone was yelling it, and it was actually kind of cool.
When she went back to stand beside Connor again, she was so energized she couldn’t keep from bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“You know what we’ve never done since we moved into this place?” asked Rod, who was standing next to Connor with his arm slung over Stephanie’s shoulders.
“What?” asked Priya. She was surprised to realize that yes, she actually thought Rod might have a good idea. It felt like that kind of night.
“We’ve never had a fire.”
###
TEXT MESSAGE FROM ELIAS KAPLAN TO KSENYA CARPENTER:
It’s time. I’ll pick you up in forty minutes.
###
“Is Danny around?” Kess asked Lorraine.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“He and the other guys are at the store picking up supplies. Why do you ask?” Lorraine was in the living room, sitting on the floor with her back against the couch and her sketchbook propped against her knees. Kess walked up next to her so she could see what she was sketching. Whatever it was had lightning in it, along with lots of wonky M.C. Escher angles.
“Um, that looks physically impossible. I don’t think anyone could sculpt that.”
“Not even with your super-smart science skillz?” (Kess could hear the sarcastic ‘z’.)
“I’ll just text him,” said Kess.
“I’m sorry,” said Lorraine.
“What?”
The blue-haired girl sighed and set her sketchbook down. “I know I should be friendlier to you. You’re a nice person. And your freaky eyes really helped us out last night. And by ‘freaky’ I mean, you know, awesome-cool.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Kess perched on the arm of the couch. “It’s cool that you apologized like that. Most people wouldn’t.”
“Well, there shouldn’t be tension between two of us, you know?”
“Two Blues?”
“Yeah. Why do you want to talk to Danny?”
“I need advice.”
“I can advise,” said Lorraine, not looking up from her sketch.
“Um…” Kess hadn’t even considered asking the other girl for help. “Okay. My friend—you know my friend—wants to go out tonight.”
“How romantic.”
“No, not like that. It’s about, you know, investigating things. We’ll be driving pretty far and it’ll probably take all night. I wanted to ask Danny if he thought I should go, because I know he was worried the Reds might do something to retaliate for us taking down that Stephanie girl.”
“So when you said you wanted advice you actually wanted permission.”
“I guess you could put it that way.”
“Is Danny the boss of you?”
Kess considered the question. “Yes?” she said, tentative. “Is he the boss of you?”
“Probably.”
Kess laughed. Lorraine looked—surprised, maybe? And gratified, like she hadn’t expected Kess to get her sense of humor? “Just stay here tonight, alright? Don’t ask Danny, he’ll tell you to follow your heart or some crap like that. We let Danny be the boss of us because he’s a good person with an air of gravitas, but goodness and gravitas don’t actually give a person a command of tactics.”
“And you’re a tactician? Lorraine, you’re going to art school.”
“Ha. No I’m not.”
“What?”
“You really think any of us are going to college?”
“I am. I’m going to study physics at MIT.”
“You’re really not, though.” Lorraine leaned her head back to look at Kess, and her blue braids flopped across the couch cushion. “How long do you think we can keep this up? How long do you think we can keep our families from finding out about our powers? Have your parents noticed your hands?” Lorraine held her hands up with her palms facing outward, showing off her silver-coated fingertips and the two darkmetal stars.
“They haven’t been around.”
“Well, mine have, and so have Danny’s, and so have most of the others’. I told mine they’re a body modification thing and they’re temporary, like getting a spray-on tattoo. I told them it’s the latest trend. My mother tried to look it up online and couldn’t find anything and I told her that’s because it’s so cutting edge.
“We’ve been pretending that life is normal, just with this extra element layered on. It’s amazing we’ve kept it up so far, but it can’t keep on forever. Do you think we’re going to go back to school and sit beside the Reds in class and infect the entire student body without anybody noticing?”
The things Lorraine was saying—all that horrible future stuff—made Kess feel like she was falling down a bottomless pit. So she pulled the conversation back onto its track.
“I really do need to go, though. I can only stay here tonight if I really, really have to.”
“So when you said you wanted permission you actually wanted vague affirmation.”
“I guess you could put it that way.”
“Do you know what will happen if we end up needing your eyes and you’re not here? Do you know what that will do to Danny?”
“No one’s gotten really hurt so far. You guys will be fine.”
Lorraine frowned, more with her eyebrows than her mouth. “Alright, let’s do storytime for a minute. When the boys and I were ten, my brother Ollie—he’s off at college right now, that’s why he isn’t involved in all this—he persuaded Danny to help him steal my plastic pony, Princess Twiggy. To get her back, I had to sing a song that Ollie wrote. But before they gave her back to me, they drew a skull and crossbones on her side with a marker which Danny definitely and Ollie probably thought would wash off. It did not. I was truly and deeply devastated. I used to have bad dreams about it. It took me a while to get over.
“A couple months ago—this is seven years after the pony incident—Danny told me that it comes back to him sometimes, in a flash, and he feels just as bad as he did that day. Danny regrets things like no one you’ve ever met. And now he feels responsible for all the Blues, so anything bad that happens to one of us will cause him pain his entire life. I just don’t want him to regret anything else, okay? Something bad and dangerous is going to happen tonight.”
“Um, how do you know? Have we been spying on the Reds, too?”
Lorraine sighed. “No. Danny wouldn’t let me. But I can feel bad things coming.”
Before, when Lorraine had seemed impossibly cool and Kess was desperate for her approval, she might have simply accepted that. But now they were maybe actually starting to be friends, and Kess felt she could push back a little. “You’re not psychic, Lorraine. You’re just artsy.”
Lorraine didn’t seem offended, but she did fix Kess with a stare that pierced through the lenses of her cat’s-eye glasses like hot light. “Stay here, Kess. And don’t call Danny.”
#
Danny thought she should go. “It’s obviously important to you,” he said.
#
The fire filled Stephanie’s backyard with shifting red light. Priya stood looking into the flames, and Connor had the stupid thought that the moving light made it seem like she was dancing. She looked up and saw him staring at her, and then she smiled. She glanced around, probably noticing that no one else was paying attention to them. Rod was in the middle of a story and was getting laughs, which got him talking louder and making bigger, wilder hand gestures, which pulled in more laughing people in a social loop.
Priya smiled again and walked away from the fire, to the trees behind the yard.
Did she want him to follow her? What was the point of all the smiling if she didn’t want—
She looked back at him over her shoulder. She wanted him to follow her.
They walked into the trees. They were alone, in the dark, together. He could barely see her in the spillover firelight, but when she clutched his t-shirt in her hand he felt her fingernails through the fabric.
This is happening, said a voice in his head. Why is this happening now?
Because she’s rewarding you, said another voice that sounded a lot like Rod. For taking her side in that argument last night. That’s what she does. That’s how she makes sure you agree with her and do what she says.
Priya pushed his chest, not hard, and his back hit a rough tree trunk. She hooked her hand around his neck and pulled herself up and kissed him. All the voices of Connor’s mind dropped dead.
Someone shined a bright white light in their faces. It shot through Connor’s eyelids.
“Looks like you two are enjoying yourselves,” said Rod. “But we had an idea for something even more fun.”
Connor blinked in the glare of Rod’s flashlight. The rest of the guys—Harry, Jason, Miguel—were standing around him. Priya didn’t jump away from Connor or act embarrassed at all. In fact, she leaned into him and put her arm around his waist. “Rod,” she said, “this really isn’t the time.”
“But it is, Ya-ya. It’s the only time.” He grinned and flicked his flashlight off and on like he was trying to give Priya a seizure.
“We’re going to hit the Blues,” said Harry.
“Hit them how?”
“Probably with our fists,” said Rod.
“We’ll break some windows or something,” said Harry.
Priya rolled her eyes. “Connor’s not going with you.”
Connor felt his neck go stiff. “I didn’t say I’m not going.”
“What? No, Connor, you’re staying.”
“Come on, Ya-ya. Let him go. You saw what they did to Steph.”
“Steph was spying on them.”
“And after they caught her,” said Rod, anger flashing across his face, “they shocked her. Just because.”
“She doesn’t have to ‘let’ me go,” said Connor.
“Exactly,” said Priya. “There’s no point trying to persuade me because he doesn’t want to go.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to go.”
Priya pulled away from Connor, looking confused. “You want to stay, right? I—I assumed.”
She assumed he’d do what she wanted, and when he didn’t she stopped touching him.
Connor turned to Rod and the others. “Let’s go.”