Clothing-stuffed backpack over her shoulder, Cara rang Hayley's doorbell for her ride to school. There they would get on the charter bus that would take the team onto the mainland and finally into Boston.
It was so early it was dark out, with the first pale streaks in the sky; Cara was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes when Hayley's mother answered the door with her lips lined in purple and her hair done up in a sixties beehive.
Hayley's mom ran a beauty salon along Route 6, a salon with a lot of fake flowers in it where young women got their nails done and old ladies got their hair washed a lavender color and set into wavy helmets. Cara and Hayley had asked her what the reason was behind that old-lady blue hair situation, but Mrs. M never explained it too well. It seemed like a ritual from ancient times-the equivalent of a secret handshake. In any case, Mrs. Moore's own hair was always elaborate and tacky, like a Gaga wig but maybe without the irony.
"Come on in, Cara, hon!" she enthused in her Georgia accent.
It turned on into own and in into Ian. Come own Ian!
"Thanks," said Cara.
Hayley's mom often made Cara feel a bit embarrassed-though not as embarrased as Hayley felt. Mrs. M. was nice, no argument there, but she was also shiny and loud and stood too near, where Cara's mother was soft-spoken and, like a chameleon, always seemed to match wherever she found herself.
"Would you go on up and get her, sweetcakes? I'll be waiting out in the car," said Mrs. M, and pulled on a lumpy fur jacket Cara really hoped was fake. It had animal tails dangling.
Cara dropped her bags and took the stairs two at a time. Hayley was one of those people who always made you wait-at least, if she was involved in a momentous decision such as what to wear. In restaurants, she was the one still studying the menu when everyone else already had a plate in front of them.
"Hay! Time to go!" called Cara as she swung past the shag-carpeted landing and into the upstairs hallway.
Hayley's door was open, showing a wall of celebrity collages. She cut up the gossip and fashion magazines her mom's clients left in the salon.
"I'm coming! Geez," said Hayley.
In fact, she wasn't coming at all. She was posing in front of her full-length mirror, admiring herself in a leisurely fashion and rocking an eighties outfit. She had feathery earrings dangling from her ears and an asymmetrical, triangle-shaped coat that looked, to Cara, on the ugly side.
Of course, she would never say that to Hayley. It wasn't that Hay's feelings would be hurt or anything. Far from it. She'd just roll her eyes at Cara's poor fashion sense and give her a lecture on glamor and trends and the importance of retro. But Cara also knew that Hay's elaborate outfits were carefully chosen at thrift stores. They didn't have the money for brand-new clothes.
"We have to go now," said Cara. "It's a bus. Not a personal taxi service."
"So my goal is like an early Madonna, sleazy gutterslag kinda look," said Hayley.
"Nice," nodded Cara. "Yeah. I can see that. But let me ask you this. Did you pack your swimsuit?"
Hayley stopped popping her gum and snapped her fingers. She swished by Cara, down the hall to the bathroom (where everything was fluffy and/or made of conch shells and beach glass and a really bad poster showed two sets of footprints turning to one in the sand, along with some motto about Jesus carrying you) and grabbed a threadbare Speedo dangling off the shower rod.
"Good thought. Kudos," she said.
•
By the time they were getting into the car, Hayley was already irritated with her mom, who proceeded to grill them all the way to school-driving, as usual, like she was under the influence though all she was drinking was coffee-on the names and family histories of other kids on the team. Mrs. M was what you might call an extrovert. Extreme. She was sure to talk to everyone and bustle around everywhere, Cara thought. There was no way she'd fly under the radar.
"Rule Number One," said Hayley as they pulled into the parking lot. "If you absolutely have to talk to people, at least do me one favor. Or all my work on the popularity situation will be wrecked. Do not constantly remind people you're my mother. In fact, if you don't refer to it a single time, that'd be awesome."
"Hayley!" chided her mother with a smile, as though her daughter was joking.
"Keep the relationship, like, under wraps," said Hayley as they pulled into a parking space. "Because if you keep trying to tell humiliating baby stories about me, I'll have to end my suffering. All your years of bringing me up will be totally wasted in a tragic teen suicide."
"Honey, people already know I'm your mama," protested Mrs. M. "I mean"-Ah main-"I hate to break it to you, but that little kitty's already out of the bag."
"What I'm saying is, don't rub it in," said Hayley. "Let them forget a bit. You know what I'm saying?"
She popped her door open and shrugged her miniature backpack over her shoulders.
"Hi, guys," said Jaye as Hayley plucked her larger bag from the trunk.
Jaye was Asian-looking from her mother's side, pretty and slim; she stood with her duffel bag placed neatly on the ground beside her, light-blue iPod buds in her ears. Jaye could be timid, unlike Hayley; she was comfortable with her two best friends but not too great at reaching out to other, new people.
But what all the approving parents didn't know-when they patted her on the back to reward her for being an A student and also for not wearing shiny purple lip gloss like Hayley-was how independent she could be, despite the shyness. She was the type you could depend on to know things like CPR without ever bragging about it. Recently she'd tried out for the school play because her mother had thought it would be a good way to conquer her shyness; she'd done it even though it terrified her, and she'd gotten a small role.
Her parents were well-dressed and reserved: her dad was an engineer, and her mother ran a plant nursery. Compared to Mrs. M, Jaye's parents were distinctly unembarrassing.
"God, you're so lucky to be solo," said Hayley, apparently thinking the same thing. "I still can't believe my mom's tagging along. I'm having orphan fantasies."
"Well," said Jaye, and shrugged, "if you ignore them for long enough, sometimes they go away."
She and Hayley laughed, and then stopped and both looked at Cara guiltily.
"Oh, wow," said Jaye. "Slowly remove foot from mouth. I'm so sorry."
"It's all right," said Cara softly.
And it was true. It had been harder to hear things like that before she saw her mother and was reassured that she hadn't left them-or not because she wanted to, anyway.
Not that Cara didn't struggle with her absence. But at least it hadn't been caused by something that was wrong with their family. Hayley knew what had happened, too-that Cara's mother was out there fighting in some mysterious war, and had visited them; that there were more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy...(Max, usually a so-so student, had a thing for Shakespeare quotes).
But Jaye didn't know any of that. Cara and her brothers had talked to Hayley about it, and they'd all agreed not to say anything to anyone else-or not yet, anyway. The true story was too far-fetched, and Max, in particular, wanted to limit how many people heard it. Jaye's family had been away in Maine when the whole thing went down, and as far as she knew, Cara's mother had left back in June, and that was that.
Coach Essick was herding people into the charter bus, a tall black behemoth with a bright purple swipe on the side. The coach was a beefy bald guy who liked his swimmers to say daily affirmations.
"I'm a win, win, winner!" he said now, pumping a hairy arm. "Let's hear it!"
"...uh yeah, winner," mumbled one of the guys, half-asleep and sheepish.
The affirmations weren't always a big hit.
"In you get, girls!" said Mrs. M in her too-perky voice.
•
About an hour later the bus was crossing the bridge to the mainland, an educational video about reptiles playing on the TV monitor. Hayley was talking to older kids near the rear of the bus, at what she considered a minimum safe distance from her mother; Cara and Jaye were getting ahead on their homework in a seat near the front.
The text alert on Cara's phone went off. Jax.
Found source, read the text.
Wht source? she typed back.
"Lizards are robust, adaptive creatures...," droned the British narrator.
No reply.
He was probably busy.
She put her phone away.
"...but, due to global warming, at least 40 percent of the world's lizard populations are expected to go extinct by the year 2080. Overall, if current emissions trajectories persist, one-quarter to one third of all the world's species are projected to disappear by century's end."
"That's really scary," said Jaye quietly.
Cara looked into her friend's eyes. It was good to have Jaye beside her; Jaye understood a few things that Cara really worried about but Hayley didn't seem to be interested in.
"I know," she said.
"Hey, Cara!"
It was Zee, Max's girlfriend, leaning out of her seat a few rows back.
"Hi, Zee," said Cara, twisting around.
"Max said to keep an eye on you," smiled Zee.
"Huh," said Cara. "Thanks, but...there are kind of a lot of babysitters around here already."
They both glanced up to where Mrs. M was standing in the aisle and leaning over the double seat that held Coach Essick and Mr. Abboud. She stuck one hip out, swirled her egregious Garfield keychain on an index finger, and chattered gaily to the two men as Coach Essick grinned and nodded and Mr. Abboud stared miserably out his filmy window.
The poor guy had to avert his eyes, Cara realized: not only was Mrs. M not wearing a headscarf, but she was showing major tanned, freckled cleave, as Hayley would put it if she noticed. Cara didn't know whom to feel bad for-Mr. Abboud, Hayley, or Mrs. M herself.
"See what you mean," said Zee. She smiled again, and Cara thought she could see why Max liked her so much. There was a warmth to Zee-an easy friendliness. "But just so you know, I'm here if you need anything."
"Thanks," said Cara.
Her phone buzzed, so she turned around again, slipping it out of her backpack pocket.
Another text from Jax.
Where r u?
Sagamore Brij.
She waited till an answer came up.
Come get me.
Oh no, she thought. Now?
On bus! she typed. Y? HOW?
Scared tell no 1 plz come!
She spent the rest of the bus trip using her cell to figure out how to get to the Institute from the hotel, then from the big school where they were going to be competing. The team had its first races this afternoon, and she was supposed to be there, of course; but she wasn't slated to be in any of today's races unless someone swimming the backstroke fell violently ill. The relay wasn't until tomorrow-heats in the morning, finals in the afternoon if the team made the cut. Maybe, she thought, just maybe she could slip out without anyone noticing once they were all sitting there in the bleachers-at least, if people were focused on watching the races.
Distraction was the only way. If she distracted Mrs. M, she thought, she could do it. She'd have to distract her, because Mrs. M was directly assigned to her and Jaye and Hayley, among others. Cara could sneak out and get on the subway-it looked like there was a T station a few blocks from the host school, and then it was only a couple of stops from there to the Institute. She could take the T by herself-she'd taken it before, though admittedly with her mother or her dad-and go find Jax and bring him with her. Maybe she'd take him back to the meet; maybe she'd send him to the hotel room she'd be sharing with Hayley and Jaye. She'd work that part later.
But she was going to need Hayley's help, she realized, if she wanted to get away with it. There was no way Mrs. M would give her permission to take off. Ever since her divorce, she didn't even let Hayley walk around the neighborhood by herself, much less get on a public transit system in a city of millions. She was obsessed with true-crime shows and seemed to watch in morbid fascination when it was a show about a missing kid.
When the bus pulled into the parking lot of the hotel-a blocky place with not a single tree or bush in sight-and Mr. Abboud went to get them checked in, Cara waited till Mrs. M was busy flirting with Coach Essick again, then got out of her seat and went to the back of the bus to talk to Hayley, in the very last row.
She murmured in Hayley's ear about Jax, about how she needed a distraction so she could get away.
"Oh no," Hayley groaned. "The Sykes family drama strikes back! I don't want anything to do with my mom at the meet, and now you're telling me you want me to, like, try to get her attention? Just because your little brother is homesick?"
"It's not just homesick, it's-"
"But Car, come on! And plus I have a race today!"
Cara bit her lip. It was true: not only was Hayley racing in a couple of hours, but this was her worst social nightmare. She didn't know what she'd been thinking; she could almost kick herself.
Maybe...maybe she could ask Jaye? Normally she wouldn't, because Jaye was too shy to do anything that would draw attention to herself-Cara always thought of Hayley when she thought of drama. But maybe...after all, Jaye had had the guts to try out for the play when her mother encouraged her to; she was trying to conquer her shy streak. Cara went back up front, to where her friend was still typing away studiously on her laptop.
"Jaye? I was wondering if maybe you could help me," she whispered.
•
It was during a lull between races, the fifty-meter fly and the backstroke, that Jaye made her move.
Cara never saw it begin, but all of a sudden, a little ways down the bleachers, Mrs. M was comforting Jaye as she pretended to cry, whimpering something about not being smart enough. It was a bit of a stretch since Jaye was a solid A student, but Mrs. M had a soft spot for kids with anxiety, so Cara had figured it might work on Hayley's mom.
She felt a little guilty thinking like that, having to trick Mrs. M, but there was just no other way. Jax didn't have a mother like Mrs. M around to obsessively nurture him right now. All he had was Cara.
Then the harsh beep of the starting gun blared; the swimmers splashed off the blocks. There was an instant noisewall of cheers and yells, so deafening it was hard to think. She seized her opportunity, slipping behind Mrs. M and an eye-rolling Jaye and heading for the locker room. (Hayley had agreed to keep an eye on things, and if she had to she was going to tell her mother Cara was in a bathroom stall throwing up.) She'd stashed her backpack in an empty locker a few minutes before; now she went through the shower room and swung by to bang open the locker door and grab it. She was nervous, she realized, her stomach flip-flopping: maybe the sickness would turn out not to be a lie after all.
She left the changing room and walked down a wide hall of lockers and closed classroom doors, pack over one shoulder, shoes squeaking annoyingly on the linoleum and making her feel like someone was going to hear and come after her. (Even though, in this foreign-feeling school, no one knew her at all outside the cavernous, fluorescent echo chamber of the pool.) Classes were all in session, she guessed, because there was no one in the long hall and teachers' voices droned from behind closed doors.
She set the timer on her phone as she walked, so she could tell at a glance how long she'd been AWOL. Then she pocketed the phone and was outside, the double doors swinging to behind her.
She never did things like this. She never played hooky, and she hardly ever lied, except for what her mother called white lies, which were usually just politeness. Or not premeditated, anyway. Plus the subway...she was old enough-well old enough, clearly. Thousands of thirteen-year-olds took the T.
Actually it was pathetic to even be worried, she said to herself. It was just that she only came to the city for concerts and museums, mostly-to see The Nutcracker at Christmastime or go into her dad's old office when he was teaching at Harvard or the Museum of Fine Arts when her mother wanted to see paintings. At home she was comfortable getting around by herself because she knew her piece of the Cape like the back of her hand; she'd been practically everywhere on her bike. But that was the laid-back Cape. This was a major city, its long, crowded streets sprawling for miles around her, and here she was a stranger in a strange land.
Don't be lame, she told herself out loud.
Then there it was, the sign for the station. She was down the stairs, feeding her dollars into the machine to buy a card; she was checking the map and she was through the turnstile; she was on the platform.
And in fact it was completely mundane. This was the middle of the day, so there weren't any of the bustling, pushy crowds that filled the tunnels at rush hour and used to intimidate her when she was a little kid clinging to her mother's hand. A few people milled around, even a group of kids her own age, mostly guys plus one chunky girl wearing black and pink tights that had a picture of a zipper down the outside of each of her legs. Cara couldn't help staring at the zippers.
The kids were kicking some trash and laughing; some old men sat on benches.
She heard the faint rush of the train, and then it got louder and louder and she was gazing into the yellow glare of its oncoming lights. First she thought she might be hypnotized, and then she stood back-a panic briefly surged up as she remembered stories of people pushed off platforms and into the path of the trains-and was safe. She felt the air rushing past and saw the flickering blur of the side of the cars, one after the other.
She touched the nazar thoughtlessly, turning it on her finger as the silver and red flickering of the cars slowed and the train screeched to a stop. Into the flickering came a line of gray-a solid, straight column of gray, hovering there in front of the blur of the train windows with their rows of seated passengers' heads.
Then it was gone.
As visions went, this one was impressively boring, she thought, and smiled faintly. But it made her think the visions came when she had fingers from both hands touching the nazar. When the ring had been beneath her pillow, she'd had nightmares she couldn't really remember. They might or might not have had anything to do with the talisman, since the ring hadn't been touching her skin directly....
She wondered what a vertical gray line could mean. It was the same line she'd seen in her undersea vision, she thought, her vision of the source-had to be.
On the other hand, one gray line looked a lot like the next. Maybe it was more of a glitch than a meaningful part of what she saw, she reflected as the subway train's doors slid open and she stepped in. Like a hair on the film of an old movie, trembling in the light from the projector-something she often noticed when they went to see the vintage B movies her dad liked so much, back when special effects were idiotic looking, when slimy creatures rose groaning from swamps and muscular-looking mummies tottered around in filthy bandages.
That was probably it, she thought: a technical glitch. If technology could have glitches, then surely a vision could. Right?
As the doors closed and the train jerked to a start, she looked around for a subway map, wanting to make sure she knew where she was going. There it was, a couple of benches down: a red, branching line with the stops marked. She walked toward it. Briefly she thought she saw something bright reflected in the dark window of the subway car-something that flickered. But when she turned to look at the spot it might be reflecting from, there was nothing but a nondescript man sitting there beneath the subway map. She couldn't quite make out the words on the map, so she stepped toward it.
"Excuse me," she said, and leaned in a bit to read the names of the stations. Yep: two more stops, and they were already pulling into the first.
She straightened up, noticing for the first time that the car was almost empty. There was only that one man, sitting in front of her. How had that happened? She could have sworn there'd been other people around when she got on; they must have gotten out. The double doors were already closing.
She moved down the car as the train stuttered forward so that she wouldn't be sitting right across from the only other person there; that could be awkward. She sat down at one end of a three-person bench along the train's wall and glanced down at her phone to see if Jax had texted her yet.
No Service, it read.
No reception down here. Made sense.
Then she looked up again.
The man was opposite her. On the bench.
She hadn't heard any footsteps, she was sure, or seen him change seats.
She felt a jolt of fear.
Then again, he wasn't looking at her or anything. He was a youngish guy, maybe in his twenties, with light brown hair and bland, office-type clothing you didn't really notice. He was looking down, consulting a paper in his hand.
It was probably nothing to worry about, she thought.
She looked at the time on her cell. 2:33. She brought up a simple game and played it for a while. The next station was hers, anyway.
But then it turned out not to be a station. Rather, the train was slowing down in the tunnel. Had to be. It slowed down and lurched to a stop.
Her hands, she saw, were trembling slightly.
Nothing to worry about, she repeated to herself. Nothing.
She looked up. Around the train windows was blackness.
The man was still there.
And now he was looking at her. Something about his eyes weirded her out, so she looked away quickly.
"Guess we're stuck in-in some kind of delay," she said uncomfortably, to break the tension.
He said nothing.
Maybe he didn't speak English, she thought, or maybe he couldn't hear...but those were just excuses, she thought, and felt more and more anxious. Her pulse was racing. Could you change cars while the train was going? She was almost sure you couldn't. Your leg would get chopped off, or something.
It felt too tense. Plus it was hot, she realized, hot and stuffy; there was sweat beading at her temples and along the edge of her hairline. She forced herself to stand up and moved off again toward the front of the car. There was a rectangular window in the door that looked into the next car up; at least if she stood in the window, she guessed, someone might see her, and then the man couldn't do anything.
Right?
Through the window, the next car on the train looked empty. She didn't want to check the back window, because then she'd have to walk past the man again. Acting casual, she sat down on another bench.
Just then-what a relief!-the train made a screeching noise and moved, albeit at a pace that seemed painfully slow. It gained speed. It was way too hot for comfort now, though the heat didn't feel as oppressive when she knew they were getting somewhere again. Her phone said only two minutes had passed-two minutes that had felt like forever.
When she looked up from it, he was there again. Opposite.
No.
She looked away quickly, touching her ring in a nervous reflex.
Then his mouth was wide open and flames were roaring within. Flames. She jerked back in her seat and banged her head on the wall, her ears ringing. He looked at her without moving, smiling horrifically, and inside his open mouth there were no teeth. No anything. Except fire. It was like roaring flames-bright orange and hard to look at....
She jumped up and ran back along the car to the very end, not stopping even to breathe, and banged on the door-there were some passengers in the car behind, their eyes cast down as they read books or typed on handhelds, but none of them looked up at her as she banged on the window. Not a single one noticed her there, battering her fists against the Plexiglas panel...and somehow she couldn't say help. The word caught in her throat. There wasn't enough breath.
Now the train was slowing down-not another delay? Not another dead stop in the blackness of the tunnel? What would she do?
She didn't turn around-wouldn't, couldn't-but then she was looking at the window, the heels of her hands still hitting on it weakly, and instead of the passengers in the next car ignoring her, all she saw was him. Standing behind her with his fiery hole of a mouth.
Flames licked and burned in the empty face.
The doors sprang open. She turned to dash past him-fight her way past him if she had to, she was telling herself-but he was gone.
Everyday people were streaming in.
She ran up the many steps, half afraid the man with fire in his mouth was pursuing her, though she didn't exactly feel his presence anymore. Then she was out of the T station, trembling, a sensation of pinpricks on her cheeks and upper arms. She was relieved to be in the fresh, cold air.
Anyway, he was gone, right? He was gone now.
She leaned against a planter on the sidewalk beneath some big trees with dead leaves and tried to slow down her fast breathing. There was a subway map in a big plastic frame nearby, sticking out of the sidewalk; there were trash cans in casings of what looked like nubbly pebbles. It was gray and bleak around here. A few people walked past, but none of them was him.
He was gone.
She pulled out her phone-her heartbeat was still rapid, but she had to do something to occupy her while she calmed down-and brought up the street map with the Institute and the Kendall Square station on it. She had about three blocks to walk; it wasn't complicated. But the Institute itself, Jax had said, was in a building without a name on it, so all she had was numbers: a street address, a floor number, a room number. The kids shared rooms, Jax had said, and there would be a guard at the front desk, and if anyone tried to stop her she was supposed to duck into a stairwell and text him.
No new messages.... Should she call him?
She should check in with Hayley; it had been twenty-four minutes since she left the pool. She texted as she walked, asking if Mrs. M had noticed her absence. Not that it would change anything. Just that she might as well know.
Nope J, wrote Hayley.
So she dialed Jax next, still jangling with adrenalin from the memory of those dancing flames in the hole of that mouth.... Could it have been the nazar? Was it just the ring that had made her see that?
Maybe the flames hadn't been real at all-a hallucination, a vision about who the guy was. She'd only seen them when she reached down and touched the ring. Before that he'd been just a man, staring. Yes, maybe the ring had put that picture in her head. And the flaming mouth hadn't been real at all.
It was a relief to think so.
On the other end, as she held the phone to her ear and walked, Jax's phone rang and rang and went to voice mail.
The building's number was above its revolving doors in blocky, modern letters. She went into a high-ceilinged lobby with a bright white floor; a fattish security guard sat behind a high counter.
She heard the squeak of her sneakers again as she crossed the linoleum toward him. She was still on edge from what had happened in the T; it made her self-conscious.
"Hi, uh, I'm here to visit someone on the eighth floor? At the Institute for Advancement?" she said.
Jax had said tell no one-did that include this guy? And tell no one what, anyway? That she was coming to get him? Was she supposed to be sneaking in? But how could she?
No, she thought, he couldn't have meant that.
Anyway the guard barely paid any attention, just waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the elevators and turned a page in his magazine, so she walked past him and pushed the button.
Even on the eighth floor, where the Institute housed its teachers and students, there wasn't much to trumpet what it was. When the elevator doors slid open, all there was to tell her she'd come to the right place was a small plastic sign on the wall. I.A. Stes 800-898.
Jax's room was supposed to be 822. She walked along the corridor, watching the numbers on the doors rise.
"Why! If it isn't Cara Sykes!" said a man's voice behind her.
She spun around and saw one of the doors was open; an older guy stood there. He had a salt-and-pepper goatee and wore a suit and a beige winter coat.
"Remember me? I work with your mother!" he said. "Roger!"
"Oh, right," said Cara, relieved.
Roger was another marine biologist who did research with her mother at Woods Hole; he studied the ocean, like her mother, and was also a professor. He was her mother's boss, basically, though he never acted bossy.
"But what are you doing here?" she asked, and then hoped it didn't seem too rude.
"Oh, I consult," he said. "You know-come in and out, work on a project here and there. I was the one who first told your mother about the Institute's gifted-kid program."
"Oh," said Cara, and nodded.
"You come to see your little brother?" he asked.
"Yeah, I missed him," she said, and smiled casually, she hoped, to indicate it was a routine visit.
"Oh, hey," said Roger, like a light bulb had come on in his head, and reached into a coat pocket. "Would you give him this? It's just a souvenir pen, but he left it in your mother's office a while ago and I happened to notice it there as I was leaving for the city this morning."
It was a cheesy ballpoint pen from the Aquarium, with a big orca bobblehead on the end.
"Uh, sure," said Cara, and took it.
Random, she thought. But whatever. Maybe Roger was trying to reach out because he was sorry for them. She didn't think he had kids of his own; he might just be clueless.
"I'll let you get to your visit, then," he said, and patted her shoulder lightly before he ducked down the hall and hit the elevator button. She turned and kept walking down the narrow hall along the row of doors. 814, 816.
He must have gotten tired of waiting for the elevator, because when Cara looked over her shoulder to wave goodbye, she hadn't heard the elevators ding but he was gone anyway: she heard the exit door to the stairs click shut.
"Jax?" she said, standing at the door marked 822. She knocked.
The door wasn't locked or even closed all the way; it pushed open on her second knock.
"Jax?" she called more loudly as she stepped in.
There was a wooden bunk bed with colorful quilts on it, a round, warm-yellow throw rug, and two computer setups at desks against the opposite wall; the room was wallpapered especially for geeks, with E=MC2 and other equations printed on it.
She didn't see any geeks around, though.
She could sit down and wait for him, she guessed. She sat down on the bottom bunk. Although...
She flipped the bobblehead pen onto the bedspread beside her and lifted her phone. Forty-three minutes, now, since she'd snuck away from the pool. Still: Hayley or Jaye would text her if there was a problem.
"Cara!" came a hiss from beneath her. She jumped. "Close the door!"
She walked over and closed it. Then Jax's blond head and hands, covered in cobwebs, were sticking out from beneath the bed.
"What are you doing, Jax?" she squeaked as he crawled all the way out onto the rug.
"Hiding," said Jax. "Clearly."
He rubbed a cobweb off an eyelid.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"I heard you coming, and I thought you could be one of them."
"One of who?"
"I don't know. I told you. I can't read anyone here. I'm not used to it! How do you go around all the time not knowing what's going on in people's heads?"
He looked off-balance to Cara, on edge in a way she wasn't used to.
"Jax. Welcome to the human race. It's going to be OK."
She reached out and clasped his arm, and slowly he crept up onto the bed and sat beside her. She slung an arm around his shoulders.
"It's OK, Jax. Really."
"I found the source she found, and now they're after me. I know it," he said, dropping his voice to a whisper. "You have to get me out of here."
"The source?"
"It's over there," he said, pointing. "On my laptop."
"The source?"
"The data! About the source. I'll show you at home. But now can we go?"
"Get your stuff, then," said Cara. "Explain it to me later. But Jax, there's something-on my way over here I thought I saw-"
"We have to sneak out," interrupted Jax, not listening. "They can't let me go without a parent present."
"Well-geez, Jax!" she burst out, impatient. "Why didn't you just call Dad, then?"
Forty-seven minutes, said the timer on her phone. And nothing seemed dangerous in this place; so far the best word to describe it was boring. Dangerous was out there, if it was anywhere. If the man with the flames had been real. Jax was overreacting. And instead of just calling their dad, who could come and pick him up without any stress at all in an actual car, he'd made her stage a prison break and then jump through all these hoops.
Because even assuming it was the ring that had made her see flames-and even if, say, the flames were a vision and therefore more a symbol for something than real fire-a guy following her around an otherwise empty subway car had been deeply creepy. Plus she'd probably catch some serious flak when she and Jax got back, unless it was in the next half hour or so and the whole thing passed without notice. (Mrs. M, unlike Cara's own parents, was into grounding.) She could even be kicked off the team for this. There were strict rules about how you had to act when you went to meets.
And then there was the issue of what to do with Jax now that she had him. Maybe she could still get back before Mrs. M knew she was gone; maybe she could just explain that Jax had missed his family and showed up. Maybe they'd call her dad and it would turn out fine; they'd simply take Jax home with them. There were a bunch of empty seats in the bus, after all.
"Ow! What's that?" squeaked Jax. He felt beneath his leg on the quilt, pulling out the bobblehead pen. "This thing scratched me. Right through my pants!"
"Oh, sorry-Roger gave it to me to give to you," said Cara. "You know. Roger who works with Mom at the-"
She was about to go on when there was a sharp rap on the room door and someone pushed it open without even waiting for a Come in.
"Jackson?"
It was a tall, thin woman with an Afro and a foreign accent-she must be one of the teachers-and she looked almost angry.
Was she one of the ones Jax said he couldn't trust?
"Jax, you're supposed to be in session," said the teacher sternly.
Her gaze flicked to Cara, but then she and Cara were both looking at Jax. His eyes were odd-almost milky. Almost cloudy.
Cara hadn't noticed it before.
"Mrs. Omotoso, I don't feel so good," he said slowly.
And Cara could see it was true.
Mrs. Omotoso crossed the room quickly and put her slender hand over his forehead.
"Cara, we need to move him right away," she said. "To the infirmary."
It wasn't till later that Cara realized that, at that particular moment, she hadn't yet told the teacher who she was.