Variant Lost (The Evelyn Maynard Trilogy Book 1) Page 5

  Four

  Outside, I stopped at the top of the stairs and unfolded the giant map, the sun pleasant on my face. The weather was warming up; T-shirts-and-shorts season couldn’t come too soon.

  The admin building was near the edge of the curving maze of lines and markers; Res Hall K was much farther in. I took off, the strap of my duffel bag digging into my shoulder.

  After a few minutes of walking down the curved, tree-lined paths, I reached a neat three-story building. About a dozen stairs led up to double doors, which opened into a cool foyer. I made my way over to a small elevator on the left and pressed the button. My every step echoed up past the stairs twisting through the center of the building, reaching all the way to the third floor.

  The elevator was quiet and smooth—it must have been a recent addition to the obviously older building. I double-checked my messy scrawl at the top of the map—room 308—before following the signs to the right.

  I paused when I reached the door, key in hand. I was sharing the room with two other girls—a Zara Adams and a Beth Knox—and I didn’t want to just barge in on them. After a few moments of awkward indecision, I knocked.

  A moment later, a girl with brown eyes and short, silky red hair cracked open the door. “What?”

  She obviously wasn’t in the mood for visitors, but I wasn’t a visitor, so I couldn’t just go away. I shuffled my feet. “Uh . . . hi . . . um . . . I’m Eve. I live here?” It came out as a question.

  “What?” This time there was confusion mixed in with the annoyance. Shuffling and other voices came from inside the room. Someone was crying softly.

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to speak clearly. “Sorry. I just arrived today. I’ve been assigned to this room. Are you Beth? Or Zara?”

  She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Right. Of course. Your timing is fucking great.” The sarcasm rolling off her was almost visible. “You might as well come in.” She opened the door wide.

  Gripping the strap of my duffel tighter in some desperate attempt to have something to hold on to, I stepped inside.

  Red—she still hadn’t told me her name—closed the door just a little too forcefully and turned her back to me, walking over to a couch where two other girls were sitting.

  The room was small but comfortable looking. Most of it was taken up by the three-seater couch pushed up against the wall to my left. A TV stand with a flat screen on top of it, a coffee table littered with tissues, and a round dining table surrounded by three mismatched chairs filled the rest of the space. A door to the right led into the bathroom—I could just make out the edge of the sink through the crack—and on the opposite wall were three evenly spaced doors: the bedrooms.

  As I opened my mouth to ask which room was mine, I realized no one was speaking. I looked over to the couch and met three sets of eyes staring at me.

  The redhead was sitting on the arm of the couch. In the middle was a blonde girl, her long platinum locks unbrushed and her eyes red and puffy. On her other side was another redhead. Her hair was lighter, longer, and had more orange in it than the first girl’s, and freckles sprinkled her nose and cheeks. She was the only one with a small smile on her face.

  “Hi. I’m Beth. That’s Zara.” The freckled redhead pointed to the girl who had answered the door.

  So I would be sharing with two redheads. What were the statistical probabilities of that? Only 2 percent of people had red hair. Were they related? I dismissed the thought immediately. Their features were too different despite the color of their hair—also two very different shades of red.

  I half raised my hand in a little wave and was about to introduce myself, but the blonde on the couch cut across me.

  “So you’re my replacement then.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement, delivered with bitterness and anger. I had no idea why this girl thought I was replacing her, but I didn’t want to be on the other end of her death stare.

  “Umm . . .”

  “Oh, forget it. It’s got nothing to do with you anyway.” The end of her sentence morphed into a wail, and she started sobbing again, dropping her head into her hands, which were clutching a bunch of tissues. “I can’t believe they’re actually kicking me out. 3.8! 3.8 GPA because of that one stupid paper, and I’m out. My parents are fuming! They spent all this money to send me here, and now I’ll have to go to Yale or something. Ugh!” A disgusted look crossed her features, as if the word Yale personally offended her.

  “Holy shit. They’re that strict?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. If they were throwing out people who were paying tuition, they definitely wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of someone on a scholarship. I had better keep my grades up. No pressure.

  All three sets of eyes flew back to me. Beth was rubbing soothing circles over her friend’s back, while Zara sat with her arms crossed over her black T-shirt.

  “You’re still here?” Zara gave me a flat look and then rolled her eyes. “Yes. And it’s not like a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ thing. You don’t get a warning. As soon as you slip, they throw you out on your ass. And it’s not just grades either. Since this isn’t just a college and not everyone is just a student, there are other factors. Like if you’re spending some of your time studying and some working for one of the departments, you have to show that you’re continuing to be an asset to the Institute.”

  She got up and grabbed the strap of my duffel, yanking it unceremoniously off my shoulder. “Anna has been attending here since she was sixteen, and now she’s out. As you can imagine, it’s a stressful situation.” She made her way to the middle door and tossed my bag in without looking where it landed. “This used to be her room. Guess it’s yours now. Mind giving us a minute?”

  The last bit was delivered with less sarcasm, and I could appreciate that I was intruding on a private situation. Even though I didn’t mean to. Even though this was technically my home now.

  I nodded and walked into my new room. Zara nodded back as I passed—a quick nod that seemed to say “thanks”—and I gave her a small smile in return.

  I closed the door softly and took a look around. Directly opposite the door was a window with a wide sill and thick timber frame, typical of these older buildings. A desk and chair, nightstand, and stripped twin bed composed the room’s only furniture. It was small and basic, but it was also clean and light and cozy. It already felt more mine than my bedroom in Nampa ever had.

  Most importantly it was private. I wouldn’t have to share sleeping quarters with anyone. After a lifetime of never getting past superficial friendship, I preferred to be alone.

  It took me twenty minutes to unpack my clothing, a few notebooks, and the one framed picture I had of my mother. I left my toiletries sitting on the desk, as I didn’t want to walk through the common area while Anna was still out there.

  After I’d carefully refolded my T-shirts and arranged the hangers in color-coded order, I flopped down on the bed, no idea what to do with myself. It was around midday, and using my trusty campus map to go in search of the cafeteria seemed like an excellent idea. But I was trapped by the crying blonde on the other side of the door.

  Instead I spent five minutes making a list of all the things I needed to buy with my fancy new scholarship allowance money—like sheets for the bare bed I was lying on, towels, shampoo, and conditioner. Everything study related, such as textbooks, pens, and notebooks, would be provided by the Institute. I was expecting a package by the end of the day.

  An hour later, my new roommates knocked on my door and let themselves in. They found me lying across my bed, legs up on the wall, head hanging off the edge.

  “Hi. Eve, right?” Beth’s simple blue skirt swished around her knees as she came in, a more reluctant Zara following behind.

  I scrambled up into a sitting position and tried to look casual. “Yes. Hi. Nice to meet you properly, Beth. Is your friend going to be OK?”

  “Oh, yeah. She’ll be fine. She tends to be a little dramatic, and it all
happened so fast. Her parents picked her up. Sorry you walked right into the middle of that.”

  “That’s OK.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.

  “So, Zara and I were just heading to the caf for some lunch. You wanna come with? It would be nice to get to know you.”

  Zara was picking at her nails in the doorway. She looked up at me, her expression completely blank.

  I was just about to decline—Beth seemed nice enough, but I wasn’t going to spend time with someone who clearly wanted nothing to do with me—when Zara straightened up, dropping her arms to her sides.

  “It’s fine. You can come. Whatever.”

  “Well, gee, with an invitation like that, how could I possibly refuse?” Two could play at the sarcasm game.

  She stared me down for a moment, then smiled wide. “Well, all right then. I guess we’ll get along just fine. Let’s go, ladies.”

  I followed the Reds—as I had taken to calling them in my head—out of the building and through the grounds, listening to their chatter but not contributing much. Honestly, I would have preferred to go to lunch on my own, but since these girls were going to be my roommates, possibly for the next few years, a good relationship with them was probably worth a little effort.

  A few years.

  The concept of staying anywhere longer than a year was foreign to me, but I could do this—embrace it, buckle down, study hard. I might even make some friends. Might as well start with my roomies.

  The cafeteria was an entire building. It was a flat, one-story structure, one of the smallest on campus, but it stretched wide. Picnic tables were scattered across the lawn, stretching toward the front doors and a paved, covered area with café tables. Clusters of people were eating outside, taking advantage of the sunshine.

  As we made our way toward the entrance, a brightness to my right caught my eye. A group of people were milling around a picnic table, on top of which sat a boy, his feet on the bench.

  Boy was probably the wrong word. He was . . . big. Big arms, big chest, big tall body, big booming laugh. A white T-shirt stretched over his defined chest. The only reason I hadn’t mistaken him for a hulking man was his face—too youthful and carefree to belong to anyone much past my own age.

  The brightness was coming from his big hands. Which were on fire. I stopped, fascinated. This was the second uncommon and very impressive Variant ability I had encountered since getting here, and it had only been a few hours.

  The Reds must have noticed I’d stopped walking. They’d doubled back to stand beside me.

  “That’s Kid,” Beth said.

  I watched the guy in question lazily wave his hand in front of his torso, the flame coming off his fingers dancing languorously along with his movements.

  “He has a fire ability, as you can see, and he’s fond of showing it off. Not that anyone minds. It’s pretty cool. Or . . . hot, I guess. In more ways than one.” A smile had crept into Beth’s voice.

  “Kid?” I asked without taking my eyes off him. “What kind of name is that?”

  “His name is actually Ethan Paul. Everyone just calls him Kid. I don’t actually know why.”

  As if he could hear us talking, he looked up from his spot on the bench, and our eyes met. He held my gaze as he curled his fingers and threw a ball of fire the size of a baseball right at me. I gasped in surprised delight, a smile pulling at my lips, but before it even got halfway, it fizzled out into a puff of smoke.

  A wide grin spread over Kid’s face, and he leaned back onto the table, his hands behind him.

  Zara chuckled. “That’s one of his favorite tricks, but his fire isn’t really dangerous. I mean, he could start a fire if he sparked up while holding a piece of wood or something but not, like, remotely. He doesn’t have a Vital, so there are limits to what he can do. They keep a pretty close eye on him though, because if he were to meet his Vital, he could be seriously dangerous.”

  About 10 percent of Variants were Vitals, people who didn’t have abilities themselves but had direct access to the Light and the capability to channel it. I had never met a Vital, and Zara’s mention of them made we wonder how many there were at Bradford Hills. Their direct link to the Light—the energy that made abilities possible in the first place—fascinated me. Vitals were a kind of conduit; they could draw Light into themselves and pass it on to Variants through skin-on-skin contact, basically giving the Variant a power boost.

  All Vitals eventually found a Variant, or two or three, that was meant for them—if they didn’t already know each other. They were drawn together. The Light flowed through a Vital into their Bonded Variant easier than water through a sieve. Science was still working on understanding Variant abilities, and one of the least understood aspects of it was the Light and how Vitals accessed it.

  If someone like Kid found his Vital, he would have access to unlimited power. Theoretically, he could raze entire towns, even cities, to the ground. No wonder Bradford Hills Institute was watching him closely.

  Kid was still looking at me, but the grin had fallen away, replaced by a more serious face. My own expression must have been curious. I was studying him.

  I had to stop doing that—looking at people like puzzles to solve or experiments to complete. It would not help my chances of making friends.

  I turned away to resume our walk. My heart was racing, but not from fear. I had been surprised, sure, and a little excited to see another cool ability close up, but at no point had I felt fear. That wasn’t normal. Any normal person with functioning survival instincts would have been scared of a ball of fire flying at their face, right?

  I was probably overthinking it. As we entered the cafeteria, I focused back on the Reds.

  “He’s obviously noticed you, so here’s your first piece of Bradford Hills insider advice: stay the hell away from Ethan Paul. His power may be harmless, but he is dangerous to the female student population.” Zara delivered this in what I was quickly learning was her default voice—flat and slightly disinterested. As if she had explained this a million times and was over it.

  “He’s actually kind of a nice guy if you speak to him for longer than a few minutes . . . and don’t mind the whole throwing balls of fire at your face thing.” Beth moved toward a very long buffet display at the back of the room. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about where my meals were coming from—once again, part of the full scholarship.

  “So is he going to roofie me, or is he a nice guy?” I asked.

  Zara snorted as she helped herself to some pasta.

  Beth giggled. “She didn’t mean it like that. It’s more like . . . he’s a distraction. I mean, he’s hot, a natural at most sports, and throws these amazing parties at his uncle’s house where he lives, just up the road from here, but he’s never had a girlfriend. He seems to fixate on a girl and then get bored with her quickly. Meanwhile, the girls get distracted from their study or work, and their contribution slips. Sometimes that can get them kicked out. It’s partly what happened with Anna. She was seeing Kid a lot the last few weeks, and she wasn’t spending enough time focusing on her studies.”

  Zara carried our trays to a free table near a window. “Yeah, and the thing is, because he’s Variant, they’re more lenient. You hardly ever see Variant kids getting kicked out.”

  “What do you mean?” One minute they were telling me the school was really strict, no second chances, and now they were telling me it was lenient.

  Zara rolled her eyes and started eating her pasta while Beth elaborated: “There are no second chances if you’re a human. But because this is one of only a few schools in the country that specializes in helping Variants learn how to control their—sometimes dangerous—abilities, they tend to be more forgiving. They can’t have someone like Kid never learning how to properly control his power out in the world. It could be disastrous.”

  “You mean it would be bad press. Especially with these Variant Valor dickheads spouting their superior race bullshit lately. They can’t afford to look bad o
r dangerous right now. So yeah, the Variants pretty much get away with everything, while we Dimes have to bust our asses.” Zara slapped her fork down on her tray and pushed it away, her pasta half-eaten, and stared out the window.

  I cringed at her casual use of the word Dimes—a derogatory slang term for humans. There were simply more of us—we were a dime a dozen. Dimes for short.

  The extremist group Variant Valor was rather fond of the term. They saw all humans as Dimes—common, unremarkable, inferior. Those nuts believed that Variants were superior in every way and should therefore rule the humans. They were completely unhinged, staging protests, posting elitist propaganda all over the Internet, and occasionally causing violent incidents. They were shit-stirrers of the worst kind—dogmatic.

  “So I’m guessing you’re both human then?” I hedged, unsure how safe this topic was but curious nonetheless.

  “Yes,” Beth answered for both of them. Zara was still looking out the window. “My blood tests returned a clear human result. Zara’s tested positive for Variant DNA, but—”

  “But I’m defective,” Zara cut across her, leaning forward on the table. “I’ve never manifested an ability or made a connection with a Variant who has one, so I’m not a Vital either.”

  “Oh. OK.” Not all people who tested positive for Variant DNA had abilities—the gene could be dormant. Some people went their whole lives without knowing they had it. Why did Zara resent it so much?

  Beth cleared her throat. “So, Eve, where are you from?”

  It was a common enough question that I was prepared for. I gave them a vague answer about moving around a lot, and they both commented on how that explained my indistinct accent. Then I put the focus back on them. It was easy. If you asked people enough questions, they wouldn’t notice you weren’t sharing much about yourself.

  We spent the rest of the hour chatting. Beth was from Atlanta and studying literature and journalism. Zara was from Anaheim and studying political science and Variant studies. They had both been attending and sharing the same dorm in Bradford Hills since they were sixteen. The Institute wasn’t concerned with age—any given class could have kids as young as twelve along with adults studying for their third degree. They told me more about how the Institute worked; we discussed movies and favorite foods.