Pivot Point (Pivot Point #1)(44)

As I leave I give my dad one last look. He’s already unbuttoning his shirt and pulling out a replacement. I hope, like he claimed, that Poison really is someone he can handle.





CHAPTER 19


dis?PA?RAte: adj. distinct, different, dissimilar





My heart races, and my head pounds. The screams of cheering fans surround me. The band’s music pulses in my ears, and I feel lost in a cloud of haze. “This is so crazy!” Puffs of white breath accompany my words. The whistle blows, and Duke runs onto the field again.

“I know, right?” Laila rubs her arms, which are covered by a too-thin jacket. She was obviously more worried about fashion than warmth. “Why can’t the Perceptives make us think it’s warm too?” She nods at the lightning that has been streaking across the sky since the game started. “I’m freezing.”

“Because an illusion is an illusion. Reality always exists despite the facade.” An exceptionally bright flash, unaccompanied by thunder, bursts in time with the snap of the ball.

Duke drops back for a pass. When he releases the ball, it zigzags across the sky, tugged first one way and then the other by all the Telekinetic players trying to direct its motion. Number seventy-six on our team catches the ball, and I start jumping up and down squealing.

Laila gives me a sideways glance. “Okay, the Mood Controllers are laying it on thick tonight.”

“That’s my problem, right? Because I feel super-weird.”

“Go get us some sodas. When you’re out of the stands, the excitement wears off.”

“Good idea.” I climb over cheering teens and down the cement steps to the back of the stadium, where the food vendors are. Once in the open air, I immediately feel better. My heart rate slows and my brain stops buzzing. I take a sigh of relief. I had no idea I was that susceptible to influence. It makes me feel better when I think about how many Mood Controllers work the football game.

“Well, hello.”

I turn and see Poison leaning up against a cement support pillar. My heart rate immediately picks up again, but I try to pretend nothing is wrong. “Oh, hi. Um, soda guy, right? Sorry about that again.”

He blows air between his lips, and a puff of white smoke blurs his sharp features for a moment. “Don’t pull that on me. You know who I am.” He takes a step closer. “I know who you are. And next time you and your friends want to play a prank on someone, you might want to stick with your little high school buddies.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about the fact, Addison Coleman, that you do not want to be on my bad side.”

He knows my name. “You don’t scare me,” I say. He terrifies me.

“I may not be a Discerner, but I’m going to say that’s not true. I wonder if my findings would be conclusive and binding.”

Conclusive and binding? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He takes another step closer, and I fall a step back. We walk this way for several steps and just as I’m about to turn and run, he says, “Do you know what it feels like, Addie, to have zero control over your own actions? To have someone make you do something?”

“What do you mean?” I ask. If he’s a Mood Controller, he’s not making me feel at ease. I feel only tense and terrified. Maybe he wants me to feel that way.

My leg lifts and takes me a step toward him. I panic and try to back up, but I’m frozen there. Literally. No matter how hard I tell my leg to move, it won’t.

“Give a message to your little friend’s daddy,” he says in a scratchy voice that makes my blood curdle. “Tell him that if he doesn’t pay me back, I have other ways of collecting. One way or another, I will get that money.”

I nod slowly, and he turns and walks away.





CHAPTER 20


NOR?Ma?po?late: v. when normal people try to solve a mystery without extra help I knock on Trevor’s door, and a little boy answers. He looks like a mini version of Trevor, with big brown eyes and longer-than-life lashes. I can’t resist the urge to reach out and ruffle his hair.

“Hey,” he objects, smoothing it back into place. “Who are you?”

“I’m Addie. Is Trevor here?”

“Addison,” Trevor says, coming around the corner, “is the bodyguard refusing you admittance?” Trevor pats him on the back, and he straightens up.

“No. I was about to let her in before she messed up my hair.”

“Sorry, he’s just so cute.”

Trevor laughs. “Addison, this is Brody.”

“She said her name was Addie,” Brody accuses.

“Only special people can call her that.”

“Like who, her boyfriend?” Brody asks.

I stare at Trevor, surprised at his reasoning. Here I thought he didn’t realize Addie was my nickname, when really he just felt he hadn’t earned the right to use it. It takes me a moment to notice he’s staring back with his normal casual expression that seems to portray more than laid-backness in that moment. But what, exactly, I can’t decide. Embarrassment? Amusement? I look away first, remembering Brody’s question and now feeling awkward that I had locked eyes with Trevor after Brody’s mention of a boyfriend. “Exactly, only my boyfriend,” I say, looking at Brody. “So will you start calling me that?”