The Hunt

11

Ariane

DR. DAVID LAUGHLIN WAS A handsome man with a cruel mouth.

I’d learned to study faces early on in the lab at GTX. So often the larger expressions didn’t match the thoughts and feelings I heard. That was confusing at first, a dissonance that was hard to manage until I learned which to rely on. People could make their faces say anything with enough practice, I discovered, but they rarely bothered with their thoughts.

Still, even the most skilled deceivers often gave themselves away with the tiniest hints of their true nature. A curled lip. Eyes narrowed ever so fractionally. Shaking their heads no even as their mouths said, “Yes.”

In the photos I’d found, Laughlin was smiling, but his lips were tight and narrow across his too-white teeth, like a predator signaling an impending attack.

He wasn’t particularly camera shy, either. A single Google search on our newly purchased disposable phone had provided dozens of pages of results. Articles, yes, about the man himself and his company, Laughlin Integrated Enterprises, but also pictures of Dr. Laughlin attending various events. He seemed to have some social standing in the Chicago area. There were multiple photos of him at black-tie and red-carpet events. The opening of a new play. A party at the Lyric Opera house. Shaking hands with the new mayor.

All with that thin, bloodless grin.

Zane emerged from the dressing room, tugging unhappily at the tie knotted loosely around his neck. He stopped dead when he saw me waiting.

“You’re ready.” He sounded surprised.

“Yes.” I glanced down at myself. Had I missed something? Blue skirt, white blouse (with a white T-shirt underneath to make sure my tattoo didn’t show through), patterned scarf, navy ballet flats. I looked just like the girl on the Linwood Academy Web site. Well, to the best of my ability to replicate.

After our stop at Best Buy for the disposable phone with Internet access—I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it until I didn’t have it anymore—I’d found a department store that carried a section of items intended for school uniforms. They didn’t have the Linwood crests—those apparently came from the school—but everything else was basically what we’d seen this morning. Well, a cheaper version, I was guessing.

“I just…I thought you’d want to shop more,” Zane said with a frown.

“Here?” I raised my eyebrows. “Their denim selection is kind of pathetic.”

He stared at me. “What?”

I shook my head. Of course he had no knowledge of my “hobby,” the result of which was the impressive jeans collection I’d been forced to leave behind at my house. Not that it really mattered. Except it did, in the sense that it was part of who I was, part of who’d I chosen to be, and there were so few of those pieces, I really hated to lose any of them.

“Never mind,” I said.

“Hey, nice scarf.” He tugged at it lightly. “You look like an accountant.”

I thought about that and then gave him the finger, much to the displeasure of the eagle-eyed store employee watching us.

Zane laughed. At times, it was so easy to surprise and amuse him. I liked that. It made me feel as if I was doing something right, as if I had some value to him and I wasn’t the only one getting something out of this.

“What do you have there?” He nodded at the phone in my hand, which was still displaying Laughlin’s picture.

In answer, I turned the screen toward him so he could see the caption beneath the photo with Laughlin’s name.

Zane’s forehead creased with worry. “You think he’s going to be at the school?”

“No. But I want to be able to recognize him if he is.” I had no idea how often Dr. Laughlin checked on his progeny. Perhaps he was there to pick them up after school every day.

Zane nodded. “Okay.” But he still appeared concerned.

“It’ll be fine,” I said briskly. I hoped. “Got your tags?” I was betting we had only a few more seconds before that clerk was over here to hassle us about buying or leaving. I’d be tempted to wave a fistful of hundreds in front of her face, but we were trying to be discreet.

Zane handed me the mangled bits of paper, the bar codes barely legible.

“I didn’t have scissors in there,” he protested when I gave him a questioning look.

“I could have helped,” I said with a sigh.

“Maybe next time,” he said lightly but with a heated gaze that sent a jolt through me. No one had ever looked at me that way.

My face flushed. “I meant with the tags.”

“Oh. That too.” He grinned.

Yeah, I was possibly in a little over my head.

Our spot in the Linwood Academy parking lot was still open, but all the students who’d been wandering around before had vanished.

Staring up at the monstrosity of the main building—it really was ugly and just weird looking—and imagining all the strangers within, I felt a fresh wave of uncertainty.

The first rule of a successful operation was adequate preparation, and I didn’t know this school or these people.

After taking the keys out of the ignition, Zane unbuckled his seat belt, but I made no move to do the same.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I stared down at the phone in my hand and squeezed it so tight my knuckles ached. “The Web site didn’t list a bell schedule, so I’m just guessing at the timing for lunch.”

Sneaking in during mealtime would give us the best shot at blending in unnoticed. Lots of students moving around all at once and for more than three or four minutes at a time, as they would between classes. That was the theory, anyway. The trouble was, it didn’t give us a lot of time, and I had no idea where the hybrids might be. And while Linwood was small—“An elite student body, made up of the best and brightest,” according to their About Web page—a thousand kids in four grades meant a lot of rooms to search.

“I’m assuming fifty-minute class periods from the listed start time, which would give us three overlapping lunch periods of half an hour each, but I don’t have anything to confirm that.” I let out a shaky exhale. “And I don’t have a building layout or a breakdown on the organizational system they use for assigning classrooms.” If the hybrids were juniors, as I was supposed to be, theoretically, they’d be in junior-level classes. But that was assuming that (a) these hybrids were supposed to be my same age and (b) that Linwood’s curriculum was in some way similar to ours. “I just don’t have enough information.”

Zane was staring at me. “I think we’ll be fine,” he said slowly, as if I were crazy.

“I’d feel better if we were more prepared,” I said. The plastic casing on the phone squeaked against the pressure of my hand. I released it.

He shook his head. “You’ve done the best you can do with what you have. Isn’t that something you learned in all your training?”

No, because I’d never had any real-world experience with missions. Not where I set my own objective, anyway. And in lab-created scenarios, I’d always had access to everything I needed to succeed, even if I had to work hard to get it. No Kobayashi Maru tests at GTX. Maybe Dr. Jacobs had been saving that for my return. Or maybe, he, like Captain Kirk, didn’t want to contemplate the possibility of a no-win situation.

“Besides,” Zane continued, “rich people, hybrids, or whatever, this is still a high school.” He shrugged. “It can’t be that different from ours.”

“Yes, and my experience at Ashe High was certainly a model for success,” I said flatly.

“Hey, look at me,” he said.

I glanced up from the phone and yet another utterly useless Web search for information about Linwood.

“We’ll find them, okay?” he said, his gaze steady and calm. “Without getting caught.”

I nodded, feeling a great surge of love for him. This wasn’t his idea, not something he even wanted to do, but he was working hard to reassure me anyway.

He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, thinking. “These hybrids, they’re, uh, different, right?”

I nodded. “Mara said they don’t blend in well.” I hesitated, then added, “Dr. Jacobs once said something strange to me, that they couldn’t talk. But that can’t be right.” If it were, there’d be no point in trying to “humanize” them, would there? Not talking would make so-called normal interactions with full-blooded humans pretty difficult.

“Then all we have to do is get in. Someone will know who they are and probably even where we can find them,” Zane said with a shrug. “Everyone always knows who the…”

He stopped himself before the word freaks exited his mouth, but I heard it just the same and it struck like a slap.

He grimaced. “I didn’t mean—”

“No,” I said quietly. “You’re right. They are. We are.”

“Ariane,” he began with chagrined expression.

I shook my head. “Don’t. Let’s go,” I said. I didn’t want an apology. Can’t apologize for the truth.

I pushed open my door, climbed down from the van, and started for the entrance.

Zane followed, taking long strides to catch up with me. “So, do you have a plan?” he asked.

Actually, I did. And what Zane had said a moment ago had only confirmed my idea. “Yeah,” I said. “We’re going to ask someone.”

“That’s…direct,” he said, startled.

It was, which was the beauty of it. I’d considered other alternatives—eavesdropping on thoughts, searching likely rooms or wings, simply waiting in a central location (like the cafeteria) for them to walk by—but considering our time constraints and our paper-thin cover as Linwood students, it seemed best to move, and move quickly.

“What you said before was right,” I said, ignoring the wailing of my all-too human feelings. “High school generally functions on a caste system. For that to work, participants must know who the untouchables are.”

Zane flinched.

“We’ll find someone likely to have a good grasp on the social workings, a student, not a teacher, and just ask where we can find Ford, Carter, or Nixon.” Assuming, of course, that the hybrids hadn’t adopted new names upon entering school. If they had, well, then this would be that much harder. But not impossible. Ford, Carter, and Nixon’s…unusualness wasn’t limited to what they were called. Someone would know who we meant, even if we had to describe them based on our vague details.

“Okay,” Zane said reluctantly. “What the hell.” He tried to smile. “Can’t be any worse than wandering the halls aimlessly.”

The closer we got to the doors, the more my nerves grew. The strange pillars—men in loincloths holding the roof up over their heads with strained expressions—seemed to be glaring down on me as we passed. The bright white concrete leading up to the building looked as if it was power-washed on a weekly basis. No black spots of gum or chalk messages for Linwood students.

Never in my life would I have ever imagined feeling a fondness or longing for Ashe High, but that was exactly what I wanted right then—to be back on familiar ground.

I should be in Brit Lit right now. The realization almost made me stumble; the idea that my “normal” existence was continuing on without me felt like a shock somehow. That there’d be an empty desk that would still be “mine” even though I wasn’t there to claim it anymore.

I wondered if Rachel was back in school. If she’d noticed that Zane and I were both missing. Was Jenna still angry with me? Was it a Tater Tot day in the cafeteria? Or french fries?

My chest ached with a confusing mix of sorrow and relief. For all its flaws and imperfections, my life in Wingate had been…well, my life. And Ashe High, along with the rest of it, was gone for good.

Except for Zane.

Without letting myself stop to think about it, I reached over and slid my hand into Zane’s.

I felt his surprise, but he didn’t hesitate, closing his fingers tightly over mine and giving a gentle squeeze.

“Thank you,” I said, fighting the tears that suddenly welled up.

“For what?” he asked.

“For this,” I said. “For going through with this even though you think it’s a bad idea. For being here.” With me.

He glanced at the doors before pulling me off to the side. He caressed the line of my cheek with his thumb, his eyes serious, and then he leaned in and kissed me.

And this was not just any “hey, good luck” brush of the lips. His hand was buried in my hair at the back of my neck, pulling me close, and I could feel his breath against my skin, his tongue sweeping over mine.

I wrapped my hands in his shirt, likely making wrinkles in the otherwise smooth fabric, but I couldn’t bring myself to care even a little bit.

The way he made the world fall away so I couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t feel anything but this? It was magic. And I wanted more. I wanted everything.

“Just…be careful, okay?” he asked when he finally pulled away.

I blinked, struggling to process both the kiss and the emotions I could now sense pouring off him. He was worried that I’d find Laughlin’s hybrids and they’d hurt me. I could hear that from him plainly. But he was equally worried about what might happen if they didn’t attack, if they greeted me with open arms.

“I promise,” I said, still reeling.

The bell rang, then, a fancy mellow-sounding tone that sounded more like a call to meditation.

He grinned at me. “Told you we’d be fine.”

Guessing the bell schedule correctly was only part of the equation, but I had to smile back. It was hard to resist his confidence.

Zane pulled the door open, holding it for me and then following me in.

I crossed the threshold, stepping onto a pristine and polished blond wood floor of another world. No trophy cases or state championship banners hanging here. The air, though, smelled familiar. A combination of cleaning products, too much body spray, and angst.

In the distance, where the entryway turned into a hall and met with another corridor, I could see blue-and-khaki-clad students flowing through, like deoxygenated blood returning to the heart.

But thankfully, the entryway where we stood was empty, for the moment, so no one had witnessed our arrival. Four sleek, metal benches lined the walls, a tiny sculpted tree in a matching pot between each set of benches. A doorway on the left side of the hall, between the benches (and trees) buzzed with the sounds of voices, laughter, and a phone ringing. Adult voices. Teachers. The office, most likely.

Great. I’d expected it to be near the entrance, of course, but I hadn’t anticipated that it would be quite so isolated here. No crowds of students to blend into.

“Where to first?” Zane asked under his breath.

“Away from here.” I bobbed my head toward the door, where a man in a gray uniform was now visible, his arm looping over the door frame as he finished talking to someone inside.

Zane stiffened, and I felt a spike of dread from him.

“Keep your head up, and walk quickly, but not like we’re rushing,” I whispered.

He nodded.

I led the way, flinching at every squeak of our shoes on the polished floors. It felt as if it took hours to cross those ten feet or so. Long enough for me to seriously reconsider this plan. I had no idea what the consequences would be for trespassing on private school property and imitating Linwood Academy students. But I was betting it involved the police, which was the last thing we needed right now.

When we passed the office door without anyone sounding the alarm, Zane flashed me a grin, as if to say, mission accomplished.

Well, sort of. More like “not-immediate-mission-failure.” Which was, I suppose, something.

“Let’s see if we can find the cafeteria,” I said quietly, nodding to a point ahead of us where the hall branched to the left and right. “More people in one room raises our chances of—”

“What do you think you’re doing?” someone demanded from behind us.

Well, that couldn’t be good.