Teddy froze. Her mind raced to calculate the odds: three Whitfield students out of a population of under one hundred, all of who had lost their parents as infants. No, not a coincidence, not when their three names were on a list.
“Did you ever learn more about those accidents? Ever think that was a coincidence?”
Christine clenched her jaw. “You know, I don’t think I really want to discuss this anymore. I barely know you. Excuse me.”
With that, Christine got up from the table and left the dining hall. Teddy had completely blown her chance to question her further.
Hey, Christine, what makes you, me, and Brett so special? What happened to our parents?
Like that was going to happen.
“What the hell was that about?” Pyro asked.
Teddy shook her head, trying to clear the conversation from her mind. She’d had Christine right where she wanted her. “I don’t know. I mean, nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
Pyro put his hand on her shoulder. For a moment, she wanted to lean in to him, but she caught herself. She wasn’t going backward. Only forward. “I’ve got some studying to do,” she said, getting up from the table.
It was the truth, kind of. She wanted to go over what Christine had said. About Brett and her parents. Car crashes. It was too coincidental. She said good night to Pyro and returned to her room. Alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MIDYEAR exam, Teddy dreamed of the yellow house. It was always in the back of her mind somehow, but since the night when she’d gone inside, her dreams had taken on a different tenor. Everything felt more vivid, more real—the colors brighter, the sounds louder, the smells stronger.
Tonight the desert sky was full of clouds, like a storm was brewing. Wind blew desert brush across the ordinarily manicured front lawn. The windows were boarded up. Teddy sensed that something was wrong. She’d never encountered the house like this.
Teddy reached for the green door, paint now chipped away, and walked in. She stood in the foyer. The wallpaper was stripped from the walls. On the low table, once loaded with knickknacks, stood a single photograph in a silver frame. Teddy stopped in front of it and reached down to pick it up. She studied it. Three men and a woman. They were all wearing army jackets emblazoned with a number three surrounded by concentric circles—the symbol for Sector Three.
Clint Corbett’s face grinned at her from the photograph, his arms loosely draped over the shoulders of people he must have considered good friends.
She stepped closer to get a better look. The man to Clint’s left was almost a full head taller than Clint and wiry, with dark eyes, sharp cheekbones, a prominent nose. His strong features were made even more distinguished by a slender scar that ran along his jaw from ear to chin.
On Clint’s right stood another man and a woman. They stood close, in a manner that suggested they might be a couple.
The man was good-looking, but even from the picture, Teddy could tell that his nose had been broken more than once. His dark hair was slicked back off his face, revealing ears almost too big for his head. He looked kind, almost goofy. His eyes were dark but held an intensity that made Teddy step back.
The woman next to him looked familiar, and for a brief, disconcerting moment, Teddy thought she was staring at a photo of herself: same dark hair, same angular features, same slightly pointed chin. But she had never worn her hair that long, almost halfway down her back. She’d never had an army jacket. Teddy studied the picture, noticing more details: how the woman’s silver necklace, furnished with a large purple stone, stood out against the military garb; how her eyes shone as she looked at the man next to her.
The moment of recognition set in, sending Teddy’s emotions reeling.
My mother. My parents.
But not the mother she knew, who was a middle-school math teacher and drove a ten-year-old Camry. This was her birth mother. Teddy put her hand on the wall to steady herself, catching her finger on a nail as she did. She pulled her hand away and saw the blood welling up.
Her heart beat a wild tempo against her ribs.
* * *
Teddy jerked upright in her bed, her sheets twisted around her ankles.
“What’s wrong?” Jillian looked over at her from her bed, her hair tousled from sleep.
“A dream.” Teddy was drenched in sweat. She looked at her hand, feeling the sting as if it had happened to her just then. Teddy’s heart stopped when she saw the bright red spot on her finger.
“Was it Ryan Gosling?”
Teddy collapsed back against her pillow, blinking up at the ceiling as she tried to piece together the sharp fragments of her dream. The house. The photograph. The jackets. Her parents? In the dream, Teddy had been so certain. But in the cool morning light, she began to doubt what she had seen.
“Get up before you fall back asleep,” Jillian said. “You don’t want to be late to the exam.”
December 18 already. The days since Thanksgiving had blended together in a monotony of classes and studying. Teddy tossed back the covers and swung her legs over the side of her bed. For three whole minutes, she’d actually forgotten that in a matter of hours, the first-year recruits would face their most difficult challenge to date. It seemed less important now, considering everything else that had happened.
This morning she would tackle a grueling four-hour written exam testing her knowledge of police procedure, courts and the prosecution process, forensics, and evidence analysis. But the true test of their ability would come later: a rigorous, hands-on tactical course meant to challenge their physical and psychic skills.
Fittingly, the exam was scheduled on the school’s last day before winter
