“Cannon.”
Cannon? They were talking about the stolen samples. Why would someone want her blood? Clint’s voice went quiet then, and she couldn’t make out what he said, but she distinctly heard her name again.
“And Brett Evans is gone,” Clint continued.
“Yes, sir,” Nick said. “Rumor has it that he was in possession of a key. Makes for a pretty short suspect list.” Nick’s arrival on campus had been well timed. An FBI agent appearing just when Whitfield needed one most.
Teddy had decided two things before she knocked on the door: she wouldn’t tell Clint that Molly had hacked Eversley’s computers, which meant she couldn’t let on that she had discovered her parents were psychic; if finding out more about them meant more time at Whitfield, she could wait.
The second decision was that she would enter the room with her wall in full force. She closed her eyes, summoning the electricity. It buzzed up her fingers. She wrapped it once, twice, three times around her mind. She imagined turning up a dial to full force, making her wall so strong that her hair crackled and stood on end. And then she opened the door and walked into the office.
She spoke before either man could stop her: “I’m going to say some things, and you both are going to listen. One: I haven’t forgiven either of you for what you did in Vegas. That was low. And I’m still mad as hell about it.” Her eyes stung from either anger or hurt, she didn’t know. She’d trusted Clint. And even if he had his reasons—good reasons, Teddy supposed—he’d manipulated her. “Two: I was in the lab last night. Nick knows. I didn’t take anything. And three: we need to figure out a way to control this astral telepathy thing, because it’s seriously interfering with my life.”
“You knew she was there last night?” Clint asked.
Nick shot Teddy a stare so cold that she practically felt crystals forming on her skin. “I was waiting until I had more details before I confirmed a list, sir. Ms. Cannon was just one of those names.”
“Who else?” Clint asked.
“That’s not for me to say,” Teddy said. “But trust me: we didn’t steal those samples. We were in there for fifteen minutes, tops, between eleven-thirty and eleven-forty-five.” Teddy’s vision swam. Clint was trying to break down her mental defense, as he had so many times before. She could feel him right at the edge of her mind; she could hear her own thoughts, a collection of damning phrases about Molly’s USB device, the computer in the lab room, the windows on the screen. If Clint heard, she’d be done for.
She summoned every bit of energy she had. With his every push, the electricity sparked. She turned the dial even higher, making the wall burn brighter, stronger. Teddy called on her frustration over losing the money in Vegas, at being duped, betrayed, converting every ounce of anger into powering the wall. She was sweating from the effort. So was he.
Clint said, “I don’t know whether to be disappointed that you broke school rules again. Or impressed that you’re managing to repel me with such staggering mental force.”
“Look, I’m coming clean.” She looked pointedly between Nick and Clint. “I only wish you had done the same.”
“If you’re talking about Agent Stavros’s involvement in your recruitment, it’s standard protocol.” Clint adjusted some papers on his desk. “And if you expect to be rewarded for coming forward about your infraction, you’re mistaken. We’ll discuss your actions with the rest of the administration. As of now, it’s an open investigation.”
“What does that mean?” Teddy asked.
“First, it means you have a lot of work to do in the dining hall.” Clint said. “Second—stay out of it.”
Like hell she’d stay out of it. If someone wanted her blood, she was damn well going to find out who. But she’d been lucky to get off with just chores. No Boyd. No goodbye to Whitfield.
“And Teddy,” Clint called out to her as she was leaving his office.
“Yes?”
“Now that you’ve finally mastered your wall, you can start learning to control that astral telepathy thing that’s been interfering with your life.”
As she walked down the hall, Teddy heard Clint mutter something about her interfering with his life.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A MONTH AFTER THE BREAK-IN, Brett Evans still hadn’t returned to campus. Jillian seemed to be taking his disappearance especially hard, but she hadn’t confided a single thing to Teddy about her feelings. Molly wasn’t speaking to Teddy, so Jeremy wasn’t, either. Things with Pyro had cooled way down. Nick had been avoiding her. Dara was the only person who would sit with Teddy at meals. Their conversations revolved around the various death warnings Dara received for her grandparents’ friends and a few D-list celebrities, which rarely turned out to be prophetic.
Though only a few people were still talking to her, Teddy knew everyone was talking about her. The investigation into the theft of the blood vials was ongoing—and it seemed like everyone knew that Teddy had confessed something to Clint. So, with fewer friends and more free time, Teddy decided to focus all of her energy on becoming the best damn psychic she could possibly be. It was that or obsess about why someone had wanted to steal her blood sample.
“I’ve been thinking about the best strategy to control your trips into someone else’s mind,” Clint said one afternoon in tutorial. “Have you ever heard about the concept of memory palaces?”
Teddy shook her head.
“I thought that since you’re from Vegas, you would have. Some players use them to help count cards for blackjack.”
“Poker, remember?”
Clint rolled his eyes. “A memory palace is an imaginary location where you can store mnemonic images. In your case, it would be a place where you’d store actual memories. The technique works best when you imagine
