I’M NOT A DANGER TO the school!” Fort shouted as Rachel looked at a watch on her wrist.
“Twenty-five seconds,” she said, raising one of her glowing hands. “Time’s running out. . . .”
“I can’t explain everything in just twenty-five seconds!”
“That’s good, ’cause you only have fifteen now.” She aimed her hand at the floor next to him, and a fireball formed. “This should send the guards running in here.”
“They’ll send you home too,” Fort said. “Neither of us are allowed to be here.”
“Maybe,” Rachel said. “And if that happens, I’ll just have to live with the fact that I saved everyone here from you.” She glanced down. “Whoops, time’s up!”
“No!” Fort shouted as she unleashed her fireball. Without thinking, he leaped into its path and took the spell right in his chest. Fire exploded all over his torso and face, and he quickly dropped to the ground, rolling around to put it out, trying his best not to shriek in pain in spite of the agony he felt.
“What did you do?!” Rachel shouted, running down toward him. “I didn’t want to hit you!”
“I can’t go home,” Fort hissed, gritting his teeth to keep from crying. He quickly raised his hand over himself and cast Heal Minor Wounds over and over until the pain subsided enough to think. His uniform now had a hole in the chest, but at least his skin had stopped blistering. He touched his face, a little scared to check to see if he still had eyebrows.
“You’re insane,” Rachel said, her eyes wide.
“Probably,” Fort said, slowly pushing himself to a sitting position. His eyebrows somehow had survived, which was good. That would have been a lot harder to hide than a singed uniform. “But I swear to you, I’m no danger to the school. There’s a lot going on here that I don’t understand—”
“Start with what you do know,” Rachel said. Her hands still glowed, but at least she wasn’t aiming them at him.
“Okay, but don’t blame me if any of this sounds unbelievable,” he said. “Here’s what I know: There was a student here named Sierra, who studied Telepathy magic.”
“There’s no Telepathy book here,” Rachel said.
“There was at some point,” Fort said with a shrug, which sent pain through the burns on his chest. He winced and continued on. “I think Sierra used her Telepathy during the attack in D.C. to save all the civilians by making them flee the scene. She tried it with me, but I fought back. I couldn’t just leave my father behind.”
Saying it out loud somehow seemed less painful than it had in the past. Maybe because he felt like he knew more about what had happened now?
“How’d you fight back?” Rachel asked. “You wouldn’t have had anything to use against her.”
“Oh, I just resisted,” Fort said. “Hard. I can be a little stubborn.”
“I’m noticing.”
“Something happened then,” he continued. “I heard her scream, and then I blacked out and woke up in the hospital. Ever since, she’s . . . been in my mind somehow. I see her memories in dreams, and even sometimes when I’m awake, like earlier today.”
“Yeah, I saw that,” Rachel said. “I noticed the Chads beating up on you, but I promised I wouldn’t interfere again. But then you started screaming random things about an attack, and all the soldiers rushed in, and I wasn’t sure what was happening.” She looked away. “Dr. Ambrose sedated you, and that’s when I heard Dr. Opps talking to her about how you’re a danger to the whole school.”
“He thinks so,” Fort said. “But Colonel Charles won’t let him expel me, because I have this connection with Sierra. Whatever it is. Somehow she’s been using her magic to let me read other people’s thoughts. But I don’t understand why she’s doing it, and I have no idea where she is. Dr. Opps says she’s no longer enrolled in the school, but that’s all he’ll tell me. Jia knows more too . . . I saw Jia with Sierra earlier in that memory. But she won’t talk about it, and Dr. Opps said he’d send me home if I bothered her anymore.”
“None of this says danger to me,” Rachel said. “Weird, yes. Unbelievable, obviously. But not dangerous. Well, not dangerous for anyone but you, I should say.”
Now it was Fort’s turn to look away. “There’s something out there. Something that I think wants Sierra’s power. It felt it when she allowed me to read Dr. Opps’s thoughts, and it appeared in the middle of the officers’ mess. Dr. Opps used some item that he said would keep us safe for now, but he didn’t think it would last very long. So that’s what he’s afraid of, that the longer I stay, the more likely it is that this horrific thing comes back.” He shuddered at the thought of it.
“Seems like you’d want to go home, that being the case,” she said. “Explain to me why you’re not on the first helicopter back to your aunt’s, then?”
“What if it tracks me down there?” Fort said, his voice cracking. “I wasn’t hearing thoughts before, but I’ve dreamed about Sierra ever since the attack. I heard her voice in my dreams, Rachel. What if that thing can sense that, too? I can’t put my aunt in that kind of danger. But there’s more.”
“And what’s that?”
“Colonel Charles wants me here,” he said, staring at the ground. “I don’t know why yet, but he said something about awakening a power that could hurt this thing. And if that’s a possibility, then I need to stay, to learn how to fight back. You should have seen the officers’ mess, Rachel. A whole room full of soldiers, and they were powerless to stop it. It even destroyed Dr. Opps’s medallion thing.”
Rachel frowned and sat down on one of the steps. “I did hear Dr. Opps say that Colonel Charles wouldn’t let you go until you failed a test tomorrow.”
“That’s why I’m here, to make sure I don’t,” he said. “I already mastered one spell—”
“What? There’s no way! Not in two days.”
“So I just need to learn the other two tonight,” he finished. “Because if I fail, I will get sent home. None of the other administrators know why I’m here, so Dr. Ambrose’s test gives Dr. Opps the excuse he’s waiting for. They’ll just say I couldn’t hack it here.”
Rachel nodded slowly, then went silent for a moment. “I’m not saying I believe you,” she said finally. “But I know Colonel Charles, and he wouldn’t let you be here if there wasn’t a really good reason. Not that Dr. Opps doesn’t know what he’s talking about too, though.” She sighed. “I’ll make you a deal. If you fail your test tomorrow, you go home.”
“That’s . . . already the deal I have.”
“But if you pass,” she said, glaring at him, “you and I are going to track down this Sierra girl, wherever she’s hiding, and find out what this is all about.”
Fort just stared at her in surprise. “You’re going to . . . help me?”
“No, it’s more like I’m not letting you out of my sight until I’m sure you’re telling the truth,” she said. “And we won’t know that until we find this telepathic girl. If she’s even here.”
“You’ve got a deal,” Fort said. He pushed to his feet, wincing at the pain in his chest again. “Now if you don’t mind, I really need to practice. When do you want to meet tomorrow after the test?”
“What did I just say?” Rachel asked, settling in. “I’m not letting you out of my sight. That doesn’t mean let’s make plans to meet up tomorrow.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to keep practicing until I master the last two spells, so you might be here for a while.”
She crossed her arms and snorted. “Oh, bring it, little man.”