“But if it is him, it means he crashed because he was already dead.”
Alex doesn’t even glance up from his physics book. “And then you could stop being a moron and blaming yourself.”
I don’t want to get into that again. “Just listen to me,” I say. “Three still-unidentified victims in San Diego thirty years ago, COD severe radiation poisoning. Then nothing. Now suddenly there are at least three new cases, all in the span of less than two weeks. And one of them might have died while driving.” Driving the truck that killed me.
I don’t say that because Alex has made it clear he thinks the whole Ben Michaels thing is in my mind. Instead I say, “Think about it. My dad’s got all these case files, and now by some freak coincidence a truck hits me and the driver might be related to the same case.”
This time Alex closes the book and leans back in his chair. “What do you think’s causing the radiation?” he says, reaching for the espresso I brought him and lifting it to his lips. Only it’s empty because he downed it the second I got here, and caffeine isn’t going to magically appear just because he hopes it might.
“Sorry, I should have gotten you a double.”
He shakes his head and tosses me the empty cup. “No, it’s cool. Hide it before my mom comes in here and sees it.” I crumple it and stick it in my purse with a smile. “So the burns?” Alex prompts.
“Right. The burns are severe—hard-core severe.”
“So the obvious answer is some kind of nuclear radiation.”
I shrug. “Right, but from what?”
He’s chewing his lip, and I know my mission has been accomplished. Alex Trechter has completely abandoned his homework. A little contraband caffeine and something interesting to distract him is all he needs. “Could it be some kind of virus?” he asks. “Like an injection of something radioactive?”
“You watch too many bad movies.”
“I do not—”
“You still owe me for the two hours of my life that I lost watching
Mission Impossible 2
. I can never get those back.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m serious.”
“Um, I’m serious too. What is with John Woo and those slow-motion doves?”
“Janelle, a virus would explain the late onset.”
I shake my head. “Not really. And wouldn’t the gamma burns manifest on the inside of the body, in the organs and body tissue?” I shiver a little at the mental image. “These burns were on his face and hands—exposed skin.”
Alex shakes his head. “It could still be some kind of virus—did you get the chance to read the internal examination?” When I shake my head, he continues, “I read viral terrorism is all the rage now. And it would make sense that your dad is involved—wasn’t he part of the team that investigated the viral hemorrhagic fevers two years ago in L.A.?”
“Yeah, they brought him and Struz in on that.” The virus in L.A. was like Ebola. It started with low-grade headaches, but within an hour or two the symptoms progressed to a debilitating fever and muscle pain. Within twenty-four hours the major organs, digestive system, skin, eyes, and gums of those infected would break down, deteriorate, and bleed. Then they were dead. The virus was caused by a bacteria terrorists had somehow managed to insert in select toothpaste tubes that were imported from China. I know people who still use baking soda instead of real toothpaste.
As much as I want to insist that Alex is wrong, I can’t. Just because I don’t know
how
someone would make it work like that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. I mean, some kind of bioterrorism in the form of a radiation virus fits a little too easily. Easily enough that it’s terrifying.
“How would someone make a late-onset virus like that?” I ask.
“J, I don’t know,” Alex says with a laugh. “I mean, contrary to popular belief, I’m actually not harboring a secret desire to grow up and become a bioterrorist.”
“Hello, Miss Tenner, have you come to do your homework here?” Alex’s mother, the formidable Annabeth Trechter, breezes into the dining room carrying a heap of folded pastel-colored towels. Despite the laundry, she looks like she just fell out of a business meeting in her skirt and suit jacket with her black hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck. She pauses in front of me and waits for my answer.
“No, ma’am,” I say, looking down to avoid her eyes—and I’d be embarrassed about that except Annabeth Trechter is the only woman who scares my dad. And she
likes
him.
“I actually dropped by to see if I could borrow Alex’s physics book when he’s finished,” I say. It’s only half a lie. “Eastview messed up my schedule and I’m not in the right classes, so I don’t have the books yet.”
She turns her attention to Alex. “You’ve finished your reading for English and your Spanish homework?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You have forty-three more minutes before dinner, and afterward you’ll be able to go to the Tenners’ to drop off your physics book, then you’ll come back promptly to study your vocabulary for the SATs.”
“Janelle and I were going to—”
“No, you studied vocabulary together last night. Tonight you’ll study with me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I can’t help smiling at that. Alex looks right at me, and I know my expression says,
Sucks to be you
. Only then it doesn’t, because suddenly his mom’s attention is back on me, and I’m fighting to keep from shrinking down in my seat. I swear, she’s some kind of human lie detector, and any second she’s going to start berating me for keeping Alex from his real work. “How is your father?”
“He’s good,” I say, then force myself to elaborate. The more information you volunteer with Alex’s mom, the less likely she is to think you’re hiding something. “He’s been up late working on a new case, but you know him. He’ll solve it.”
Mrs. Trechter nods. “You can go home now, Janelle. Alex will bring the book by after dinner.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say as I get up from the table and grab my purse and mocha frappe. “Thank you.” I turn and leave without looking back at Alex. Because we might make each other laugh. And because I know his mom is watching me leave, and she terrifies me.
Someday, I sort of hope I’m just like her.
T
uesday my schedule still hasn’t been changed, but my earth science teacher hands me a pass to the library as soon as I walk in.
I flash my student ID and the pass at the librarian and settle in at one of the computers. I should try to do some of the work I’m missing in the classes I’m supposed to be in, but I check my email first. There’s nothing interesting, so I open up Google, and because Alex’s theory has been on my mind, I type “radiation burns.”
Naturally, most of what comes up has to do with cancer patients and treatments for sunburn, which is hardly what I’m looking for. And I don’t really want to check out any of the pictures, thank you.
When I try “radiation poisoning,” a link for a story about the Chernobyl disaster pops up. In 1986 a nuclear power plant in Ukraine had a meltdown. It was considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. Twenty-eight people died that day, more than three hundred thousand people had to be evacuated to avoid the fallout, and it’s estimated that almost sixty thousand were exposed and five thousand of those exposed died. And if my John Doe was one of those first twenty-eight people, his autopsy would make sense, maybe. But he wasn’t. And that kind of exposure can’t be solitary.
No wonder the FBI has my dad on this case.
A group of freshmen escorted by a teacher I don’t know comes into the library. They’re loud and awkward, and occupying the librarian’s time. I’m tempted to keep reading about radiation poisoning, specifically how someone could harness radiation into some kind of viral form—if that’s even possible.
But I’ve only got about an hour until I’ll have to head out, so I pull up Eastview’s intranet, log into Alex’s account, and go to work downloading the notes and information I need. The librarian escorts the freshmen into one of the classrooms and begins some sort of presentation—most likely the “How to Use the Library” speech all freshmen have to sit through. I pull out my phone and make a to-do list based on the priority of the assignments.
“So your schedule sucks?”
My heart literally leaps into my throat, almost choking me, as I turn to see Ben Michaels slide into the chair next to mine. His hoodie is white today, but he wears it the same as before—over his head, pulled low enough to shield his eyes even though a few stray floppy curls of brown hair stick out. He’s giving me a wry, one-sided smile.
I want to ask him a million things all over again.
But the whole clogged-throat thing keeps the words from coming, so I do the next best thing and pull my shitty schedule from my pocket and hand it to him. His schedule probably doesn’t look any better, and he probably doesn’t care—I know that. But somehow, from the way he slumps into his seat and sighs, I think he just might understand. Or at least empathize.
He doesn’t even give me time to explain. “Algebra?” He laughs. “What, do they want you to teach the class?” He shakes his head and turns to the computer in front of him.
And that’s it.
I guess part of me hoped he’d say something else. Volunteer information. Start a conversation. After all, he’s the one who sat down next to me. It’s not like there aren’t thirty other computers in here.
I wait for a second before deciding,
Screw it
. I’m going to keep asking until I get the answer I want to hear. I turn to Ben’s profile and open my mouth, but pause as I realize he looks almost classically beautiful from this angle—his profile, the shape of his face—it just seems so perfect, and I’m frozen with surprise that I could see someone on campus for two years and not ever take the time to really
notice
him. He’s handsome in that kind of tall, dark, mysterious, and tortured way. It’s his eyes. They’re brown, but they’re so dark they sometimes look black. And the way he holds himself, it’s like he knows and takes advantage of his bone structure, the fact that his eyes are deep set—they look shadowed. His face is almost strangely blank, and it makes him look sad, like he has some kind of tragic secret, and for some ridiculous reason I wonder what it is.
He might hide behind the dark, brooding stoner thing, but his face is actually just as perfect as Nick’s or Kevin’s. I can’t help wondering if he gets the same kind of play.
I squelch that thought down. It’s none of my business what Ben Michaels does on his own time, so I try to look away and decide what I’m going to say, but I can’t seem to concentrate on my computer anymore. I want to keep staring—like if I look at him long enough, I’ll unravel the enigma that is Ben Michaels.
Then I see his computer.
He has the school mainframe open and my schedule on the screen. A few keyboard shortcuts, and it’s completely wiped. A blank slate.
“What are you doing?”
“Changing your schedule,” he answers, as if accessing the mainframe couldn’t get him expelled.
“But you can’t—how’d you—”
He shrugs. “I stole the password off Florentine as a freshman. I’ve been fixing schedules for a couple years now.”
I look around the library. No one’s paying attention to us, but we aren’t exactly hidden from sight, either. Anyone could glance this way and see the screen.
“Janelle,” he says, and just the way he says my name—like I matter—makes me turn back to him. There’s no tension lining his eyes; now they look like they could be smiling. “What classes do you want?”
Junior year is supposed to be the most important year for applying to colleges. And I
did
follow all the rules—I submitted my class requests on time, I got the paperwork signed off on. It’s not my fault the schedule is all messed up.
So I tell him.
Ben clearly knows his way around the software, deftly searching for the course titles. I point to the teachers and class periods I want—and effectively match my schedule with Alex’s.
When I pick Poblete’s third-period class, Ben cracks a half smile. But I have a moment of panic when he tries to insert me into the class and an error message pops up to declare the class is too full.
Ben chuckles beside me—I must have gasped or something—and I realized how close we are, how much I’m leaning into him. Close enough that I can feel his body heat next to me. Close enough that I can smell the faint mixture of what I’m coming to know as pure Ben—mint, soap, and gasoline. Despite the fact that we’re not actually touching, I’m leaning over his shoulder, my mouth dangerously close to his ear.
If he turned his head just a few more inches in my direction, he could kiss me.
I have no idea where that thought came from.
I lean back, shifting in my seat.
“Don’t worry, I got this,” Ben says, gesturing to the computer. “You think you’re the first person who I needed to override to get them into Poblete’s class?”
Obviously not. He enters an override code, and a class roster pops up.
“Wait,” I say, reaching for him. “Don’t take anyone out. That isn’t fair.”
“I won’t,” he says, but he’s looking at my hand on his arm, and I pull it back, my face heating up. “I just need to manually add you in, see?” He copies and pastes my student ID into the class roster.
Which is when it hits me that he has access to EVERYTHING—even grades.
“It’s so wrong, right?” he asks, as if he can read my mind. “That it’s this easy to hack into the system. To steal a password?”
“How often do you do this?”
He shrugs. “I’ve changed schedules for a few people who were freaking out about shit, but mostly I just change a couple of friends’ schedules at the beginning of each semester. Avoid the counseling office.”
“Have you ever changed … more than schedules?”
“Like grades?” he says with a laugh. “Of course not.”
I’m so relieved, I let go of the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
“Although I think you’re the first person to recognize it’s the same program,” he adds. “None of my friends have put that together.”
“If they knew, would they ask you to do it?”