Psi Another Day (Psi Fighter Academy) (18 page)

Chapter Twenty
-
four

Psychedone 10

I went to the hospital the next day after school. I’ve never seen a corpse up close, but if I ever do, I can’t imagine how it could look more frightening than Kathryn.

Her room in the Greensburg Hospital ICU smelled very septic, like they had embalmed her, but waited a little too long. It seemed like her body was already decomposing. Her eyes were sunken into deep pits. The dark purple surrounding them was the only color on her face, except for her dry, cracked lips. They were the same bluish hue as her fingernails. Her shallow, forced breathing terrified me.

Suddenly, Kathryn inhaled sharply and sat up. Her pupils were so tiny, it was like they weren’t even there. Sweat poured down her forehead. She shivered uncontrollably.

“Fight it, fight it, fight it,” she whispered, drawing her knees up to her chest and squeezing her arms around them.

“Kathryn.” I touched her sweat-soaked hair.

She turned slowly, her gaze unfocused. A weak smile cracked her face. “This sucks.” Then her eyes squeezed shut in a horrible grimace, and her whole body tensed.

I threw my arms around her, ignoring the cold stickiness of her skin. Kathryn moaned quietly and leaned into me. I could tell she was in terrible pain. Suddenly she gasped and pulled away, straightening her legs. They quivered, and she began to massage them. “Oh, it hurts, it hurts.” She gagged and reached for the bedpan. She tried to vomit, heaving and retching, but nothing came out. “So cold.”

I covered her with a blanket, and she curled up in a ball, moaning and shaking.

“Do you want me to come back later?” I asked. My voice cracked, but I bit back the sobs as best I could. Kathryn didn’t need to know how this was killing me.

She reached out, took my hand, and tried unconvincingly to sound like nothing was wrong. “So, how have you been? How’s Egon? Did you have a good time at the dance?”

“Worried. We’re all worried.”

Kathryn seemed to relax. She pulled herself to a sitting position, never letting go of my hand. “Rin, Munificent was so wrong when he said the drugs were poison. I’d take poison over Psychedone 10 in a heartbeat. Poison only kills you. But this stuff…I fractured my skull, Rin…that’s a pinprick compared to this. I can’t even describe how terrible—it’s like my whole body is tearing itself apart. Like the worst flu I ever had, the aches and fever and nausea, and the nastiest cramps, but spread it everywhere, even my toes. Multiply that by a thousand and it still wouldn’t be as awful as this. But the pain isn’t the worst part. You know what I want more than anything?”

I patted her hand. “What? I’ll get it for you.”

Kathryn’s face became bright for an instant. “Out. I have to get out of this hospital.”

“You’re sick. You can’t leave.”

“That’s just it. All I can think about is escaping so I can get more. It’s
all
I think about. It’s awful. See that window? It’s calling to me. It’s saying, ‘Open me and you’re free.’ Rin, I know I’m on the seventeenth floor, but if I did what this stuff is trying to make me do, I’d go right through that window. I want that high again, that awful, wonderful high.”

I just stared at her, shaking my head, speechless.

“It spread like cancer. It’s trying to take over my mind. It’s making me stupid. It wants me to do things I would never do. I have to fight it. I have to beat it so I can come to my senses. It’s hard, Rinnie.” She broke down in tears and curled up in a ball. After a few minutes, her breathing steadied, and she fell asleep.

Seeing Kathryn confirmed my worst fears. She was suffering through the most horrible withdrawal imaginable. If she didn’t have such incredible self-control, she would have broken out of the hospital by now to find more of that murderous drug. What I didn’t understand was how she could become physically addicted after one use. According to
The Book of Lore
, Kathryn shouldn’t have been dependent at all yet. It was extended use that led to addiction and a changed personality.

Kathryn must have been a guinea pig, a test case for a new version of Psychedone 10, because nobody else had been affected the way she had. Rubric was a long-time user, and no doubt addicted. But Erica Jasmine quit after a few weeks of use. And Mason. Even he had used it once. But poor Kathryn was physically addicted immediately after the attack. According to Bobby’s research, the base chemical—the chemical they made in the Class Project—would have had to be altered for that to happen. I suddenly wondered whether Miliron’s goof-nut act was a deception.

“She’s strong,” a familiar voice said. I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder, and turned to see Mason gazing at Kathryn as though he were viewing a body in a coffin, his face twisted with grief, his eyes wet and red. He reached out and caressed Kathryn’s hand.

“I didn’t know,” he whispered. “I would have stopped it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I should have listened to Bobby,” Mason said. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I even changed the formula. They lied to me, Rinnie. This is my fault.”

There it was. “Lied about what?”

“The Class Project. The formula. Everything. They turn it into Psychedone 10, just like Bobby said.”

“Who lied, Mason?” My fist clenched, but I forced myself to stay calm.

Mason shook his head. “I saw Mrs. Bagley today. She told me to give you a message if I saw you here.”

I looked into his eyes. Sadness stared back at me.

“She said, ‘Events of the sort in which you are involved can be misleading, but you know right from wrong. Trust your heart.’” Mason chuckled softly.

“Was that all she said?”

Mason nodded. “I used to trust my heart, but I don’t know what’s right anymore. I have to go. There’s something I need to do.”

Mason touched my hair delicately. He looked at Kathryn out of the corner of his eye.

“Where do you have to go?” I asked.

“Back to the beginning.” His eyes snapped to mine. His lip quivered for just an instant. “Rinnie, what if she dies? How can you ever look at me again if I killed your best friend?”

Mason held my gaze, struggling for words. “If I could go back in time, things would be so different right now.”

Mason looked up at the ceiling and mouthed the words,
Please, God
. Then he turned and walked away. Just like at the dance. I reached for him, but pulled my hand back.

As I watched him disappear through the door, I struggled to stay quiet. I could see he was in the deep stages of remorse caused by the Memory Lash. The pain of his past would never go away. I wanted to tell him, but those details seemed irrelevant. Mason’s heart had changed. I was certain of it, and I felt sorry for him.

But I also wanted the information he had. Someone tricked him into changing the formula, and I had the distinct impression he wasn’t talking about Scallion. I needed to know if
back to the beginning
meant Dr. Miliron.

Mrs. Bagley’s message popped into my head.
Events of the sort in which I was involved.
I almost laughed at how formally she put things. I assumed she was trying to say that I was a teenager in a very dysfunctional high school, and that this sort of thing was just a normal part of growing up under those conditions.

So why did I have the feeling she meant something else, something much closer to the truth?

Soft footsteps caught my attention. Egon walked through the door and shouldered up to me.

“Hi,” he said, smiling. “How’s my mystery girl?”

I smiled back, leaning against him. “I’ve been better.”

Egon took my hand. “And how is your best friend holding up?”

“She’s been way better.”

“Rinnie, you know the rumors around school. You don’t believe them, do you?”

I pulled my hand away and glared. “Angel had better watch her back. I’m done with her.”

Egon slowly turned his gaze toward Kathryn, the smile still on his lips. “I wouldn’t want to be on
your
bad side.”

I elbowed his ribs gently. “I can’t believe you went out with her, even once.”

A dark, almost frightening laugh erupted from Egon’s throat. “Neither can I. Speaking of going out, do you want to do something tonight? You know, maybe just hang out?”

I shot him a look that said,
Are you serious?
“I’m not really up for anything, Egon. I want to be with Kathryn. I’m sorry.”

Egon turned to Kathryn and touched her hand. “I meant here. I could keep you two company. You never know when you might need a bodyguard.”

I touched Egon’s shoulder. “I’d like that.”

Chapter Twenty
-
five

Enough is Enough

“Time to cross over the border from Loserville,” Tammy Angel said.

The locker room was empty except for the Red Team, a ninth grader named Jessie, and my contingent of spies. Tammy held a small plastic bag. Jessie took it, her hand shaking. I pictured Kathryn’s face, and it took all my strength to keep from force-feeding the bag to Angel.

“You getting this?” Erica whispered.

“Uh huh.” I watched Tammy and her latest victim from behind the bank of lockers through Andy’s tiny high-tech video camera. It had a cool zoom microphone that was so sensitive it could record a person’s breath from across the room. “Make your move.”

Erica shuffled toward the Red Team and stopped beside Angel. “Hi, Tam.”

I zoomed on Tammy Angel’s face.

“Hey, hey, Erica! How’s Christie? Change your mind about quitting, did you? Gimme a sec, I have to take care of Jessie here.” Tammy turned toward the ninth grader. “Do one of those before gym class. These are the best supplements available. You’ll jump off the Loser Express and onto the Star Ship Angel, where the Cool Rule. You’ll be one of us. If you like it, bring a couple of your buds. I’ll fix them up, too. Remember, this one’s free. Next time there’s a nominal fee.”

Jessie nodded quickly and then walked away. I zoomed in on Tammy’s backpack. Tammy pulled out a plastic bag and dangled it in front of Erica’s face, holding it between two fingers. “I knew you’d be back, Erica. This stuff always brings ’em back. And you can be among the first to sample our new, improved blend. Cash first, of course. House rules.”

“I didn’t come for your drugs,” Erica said.

“Supplements, Erica. Hugs, not drugs, as they say. I hope your little sister is being good.”

Erica’s expression turned to fear. “I gotta go.” She quickly left the locker room.

Tammy laughed. “Price just went up.”

Boot Milner sneered. “Maybe we’ll put some pressure on her.”

Tammy shook her head. “No, we’ll just take her out. It’s time to set an example.”

Boot’s eyes grew wide. “Take her out? Seriously?”

“That’s what he says is next for the nonbelievers,” Tammy said. “He’s the boss.”

Agatha Chew said nothing, but from the look on her face, I was pretty sure she didn’t like what she had just heard. The police would, though.

I turned off the camera and crept into the hall. When I reached the boiler room door, I opened it and slipped inside. Jessie and Erica waited beside Bobby.

“Nice work, Jess,” I said.

The ninth grader nodded. “Will this really stop them?”

Bobby held up the bag of Psychedone 10 Angel had given Jessie and scowled. “We’re just getting started.” For such a nice boy, I noticed that he had a real mean streak.

I was okay with that.

…

The next morning, I marched down the hall surrounded by Bobby, Tish, and Whatsisface.

“The Dweeb League on patrol,” Whatsisface said quietly.

“We stick together no matter what, got it?” Bobby punched his fist into his palm.

“Okay, but this one is mine.” Whatsisface had fire in his eyes. I prayed he wasn’t about to have it doused. We walked toward an oblivious Chuckie Cuff, who had a tenth-grader pinned against a locker.

“What’d your mom pack for me today, Dougie?” Chuckie held the boy’s lunch bag above his head.

“C-c-come on, Chuckie, n-n-not aga-in,” Dougie said. He reached up, trying to get at his lunch bag, but Chuckie pulled it away.

“When you learn to t-t-t-talk right,” Chuckie said, “you can eat. This is for my own g-g-g-g-good.”

“My m-m-mom said you should get your own lunch. I’m not allowed to f-f-f-fuh-heed you anym-more.”

“Your mom’s not very nice.”

“Let him alone, Chuckie,” Whatsisface said. Tish and Bobby stood at his shoulder. I stood right behind them, hoping that once Chuckie noticed me, my services wouldn’t be needed.

Chuckie looked a little irritated at the interruption. “You come to dance again, babe?” He held his hand out to Tish.

“I did.” Whatsisface knocked Chuckie’s hand away. “On your face. Give him back his lunch.”

“You ladies gonna make me?”

“You think we can’t?” Whatsisface grinned. “Wouldn’t look good to have your butt kicked by a lady, huh?”

Chuckie stared at Whatsisface, then Bobby, then Tish.

Then he noticed me. “You promised not to tell,” he muttered.

“I didn’t say a word.” I shrugged.

Chuckie looked thoughtfully at Dougie. “Okay, no problemo, I wasn’t hungry today anyway.” He tossed Dougie his lunch, and poked him in the chest. “But tomorrow, bring me something good, got it?”

I tapped Chuckie on the shoulder and whispered, “You stop picking on him and everyone else, or I
will
tell. Got it?”

Chuckie’s face puckered. “Hey, Rinnie, I was teasin’. Dougie and me, we’re buds.”

“No more, Chuckie. Okay?”

“Hmmm…okay.” Chuckie turned and walked away. Then he stopped. “Hey, Rinnie.”

“Yeah?”

“I started brushing my teeth. I’m minty fresh!” He blew into the air in my direction.

“I’m so proud of you.” I smiled as Chuckie disappeared down the hall.

“Thanks,” Dougie said.

“Our pleasure.” Whatsisface put his hand on Dougie’s shoulder. “How ‘bout we do lunch and chat about membership in our exclusive club? I’ll have my people call your people.”

Chapter Twenty
-
six

The School's New Groove

I was amazed at the faces sitting around the lunch table as the week progressed. Bobby smiled quietly. Tish, Erica, Jessie, and Dougie, however, were doing happy dances. The plan had worked better than expected. Even students I didn’t know had begun rebelling against the bullies. The Dweeb League was growing.

“Did you see their faces?” Tish asked.

“Angel’s face was blurred out on Greensburg Action News that night, but you couldn’t mistake her squawky voice,” Bobby said. “The video we made was awesome. We nailed her.”

Erica clapped her hand on the tabletop. “Angel’s dad wouldn’t even come out of the house when the reporter wanted to interview him. How cool is that?”

Whatsisface jumped to his feet. Holding a pencil to his mouth like a microphone, he pretended to knock on a door. “Toby James, reporting on what appears to be a drug bust at the high school. Mr. Angel, how do you respond to these allegations? Mr. Angel? Mr. Angel? Hello? Is anybody home?”

Tish laughed and shook her head. “No, I mean today. I saw them this morning in the hall. Talk about your new attitude! Everybody is talking about it. Something is finally being done. The whole school is different today.”

The school was different, but some things never changed. Tammy’s father had pulled strings, as expected. He said that the evidence was circumstantial, that Tammy was set up, and that he would personally sue the school district for allowing his innocent daughter to be exposed to dangerous drug dealers. Mrs. Bagley was livid that the school board wouldn’t let her expel Angel. But like Tish said, Angel had a new attitude. Which I saw right through. She was a Knight, and the personality change was part of the deception. She was still going down.

“Yeah, even Mason is acting weird,” Bobby said. “He hasn’t hit anybody or stuffed them in a locker…nothing. He even apologized to me. But I’m not falling for it.”

I hadn’t discussed Mason with Bobby. I hadn’t told him that the Memory Lash did what it was supposed to do. Bobby was a smart kid. He’d figure it out on his own. Mason was changed, and the change felt deep.

“Hey, what’s up with you and Egon?” Bobby said.

“What do you mean?” My heart sped up.

“He says he asked you out, but you’re too busy.”

“Busy? That’s not what I told him.” He hadn’t asked me out since the day we hung out at the hospital. Of course, I hadn’t really been still long enough for him to ask. As soon as my mission was complete, I had to make time.

The bell rang and everyone headed for class. I followed the Dweeb League out of the cafeteria and right into a traffic jam of ninth and tenth graders. Rubric was twisting a girl’s arm and had her in tears.

“Please, stop, it hurts!” the girl pleaded.

“I said five dollars,” Rubric bellowed. “Are you people deaf?”

“Air a little thin up there in the bozone layer?” It took all my self-control to not rip Rubric’s arm out of the socket. But I didn’t want detention, so I speared my fingertips into his elbow joint instead.

Rubric’s eyes grew wide. He let out a little yelp and released the girl, then started jumping around holding his arm. His hand opened and closed involuntarily. “What’ja do ta me?”

“Not what I wanted.” I helped the girl to her feet and wiped her tears away. “Are you okay?”

“No!” The girl glared at me, rubbing her arm, then turned and kicked Rubric hard in the shin. “Now I am.”

“Hey!” Rubric shouted, switching his grip to his shin. “What is with you people? This is my hall. You want to pass, you gotta pay.”

“I’m surprised your brain has enough voltage to make your lungs work,” I said.

Rubric stopped jumping and glared, holding out his open palm. “Pay the toll to the troll.”

“Too stupid to realize he just insulted himself,” Bobby said under his breath. “This is scary.”

“Be careful,” Whatsisface whispered. “He’s as strong as he is stupid.”

“I’m the strongest in this school,” Rubric said, smiling. “Except for Chuckie.”

I burst out laughing. “Let’s go, it might be contagious.”

Rubric held out his hand. “Five bucks. Each.”

“No,” Bobby said.

Rubric reached out to smack Bobby on top of the head. Bobby slapped his arm away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Are you and your girlfriends gonna stop me?”

Dougie stepped forward. “N-n-now that you mention it, we are, D-d-d-umbelina.”

“Die, Dweeb.” Rubric pushed past Bobby and dove at Dougie. Whatsisface stuck out his foot and Rubric landed flat on his face. The ninth grader whose arm he had twisted jumped on his back and began beating his head with her book bag. Then the other kids joined in. Before Rubric could get up, he was buried beneath a stomping, punching, laughing mob.

“Get off me,” his muffled voice screamed.

I almost felt sorry for Rubric as he lay under the pummeling heap of kids, all former victims of the school’s bullies, finally able to release years of pent-up frustration. Almost.

Heads popped out of doors all the way down the hall. One of them belonged to Mrs. Bagley. She stepped out and came toward us, walking like a gunslinger at high noon. In place of a six-shooter, she carried a yardstick.

“Students!” she barked. The bell rang and the hall became silent.

The pile of bodies got to its feet. All except Rubric, who lay there unmoving.

“Mr. Rubric,” Mrs. Bagley snapped. “Arthur! Please get up off that filthy floor.”

Rubric stirred and looked up. “Get lost, Old Bag, before you get hurt like the rest—”

“Mr. Rubric!” She broke her yardstick over his head. “I asked you to get up. Don’t make me ask again.”

Rubric mumbled a filthy word that only people with deflated brains use. He dragged himself to his feet, raised his fist and took a step toward Mrs. Bagley. Before I could stop him, the mob of kids swarmed, forcing themselves between him and Mrs. Bagley.

“You touch her, you touch us.”

Rubric lowered his fist. His face became bright red. “I’m outta here.”

“Just a minute.” Mrs. Bagley pulled a pad from her pocket. She scribbled something and handed the paper to Rubric.

He slowly reached out. “What’s that?”

“That is your detention slip, Mr. Rubric. Fighting is forbidden. I would like to expel you, but then I couldn’t keep an eye on you. Instead, you will serve two hours after school for the rest of the school year. If you refuse, I will turn you in to the police, and your parents will be fined. I know they don’t care about money, but they certainly won’t like the publicity when the story is in all the newspapers. Now go to the office.”

Rubric turned and walked away. “Don’t think I won’t get even.”

“Yeah,” Tish said. “Even more of what you just got.”

The hall remained silent. We all looked at Mrs. Bagley.

“Students.” Mrs. Bagley shook her pad of slips at us. “The bell rang, and you are late. You are aware, I am sure, of the rules against tardiness.”

Wonderful. I didn’t have time for detention.

Mrs. Bagley wrote quickly and tore off a slip, handing it to me, the slightest hint of a smile cracking across her face. “You’ll all need late passes to get into class.”

…

I took a little detour before meeting Bobby in study hall. With everything that had happened since the Spring Fling, I needed to regroup. Normally, I would have talked with Kathryn. Thanks to Tammy Angel, I didn’t have that option. So Plan B. I snuck into the girl’s bathroom, opened a stall, and plopped down on the closed lid.

See, here’s the thing. The kids at school were pulling together, which was good, and Angel had been arrested, which was also good. But her father had connections. Which stunk. Tammy was acting all proper, but that’s just what it was, an act. I knew she was a Knight, but without her Amplifier, I couldn’t prove it. I had to get into her head without letting her know that I was the Morgan girl she was hunting. A life without secrets would have been so much easier.

Then there was Egon. He’d been such a sweetheart through this whole thing, but apparently felt like I was neglecting him. I really needed to spend time with Egon if our relationship was to go anywhere. Maybe it was time to rethink my priorities.

Speaking of time, I peeked at my watch and panicked. My late pass couldn’t buy me enough to sort this out, so I rushed out of the bathroom and into an empty hall. Or so I thought.

“Hey.”

Mason’s voice sent such a fright through me that I let out a tiny shriek. He sat on the floor, cross-armed against the wall, like he had been waiting for me. I shot a quick glance over my shoulder to see if we were alone. Terrifyingly, we were.

“Got a sec?”

No. I didn’t. Not even part of one. Between planning the downfall of the forces of evil and wallowing in self-pity, I was booked. But I was actually glad to see him. Maybe I could learn something about Miliron. “Always.”

Mason smiled. “I just wanted say I’m sorry for…you know, for that day in the park. I didn’t know what I was doing. And the hundred years before that. Everything is different now. I want you to know.” Then he gazed up at me with sad eyes and patted the floor. Before all this happened, my Bad Guy Meter would have seriously pegged, but the batteries must have been dead. I sat down beside him.

Mason stared blankly and shook his head, like he was totally lost. “I can’t stop thinking about the things I’ve done. About my mother. She had problems. But I loved her.” He leaned a little closer, and gazed right into my eyes. His breath warmed my cheek. “I just wanted her to love me back, but all she ever did was tell me what was wrong with me. When I came home from a friend’s, she never said hi, or asked me if I had fun. She’d show me the toy I didn’t put away, or tell me my socks didn’t match. Or ask me why I didn’t wear a different shirt. I was never good enough for her. She always compared me to my brother.” Mason’s eyes filled with tears. “Rinnie, I never had a brother. My mother was sick.”

I wanted to tell him I knew, that I saw it.

“Everybody thinks my mom is being treated at the asylum. She’s not. What I told you and Kathryn that day in the lab is true. She was murdered. I watched it happen.”

“That’s awful.” I had only vague memories of my parents’ murder, and they scared the pants off me. From what the Memory Lash had showed me, Mason’s recollection was completely clear. “That had to be a horrible thing to see.”

“It was. But it’s not what I saw that bothers me. It’s what I felt.”

“Shock? Grief? Mason, that’s normal.”

“No.” He shook his head and took my hand in both of his. “Liberation. It was like this big iron chain I had been carrying around my neck all my life just fell off. I watched a man beat her to death with a shovel, and all it made me feel was relief. My mother was right. There’s something wrong with me.”

What I had felt in Mason’s memory was sheer terror, not relief. I noticed he didn’t mention that the murderer had a rotting skull for a head.

“Dad thought I’d killed her, and I couldn’t convince him it was somebody else. So he covered it up. That’s when I knew I could get away with anything. My poor father. What I put him through. But that day in the park… I see things differently now. What did you do to me?”

Uh oh. This was why he wanted to talk. “I, uh…maybe you hit your head. You were high, weren’t you?”

Mason raised an eyebrow. “I guess we both have secrets.” Then his face softened. “I tried to apologize to Bobby, but he won’t talk to me.”

“You tried to bash his head in with a baseball bat. That probably put a strain on your relationship.”

“Maybe.” Mason closed his eyes. “But I never meant for you to be hurt. I’m sorry for the way I treated you since, like, forever ago. You never did anything to deserve it. I’ve been a total idiot. I was hoping that maybe you could give me a sec— Maybe we could start over. Be friends. Or something. I mean, I understand if you can’t.”

“We’ve been arch enemies for how long? Do we even know how to be friends?” Before the Memory Lash, I had only heard rumors of the horrible childhood that made him a total bonehead. Now I knew the truth in a way that nobody but Mason could appreciate. And I understood why the Lash had brought up that memory. Not because Mason blamed himself for his mother’s death, but because he felt like a monster for being glad she was gone. I understood. It was like we had gained a special connection that day. Like our souls had touched. And now he was being all sweet. Maybe the Memory Lash wasn’t such a nasty weapon.

Forgiveness was supposed to be heavenly, so I could only assume that I had suddenly been zapped by divine intervention. After the abuse I had tolerated, after the nights spent crying on my bed because he picked on me so relentlessly, after that nasty nickname that had spread like thorns because of him. After all that, my heart wanted desperately to forgive him. Being friends would be so…strange. But what the heck? “Everybody deserves a second chance. Especially you.”

Mason’s entire face smiled, like the Grinch when his small heart grew three sizes. “Cool.”

“But why me, Mason? Why were you always so mean to me?”

His cheeks turned pink. “I thought you were pretty.”

I think mine turned pinker. “You had a funny way of showing it.”

“I knew you’d never want to be with somebody like me. I did whatever I could to get your attention. You only noticed me when I knocked your books down.” He smiled. “Rinnie, I have a hole in my heart the size of you. It’s always been there.”

A meteor could not have flattened me more completely. The situation had suddenly spun a one-eighty from the “friend” direction, and was speeding toward “awkward.”

He brushed his fingers across the back of my hand. “I know you’re with Egon, but I was hoping that, maybe, you know, if that doesn’t work…maybe we could hang out? I know a good pizza place.”

Suddenly his cell phone buzzed.

I leaned back, feeling a smile pull across my lips. Saved by the mobile communication device ringtone. “Hey, I gotta get to class. This pass is gonna expire soon.”

We both jumped to our feet.

Mason’s cell buzzed again, and he dug it out of his pocket, blushing even worse than I was. “Okay. See you around?”