Teddy felt light, as if the shame she’d carried since Stanford—since before that, even—had finally loosened its grasp on her heart.
“Thank you,” she said, grabbing her jacket.
“Teddy,” Dr. Sands said, “you still have to pass the psychic-ability exam with Professor Corbett and Professor Dunn.”
“Oh, that.” Teddy swallowed. “Piece of cake.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
SPEAKING OF CAKE, TEDDY WAS starving. She was pretty sure the Whitfield Institute wouldn’t serve cake—sugar probably did something to some receptor that interfered with psychic ability. Still, she headed over to Harris Hall to double-check.
Teddy spotted Jillian, Jeremy, and Molly, along with a few other now-familiar faces, at one of the dining hall’s long tables. No Pyro, she noted. Too bad.
Teddy surveyed the entrées. She could hardly believe she lived in a world without cake. She chose a microgreen salad and sat down next to the other first-year recruits.
“Well?” Jillian said, leaning forward. “How’d your test go?”
Teddy finished chewing something green that didn’t taste nearly as bad as she expected. “Good news,” she said, “I’m sane after all.”
“Not your psych exam. Your psych-ic exam.”
“Deferred until tomorrow morning.”
Jillian cocked her head. “Bummer.”
Teddy didn’t need to read Jillian’s mind to see that her roommate was dying to talk about her own exam. “Spill it,” Teddy said. “Did you nail it?”
Jillian grabbed Teddy’s arm, knocking the fork out of her hand. “God, I did! I was amazing.”
Jillian started at the beginning. First, Clint had brought in an orange tabby who communicated something about a dark, damp place she feared. After Jillian relayed this to Clint and Dunn, it was confirmed that the cat had been rescued from a drainage pipe. Next, Clint had introduced a very depressed golden retriever who had been a service dog for a blind woman who had died. The only thing Jillian got wrong was the timing—she told Dunn and Clint that the woman had passed two years ago, but in fact it had been eight moths.
“Dogs don’t really have an accurate sense of time passing,” Jillian said.
“Of course,” Teddy said. “Otherwise we’d call them clocks.” She turned to Molly. “Tell me about your exam.”
“Draining,” Molly said.
“But you passed?”
“Clint already knew what I can do from last year. But he still put me through my paces.” Molly trailed off as if reliving something she wanted to forget. Teddy noticed Jeremy raising his arm as if to comfort Molly, then pulling it back when Dara appeared.
Teddy did what Jeremy apparently couldn’t: she put a hand on Molly’s shoulder. But concern for Molly was eclipsed by fear for herself. Clint had been serious about cuts. She glanced at the doorway, where she saw a group of first-year recruits saying their goodbyes. This same time tomorrow, she could be doing the same.
Dara slammed her lunch tray down next to Teddy’s. “Can you believe this?” she said, as if they’d been in the middle of a conversation. “It’s already happening.”
“What’s already happening?” Teddy asked, sneaking another look at the group by the doorway.
“The whole Misfits-Alphas thing.”
Teddy glanced around the table. She’d assumed Dara meant the students leaving campus. “What are you talking about?”
Dara sighed. “This upperclassman named Christine said it happens every year. It’s worse than high school. Whitfield Institute attracts two types of people. The Alphas, who think their psychic ability makes them vastly superior to everyone around them.” She tilted her chin toward the table to their left. Teddy noted a group of well-groomed recruits who looked like extras from an old episode of Gossip Girl.
“And the Misfits,” Dara continued. “People whose psychic gifts always made them feel like freaks.” Her lips curved upward. “Remind you of anyone?”
Teddy thought about it: so far, she’d met a free spirit with the ability to talk to pets; an emotionally unstable ex-CIA hacker; a bad boy with the ability to set fire to . . . anything. She took Christine’s point. These might not be the people she would choose as friends, but they were all she had.
“So what gift made you feel like a freak, Dara?” Jeremy asked.
“Death warnings,” Dara said. “I can tell when someone’s about to transition to the other side. Like about thirty percent of the time.”
There was a collective pause at the table.
Dara smirked. “Don’t worry, none of you are about to drop dead in your tofu.” She took a bite of her bread and cultured butter. “I think.”
* * *
After lunch, the first-year recruits reported to the basement of Fort McDowell for their first tactical training session. Even though everyone was dressed exactly alike—navy cotton T-shirts printed with the Whitfield Institute logo, black sweatpants, black sneakers, and ankle-high black cotton socks—it wasn’t difficult to distinguish the groups Dara had labeled. The Alphas stood at the base of the bleachers, stretching and jumping, while the Misfits leaned against the wall. By now, their numbers had shrunk dramatically—from the thirty or so recruits Teddy had seen two days ago in the auditorium, twelve remained.
Pyro walked into the basement, late. Teddy stared. He wore a tight white T-shirt and basketball shorts, as if the uniform were beneath him.
Jillian nudged Teddy with her elbow. “Found something you like on the menu?”
“We ran into each other this morning in the, um, shower.”
Before Teddy could say more, Sergeant Rosemary Boyd marched into the gym, clipboard in hand. She stopped in the center of the track. “Recruits front and center!” she said.
The Alphas instinctively lined up in front of their superior.
“Guess subservience is in their DNA,” Teddy said to Jillian as she and the other Misfits made their way toward Boyd. Pyro took longer than the rest to fall into place, sidling up next to Teddy. “Nice uniform,” she whispered.
Boyd strode up and down the line, eying each of them. “It’s my responsibility to ensure that each of you graduates with the physical skills necessary to serve. I don’t care about your ‘special’ powers. If you aren’t able to jump a fence, you’re not qualified to protect this country.”
“Why jump a fence when you
