Teddy sat up in her bed, knocking the book to the floor. When she bent to pick it up, she noticed a piece of paper flutter to the ground. Script. Blue pen. The note from her dream. How had it gotten in here? She must have missed it before.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
COREY MCDONALD’S HEARING LOOMED—THREE months away, then two, then one—but otherwise, life at Whitfield continued as it had before. The Misfits survived Boyd’s cruel and unusual torture, completed Dunn’s psychic exercises, listened to lectures on police procedure, firearms, and forensics. There was one class that Teddy skipped: Empathy 101.
Teddy decided to use her free time to practice telekinesis. Progress had been hard earned and slow going. Teddy understood that her telekinetic feats so far—the door, General Maddux’s wineglass—had been fueled by heightened emotions: anger, specifically. She would need to master her feelings in order to prove Clint wrong.
She could now float a Ping-Pong ball around an empty classroom in Fort McDowell, but a gentle breeze could do the same. She’d recently entered a staring competition with a paper clip. If she was ever going to bend a bullet, she’d have to tackle metal objects.
One brick at a time.
After a particularly painful session, Teddy returned to her room, threw her stuff down, and grabbed her towel, hoping for a quick shower before dinner. Jillian had other plans. She perched on the end of Teddy’s bed. “You missed a really interesting lecture today in Professor Corbett’s class,” she said.
“I’ll have to get a copy of your notes,” Teddy said as she unlaced her combat boots.
Jillian stood up. “God, you’re such a drama queen.”
“Excuse me?”
“Clint ends your tutorials because he thinks you might hurt yourself, and instead of talking to him, or even to me, you decide to ignore it.”
Teddy shrugged, hoping if she ignored that, too, Jillian would shut up.
“Did you even listen in Empathy 101? It’s not all about you. We’re all struggling to master our psychic abilities. Since I’ve arrived at Whitfield, Ava has teased me for communing with animals. And then the one time I make a connection with an actual person, it’s a girl who was choked to death. I was terrified. And you didn’t even ask me how I felt.”
Teddy slipped on her shower shoes. She didn’t want to be having this conversation right now.
“And what about Fred?”
“Fred?”
“My hamster?” Jillian’s eyes were watery. “Who’s about to die? I told you when I came back after Christmas.”
Teddy had never really had friends like Jillian before—friends who knew so much about her, who understood parts of her that she didn’t or couldn’t express. She flushed. She felt trapped, claustrophobic. She didn’t want to deal with Jillian or her hamster. She swapped her shower shoes for sneakers. “I need some air,” Teddy said.
“You’re just running away from this? Friends argue, Teddy. It shows that you care enough about other people when you’re willing to fight for them.”
Teddy heard the logic, but she preferred the first option: she was going to run as far as she could get on a very small island. Which really was not very far at all.
* * *
Teddy could complete the six-mile loop in just under an hour, which guaranteed that Jillian would be at dinner when Teddy returned to the room.
Before coming to Whitfield, she’d never been much of a runner, but now she actually enjoyed the activity. She liked the island’s sloping vistas, quiet coves, historic buildings, and abandoned quarries. Once she found her groove, her body settled into a state that was almost meditative. Her thoughts emptied, leaving her aware of nothing but her breathing—until footsteps behind her intruded on her solitude. She cut a glance over her shoulder. Nick. For a moment, she considered speeding up.
“Hey,” he said. He appeared at her side in running shorts and a baggy sweatshirt. His dark hair was damp and swept back from his face. He looked altogether different from the Special Agent Stavros who taught Casework. Different even from the guy she’d been alone with in the file room. Different but good. Really good. Probably not dissimilar from the way he might look stepping out of a shower. Here was the distraction Teddy needed.
“Got a minute?” he asked. “Clearance just came through for the McDonald visit. We’re looking at next week for the one-on-one.”
She kept running, risking a glance at him.
“How’s the case going?” he asked.
“We have some leads,” Teddy said, thinking back to Jillian’s spiritual communication with Marlena, as well as Jeremy’s assertion of Corey’s innocence. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had a breakthrough since she’d “borrowed” Corey’s copy of Romeo and Juliet. And now she had only a week to figure it out. “Who are the Alphas sending to San Quentin?” she asked, panting from the steep slope they were now running on.
“Probably Kate Atkins.” He was out of breath, too. “I assume your team will chose you?”
“Why would you assume that?”
“Because you stand out.”
She stopped running and bent to catch her breath. “Don’t do that,” she said. He stopped, too.
“Do what?”
“Be nice to me.” Especially after that fight with Jillian. She just wanted to be alone. She didn’t want to deal with people and their feelings.
“Teddy—”
“I mean it, Nick.” She let out a long breath.
He nodded. “I’m not trying to make this difficult.” He held up his hands and took a step back. “I’m not doing it on purpose.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Look,” he said, “it’s hard for me, too. Okay? Is that what you want to hear?”
“It’s a start.”
“Point is, we’re going to have to find a way to work together. And as long as I’m a teacher and you’re a student—”
“Strictly professional,” she said.
“I like to think we can be friends,” he said.
She watched a bead of sweat drip down his neck into his T-shirt. Despite herself, she imagined the rest of its journey down his chest, abdomen . . .
She’d proved today that she didn’t
