Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(34)

“You came out of nowhere and crashed right into me,” protested Ethan. He was flushed, clearly embarrassed for getting both knocked over and saved in the same moment.

“I came out of there,” said Angelo, pointing to a door clearly marked JANITORIAL. “If you’d been paying a little attention to where you were going instead of hound-dogging with your girlfriend here, you might have seen me.”

“I wasn’t hound-dogging; I was going to the assembly.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Dana said quickly.

Both boys looked at her. Angelo smiled; Ethan did not.

“If you were going to the assembly,” said Angelo mildly, “then I guess you better scurry along.” Before Ethan could organize a reply, Angelo turned to Dana and gave a little lift of his chin. “?Qué pasa, mai?”

Dana didn’t know very much Spanish but knew that phrase from growing up in Southern California. What’s up, girl?

She didn’t reply. Ethan stood there, awkward and uncertain, apparently not knowing what he should say or do. Angelo seemed amused.

“See you around, amigo,” he said, and walked off. When he was a few feet away, he turned and gave Dana the same kind of inexplicable look he’d given her at Beyond Beyond.

“Freak,” muttered Ethan under his breath.

“Forget about it,” said Dana. “Come on.”

They hurried down the hall to the auditorium, where a couple hundred students were looking for seats and apparently all talking at once. No one knew for sure what was happening, and everyone had a theory. But then Mr. Sternholtz walked out onto the stage, followed by a uniformed deputy. The room fell silent, though Dana heard a few snickers and jokes, and three of the guys on the school’s golf team pretended to pass an invisible joint back and forth.

Principal Sternholtz stopped in front of a microphone on a stand, glared out at everyone, and said, “Enough.” His voice was sharp and commanding, amplified to godlike dimensions by the sound system. Even the jokers in the crowd fell silent. The school nurse and another woman Dana didn’t recognize joined the others onstage. No one looked happy, and from the red puffiness of her face, it was clear the nurse had been crying.

Dana and Ethan exchanged a worried look. He mouthed, What’s going on? But Dana shook her head.

“As you all know,” began Sternholtz, “our school and our community have been plagued with a series of tragedies over the last six months. Three young people from Oak Valley High and two from FSK have died in a series of terrible car accidents that could have—no, should have—been avoided. These senseless acts resulted in the loss of those young lives and the destruction of all their potential. It’s a wretched chain of events, and I wish I could say that it was over, that we have all become smarter, that we have learned from our mistakes and moved into a safer, saner phase of our lives.” He paused and looked out across the sea of faces. No one made a sound. Nothing. It was a vast and icy silence. “But this tragedy simply will not end. We have not even buried Maisie Bell, we have not even begun to process our grief over our loss, and now today I am so very sorry to tell you that there has been another death. A third FSK student. Another one of us.”

Ethan grabbed Dana’s hand and held on, as if she could keep him from sliding off his seat. His hand was ice cold.

“Today I have learned that senior Todd Harris was killed Tuesday night when his car went through a guardrail near Elk Hill Road. His car was found at the bottom of the hill, submerged in the river.”

The silence held and stretched to an excruciating point, and then it was shattered by a scream. Everyone turned to see a blond girl go running from the auditorium, followed by three other girls.

“Todd’s girlfriend,” said Ethan. “Jeez, they didn’t even bother to warn her first? That’s so wrong. It’s cruel.”

Dana nodded, but her mind was not living in that moment. The news had yanked her thoughts elsewhere. Another death? A sixth teenager. A sixth car accident?

“No,” she said.

“What?” asked Ethan.

Dana leaned close and spoke in a fierce whisper. “There’s no way this was an accident. You understand that, right?”

There was fresh fear in his eyes but not very much doubt. “I guess so.”

“Someone’s killing teenagers,” she said. What she really meant to say was, Someone is killing us.

Ethan looked sick. “I know.”

On the stage, Mr. Sternholtz turned the mic over to the school nurse, who spoke about the dangers of drugs. She in turn introduced the other woman, a psychologist, who talked about grief management, and the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Then the uniformed officer introduced himself as Deputy Driscoll, and he spoke about the dangers of drugs. They saved the bombshell for last.

Principal Sternholtz glared out at everyone. “First thing this morning I instructed the office staff to make a series of calls to each of your parents to obtain permission for us to conduct blood tests. Now, before you rise up in protest of a violation of your civil liberties,” he said, his tone condescending, “let me remind you that you are all minors. As long as we have permission from your parents or legal guardians, we can—and we will—do this. The proliferation of illegal narcotics has to be stopped. If extreme measures are necessary, then that is the course we will take.”