imperfect (24 page)

Good,
she thought.

“
You understand you can’t
continue that sort of behavior while you’re with us, right?” Jaiden
said. “You better have a good reason for your behavior.”

Troop sighed. “Long story short. I used to
go to a public high school where I was known as an Accident. As a
result, I got picked on. I was eventually transferred to Ludus High
School after some kids tried to lock me in a classroom and set it
on fire. At Ludus, nobody knew I wasn’t a Perfect and they accepted
me as I am. Basically, I made the right friends, acted the right
way and fit right in.”

“
That’s still no excuse
for your behavior,” Jaiden said.

“
I was getting to that,”
Troop said. “You’re either the hunter or the hunted at Ludus High
School. I was sick of being tormented all the time at my old high
school and decided I was going to take charge of my life. I’ve
learned that if you don’t want to be a hunted, then you have to be
the hunter. I wasn’t actually going to hurt the girl, you
know.”

“
I’ll accept that,” said
Chelsa.

“
Jaiden? Kristi? Do you
believe me?”

“
I trust Chelsa’s gut
instincts, so yeah,” Jaiden said.

Kristi responded to Troop with another one
of her death-glares. Troop was a smooth actor and talker for sure,
but he wasn’t going to fool her.

“
Do you have your
electro-slate on you?” Chelsa asked.

“
Yeah,” Troop said. He
pulled it out from his jacket pocket. The slate was top-of-the-line
and looked so new it could’ve been just taken out from the
factory.

“
Good. Hand it over
please,” Chelsa said.

“
Why?”

“
Just do it.”

Troop hesitantly forked over his slate to
Chelsa.

“
Thanks. I’ll be in my
room. Don’t disturb me unless it’s an emergency.”

Chelsa left the living room and headed into
her bedroom, locking the door behind her.

“
What is she doing with my
slate?” Troop asked.

“
Probably removing the
tracker from it,” Jaiden said.

“
There’s a tracker in my
slate?” Troop sounded surprised.

You would’ve thought he
already knew that, considering he was raised in a spy-community.
After all, his mom, Tiffany, works for the Revealers,
Kristi thought.

“
I need some space.” She
abruptly stood up and left.

chapter
twenty-five

[ Troop ]

Troop watched Kristi storm
out. “Guess we’re off to a rough
start.”

“
Give her some time,”
Jaiden said. “She’ll eventually come around.”

“
I hope Chelsa’s not going
to destroy my electro-slate.” Troop switched the topic.

Jaiden snorted. “You have no idea.” He
proceeded to tell Troop about Chelsa crushing his slate. “Don’t
worry, though. She’s good at what she does. Your slate should be
safe,” Jaiden reassured Troop.

“
So, how long have you
guys known each other?” He tossed a pretzel from hand to
hand.

“
I met Chelsa a few weeks
ago. As for Kristi, I’ve known her my whole life; she’s my
sister.”

Troop appraised Jaiden. He couldn’t spot any
resemblance between the two siblings. He was just about to comment
about this when Jaiden suddenly narrowed his eyes and pinned him
with an acute stare. “I’m warning you right now, if I see you harm
Chelsa or Kristi, you are no longer with us. Do you understand
me?”

In a serious tone, Troop replied, “Yes. I
swear I won’t purposely harm anyone. The Troop you saw earlier
today is a different person from the one you see now.” He didn’t
elucidate any further and Jaiden left it at that.

To be honest, Troop wanted to bury all
traces of the past behind him.

“
So, how did you meet
Chelsa?” he asked.

“
In jail.”

Troop raised a questioning eyebrow and
Jaiden told him how Chelsa had busted him out of jail and taken him
and Kristi into her hidden living quarters. The revolving bricks
leading into Chelsa’s old home reminded Troop of something
familiar.

“
Was there a smaller room
leading into the main room at Chelsa’s place?” he asked
Jaiden.

Jaiden nodded.

“
I think I know the place
you’re talking about. Lawrence, a senior Revealers member, used to
stash his illegal library in there. He relocated his cache a few
years ago though, when he ran out of room.”

Jaiden checked the time and said, “Go grab
some sleep; it’s already past midnight and we’re heading out early
tomorrow.”

“
I will in a minute. I’ll
just wait until Chelsa returns my electro-slate.”

“
Alright.” Jaiden exited
the living room, leaving Troop to his own thoughts.

He popped a pretzel into
his mouth, savoring its crunch and saltiness. Feeling bored, he
counted the ceiling tiles to pass time.
One, two, three, four…

“
Here you go.”

Troop jerked awake.
I must’ve fallen asleep.
He turned his head to locate the speaker.

“
There wasn’t a tracker in
your slate. Sorry it took so long.” Chelsa pitched him his
electro-slate.

“
Thanks. See you in the
morning.”

“
Goodnight.”

Troop walked down the
short hallway leading to a bedroom. The lights lining the bottom
edges of the wall lit up when he passed by the motion sensors,
illuminating his path. He passed by a door and heard a
thud.
Troop paused for a
second, and then continued on his way.

“
Ah!”

Not sure if someone had gotten hurt, he
knocked on the door. “Everything okay?”

There was an incomprehensible reply.

Troop started to turn the doorknob when
Kristi’s voice said, “I’m alright.”

Shrugging, he left.

chapter
twenty-six

[ Kristi ]

Stevey hunched over an
empty whiskey bottle. His eyes wandered
aimlessly all over the place. Kristi approached him with
trepidation. She had no idea how she had arrived back at Stevey’s
shack in the woods. For some reason, she was all by
herself.

“
Who is it?” Stevey
grunted.

“
It’s me,
Kristi.”

“
Stevey doesn’t want to
see Kristi.”

“
I have some questions for
you.”

Stevey threw the whiskey bottle at her head.
He had a startlingly good aim and arm; he would’ve nailed her if
she hadn’t been on her guard.

“
Why did you throw the
bottle at me?”

“
Stevey doesn’t want to
see you. Go away,” Stevey replied with a hint of whining in his
voice.

Something vicious inside Kristi erupted and
she marched over to Stevey and roughly shook him by the
shoulders.

“
Answer my questions or
else,” she snarled.

Stevey cowered in fear and
tried to writhe out of her grip, bringing Kristi back to her
senses.
What came over me?
Kristi wondered. She dropped her hands and took a
step back. Stevey ran away from her and hid behind a
tree.

“
Stevey, I’m sorry,” she
called out. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Please come
out.”

Stevey didn’t emerge from behind the huge
elm tree. “Stevey doesn’t like the questions you ask,” he said.

“
You don’t even know what
I was going to ask you.”

“
Kristi gives Stevey bad
memories,” Stevey stuttered from behind the tree.

An uncomfortable silence blossomed in the
air. The silence grew and strangled the space like a weed. It was
Stevey who timidly broke it.

“
Stevey has something to
show you.” His voice was steady now, something that Kristi wasn’t
expecting considering he had been trembling with fear just minutes
ago.

“
Okay. What do you want to
show me?”

“
Come here. Stevey has a
secret to show you.”

Her sixth sense tugged at her gut, warning
her to run away from this place as fast as possible. On the other
hand, Kristi was curious about what Stevey wanted to show her. She
squashed her fears down deep inside and walked over to Stevey.

His back was turned to her when she inched
over to him.

“
What is it that you
wanted to show me?” Kristi asked.

Stevey spun around and lunged at her. His
eyes glowed red and razor-sharp claws erupted from his fingers.
Kristi ducked to the right and felt the air hiss where Stevey
attempted to swipe at her.

“
What are you?” she
gasped.

Stevey let loose a string of cackles and
swiped his claws at her shoulders again. She dodged half a second
too late and his ragged nails raked down her left shoulder. Blood
welled out from the three gashes. At the sight of her blood, Stevey
seemed to be hyped into a feverous state.

“
Help!” Kristi yelled into
the emptiness.

“
No one can hear you,”
Stevey grinned a malevolent grin.

He tackled her to the ground. His breath
stunk of stale liquor. Flames danced in his eyes.

“
Die,” he growled into
Kristi’s ear and lazily dragged a single talon across her
throat.

She screamed.

Thud!

Kristi bolted upright in bed, banging her
head against the headboard. She checked herself for any injuries
and then threw a glance at the clock on the bed stand.

“
That was just a
nightmare,” she reassured herself.

She patted the bed to make sure it was solid
and not an illusion while her heart hammered uncontrollably against
her chest. There was no point in trying to fall back asleep; she
was too disturbed by the nightmare, so she decided to make some
French toast for breakfast. Kristi snatched some clothes and
tiptoed into the bathroom. Once she had tidied up, she flicked on
the kitchen lights and got to work.

Let’s see,
she thought,
I need
milk, eggs, bread and butter.
She hummed
the theme song of
The Phantom of the
Opera
while gathering all the ingredients
and started whisking the milk and eggs together. Then she heated up
the pan and greased it with a stick of butter. When she dipped the
bread into the egg-milk mixture, she accidently knocked over the
bowl of pretzels that had been sitting on the counter, leftover
from the night before.

“
I’ll clean that up after
I make this piece of French toast,” she said to herself.

The pan sizzled and hissed as breakfast
cooked on the stove. After she was satisfied that particular piece
of French toast was done, she flipped it onto a plate and turned
around to clean up the pretzels.

The pretzels were already swept from the
floor. She stopped humming and frowned.

Then Kristi looked up and saw Troop
observing her from the far side of the kitchen. She knew at once
that it was he who had cleaned up the spilt pretzels.

“
Thanks,” she said curtly
and returned to making breakfast.

“
I see you still haven’t
forgiven me.”

Kristi dropped another piece of bread into
the egg-milk mixture, watching it soak up the liquid. “You best
better believe that.”

“
Why up so early?” Troop
asked. “From what Jaiden told me last night, you’re not a morning
person.”

“
That is none of your
business,” she said, feeling displeased that Jaiden was talking to
Troop about her when she wasn’t around.

“
Is there any chance that
you’ll forgive me? I really don’t want to be traveling with someone
who’s going to be giving me the death-eye every five minutes for
the next few weeks.” Troop ran his fingers through his
hair.

Kristi pretended to think about his question
with exaggerated gestures then said, “Let’s see…No.”

The smell of burning French toast brought
her attention back to making breakfast. She flipped the burnt piece
into the trash and started on the next slice.

Troop said no more and just watched. Kristi
pretended she didn’t feel bothered by his presence. Her pretending
didn’t last long.

“
That’s kind of creepy,”
she commented a few minutes later.

“
What?”

“
You just standing there
and watching.” Kristi picked up the dirty whisks, bowls and the pan
she had used to make breakfast and rinsed them off. “Don’t you have
something better to do?”

“
Not really.”

A bleary-eyed Chelsa stumbled into the
kitchen, rubbing her eyes and giving the impression that she had
just woken up. She stopped walking and looked from Kristi to Troop
then from Troop back to Kristi.

“
Were you two actually
having a
conversation
?”

“
Surprisingly, yes,” Troop
said.

At the same time Kristi said, “Only
something resembling a conversation.”

“
We need new ID
cards,”
Kristi said.