“Pyro brought you,” Jeremy said, stepping into the room.
Teddy had been avoiding him since their night together. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Like on a stretcher?”
“The whole class followed you out to the hall. Total mayhem. Even Dunn couldn’t get it under control. So Pyro basically just told everyone to back off, then picked you up and carried you in here,” Jeremy said.
Teddy, who’d been poking around under the cot for her boots, straightened and looked at Jeremy. “He did?” Her lips twitched and threatened to curl into an idiotic grin.
Molly flushed bright red. “You’re forgetting the empath thing,” she said.
Teddy blushed, too.
“Should I also be blushing?” Jeremy asked, handing Teddy the boot she hadn’t managed to find.
As Teddy tied her laces, Jeremy subjected them to a brief forensics lecture, warning them that they had a quiz the next day. Speaking with clinical precision, Jeremy explained rigor mortis, or how the stiffness of a corpse could help determine the time of death; algor mortis, how the body’s temperature helped pinpoint the time of death; and livor mortis, how the settling of the blood helped to determine the position of a body at death.
In short: decomposing bodies? Really effective mood killer.
Jeremy’s recap was interrupted by Nurse Bell at the door. “Professor Corbett wants to see Ms. Cannon. You’re fine to get up and walk around now.” She nodded toward Molly and Jeremy. “So that means visiting time’s over.”
“You think Liz’s already reported me?” Teddy said, only half joking. Being called to Clint’s office wasn’t part of her kick-ass-at-school-until-exams plan.
“It’s highly probable,” Jeremy said.
“Jeremy,” Molly said. “That’s not funny.”
Part of Teddy wanted to ask Molly and Jeremy to stay. But she’d broken the rules. Again. Now she’d have to face Clint . . . and the consequences.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WHEN TEDDY REACHED CLINT’S OFFICE in Fort McDowell, she hesitated. Should she knock? Wait until he called?
“You can come in, Teddy,” he said.
How does he always know what I’m thinking—
“If your thoughts weren’t so loud, I might not have such an easy time hearing them.”
He was sitting in a chair by the window, wearing an old police academy sweatshirt and reading glasses. The gym-professor look seemed at odds with the array of psychic bric-a-brac that lined the crowded office.
“Heard you had quite a morning,” he said, putting down a file. He gestured to the wooden chair in front of his desk, so Teddy sat. She was definitely in trouble.
“Did Liz talk to you?” she asked.
“Ms. Cook gave me quite an earful.”
“I didn’t mean to”—Teddy threw her arms up—“do that astral telepathy thing.”
They looked at each other a moment longer, before Clint cracked a grin. “I heard it was awesome.”
Relief surged again in Teddy’s chest—that new, welcome feeling—and she couldn’t help smiling, too.
“Ms. Cook and Professor Dunn told me their versions of events. I’d like to hear yours.” Clint leaned back in his chair. “Tell me as much as you can remember. What you felt, what you did, what you saw.”
Teddy shifted. “It just sort of . . . happened.”
Clint leaned forward until his elbows rested on his desk. “Close your eyes and try to put yourself back there in your mind. Sometimes it helps to repeat actions that occurred the first time. What were you doing when you started?”
Teddy thought a moment. “Shuffling cards.”
Clint opened a drawer and handed her a worn pack. Teddy began shuffling the deck, the action so familiar that it allowed her to relax. She recalled her frustration as she’d tried to connect with Molly using Dunn’s walkie-talkie exercise. How she’d doubled down, and something had clicked into place. And then she could see everything. Not just playing cards but thoughts, feelings, memories, secrets. Then the connection had broken and she’d collapsed.
“Why do you think the connection broke?” Clint asked, leaning forward.
“I felt,” Teddy began, remembering the grit of sand underneath her fingers, packed and rough, “a wall.” She scanned Clint’s face for a sign of encouragement. “It sounds stupid, but I brushed up against a wall made of sand.” She cut the deck and shuffled and then repeated the process. “You have a wall, too, I think, but it feels different. Smooth, cold, like steel.” When her words ran dry, she looked up to find Clint watching her.
“I hoped that, given the opportunity, you’d be able to unlock your potential here at Whitfield.” His choice of words struck Teddy as odd. Almost parental. Of course, he had personally recruited her and fought Boyd to ensure her place at Whitfield.
His forehead creased. “It must have been Ms. Quinn’s wall that broke the connection. Interesting. I didn’t know she had gotten that far in her defense training.” Clint walked over to a small chalkboard in the corner of his office. He was in teacher mode. “The kind of psychic ability I think of myself an expert in is mental influence—I can manipulate others through psychic communication.”
So that’s what he did in Vegas.
“Yes, that’s what I did to your pursuers in Vegas,” he said without turning around. Teddy gritted her teeth. She didn’t like that he could read her thoughts so easily.
“If you want to keep me out, you better pay attention.” Clint drew some circles and arrows on the board. “The theory behind astral telepathy is based on what you’re learning with Dunn. Tin cans. You and your classmates are practicing sending messages down a shared cord. Except astral telepathy works more like . . .” He paused, searching for the metaphor. “Free Wi-Fi. Like you’re a hub that other networks hook up to wirelessly and automatically. You can go into others’ minds without agreeing to use a cord. Until you run into a firewall.” He drew a horizontal line between the two circles, cutting them off. “Trained psychics—meaning those trained in mental defense—will all have some sort of firewall blocking you from entrance.” Clint continued to add to the diagram, wrapped up in his own train of thought.
Teddy took the moment to study the objects on his desk. Several large crystals, physics textbooks,
