Burning Read online

  I rub the lump on my head. “Sorry,” I say. “I’ve been kind of jumpy lately.”

  Some of the tightness leaves Mateo’s face. I didn’t even know it was there until it’s gone. He checks over his shoulder, then steps into my room.

  “Let me see,” he says, perching at the edge of my bed. I lower my hand and tilt my head toward him.

  “See any brain?” I ask.

  “Nope. No brain at all.”

  I punch him on the leg, and he snickers under his breath. He leans in closer, and then I feel his fingers on my head. He presses lightly into my skin, tracing the edge of the lump forming on my skull.

  “Does that hurt?” His voice sounds quiet. I shake my head. I realize I’m holding my breath and clear my throat.

  “No,” I say.

  “Good,” he says, louder this time. He moves his hand down the back of my head and neck before finally letting it rest on my shoulder. My skin tingles everywhere he’s touched me, and it tingles everywhere he hasn’t. I hold completely still, terrified that any movement will break the spell.

  “Angela?” Mateo says. “Look at me.”

  I tilt my chin up. I don’t think I’ve ever looked him fully in the face like this. Usually I’m only able to catch a quick glance while he’s turned away. But now I’m looking at him and he’s looking at me and the entire moment is . . . surreal. His eyes aren’t really blue. They’re gray, with gold flecks near the pupil. He has three freckles on the bridge of his nose. He narrows his eyes and I blush, wondering if he’s studying me too.

  “Can you touch your nose with your index finger?” he says.

  I blink. “What?”

  “Like this.” He touches his nose with one finger. “Your eyes seem a little blurry. I want to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

  Oh my God. He was checking to see if I have a concussion, not gazing deeply into my eyes. I want to die. I want to sink into the floor and disappear forever.

  I clumsily thrust my index finger at my face, and it must brush against my nose, because Mateo leans away from me, satisfied.

  “So,” he asks. “Why aren’t you in the lounge with the others?”

  His voice sounds forced-casual. Like he’s trying to make up for our awkward fight by pretending nothing happened. I stare at my knees and try to come up with something clever to say. But I can’t think of anything, so I settle for honest instead.

  “Today’s for people with families. Lucky people.”

  Mateo frowns. “You have a family. What about that kid who’s always writing to you?”

  “That’s Charlie. My brother,” I tell him. “Charlie’s . . . not allowed to see me anymore.” I say each word slowly. Hating them. “I’m a bad influence.”

  “Who made that decision?”

  “My mother.”

  “I see.” He nods. “And she doesn’t visit either?”

  “She works.” I’m not actually sure she does, but it sounds better than the truth, which is that she doesn’t care. “Single mom, you know.”

  “Yeah.” I can’t tell if he means that like, “Yeah, I know what it’s like to have a single mom,” or if he’s just being polite. He drums his hands against his knees. I’m afraid to look at him again, so instead I focus on the bit of mattress between our legs. There’s not even six inches between us.

  I have the sudden urge to set my hand down in that space, like I’m on a date at a movie theater in junior high. I wonder if he’d notice. I wonder if he’d weave his fingers through mine.

  I twist my hands together and place them on my lap to resist the temptation.

  “I have a sister,” Mateo says, out of nowhere.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yup. Julie.”

  “Pretty name.” I knot my fingers and try to focus on Mateo’s story instead of my completely immature seduction plan. The empty space between us seems to pulse.

  “She’s such a brat,” Mateo says. He smiles a teasing, little-kid smile. I can suddenly picture him as a boy with floppy hair and big feet and a charming smile that always got him out of trouble.

  “She’s five years older,” Mateo continues. “Growing up, she was always playing these really mean pranks.”

  “What kind of pranks?”

  Mateo hesitates, but I see the story forming behind his eyes. He glances at the door.

  “Okay,” he says, turning back around. “So I went out trick-or-treating this one year when I was younger, right? Like, maybe seven or eight. And we got these huge Pixy Stix. Must’ve been this big.” Mateo holds his hands about a foot and a half apart. “I was so excited to eat that thing. I saved mine for weeks, until all my other candy was gone, and then I cut off one end and poured half of it down my throat.”

  His face twists in disgust at the memory. “It was salt. Julie ate the sugar out of it a few days before and refilled the thing with salt. She glued it back together so I wouldn’t know the difference.”

  I laugh. “Poor baby Ben!”

  Mateo flinches at the sound of his first name. Heat rises in my face. I’ve never called him Ben before. Not out loud, at least.

  He moves, and the entire mattress shifts beneath us. “That’s not all,” he continues, like nothing weird happened. “She used to replace my Dr Pepper with cold coffee and stick the bottle back in the fridge. I still can’t drink soda.”

  “How awful for you.”

  “Oh yeah. Worst sister ever.” Ben says this with a grin.

  “Right,” I say, but I’m not listening anymore. He’s placed his hand on the mattress between us. It’s just sitting there, palm up. If I moved an inch to the left, his thumb would brush against my thigh.

  He’s still talking, but his words sound like static. I imagine laying my hand on his. His skin looks soft and warm. I picture our fingers lacing together, our hands pressed palm to palm.

  Something flashes in the corner of my eye—a quick red blink of light. I flinch.

  “Angela?” Ben frowns. “Hey, are you okay?”

  “Yeah—” The light flashes again, so quickly I almost miss it. I push myself off my bunk and walk over to the door. An oversize, wire-caged clock hangs in the hallway. I wait for the light to flash again, but nothing happens. The clock must be blocking it from view.

  I take a step backward.

  There it is—a quick red blink. I recognize that light.

  “Angela?” Ben says. I whirl around.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I’m, uh, not feeling well.”

  Ben stands. Concern wrinkles his forehead. “Your head?”

  I touch the still-tender bump. “Nope. I think I’m just a little tired is all.”

  “Right.” Ben shifts from one foot to the other. “I guess I’ll leave you to rest then.”

  “Yeah. See you.”

  I wait until Ben disappears down the hall, and then I head for the clock. I’ve seen that blinking red light before. I know what it means. I lean against the wall and look up.

  A tiny black video camera hides behind the clock’s metal cage, its lens aimed toward our dorm. I stare at it for a long moment, my heart hammering in my chest. I should have known it was there. Everything that’s happened over the past few days clicks into place, and it’s so obvious that I hate myself for not understanding sooner.

  Dr. Gruen watched us leave our dorm in the middle of the night. She arranged for Brody and Mateo to find us. And she set up the raid because it was the only way to look for Jessica’s bear. She was probably watching the officers dismantle our room on the television in her office, waiting for a clue.

  I walk to the girls’ bathroom and back again twice before I find the others. Three more tiny black cameras with blinking red lights. One hangs from the ceiling outside the girls’ bathroom, half-hidden by a light fixture. Another points down the hall to our room, nestled beneath a fire alarm. The third sits beneath a staircase banister, poised to film the steps leading up to the second floor. And those are just the ones I can find. There are probably more. Lots more.


  I think of all the crazy things Cara’s been saying since Dr. Gruen and Mary Anne first got here. They’re FBI agents studying the future criminal element. They’re making everything perfect for their experiments. They’re watching us. Studying us. It all sounded so stupid at the time.

  But now . . .

  The red light blinks from the camera in the staircase, warning me that someone really is watching. Someone’s been watching this entire time.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I yank the video camera out from where it’s hidden beneath the staircase banister. It’s small but heavy, and it fits perfectly in the palm of my hand. Smart has never been my strong suit, but I remember Mateo saying that videotaping minors without parental consent is illegal. Jail-time illegal.

  I smile into the lens. Dr. Bitch is going down.

  I press the Power button, and the camera’s red light blinks off. Director Wu’s office is on the second floor, just down the hall from the infirmary. Technically, we’re not supposed to be wandering the halls on our own, but it’s free hour. They leave the doors unlocked so we can go to the library or make a phone call or use the restroom. For the first time in days, I don’t worry that the guards are going to swoop down on me the second I turn a corner. They barely even glance up as I walk past.

  The second-floor hallway is empty. I hurry past the dorms and the infirmary and stop at the last door on the left.

  “Director Wu?” I bang my fist against the door, still clutching the camera in my other hand. No one answers. I try the doorknob.

  “Director, I—” I push the door open and the rest of my sentence dies in my mouth.

  Director Wu’s office is empty. Really empty. Someone’s taken the faded couch, and the filing cabinets, and the giant wooden desk that stood in front of the window. Even the rug is gone. The concrete floor stares up at me, and the gleam of the sun on its surface is almost a smile.

  I step into the office, crushing the smile beneath my foot. For one horrible second, I feel like Brunesfield is laughing at me. Like this is some sort of practical joke. Then the logical part of my brain kicks in, and I realize the director must have switched rooms, or ordered new furniture. The floor didn’t open up and swallow her. She couldn’t have just disappeared.

  I turn in place, searching for any clue. But there’s nothing. It’s like the room was always empty. Like Director Wu never existed.

  A flicker of movement catches my eye. I whirl around. Dr. Gruen stands in the doorway. Watching me.

  “Miss Davis,” she says, stepping into the room. A black dress hugs her frame, its square neckline emphasizing a sharp collarbone and stiff shoulders. She looks like she’d draw blood if you touched her. “Can I help you with something?”

  “Where’s the director?” I don’t realize how upset I am until I hear my voice tremble. Dr. Gruen crosses the room, her pointed heels clacking against the concrete.

  “Director Wu no longer works for this facility.”

  “No.” I tighten my fingers around the video camera, wanting to throw it. “You’re lying. What did you do with her?”

  “Do with her?” A puzzled expression moves over Dr. Gruen’s face. “We were impressed with Director Wu’s work so we offered her a more lucrative position elsewhere. She left this morning.”

  Her eyes flick down to my hands, then back up to my face. “I see. You’ve found the video cameras.”

  A kind of giddy fear spreads through my body. “They’re illegal,” I say, holding up the camera. “You can’t record us without our permission. It’s the law.”

  “Taking video inside a minor’s private quarters is against the law. But the hallway and stairwells belong to the state. They’re fair game.” Dr. Gruen leans against the window, folding her arms over her chest. “I didn’t feel comfortable allowing Jessica to remain around members of the general population without a few precautions in place.”

  I don’t know what to believe . . . No matter what she says, it still feels like an invasion of our privacy.

  Dr. Gruen taps her fingers against her arm, considering me. Every nerve in my body becomes jagged and sharp. How can she be so calm when all I want to do is scream?

  Finally, she sighs and shakes her head. “Miss Davis, I’m afraid our last meeting didn’t go as well as I would have liked. You and I are on the same side, you see.”

  I’m not expecting that. I shift from foot to foot, not sure what to do with all the nervous energy running through my body. “We’re not on the same side,” I snap. “You said you wanted to help Jessica, but you’re a liar. You’re not helping her at all.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  There’s a beat of silence. I frown, sure that I heard her wrong. “What?”

  “You’re right,” Dr. Gruen says. “I never intended to help Jessica. Everything I told you about her trial was a fabrication. There is no trial. No police. Jessica was placed in this facility intentionally. So we could watch her.”

  The floor feels unsteady all of a sudden. I take a step backward, toward the door. “I don’t understand.”

  “SciGirls was set up to work with pyretics just like Jessica. At this moment, we have ten in residence at our facilities. We know everything about them—how their abilities developed, where they came from. How strong they are.”

  Dr. Gruen licks her finger and rubs at an ink stain near her thumbnail. “But Jessica came out of nowhere,” she continues. “Pyretic abilities are closely regulated. They don’t spread genetically. Jessica shouldn’t have been able to develop these abilities outside of the SciGirls program. We placed her here for further observation, to see if we could find some clue as to where her power came from. Unfortunately, Director Wu blocked my attempt at placing a camera inside your dorm, so we haven’t discovered anything useful. Luckily, that’s no longer an obstacle.”

  “You really think a stupid bear will tell you more about her powers?” I ask.

  “Yes. I know you know where it’s hidden, Miss Davis,” Dr. Gruen says, “and I assure you I’m capable of delivering everything I promised in our first meeting. If you want to get out of here before your eighteenth birthday, then I don’t see why a silly letter from your mother should stand in your way. I should also tell you that SciGirls is backed by some very powerful people. I’ve been authorized to make a more . . . substantive arrangement as well.”

  “Substantive? You mean, like, money?”

  “I was thinking of something along the lines of a scholarship. SciGirls has relationships with several amazing schools across the country.”

  “College?” I press my lips together to keep from laughing out loud. Despite my dreaming, I know college isn’t a real possibility for someone like me. If Gruen thinks I’m the kind of kid who could get into one of these “amazing schools,” then she really hasn’t done her research. “I’m not going to college,” I say.

  “No, I don’t imagine you will. But your little brother, Charlie, has decent grades and test scores. A scholarship could mean the difference between four years of university, and night classes after he finishes his shift at McDonald’s.”

  I freeze. For a long moment I can’t think of anything other than my brother’s name. She knows my brother’s name. Then my brain starts working again, and I focus on what else she said: grades, test scores. Charlie’s name might have been in my file, but she found the rest of that information on her own.

  She’s been watching him.

  “How do you know so much about my little brother?” I ask, my throat dry.

  “I do my research,” Dr. Gruen says smoothly. “And I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you of all you have to lose. You see, Angela, we’re going to find Jessica’s bear eventually. We’re going to get what we need from this place and take her away. Your stubbornness won’t stand in the way of that. But time is an important factor here. Jessica is a very dangerous little girl, as I’m sure you’ve discovered.”

  I think of boiling water. Flickering lights. “You’re worried she�
�s going to hurt someone?”

  “She’s already killed her foster father,” Dr. Gruen says. Her pale eyes fix on mine and I see something in them I’ve never noticed before. Pain, maybe. Or fear. “I’m worried that one of the girls here might be next.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I hurry out of Director Wu’s office, those last words repeating in my head like a song.

  She’s already killed her foster father. One of the girls here might be next.

  I stop on the landing halfway between the second floor and the first. I want to scream and stomp and bang my head against the wall, anything to drown out Dr. Gruen’s voice. She’s lying. She’s manipulating me. It’s not true.

  But it is true. Whatever else Dr. Gruen said, whatever lies she told, Jessica is dangerous. It doesn’t matter that she likes baby animals and monster trucks and books. She has incredible power and doesn’t seem able to control it. I think of the little boy lying in the hospital bed, tubes running up his nose. What if that was Cara? Or Issie?

  I make my hands into fists and hard plastic digs into my palm. I look down. I’m still holding Dr. Gruen’s stupid video camera.

  Anger bubbles up inside me. Before I can think about what I’m doing, I pull my arm back and throw. The camera hits the wall, then bounces down the stairs, showering bits of broken plastic. It smashes into the first floor. Ruined.

  I expect more raids over the next few days. I’m convinced that Officer Crane will appear at any second to rip apart our mattresses and dig through our lockers. Every footstep is Dr. Gruen coming back to threaten me with something new and terrible. Each flash of light is another hidden camera. Watching. Always watching.

  I’m so twitchy that Issie asks me if I have a rash.

  “Don’t be embarrassed, girl. I got one last year,” she explains, wiggling her shoulders. “Oooh, it made me all itchy and squirmy. I think it was from that crappy soap they used to have in the showers. The new stuff’s nice.”

  “Yeah,” I say. A few days ago Dr. Gruen replaced the watery liquid soap in the showers with this thicker, moisturizing stuff that supposedly feels like velvet on your skin. I wouldn’t know, because I refuse to try it. So now I’m paranoid and stinky.