A World Without You(40)

What neither of us says is that Phoebe doesn’t really care whether or not she has a meal with me. I mean, she’s nice enough for a sister or whatever, but it’s not like we’re close. We just happen to live together and share the same blood type.

So Dad takes me up past Ipswich and back to school. As soon as the car stops in front of the brick facade of the academy, I rush past the Doctor, who’s waiting to greet me. I hesitate at the door when I notice that the Doc’s continued down to the car to talk with Dad, but I don’t have time to worry about their conversation.

The first thing I have to do is figure out a way to get rid of the government officials. For good. The problems began with them. At this point, I’m starting to wonder if they’re the reason I haven’t been able to control my powers well enough to save Sofía. I have to get rid of them. And to do that, I’ll need help.

I go straight up to the dorm rooms on my unit’s level and bang on Ryan’s door.

“Told you it’d work,” Ryan says, grinning. He steps back so I can enter his room.

“Yeah,” I lie. The drive’s perfectly safe, stuffed between my mattress and box spring back at home. “Listen,” I add, “I watched the first video.”

Ryan’s usually good about keeping his cool, but something flashes across his face in the brief instant between when my words fall silent and he first registers their meaning. Something hard and angry. It’s quickly replaced with a mask of calm, but he can’t control the emotion in his eyes.

“You what?” he asks in a level voice that nevertheless sends chills up my spine. “I told you to get rid of it.”

“It’s safe. At my house. Hidden. No one will find it.”

“No one would find it in a landfill near your house either.”

I shrug. “I watched them. Or the first few, anyway. And we have big problems.”

“We wouldn’t have any problems if you’d destroyed the damn thing.”

I shake my head. He’s not listening. “Those government officials . . . they’re powered too.”

Ryan freezes. “What?”

“They have powers too, like we do. Or at least one of them does. I noticed it with Gwen, before. She thinks Sofía is dead. I had thought it was just that she’d lost faith in me, but now . . . And the Doctor’s been acting strange. At first I thought he was in on it, but now I think the officials . . . they’re altering reality. Or at least our perception of reality. They’re making us think we don’t have powers. I’m immune because I can just go back in time and see reality before they altered it.”

Ryan narrows his eyes in thought. “And I’m immune because . . .” His voice trails off.

“It must be the nature of your power. Telekinesis and telepathy. You have superior control of your mind, so they can’t reach you.”

A grin smears across Ryan’s face. “Yeah,” he says, “that must be it.”

“So just . . . be careful, yeah?” I say. “And start thinking of ways we can really get rid of them. Everyone believes they’re from the government, and I don’t know, maybe they are, but they’re dangerous. They’re trying to destroy us.”

“Yeah,” Ryan says. “I’m on it. And, dude, next weekend? Destroy that drive.”

“Yeah, okay,” I say, reaching for the door.

“Thanks,” Ryan says. This is the nicest he’s ever been to me. The most he’s ever paid attention to me, honestly. We’re not friends; we barely speak. But he’s making such an effort now.

He really wants that drive gone.

Ryan shuts the door behind me after I leave, pushing against it so it clicks firmly closed. There are no locks on our doors—well, there are none that we can control. Dr. Franklin warned us that there are lockdown procedures in case one of the students’ powers goes completely haywire, and we’re safer locked in our rooms than anywhere else, but the lockdown has never happened while I’ve been here. Still, I have a feeling that Ryan wishes he could have locked me out as soon as I left. I hesitate, about to knock on his door again and demand some more answers, but I’m not even sure what to ask. There’s just something . . . off about Ryan lately. He’s not acting like himself.

Maybe the officials are starting to get to him too.

“Bo.” Gwen’s voice is quiet, like she doesn’t want anyone else to hear, but she strides down the hallway toward me with purpose. “You’re back.”

I nod.

“And you’re talking to Ryan.”

I shrug. “Yeah?”

Gwen frowns. Before Sofía was gone, they were best friends, always together. I was never close with Ryan, and no one is really friends with Harold, so I sort of drifted around. Being with Sofía put me in Gwen’s group, but I don’t think she ever really considered me a friend.

“Listen,” Gwen says, lowering her voice and walking with me back toward my room. “Don’t put too much trust in Ryan, okay?”

“Why?” I ask. Ryan’s not my favorite person in the world, but he’s a part of our unit. Unlike the officials.

Gwen glances back at his room. “I don’t like him,” she says bluntly. “He’s an *.”

I snort. “Well, yeah, everyone knows that. But he’s our *.”