Overpowered Page 8

  Just when I thought all was lost and they’d be snapping on the handcuffs and sending me to a gulag somewhere, Officer Korey surprised me. “Nica Ashley. You’re Dr. Ashley’s daughter?”

  “Yes. I am.”

  I wasn’t sure exactly what happened, but suddenly their body language changed. Officer Lorentz nodded to his partner, and for once I was thankful that everyone knew everyone else’s business in Barrington.

  Officer Korey’s tone softened considerably. “Tell you what, Nica. Given that you’re new and we like your father, we’re going to cut you some slack. But if we ever catch you out again after curfew, you’re going to have a problem. Now go straight home.”

  I swallowed, greatly relieved, but could tell they were serious. “Thank you.” She then gave me back my learner’s permit.

  I turned the key and started up the bike. I waved appreciatively. What a close call. The security guards watched as I rode off; then they drove off in the opposite direction.

  • • •

  I was doing thirty on the service road, totally intending to return home, when I passed a small clearing. Something among the trees glinted off the bike’s headlight. I slowed down and moved in closer and spotted a black Mustang GT parked there beneath the aspens. It was Jackson Winter’s car. I’d know it anywhere.

  I immediately circled around the spot, pondering my options. I could hurry back home and definitely avoid arrest like the good girl I should be. Or I could linger just a bit longer (I mean, I had already broken curfew, what was five more minutes?) and maybe finally find out exactly what Rebel Boy was up to every night.

  It was one of the easiest decisions of my life.

  I got off the bike and followed a winding footpath to a hilly area overlooking the town. There was an awesome view. I scanned around but saw no sign of Rebel Boy anywhere. Why had he come here? And where had he gone?

  Disappointed, I stood at the edge of the bluff and stared down upon sleepy Barrington. It was idyllic and peaceful—and so, so boring. I began to contemplate my next thousand-plus days living here, when I heard a sharp sound—like a twig snapping. I spun around and nearly jumped out of my skin.

  Someone was standing right behind me.

  “Doctor’s kid is out a little late.” Jackson Winters slowly emerged from the shadows.

  “Or everyone else is in way too early,” I heard myself answer. I was excited to see him and could not believe I was actually able to utter a coherent sentence. I was also thrilled that he knew who I was.

  “Maybe for good reason.” He stared back at me with those intense blue-green eyes. Was he interested in me or irritated by me? I wasn’t sure, but I was just glad he was deigning to talk to me.

  “Yeah. I’m bummed about missing that Kim Kardashian marathon.” For some reason his imposing presence and startling good looks were not intimidating me. Exactly the opposite: I was feeling emboldened, and weirdly self-confident.

  “What are you doing out here?” I heard the anger rise up in his voice and then watched it flash across his face. He took a step toward me, almost threatening.

  “Me? What about you? Cruising the streets at all hours. The pope gave you a special dispensation?” I stared back at him and didn’t back away. I just stood my ground, intently curious about this mysterious guy who lurked in shadows, avoided the happy crew, and was out after curfew every night. Was his strange behavior all just a reaction to being dumped by Dana Fox?

  Suddenly his face relaxed, and I saw a slight smile take shape at the corners of his mouth. “This town is going to have its hands full with you.”

  “From what I hear, you’re doing an epic job yourself.” Cool. We were now flirting, or at least I thought we were. I actually tossed my hair back, like I was inviting him to open up and confide in me.

  “It’s easier for them to believe I’m the bad seed than . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Easier than what?” I desperately wanted to know everything he was thinking. All his intimate secrets.

  “Easier than dealing with the truth.” He glared at me, as if his eyes had X-ray vision and could see right through me.

  I burst out laughing. Did he really think I’d fall for such a lame-ass line like that? “Shouldn’t we be having this conversation in some creepy cemetery during a full moon with a pack of howling wolves?”

  Jackson didn’t crack a smile. In fact he got this mean, wounded look on his face as if I had struck a nerve. I immediately regretted opening my big fat mouth.

  All of a sudden a huge swath of bright light, an unearthly green light, flashed across the inky sky. It was a fluorescent green. And glowing so much I had to look away for fear I would be blinded.

  Seconds later, I felt a soft WHUMP, which pulsed right through me. Heat ran up my body, surging from my toes up through my legs and torso to my hair follicles. Every cell in my body was vibrating. All my synapses and billions of nerve endings blasting at full throttle.

  When it stopped, the entire valley—all of Barrington—had lost electrical power. The town was plunged into complete darkness. Then, just as quickly, the electricity returned.

  “Get out of here. Now!” Jackson yelled, shoving me down the path toward my bike.

  Before I could protest, or ask what the hell had just happened, he had jumped into his car and turned on the engine. “Get home!” he shouted, before driving off at warp speed.

  For a minute, I must admit, I stood there in shock. I didn’t know what had happened or why. It was something otherworldly, and had scared even the toughest dude in the high school. Frightened and trying very hard not to dissolve into tears, I gunned the bike and flew down the road toward home. I hoped I’d make it into my bed, under the covers, safe and sound.

  5. SHOCK AND AWE

  * * *

  The birds were dead.

  I’m saying that every single bird in town had died, like in some cheesy horror movie. What had happened in Barrington looked random at first. A few small bodies here, several more there . . . enough that I noticed them, lying on the ground. Lifeless. Their glassy black eyes just staring up at nothingness. It was an unsettling sight, to say the least. But I blocked it out of my mind, not wanting to think about what might have killed them. The truth was, my mind was so overwhelmed with figuring out what had gone down with Jackson the night before that I couldn’t process much else of the outside world.

  And then I went to school.

  My dad had planned to drive me as usual, but I told him that I preferred to walk. He kept pressing to know why. I hemmed and hawed a lot and avoided telling him the truth. I was afraid that if I rode with him, I might blurt out something incriminating about being out past curfew and breaking his one cardinal rule. This would lead to all sorts of unpleasant questions about the bike that would land me in hot water. It was much safer for me to walk to school and avoid Dad altogether.

  “You sure you’re all right? It’s nearly two miles.” Dad stared at me, his eyes narrowing skeptically, refusing to let the matter die. He placed his palm on my forehead to feel if I had a fever, no doubt convinced that I was pulling his leg.

  “I walked all the time in Bangkok.” I brushed his hand away, not wanting to make it into any big deal. My paranoia kicked in. Why was he prying and being so insistent? Was he testing me? Did he know what I’d done last night? “Besides, it’s a nice day.” I zipped up my bag and casually tossed it over my shoulder, ready to fly out the front door, anxious not to field any more questions. Fortunately, Dad accepted my explanation, gave me a peck on the cheek, and allowed me to go on my way.

  The fact was, I wasn’t lying. It really was a lovely morning: bright sunshine, clear blue sky, with a slight autumn chill in the air. The flaming reds, bright oranges, and golden yellow leaves falling from the trees only added to the illusion that Barrington was still a normal town. Not the end of the world, black-sky Armageddon I’d half expected to see when I looked out my bedroom window at the crack of dawn that morning.

  For all I knew,
that fluorescent green pulse I’d seen (and most definitely felt, and was still feeling) was nothing more serious than a freak mountain lightning flash or benign electrical discharge from a nearby power plant. Or perhaps it had been one of those meteor showers? Nothing worth flipping out about in the light of day, that’s for sure.

  But I couldn’t explain why it felt like my body was still vibrating. Or was it all just in my mind?

  That morning I replayed the events of my encounter with Jackson in my mind. I felt confused and unsure about exactly what I had witnessed. Maybe Jackson had just been messing with the new girl’s head, ordering me to run home as if the world were about to end. Oliver had warned me to steer clear of him—that Rebel Boy was bad news. And now I had firsthand proof.

  I shook my head and chuckled at how gullible I had been the night before, racing home on my dad’s bike, then staying up half the night freaking out that a nuclear bomb had exploded or that we were being attacked by space aliens. I had finally calmed down around two a.m. when I heard my dad roll in from the hospital. He tiptoed up the stairs and down the hall to my bedroom. I shut my eyes and pretended to be fast asleep, half expecting him to wake me to tell me something truly awful had occurred. Honey, pack a bag. They’re here. Instead he lingered in my doorway like any dad before padding off to his own bedroom, where he went to sleep.

  By five thirty a.m. I was actively trolling the Internet, seeking out information on what exactly had happened the night before. I searched dozens of media sites, from CNN and the Rocky Mountain News to the Huffington Post and the Durango Herald. I even broke down and checked my old nemesis Facebook for the first time in two years to see if any kids were talking about it. To my surprise I didn’t find one story or discussion. Not a single mention of any bizarre light flashes or strange astronomical occurrences in Barrington, or the rest of southern Colorado, for that matter, either. Another hopeful sign that last night wasn’t anything to freak out about.

  So I showered and dressed, then tried my best to put on a happy face. Apparently the earth was still spinning. I was relieved. I kissed dad good-bye and trudged off to school at seven fifteen in the morning as if nothing were wrong, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

  But I had barely turned the corner of my block when I spotted my first dead bird. A sparrow, small and brown, lay lifeless on the front lawn. From afar it looked peaceful. I stopped and cringed to see it just lying there, with its black eyes fixed wide open. For a second I contemplated scooping up the poor thing and giving it a proper burial. But then I thought about all the gross diseases birds carry, like avian pox and salmonellosis, and decided it was far wiser to let a medical professional (aka my dad) dispose of the body.

  So I texted dear old Dad as I hurried down the block: Dead bird on lawn. Gross. I’d no sooner hit send than I came upon my second dead bird at the corner. This one—a crow—was bigger and looked considerably nastier than the first victim. Its head had been ripped off. Super gross. Still, I felt compelled to snap a photo of the disturbing remains before I sprinted across the street, not wanting to be late for my first class. Along the way to school I encountered several dozen avian fatalities scattered around—even on Main Street—and now Jackson no longer seemed like an alarmist or a nut job messing with my head.

  • • •

  By the time I arrived at school, I knew things were slightly off. Well, actually way more than slightly. They were off by a whole lot.

  Normally, in the morning the quad reverberated with soft, respectful voices mixed with muted laughter. Super polite. Nothing raucous nor that jarring. Instead, this particular morning I heard people shouting. Angrily. Loudly.

  I immediately spotted Chase and his football posse at their customary table, arguing heatedly with one another. Red-faced and antagonistic, they gesticulated wildly, jabbing fingers in one another’s chests. Kyle and Vox were really going at it. The spectacle of jocks turning on their own, like a group of crazed alpha-male baboons, was highly amusing—though not nearly as entertaining as what was happening a few tables over. The members of the normally sedate geek squad, instead of solving differential equations, were aggressively pushing and shoving one another around as if they were inner-city gang bangers. A couple of mathletes in neatly pressed jeans and white collared shirts actually began punching each other, egged on by a crew of prepster girly-girls in casual cardigans and pleated skirts.

  “Go for it!” one girl screeched as a circle of fervent onlookers gathered around.

  I was so engrossed by the surreal vision of awkwardly flailing bony limbs that I collided head-on with Maya. Her usually coiffed black hair was inexplicably wild and unstyled.

  “Maya. I didn’t see you.”

  “What are you, like suddenly blind or something?” she snapped back with all the sweetness of a piranha tasting blood. Before jostling past me in an angry huff.

  Completely thrown by Maya’s sudden psycho turn from America’s Sweetheart to the Bitch Who Ate Barrington, I felt the urge to grab her by the hair and throw her to the ground, but I quickly restrained myself. Then I slowly looked around the quad at all the various cliques. It became clear to me that Maya, Chase, and the geeks weren’t the only ones who were seriously bugging—it was everyone.

  • • •

  “Tell me: Is the entire school PMSing, or just inhabited by body-snatching aliens?” I shouted this as I jogged up to Oliver, who valiantly tried keeping pace with everyone else running laps around the track during third-period phys ed.

  “Is this going to be another of Nica’s ‘Barrington sucks’ rants? Because frankly, it’s way too early,” he barked back as he blotted the beads of sweat dripping off his forehead with the bottom of his red-and-black anime tribute T-shirt.

  I glanced around to make sure nobody else was within earshot before spilling my guts. “Okay, so don’t think I’m crazy. But I kind of went out last night after curfew and had a close encounter of the strangest kind with Jackson Winters.”

  Oliver’s big brown eyes practically popped out of their sockets. “Holy crap, Nica. Do you realize how much trouble you could get into?” He was so shocked by my confession he came to a complete stop on the track. I grabbed Oliver’s arm and yanked him along, not wanting gung-ho Coach Lurrell and his ubiquitous stopwatch to penalize us for goofing off.

  “Listen, before you start going ballistic on me, can you at least let me explain?” He could see by my tense expression that this wasn’t some bad-girl escapade I was about to regale him with but something much more serious.

  He nodded and listened silently while I quickly downloaded the details of last night’s motorcycle adventure.

  “That’s all? Just a slap on the wrist from security for breaking curfew and driving without a license?” Oliver shook his head in disbelief, amazed I hadn’t been locked away for life.

  “Only after security realized who my dad was.”

  “Just goes to show you: In Barrington it’s who you know. So how does Jackson figure in your Hell’s Angels drama?”

  “I was kind of on my way home when I spotted his car parked up on the bluff.”

  “And you couldn’t resist. You and him together under the moonlight . . . it’s like some trashy romance novel gone super 3-D,” he scoffed, considerably amused with himself.

  “Thanks, Oliver. I love being reduced to a sappy cliché. Anyway, we were in the middle of this truly cryptic conversation—about me, and the town, and him. Then out of nowhere this freaky green flash lights up the entire sky for about five seconds.”

  “Like a meteor or fireball or falling star?” Oliver sniped, wanting specifics, which I didn’t have. “Or a UFO?”

  “I’m not sure what it was, Mr. Science, other than blindingly bright. And it produced this intense blast of energy,” I confessed, recalling how I’d felt when it happened.

  “You felt a blast of energy?” Skepticism oozed from Oliver’s every pore.

  “I literally felt the power pulse through my entire body. From he
ad to toe.”

  “Maybe it was the power of love? Or just bad sushi?” he joked.

  “Ha, ha. Look, whatever it was really spooked Jackson.” And freaked me out, I almost shouted, but Oliver already heard the anxiety in my voice without me adding any more fuel to this fire.

  “Listen, there must be a logical explanation. We’re always getting heat-lightning storms here in the foothills this time of year. And October is supposed to be an active month for astronomic activity.” Though a bit troubled by my report, Oliver still wasn’t ready to accept that it was anything to get alarmed about.

  “I thought that at first too, but haven’t you noticed everyone’s bizarro moods today? I mean, Little Miss Sunshine practically sliced and diced me for breakfast this morning.” I gestured across the field, where Maya argued with Jaden while the rest of the fighting chick squad ran cheerleading routines. “I swear that girl’s a little bit cheerleader, a whole lot bipolar.”

  Oliver shrugged, trying to blow off my concerns. “Maybe she forgot her Lexapro?”

  “Joke all you want, Oliver. I’m beginning to think Jackson’s onto something.”

  “Onto what? Everyone knows the dude’s crazy.” Oliver shot me a dismissive look as he chewed his lower lip, his brow knit questioningly.

  “That underneath this town’s pleasant facade, something’s not right.” I stared back at Oliver, challenging him.

  As if on cue, barrel-chested Coach Lurrell launched into a full-throttle hissy fit with the girls about them practicing their cheers too loudly. Spittle flew out of his mouth while he berated the cheerleaders. Instead of apologizing to the coach—a teacher—the girls actually argued back, taunting him mercilessly. They were all so angry the altercation almost turned into a brawl, until one of the other gym teachers ran out and broke them up.