Overtaken

For Mel and Evan

I wasn't in the mood for partying.

Every fiber of my being wanted to disappear into a black hole of nothingness. Unfortunately, blissful escape wasn't possible. Not while my life was ensnared in so much drama and turmoil. OD'ing on existential despair into oblivion wasn't exactly on the evening's menu.

Instead, I found myself wedged in a corner of Dana Fox's sprawling rec room like a naughty child getting a time-out, as a crush of gleeful kids danced and partied all around me. All for Dana's homecoming.

News of her sudden return to Barrington that morning had spread through the town rumor mill like a raging California brush fire, incinerating everything else in its wake. Even memories of that pulse, which had nearly leveled the high school and almost exposed Jackson, Oliver, and me to Richard Cochran and Bar Tech only a day before, vaporized in the wake of Dana's reappearance.

Without missing a beat, Dana's overjoyed parents had transformed their faux-French-château pool house into a raucous party central. It seemed as though the entire school had turned out en masse to pay tribute to the beloved and much-missed Dana Fox. Being a glutton for punishment as well as a budding masochist, I'd had to attend Dana's party and experience it firsthand. I'd had to get to know the girl who had so damaged Jackson's heart and cast a pall over his life.

Lime Jell-O shots spiked with silver mescal, which Chase's football pals had smuggled in underneath oversized parkas, were downed with reckless abandon by everyone. The thought of consuming Jell-O anything made me sick to my stomach. And as much as I desperately wanted to get lost in an alcoholic haze of misery where I didn't give a shit, I just couldn't bring myself to toast Dana's return.

Bitchy and small-minded of me, perhaps. Petty, even. I guiltily admit having those ugly feelings. But there was also something else churning away in my brain. Nagging suspicions about why that girl had disappeared in the first place and where she'd been hiding for more than seven months without so much as a peep. If I wanted to find out the truth about Dana's whereabouts, I had to keep my wits about me. I needed to keep up my guard and stay alert . . . frosty.

Ever since Dana had strolled up Jackson's driveway that morning and hugged him tightly, Jackson and I hadn't had a private moment to talk. Our communication that evening had been reduced to tense, ambiguous glances at each other from across the crowded room. As the electro-funk mix was cranked up to a full-on, mind-numbing blast, I watched Jackson dance uncomfortably with a beaming, radiant Dana. Dressed simply in a beautiful slim-fit ghost white cashmere pullover and black leggings, she owned the night and looked thrilled to be back with her long-pining boyfriend. A fairy-tale ending come to life.

As deeply and intensely as my feelings were for Jackson, I had no claim on him or his affections. Still, reality was a bitch—an icy slap across my raw face. It was painful for me to see Jackson and Dana together. Not just imagining them in my mind anymore as some vague past couple, but actually seeing them as a couple in the flesh. That hit me squarely in the gut.

Up until early that morning, Dana Fox had been an elusive phantom. A pretty face on a poster. MIA for more than seven months, she was presumably gone forever. Suddenly and incredibly, she reappeared, throwing my life (and Jackson's) into even more havoc and chaos than it was already. Only moments before Dana's miraculous return, Jackson and I had been arguing about the dangers of staying in Barrington. I knew we might have to leave town and follow in Maya's hasty footsteps to parts unknown or risk our secrets being found out by Richard Cochran and his minions at Bar Tech.

But I hadn't exactly been thinking with a straight head. I was still reeling from the aftershock of discovering that my father was an undercover government agent. Precisely how and why a medical doctor was spying for the Department of Defense still remained a mystery to me, one my dad had yet to fully explain. All I really knew for sure was that Dad had been covertly protecting me, as well as my friends, from being exposed to Richard Cochran and Bar Tech. And I had to protect my dad's deep, dark secret in return. No matter what the cost. Which meant concealing my father's true identity from everyone—even Oliver and Jackson.

I could see that Jackson was really shaken up by Dana's return. He had endured months of humiliation and being treated like a delusional mental patient. All because he'd dared to question the official story about why his girlfriend had suddenly disappeared from town one night without a word. Even lifelong friends like Chase and the other jocks had bailed on Jackson. The boy most likely to succeed had suddenly turned into radioactive waste, which they wanted to bury deep in the ground and forget about. That all changed because Jackson's girlfriend had come home. In a split second that morning on Jackson's driveway, the world around me and my friends had changed once again. Timing, as they say, was everything.

I'd felt both incredibly protective over Jackson and inexplicably angry. It was all I could do not to grab Dana by her lustrous, thick black hair and demand some answers.
Where the hell have you been all this time, bitch? Why didn't you ever call your boyfriend and let him know that you weren't dead? Why did you let him suffer like that? What do you know about Bar Tech?
But even as my blood was simmering and reaching its boiling point, I had just enough self-control and presence of mind to get the hell out of there. I was afraid I might do something stupid, which I would definitely regret and which might seriously jeopardize Jackson, Oliver, and me.

“Great meeting you, Dana,” I had said halfheartedly, as I backed down Jackson's driveway toward the sidewalk, eager to make a hasty exit. “See you around.” I'd had to get out of there.

“Wait up, Nica. I'll walk with you,” Oliver piped up, anxious to leave as well. “Glad you're back, Dana.”

“Thanks, Oliver,” Dana replied, hooking her arm through Jackson's. It was a small but telling gesture that spoke volumes about her expectations with him and her status in the world. “Happy to be home.”

Jackson looked at me with sad gray eyes. They looked as if their vibrant blue-green coloring had been bled out from his irises. He seemed utterly lost as to what to do or say at that very uncomfortable moment. So he just muttered: “Catch you guys later.”

Oliver waited until we had turned the corner off Jackson's block and were safely out of earshot before speaking. “Holy shit, Nica. How weird was that?”

“Beyond,” I muttered wanly as I just kept walking. I was concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other without breaking stride. It was the only thing I could do to keep from totally flipping out.

“That's all you have to say?” Oliver prodded, mystified by my seemingly indifferent reaction. “Mystery girl Dana frickin' Fox, Jackson's old girlfriend, returns from the dead,” he added, “or wherever the hell else she's been holed up all this time. And all you have to say is ‘beyond'?”

He hurried to keep up with me, since the effects of the previous days' pulse had finally worn off. But I didn't want to talk. Not to him or to anyone else at that moment. I didn't want to share my heartbreak or discuss Dana's return. I wanted to be left alone in my quiet misery. Just as I was about to break into a full-on sprint home, Oliver grabbed my arm. Tightly.

“Nica, stop,” Oliver ordered, clutching my arm, not letting me go. “Talk to me.” He seemed genuinely concerned.

Shaken back to Planet Earth, I stopped and turned to face him, trying not to lose my shit.

“What do you want me to say, Oliver? That I'm crushed that Dana's back? That's the least of my worries. Things are totally messed up. And I don't know what the hell this means for any of us.”

Oliver saw how upset I was and finally released my arm.

“Sorry. Didn't mean to push you like that,” he responded sympathetically. “For the record, we're in this mess together.”

His kind words were just what I needed to hear. I felt awful for turning on him like a raving Fury.

“Thanks,” I said, shaking my head as if I were trying to knock out all the crazy. “These last few weeks have really taken their toll. And now this.”

“Understandable, given certain recent events,” he said, with a warm, caring smile.

I started walking again. Slowly. Feeling adrift and confused and in no particular rush to race home to face my father. That was a whole other can of worms I wished I hadn't opened. But I had. And I wasn't sure how much Dana's return would complicate matters. All I knew was that my whole world had gone completely bonkers.

Oliver tagged along to keep me company and made sure I didn't get into any trouble. “Doesn't it seem like more than just an eerie coincidence,” he declared, “that the day after the pulse hits and causes a nearly epic meltdown at school, that little girl lost shows up on Jackson's doorstep? I'm just saying. . . .”

“You're preaching to the choir,” I chimed back, feeling those same nagging suspicions myself.

“What should we do?”

I shook my head, shrugged, and just laughed even as a tear streamed down my cheek.

“I don't have a fucking clue.”

•  •  •

Oliver and I had aimlessly wandered the streets of Barrington for well over an hour, racking our brains for answers. I felt as though I were trapped inside one of those mind-twisting logic puzzles. Nothing but dead ends everywhere I turned. My head was ready to explode. Unfortunately, neither Oliver nor I got any closer to figuring out a solution.

“I'm starving,” I suddenly announced to Oliver. “I need to eat something pronto, before I pass out.” I felt a bit shaky, as though my blood-sugar level was nose-diving. “Preferably sugary and fattening.”

“Now, that's a problem I can fix,” Oliver announced with assurance.

He led me to Ebinger's Bakery, and a few minutes and several doughnuts later, Oliver and I, in the midst of our delirious sugar highs, stumbled out with huge grins across our faces. I marveled to myself how sometimes the silliest thing can make you forget your troubles and be happy, even for one brief moment. Maybe it was all the sugar in my body that suddenly made me hyper-aware, or the fact that I had stopped obsessing about my own angst long enough to observe the world around me, but suddenly something troubled me.

“Notice anything strange, Oliver?” I asked, pointing at Main Street.

Oliver gave me a quizzical look and then followed my gaze up and down the block. It took him a second to register exactly what I was talking about.

“Where's Bar Tech Security?” Oliver remarked. “I don't see one of their cars on the street.” He seemed as surprised by this fact as I was. “Anywhere.”

“And yesterday,” I hastened to remind him, “they were literally everywhere.” I reflected back on the day from the time I had left my house. “In fact, now that I think about it, I don't recall seeing a single security car around town at all today.”

“Does this mean they're not looking for me—or us—anymore?” Oliver asked hopefully, but I could tell he was still very concerned they might snatch him at any moment like they'd done to Maya. “Especially considering that none-too-subtle spectacle I made at school yesterday. I wasn't exactly hiding anything. More like flaunting it.”

“I'm not really sure what's going on. Maybe it's one of those collective amnesia experiences,” I hypothesized.

“Like the way everyone seems to reset to normal the day after a pulse happens.”

“Whatever it is, I intend to find out,” I declared, determined to go on the offensive and get some answers.

“And how are you going to do that, supersleuth,” Oliver pressed, “without exposing our secrets?”

“Leave that to me,” I responded cryptically, formulating a plan in my head while we continued on.

After all, I did have my own personal Deep Throat . . . AKA my father.

Before Oliver and I parted ways and headed back to our homes, I asked what his mother said to him after we dropped him off the night before.

“She already knew about the trouble at school,” he replied, “and asked how I was doing. Of course, I was incredibly vague and acted like it was no big deal.”

“She ask anything about the break-in at Bar Tech? Or you being chased by security?”

“Nope. Not a thing. And now that you mention it . . .” Oliver contemplated thoughtfully. “I remember thinking it seemed pretty odd, especially since she usually quizzes me about every stupid detail of my day. But truthfully, I was so relieved not to get the third degree by her that I went right up to my room. In retrospect, it's like she didn't
want
to know what had gone down.”

Just like everyone in town, it seemed. Don't ask . . . don't tell . . .

•  •  •

As soon as I walked through the front door of my house, I heard my dad calling my name. There was an edge of concern in his voice. I found him in the kitchen, sitting at the table nursing a nearly empty mug of coffee. There was barely half a cup left in the coffeemaker. He'd obviously been waiting for me for quite a while. And he looked extremely relieved to see that I was all in one piece.