SOMEWHERE OVER ALPHA ISLAND
DARWIN’S PAP
MONDAY, OCTOBER 4TH
5:18 P.M.
Charlie sighed with contentment in the passenger seat of Darwin’s PAP (Personal Alpha Plane) as they floated higher in the sun-streaked sky. She pressed one hand against the cool glass of the curved window and gazed beneath them at the @-shaped island. To the west, the sun had begun its descent toward the horizon. It glowed a fiery orange as it hovered above the ocean, lighting up each building on the island in its wake. To the east, a brief spattering of rain had cleared only a few minutes ago, and a thin rainbow arched above the island like a silk ribbon decorating a wrapped gift.
This plane ride was a gift, Charlie mused as Darwin grinned at her and pulled the throttle on the PAP so the plane faced the rainbow. Darwin had been flying since he was twelve, and the ride was as smooth as foundation primer. Charlie looked around at the postcards Darwin had taped up on the PAP’s white leather interior—each place was somewhere they’d been together, and each one sparked a different, gooey-sweet memory. Belize, where they had swum with sea turtles. Rio, where they’d been in a parade during Carnival. Nova Scotia, where Darwin and Charlie had learned to pilot a sailboat. Iceland, where they’d eaten fermented shark and swum in steaming hot springs. Madagascar, where a monkey had stolen Darwin’s guitar.
“Did you plan that?” Charlie whispered, pointing to the rainbow and half-believing that Darwin had, in fact, found a way to orchestrate the perfect combination of rain and sun. After all, he was a Brazille, which meant he had access to technology most people didn’t even know existed yet.
“I’m good,” Darwin said, flashing a half-smile and crinkling his gorgeous hazel eyes, “but I’m not that good. The universe just wants to entertain us, I guess.”
“Guess so.” They were doing a pretty good job of entertaining the universe, too, thought Charlie. She shivered as she recalled the dark cloud of hurt moving across Darwin’s face as, one by one, she’d shot down four of his proposed meeting places (the beach? No way—too public! The Zen Garden? Uh-uh. Mount Olympus? Nixed. The yacht? Was he crazy?). She’d been the one to propose a ride in the PAP—it was the only place safe from prying eyes and picture-snapping aPods. Because no matter how badly Darwin wanted to be with her, Charlie just wasn’t ready to go public. Not until the Allie mess was cleaned up, anyway.
“Girls must be throwing themselves at you left and right,” said Charlie, trying to steer the conversation in a less romantic direction. “Now that Shira lifted the ban, you five are all anyone can think about.”
“A little, I guess,” said Darwin, running his finger along the touch-screen steering panel and sending the plane swooping beneath the rainbow. “I’ve gotten some texts. I just delete ’em. My brothers are having the time of their lives, though.”
“What about Mel?” Charlie asked, hoping to keep her voice light. She didn’t want Darwin to think she was desperate for Mel to hook up with Allie. He would see her desperation as controlling and manipulative instead of what it was—the only way for all four of them to be happy.
“He’s into Allie, I think.” Darwin stuck a cinnamon-scented toothpick between his lips. “But he’s probably into a lot of girls. His phone beeps more often than R2D2.”
Charlie wondered if there had been any scientific advances in recent years on love potions that actually worked. She’d ask her fellow IM’s. Someone had to be making progress with pheromones in a lab somewhere.
Darwin executed a hard left in the PAP, sending Charlie’s puff-sleeved shoulder into contact with his blazer-covered one. An electric surge of longing rippled through Charlie’s arm and shot through her body, down to her toes. She snuck a peek at Darwin and saw a dimple sinking deeper into his cheek as a lopsided smile emerged on his mouth—a sure sign that he felt it, too.
“Remember when we built that house in the favelas?” He sighed wistfully.
Charlie nodded, her mind traveling back to the slums outside of Rio where shacks made of nothing more than cardboard and corrugated metal dotted the mountains. She and Darwin had spent a week working with other volunteers to construct a house for a family with six kids. They’d hammered nails and drilled screws in hundred-degree heat, and Darwin had even injured himself when a cinder block fell on his foot, but it was all worth it when the family saw the simple house once it was built. The mom and the two oldest kids burst into tears, hugging Charlie, Darwin, and the rest of the crew over and over.
“Of course I remember. That was amazing,” Charlie said quietly. “I hope we can do something like that again this summer.”
“I was just thinking about the foundation of that house. How we had to flatten it and measure it a thousand times before pouring the concrete. And then, the rest was easy.”
“Yeah… ,” Charlie murmured, not quite sure where Darwin was going. It hadn’t been that easy to build the rest of the house. And more experienced people did a lot of the hard stuff, but she guessed she saw his point. In some ways, Charlie thought, they were so different. He could be so enigmatic and abstract, where she was all about practicality. He was drawn to music and philosophy, and she liked taking stuff apart and rebuilding it, working with her hands to get tangible results.
“That’s what I want. With you. I want us to build our foundation again, to make it rock solid.” His hazel eyes met hers, and Charlie was surprised to see they shone with emotion. “Once our foundation is strong, we can do anything. We can build our dreams.”
Charlie swallowed hard, pushing a pining ache for him back down her throat. “I want that, too.”
Darwin leaned toward her, his knee touching hers. She shifted it away, pretending not to notice what was happening. His eyes searched hers out, but she looked down at the clear floor of the PAP, her eyes focusing on a group of three Alpha girls chasing Dingo on the beach.
“Charlie?”
“What?” She looked up, plastering a look of innocence across her features.
“Then why are you being so distant?!” Darwin furrowed his brow.
“I thought you understood. I thought we had an agreement.” Her voice was flat and emotionless, but inside her heart was whirling faster than a weathervane during a lightning storm. Why couldn’t Darwin wait a tiny bit longer?
He rolled his eyes and made a sound in the back of his throat that sounded like he was choking on exasperation. “What agreement?”
“We decided we would play it cool until Allie was over you, remember?”
Darwin shook his head. On the Darwin-ometer, Charlie knew that after anger came stony, furious silence.
“I don’t want to be accused of stealing my best friend’s crush!”
“But didn’t Allie steal your crush?”
“No,” Charlie said quietly, trying to calm things down before Darwin’s iron curtain fully descended. “I set her up with you when we were broken up, remember? I encouraged it….” Charlie sighed, grasping for the right words. It sounded crazy in retrospect, but at the time it seemed to make sense to set up Allie and Darwin. Connecting him with Allie had been Charlie’s only way to keep him close, to make him happy after she’d dumped him.
“And now, she’s more important to you than I am.” Darwin’s voice had less warmth than the dry ice they kept in the lab.
“You know that’s not—” Suddenly the plane dipped sharply, interrupting Charlie’s retort. “What’s happening?” she whispered. She gripped Darwin’s arm, hard. What if they crashed? After all her sneaking around, it would be all over school in seconds! Pictures of their mangled bodies would be e-mailed to every aPod on the island, and then leaked to the tabloids. At least in that scenario, Charlie wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout from Allie. Dead people were forgiven all betrayals, right?
“I’m landing,” Darwin said coldly, straightening the plane out and cruising west. Before Charlie could think of what to say to make things right again, to rally Darwin’s spirits and make him believe that they would be together just as soon as Allie was over her fixation, the bubble-shaped plane touched down on the octagonal landing pad on the far side of the island. Charlie looked out the window at the Pavilion in the distance, its lighted exterior like a lighthouse. The landing pad here was deep in the jungle, on the wild side of the island, away from prying eyes but also uncomfortably far from campus.
“Darwin, I—”
“Just don’t, Charlie. I need some time to think. Alone.” And before Charlie could utter another word, Darwin popped open the door hatch. She gripped the white foam armrests as the round PAP made contact with the ground.
Charlie blinked, taking in their surroundings. There was nothing but jungle surrounding them. Howler monkeys leapt happily from tree to tree. For a moment she imagined herself and Darwin living among them, foraging for berries and sleeping under the stars. She snapped out of her wishful reverie when Darwin’s tanned arm reached over her flight suit, opening the passenger door. This time, Darwin was careful not to touch any part of her. He practically pushed her out of the plane with the hate rays shooting out of his eyes.
“Fine. I’ll walk home,” Charlie said, biting the inside of her cheek. Dropping her in the middle of the jungle wasn’t Darwin: It was like an impostor had taken over his body. She shook her head, wondering what else the new Darwin was capable of. She walked a few paces away from the plane, then turned around and shot Darwin one last look. She half-expected him to change his mind, to hop out, too. Soon, she thought, they would have round two (or was it ten?) of the Allie vs. Darwin argument. But Darwin’s face was as impenetrable as a high-security firewall. He blinked, flashed her a hard look, and started the PAP up again, pulling the door shut.
Her mouth twisted into a scribble of disbelief, Charlie watched as the PAP rose higher and higher into the air until it was so tiny it might as well have been a helium balloon.
How could Darwin abandon her in the middle of the jungle? Charlie shook her brown waves uncomprehendingly and started the long walk back to Jackie O. She squinted at the sun, already low in the sky. She might make it home before nightfall, if she hustled. But as she set one clear gladiator sandal in front of the other, something caught her eye: Darwin had set up a whole tent for them. There was a Bunsen burner, a sandwich press, some bread, and a jar of Nutella. He was going to make their favorite snack out here in the jungle.
Charlie wanted to scream, to laugh, and to cry, all at the same time. Darwin thought they could pick up their relationship right where it had left off by ignoring everything that happened between them. But something had changed. Maybe Charlie had changed. Maybe she’d become an Alpha after all. Like her life these days, her allegiances weren’t as clear-cut as they used to be. Maybe she and Darwin weren’t soul mates. Maybe Charlie’s plan for them to be together seemed ridiculous because they weren’t meant to be.
Charlie stared through a veil of tears at the vines running on either side of the narrow jungle path. The jungle had seemed so inviting when she floated above it with Darwin, but now the greenery threatened to swallow her up. Overhead, Darwin’s PAP floated through the hazy orange light of sunset like a fragile soap bubble destined to pop.
Her hope floating away with Darwin’s plane, Charlie fastened her eyes back on the dimly lit jungle path ahead of her. Flying solo was scary, but for the first time she knew how to navigate Alpha Academy on her own.