Struck

  I jerked my arm, trying to shake her loose, but she was on me like a barnacle.

  “Let. Go,” I said, the words barely making it past my clenched teeth.

  She ignored me. “Cynic.” She spat the word, and I do mean spat. Spots of wetness actually flecked my cheek. I used my free hand to wipe them away, shaking with rage.

  The heat collected inside me, concentrated in the center of my chest. It smoldered in my heart, an ember that would burst into flame and consume me from the inside out. At least, that’s what it felt like. I tasted metal. There was a scent coming off me, like burning wires and ozone. Like the moment before a storm cracks the sky wide open.

  Get a hold of yourself, Mia. Deep breaths. Happy thoughts. Zen state—

  “The Day of Reckoning is at hand, and when it arrives you will burn with the rest of the cynics who refused to heed Prophet’s warning,” Rachel said. “The time is coming and soon. You will suffer and you will burn and your ashes will be cast into darkness! You will—”

  The lounge door swung open.

  In walked the girl in black, like she’d been waiting for the right moment.

  A slow smile curled at the corners of her red lips. Her finger twisted a lock of her dark hair. If anyone was the antithesis of a Follower, it was this girl, clad in black that clung to her curves like paint; boot heels sharp enough to commit murder.

  Her eyes lit on Rachel’s hand. The hand that was still gripping my arm. The girl’s smile stayed in place, but there was nothing friendly about it. There was glassy darkness in her eyes, like mirrors pointed at a starless night. Whatever Rachel saw in those eyes, she must not have liked it. She released me and finally stepped back.

  “You’re one of them,” Rachel said. I thought she was talking to the girl in black, but when I glanced at her I saw her eyes looking at me with clear accusation. I didn’t even know who “them” were.

  Rachel and the girl faced off. I was reminded of a nature documentary I’d seen, stags ready to lock antlers over a doe. I felt like the doe.

  “Is this Follower bothering you?” the girl in black asked me.

  “Oh, um …” The answer was a resounding yes, but for some reason I couldn’t admit the truth. Rachel’s eyes cut toward me, waiting for me to give her up. A change had come over her the moment the girl in black entered the lounge. She looked afraid. Defensive and defiant, but also afraid. “She was just leaving,” I said.

  The girl in black wasn’t convinced. Her dark eyes narrowed on Rachel. “What did I tell you?”

  The Follower slid toward the door. “I don’t remember.”

  The girl in black sidestepped into her path. “Are you sure? Because it really was such a simple message. How about I give you a hint?”

  “Stay away from me,” Rachel muttered.

  “On second thought, I’ll repeat myself.” The girl punctuated her statement by poking a finger into the Follower’s chest. Hard. Like she was trying to break through the breastbone. “This school is Seeker territory. We claimed it first. That means you and the rest of your sheep do your recruiting elsewhere. If I catch you proselytizing here one more time, there are going to be consequences, and I promise you aren’t going to like them.” She pinched Rachel’s cheek, leaving behind a splotch of red. “Try to remember this time.”

  The girl in black stepped aside, and Rachel scurried toward the door. Then she stopped and looked back at me.

  “Don’t join them,” she said. “Come to Prophet. He will forgive you. Whatever you’ve done, no matter how great the sin, he will accept you. Think of it, Mia. Redemption. That’s what you seek, isn’t it? Redemption and forgiveness for the wrong you’ve done.”

  I started to tell her to shut her mouth, but my throat wouldn’t release the words.

  The girl in black took a step toward Rachel. “Get gone,” she said.

  Rachel puffed up her chest, and for the briefest moment I caught a glimpse of the goth-chick she used to be before she was swallowed by her new persona. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “There is no light in you. In her, yes.” She nodded at me. “I felt it. But there is no light in you, Seeker. The only thing you’ll ever be is a recruiter, hiding behind those in your cult who possess real power.”

  It seemed impossible for the girl’s eyes to get any darker, but they did. She didn’t have a chance to respond, though. Rachel pushed through the swinging door. Before she exited, I caught a glimpse of the back of her neck. The Celtic cross tattoo was gone, replaced by a ragged patch of scar tissue, as though it had been burned off.

  Then I was alone with the girl in black.

  The heat in my chest eased as soon as Rachel was gone. I drew in a deep breath and released it, shaking my head. What was wrong with me? I hadn’t come that close to losing control since Arizona, since the day my family had fled the city we’d lived in our entire lives. But I was on edge. It was that kind of day. It had been that kind of month.

  Think of it, Mia. Redemption. That’s what you seek.

  Another round of chills climbed my spine like a ladder.

  “Goddamn Followers,” the girl in black said, turning to me.

  “God saved, you mean.” My voice came out shaky.

  She laughed once, a short burst. “So your name’s Mia? Sorry about the coffee this morning,” she said. “I’m glad you were wearing black. I can’t even see the stain.”

  I could very clearly still see the stain.

  “I’m Katrina, by the way.” She held out her hand. Her nails were painted the same red as her lips. The color of stop. And displayed on the center of her palm was a reddish scar in the shape of a perfect ring. It looked like a burn scar. A brand.

  I hesitated before clasping hands with her. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because I didn’t want to draw attention to my gloves, didn’t want her to hear the wet squish if she squeezed my hand. Or because it seemed like an oddly formal thing to do in the lounge.

  Maybe because that circular scar warned me to be careful.

  When our hands came into contact, Katrina closed her eyes. Then she gasped and released my hand quickly, and shook hers a little. She grimaced, like I’d hurt her.

  “You’ve definitely got it,” Katrina said. “Good thing I bumped into you this morning. I felt it then, but it happened so fast I couldn’t be sure.”

  My stomach filled with dread. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “The Spark.” She reached into the tiny black leather purse that hung on a long strap across her shoulder and removed something small and flat and rectangular. A deck of cards bound with a strip of black satin. She did a quick midair shuffle, like a magician, and then fanned the deck out for me, the cards facing the floor.

  “Pick one,” she said.

  “Is this a trick?”

  “It’s an invitation.”

  I eased toward the door. “I should get to class.”

  “It will only take a second.”

  The cards were larger than normal playing cards, and looked soft, almost antique with age. I chose one and slid it from the deck. It felt even softer than it looked, like cloth. I turned it over, holding it so only I could see it.

  I’d never had a tarot reading, but I’d seen plenty of fortune-tellers on the Venice Boardwalk doing them. The card I held between two fingers bore a picture of a stone tower perched on a cliff. Of lightning striking that tower, and people falling from the top, screaming on their way to the ground. The eyes of the fallen seemed to stare out of the card at me, accusing.

  I didn’t need to read the caption at the bottom of the card to know its name.

  The Tower.

  During the earthquake, the Tower was the only downtown skyscraper to survive. It was the newest and tallest structure, built in response to the kind of massive, glittering high-rises going up in Dubai. Construction on the monstrosity had finished only a few months before the earthquake, and it was dubbed, simply, the Tower, as though height alone excused the need for further description.

>   “Show it to me,” Katrina said.

  My throat was dry. I turned the card around so she could see it, and her eyes grew.

  She snatched the card out of my hand, reinserted it into the deck, and shuffled again, muttering to herself as she did so.

  She fanned the cards again. “Pick another.”

  “Why?”

  She shoved the cards at me. “Do it.”

  I caught another glimpse of the knotted red scar tissue on her right palm, but it was mostly obscured by the cards.

  “All right, all right.” I slid another card from the deck, shaking my head, bewildered. I’d had some strange days in my life. Some very strange days. But this day definitely made it into my top ten.

  I turned the card over so we both could see.

  “The Tower.” Katrina exhaled the word.

  I tried to hand the card back to her. “Nice trick,” I said. “What’s the secret?”

  “I told you, it’s not a trick.” She stared at me with those glassy eyes. Her voice lowered. “It’s an invitation.” She wouldn’t take the card. “Keep it for now,” she said. “You can return it to me after school. Meet me in room 317.”

  “What? Why?”

  “We’ll talk about it then.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t be there.” I was becoming more convinced with each word Katrina spoke that I wanted nothing to do with her.

  She gazed at me a moment longer, and then nodded to herself. “You’ll come,” she muttered, and before I could assure her she was wrong, she walked out of the lounge, leaving me with the Tower card in my hand.

  5

  LUNCH. IT WAS half the reason Parker and I had returned to school, but scanning the crowded cafeteria, I didn’t see my brother anywhere.

  Considering how many people were lined up at the lunch counter and jammed in shoulder to shoulder at the tables, it was strangely quiet inside the cafeteria, especially compared to the chaos in the parking lot that morning. There was no horsing around, no chatter. Students ate with concentration, and those in line for food had expressions of extreme focus on their haggard faces.

  I couldn’t help but notice that the usual cliques were a thing of the past. There seemed to be only two divisions now: Followers sat with Followers; everyone else sat with everyone else. Roughly half the tables were white. Seeing the Followers massed together like that, I was shocked at their numbers.

  I didn’t spot Parker, but I did notice Rachel Jackson sitting at a table near the windows, surrounded by Followers. The light pouring through the glass made their white clothing seem to glow so bright I had to turn my eyes away.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten school lunch, but the smell of hot food, even though I knew it came out of an industrial-sized slop bucket, made my stomach cramp with hunger. Still, I felt like I should go look for Parker. After what we’d witnessed that morning—and what had happened in the lounge—I was worried about him being on his own. We needed to stick together.

  But I was almost to the front of the line, and I didn’t want to lose my spot. Most likely, Parker had tracked down his friends and they were on their way to the cafeteria. He’d be here.

  I was turned around, looking for Parker, when I felt a nudge at my back. I faced forward and suddenly there were two girls in front of me who hadn’t been there before, a tall one and a stocky one, both with tangled, greasy hair and a sour smell coming off them like they hadn’t showered in a while. I said a silent thank you to the plumbing gods that our water had been on that morning.

  The girls kept their backs to me.

  “Hey,” I said, and was ignored. “Hey.” I tapped the tall one on the shoulder.

  “What?” She glanced back, annoyed. I recognized her and her friend. They were pitcher and catcher on the softball team, emphasis on were. Maybe they hadn’t figured out yet that their season was over.

  “You cut in front of me,” I said, thinking that if I called them out, they’d leave.

  “We didn’t cut,” Pitcher said.

  “Yeah, you did.”

  “Prove it.” She snarled the word with such unnecessary viciousness, it made me take a step back, bumping the person behind me. Pitcher had a look I recognized, feral, like the pack of boys from that morning. A look that said she would stomp anyone who got in her way.

  She faced forward again as we reached the front of the line and she and Catcher grabbed their food trays from the stacks.

  I bit my tongue and told myself to let it go. There were only two of them. I’d get my food, only a few seconds later than I would have. Still, it wasn’t fair. I glanced at the people lined up behind me. They looked angry, but too tired to do anything about it.

  “Hey, you guys, over here!” Pitcher waved, and several more of her friends joined her, enough of them to fill a dugout.

  I bit my tongue harder as what was left of the softball team grabbed their trays. Apparently I had been wrong about the usual cliques dissolving. The softball girls were tough, a force to be reckoned with, and they knew it. If they stuck together, very few people would dare to mess with them. Or stand up to them.

  It’s not fair …

  The heat began to gather in my chest again, and the sound of forks scraping on plastic faded until the only thing I could hear was the rush of hot blood parading through my veins, pounding in my ears.

  Let it go, I told myself. It doesn’t matter. Let it go.

  But it wasn’t fair … Parker was right. People shouldn’t be allowed to do whatever they wanted. To take whatever they wanted simply because they were bigger and stronger and ran in a pack.

  Fire crackled like static in my heart, and I felt myself reaching for Pitcher, even though the more rational side of my mind had questions.

  What do you think you’re going to do to her? The same thing you did to that man back in Lake Havasu City? He didn’t deserve it and neither does this girl. Let. It. Go.

  I sighed, knowing the voice was right. The crackling fire in my heart stilled. I let my arm drop as I was distracted by motion in my peripheral vision.

  About half a dozen kids approached the line-cutters. The group was random, made up of guys and girls ranging in age from freshmen to seniors, popular kids to geeks like Andrew “Schiz” Buckley. Schiz as in paranoid schizophrenic, not that he was one, as far as I knew. Paranoid for sure, but maybe not schizophrenic. Schiz was a major conspiracy theorist and notorious blogger on the subject. I used to see flyers advertising his blog, Shoot the Messenger, posted around school.

  And there was someone else I knew, a tall, slender black kid Parker hung out with on occasion. Quentin something. I couldn’t remember his last name. He’d been to our house a couple times, but I hadn’t said more than five words to him. Still, something about Quentin was changed from the last time I’d seen him. It was his eyes. There was a stillness in them, a watchfulness. It was almost predatory.

  And every single one of the kids in his group had the exact same look.

  It was creepy, and what was creepier was the way they seemed to move as one, like they were connected somehow, joined by invisible puppet strings, like birds in formation.

  Quentin spoke to the line-cutters, his voice coming out loud and strong, more adult than I remembered it. “Go to the back of the line.”

  Pitcher stiffened at the sound of his voice and turned slowly, holding her food tray in front of her like a shield. “Why should we?” she challenged, but her voice no longer carried the note of arrogant assurance it had when she’d spoken to me alone.

  Quentin spread his hands, as though in a show of helplessness, but the gesture seemed anything but helpless. My eyes homed in on the center of his palm, on the perfect ring of red scar tissue, about the size of a golf ball.

  A scar like Katrina’s.

  Quentin smiled with his mouth only. “Go to the back of the line,” he said again.

  Schiz added, “You and your friends are out of order.” Schiz smoothed his Dracula-esque widow’s peak. He wore a b
lack T-shirt with bold white letters on the front that spelled: TYRANY.

  The softball players shared a round of nervous glances, and I thought they would stand their ground. Then Pitcher shrugged and lowered her head, a clear sign of defeat. She stepped out of line and the rest of her gang followed her to the end.

  Quentin’s eyes made their way to mine, which were about as wide open as they would go.

  “Nice to see you back at school, Mia,” he said. And then he held out his scarred hand to me.

  I shook my head like he’d offered me a loaded bear trap. I wanted to back up, but I was already against a wall.

  Quentin frowned. I thought he would drop his hand, but instead he reached out to me, and his long fingers circled my wrist. He held on gently for only a split second before grimacing and letting go. He and his group shared a look, and Quentin nodded. Then they turned in what looked like a military formation, it was so synchronized, and took their seats at an empty cafeteria table where their trays of food saved their places.

  I loaded up my tray and found a seat on the other side of the cafeteria, as far as I could get from Quentin and his motley crew. Still, I saw them glancing my way more often than was warranted. I tried to ignore them as I ate. Tried to pretend I was still hungry, but my stomach was twisting and tying itself in knots. Double knots, in fact. Or maybe hangman’s nooses.

  Parker still hadn’t shown up. I had barely touched my food when I stood abruptly and decided to go look for my brother.

  “You want the rest of this?” I asked the skin-and-bones boy sitting next to me. He didn’t hesitate to take the food off my hands. Couldn’t even say thank you, he was so busy stuffing rehydrated mashed potatoes in his mouth.

  It didn’t take long to find Parker. Maybe I’d known where he’d be all along.

  “Hey,” I said softly, coming up beside him.

  He didn’t take his eyes from the wall of the missing.

  Have you seen this person? the wall asked a thousand times.

  I felt a crawling sensation and glanced behind me, feeling as though the eyes of the dead on the opposite wall were glaring at my back.