Crystal Choice: The Second Novel in the Projector War Saga Read online

  Briggs pulled me aside as I reached the dining room door, though, and I let him. He glanced at the motley of bruises that covered my arm from shoulder to wrist. “Is there something else going on here that I don’t know about?”

  I froze; my thoughts racing. Had Briggs picked up on the fact that there were a lot of neurodivergents in this school? I scanned his surface thoughts and relaxed fractionally. His mind was full of concern about how hard Ms. Graff and Vera Hunt were pushing me in class—and my ability to handle the pressure.

  I bit my lip as I tried to decide how to handle this. I certainly couldn’t tell him that the reason I was getting hit so hard was because Ms. Graff hated my guts, and was taking every opportunity to make me regret being in her class. Then I would have to explain why this teacher I’d only met a few days ago hated me so much—and I’d have to do it without mentioning the Agency.

  Finally, I forced a smile. “It’s just how these things work, right? I’ve got to get better so I can defend myself.”

  Briggs shook his head. “Crystal, this isn’t normal. I see how Ms. Graff looks at you, and she isn’t happy. You can’t take a whole semester of this.”

  My smile softened just a bit. Briggs had no idea what I could handle. These bruises were painless, next to some of the injuries I’d had over the years. If I had to deal with Ms. Graff for a whole semester, I would bear it with a smile. Her training wasn’t half as bad as my sessions with Black—at least Hunt tried to pull her punches. At the end of the day, more of the bruises were probably from Black than Hunt. I couldn’t exactly tell Briggs that, though. There was no way I could explain away a private hand-to-hand instructor working with me during the time I was supposed to be in detention.

  “I’ll be fine, Briggs. Thanks for the concern.”

  I started to turn away, but Briggs grabbed my hand. “Look, I know you think you can take care of yourself, but I’ve been watching you fight. I think I can help.”

  I arched my eyebrows. I had at least four people trying to “help” me with my hand-to-hand, and the result was the bruises he saw. One more person wasn’t going to do much—but Briggs’s eyes were so earnest, I wanted to give him a chance. He really did want to help me, and he was convinced he could.

  “What’s your idea?” I asked, finally. Seeing what he had to say couldn’t hurt.

  Brigg moved so he was standing in front of me, his eyes suddenly alight with excitement. “You’ve got the same problem I had as a kid.”

  My eyes widened as I picked up some of his surface thoughts. He was remembering flashes of the training his family had put him through. I caught glimpses of him, barely knee high, dressed in the white Gi I saw some of the students at Martial Academy wearing. It was required for some Asian styles, although Krav Maga only required unrestrictive clothing. Briggs’s emotions around that time were complicated, but mostly overrun with frustration as his parents corrected him time and time again.

  I suppressed the urge to shake my head as I freed myself from his surface thoughts. Briggs had been fighting since he was a kid, and he was in the beginning Krav Maga class with me? Why?

  Briggs must have seen some of my questions on my face, because he laughed. “Yeah, I know, right? My whole family does martial arts. I was practically raised in a dojo, but we do Okinawan styles at home. Israeli military hand-to-hand is crazy different, so I’m in the beginning class. But it doesn’t matter what style you’re working in. Unless you learn to commit, you’re never going to get anywhere.”

  I pressed my lips together. “I commit when I need to.”

  Briggs shook his head. “That’s not going to be good enough. Part of practicing martial arts is practicing the will to defend yourself. Commitment is a skill, not just a decision. That’s one of the reasons Kata work is so important in the styles I grew up in. Katas aren’t just for practicing how to string all the moves together, it’s for practicing the will to defend yourself. It doesn’t matter how good your technique is. If it takes a conscious decision to potentially kill someone else in order to defend yourself, those crucial seconds may cost you your life.”

  I swallowed as I felt his conflicted emotions rising back to the surface of his thoughts. The decision to potentially kill someone in defense wasn’t any easier for him than it was for me. Unlike Black, he understood exactly how much it would cost.

  He was right about how it was impacting me, though. I spent extra seconds weighing the cost of every violent action before I committed. I scanned every force reading, and plotted every motion exactly. I waited for my blue lines instead of acting on instinct. If the blue lines showed that I had a significant chance of killing the other person, I changed tactics and then waited for the new evaluation. In a word, I was slow. Sure, I was much faster than most of the newbies who still had to think through all the in-between steps of every single technique, but when it really came down to it, I wouldn’t be fast enough. For now, I could get away with handicapping myself by avoiding death blows. Later, though? I was going to have to decide what was more important: keeping my hands clean, or staying alive.

  Briggs clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, you ever want to talk about it, let me know, yeah? It’s hard to practice like you’re in the real deal, but it should keep the new teacher off your back. It’ll help you be faster against Hunt, anyway.”

  I mustered a smile for him. “Thanks.”

  He shrugged. “I only ever had my mom railing on me about it. I can’t imagine how hard it is having the teacher and Hunt on your case. Hunt can be scary when she gets passionate about things. My big brother was a year ahead of her, so I’ve heard all sorts of stories. There’s a reason she’s not allowed to register for Tournament anymore.”

  “Wait, she’s not allowed? I thought Prefects were encouraged to participate in Tournament.”

  Briggs shook his head. “Hunt seems scary outside of the ring, but she changes when she fights. If ever there’s someone who understands commitment, it’s her. You saw her last year with—what was his name again?” He waved a hand and started walking down the hall. I followed him. “Anyway, she’s not just like that when she’s trying to teach dirtbags a lesson. When she fights, she fights until the other guy’s crippled or dead. She takes zero chances. And, while she might be a little bit excessive, she is also the last person anyone would ever want to pick a fight with.”

  We kept walking until we reached the end of the hallway. Briggs waved. “Just think about it, yeah?”

  I forced myself to grin. “Thanks, Briggs.” He entered his dorm room, and I entered mine. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Briggs did have a point. One of these days, I was going to fight someone who was faster and stronger than I was. If I was still pulling my punches for fear of accidentally killing someone, I wouldn’t survive the encounter. The best way to prepare for that was to practice committing to a fight, now.

  I picked up my homework, and started writing down the pre-computed answers I pulled from the archives of my mind. Briggs really was a true friend. Even though he had no clue what was going on at this school, he was still trying to help. I couldn’t stop my grin as I re-focused on my homework. I really was so lucky to be surrounded by such caring people.

  The next night, Tolden sent me home early from the team exercises with strict instructions to get some rest, then be back early on Saturday, and I was too tired to argue. I took the subway home, and spent most of that time trying to clear the backlog of calculations I needed for my new electric version of the plasma pulser.

  I opened the door to find Mom sitting on the counter with her eyes glued to the door again. She didn’t respond when I shut the door gently behind me—even though she was staring right through me. She was too busy muttering things under her breath. My blue lines started decoding them as I approached.

  “I don’t want you to. I can push through it—I know I can. I won’t endanger the team again.”

  �
�What team?” I asked.

  She gasped and looked up. Her eyes snapped back to the present. I felt a spike of fear in her surface thoughts, and then it disintegrated. Ashes of fear swirled around her mind. “Where have you been? And don’t tell me you had to walk your friend home.” She stopped and sought my eyes. For once, I let her and then gasped as the world around me faded.

  Everything except my pounding heartbeat vanished. There was nothing but her green eyes and pain. Pain of loss. Pain of betrayal. The feeling of fire burning her skin—

  I tried to look away to break the connection, but there was flame everywhere I looked. I pounded at the confines of her mind, but they were impenetrable like iron. I turned as another mind brushed mine. It was hungry—desperate for release, and willing to do anything to escape. I spun my senses around, questing for the origin of that terrifying mind, but it was nowhere to be found.

  The walls grew hot behind me and I jerked away. Smoke stung my eyes, my throat. I gasped for air, but I couldn’t breathe! I choked, and staggered back toward the safety of my own mind. Flame sprung up to block my path everywhere I turned. There was no escape.

  ::Help!:: The cry was met with silence as blackness started flickering at the edge of my vision.

  This was why I didn’t meet people’s eyes. This was why I never looked higher than the floor.

  A few months of camaraderie had made me stupid. I had abandoned my sense of caution. I knew eyes had claws. I knew I could get trapped!

  As darkness folded in on my vision I felt a cool, gentle touch amidst the flames. ::You shouldn’t come here, child. You aren’t strong enough yet.::

  I knew that voice—strong, and feminine—from sometime before Dad left. Sometime—

  The thought was gone, wiped away by a gentle hand. That same hand pushed me, and suddenly I was flying.

  I stumbled back and caught myself against the wall, trembling, and safe in my own mind once more. The surface was cool and reassuring. It reminded me that I was securely inside my own mind. I pulled my braided hair over my shoulder, and leaned my head against the wall. This solid, constant pressure was what safety felt like.

  Mom crossed the room and took my hand. “Are you alright?”

  I looked back at her, careful to keep my mind in my own head. How could she have not felt that? Something inside her head was burning. It had snatched me away from my own mind and tried to set me on fire, too. Could she really just ignore that?

  But if she couldn’t feel the burning in her own mind, I wasn’t going to draw any attention to it. Mom was strange, kind of like me. Her mind was different—which was how she knew how to help me build the blue lines I used to function in day-to-day life. Maybe those differences protected her from that burning monster. If I tampered without more information, I could cause some huge problems for her.

  “I’m fine,” I lied, and pulled my hand away. “How was your day?”

  She looked at the clock, and then back at me. “I’m sure it was fine. To be honest, I don’t remember much.”

  I bit my lip. Maybe she had been trapped inside whatever that was too. Was that why she had those fits? She forgot a lot of things. Perhaps she also forgot the burning monster inside her mind?

  I added it to my list of things to ask someone at the Agency.

  “Remember to take your medication tonight, Mom,” I said. The medications her psychiatrist, Dr. Carlisle, prescribed helped when she got this bad. She didn’t always like to take them and I could understand why. I never took any of the meds Dr. Carlisle prescribed either. They made it harder to think, like my blue lines were weighted down by something. The difference was that I wasn’t haunted by burning monsters in my mind.

  She nodded and started to drift away, only to stop. She was staring at the couch in front of the TV, blinking. “When did that come?”

  The dilapidated couch that had been bled on so many times before, first by me during my time with Zach, then by Tabitha Smith last semester, was gone—replaced by a tope, faux leather, overstuffed beauty.

  “You didn’t order it?” I asked. It was possible that she’d seen how the old one was falling apart, ordered a new one, and then completely forgotten about it. That was unlikely, given that Mom would have had to notice that the old couch needed to be replaced.

  Mom shook her head. She stared at it for another long moment, and then her eyes glazed over and she started to wander off again.

  “Mom, wait.”

  She turned slowly, with a dreamy smile on her face to complement her thin bones and pallid skin.

  “Are you sure you’re alright?” I asked.

  Her smile faded. “You’re stronger than you were before, Crystal. You remind me of—“ A spasm ran through her body, snapping her mouth and eyes closed.

  “Mom!” I was only halfway across the room before her eyes opened again, and the corners of her mouth turned up.

  “Nevermind,” she said with a wave. She turned to go back into her bedroom.

  I let my shields down to try and brush her mind, then stopped as I remembered the fire. What if I got trapped again? But Mom really wasn’t alright. Every day, she was getting worse. I wondered if I should try to find another doctor to help, but brushed that thought off as soon as I had it. She’d already been to all the doctors in Chicago, and none of them had a clue. Doctors couldn’t help Mom.

  “Who do I remind you of?” I asked, instead.

  She didn’t turn to look at me, only shook her head. “I don’t remember. It was a long, long time ago. Too long to make any difference. Just be careful, Crystal. You never know what monsters lurk in the night, and no one is strong enough to hold them all off.”

  I shuddered inside, but let her go.

  Instead, I turned my attention to the mysterious couch. Upon close observation, the piece of furniture was new. It smelled of factory dyes and, faintly, of perfume. There were two sets of gloved handprints on either armrest from where it had been carried inside, still perfectly undisturbed. It had to have been moved within the last few hours, then, because Mom hadn’t been home from work for very long and she often sat and watched television before making dinner.

  Whoever had brought it inside knew Mom’s work schedule. I pulled the cushions off, and analyzed the underside for any sign that they’d stored something nefarious inside—but there was nothing. Only a little note concealed as the tag on the underside. If this was a Trojan horse, it had been built for that purpose from the ground up. I gripped the tag between my fingers and scanned its contents.

  Apparently Ms. King had heard that Agent Smith had bled all over the last one. The Agency wanted to replace it. The couch was a reward for helping Tabitha last semester after Doug Houston had discovered that she was keeping tabs on him. He’d beat her up twice, consecutively, and might have even killed her if I hadn’t shown up. At the time, I hadn’t known anything about neurodivergents or Psionics. All I knew was that Tabitha had been friendly to me, and that she was hurt. I had never expected the Agency to compensate me for those actions any more than they’d already done. Ms. King had allowed me to receive my permanent Biocard—a piece of technology implanted in my head that boosted my Psionic abilities—far sooner than most recruits, and placed me on Tactical Team 47. She’d given me a home, and that was recompense enough.

  I sat back, considering the gift for a long time. I pulled the memory of Tabitha Smith laying on the old couch, and the pinprick of blood she’d left behind. It certainly was less noticeable than some of the bloodstains I’d gotten out of it before; so why bother? The only answer I could find was that this was a gift of thanks from Ms. King. I had saved her student’s life, and she wanted me to know that she appreciated it.

  Carefully, I detached the tag from the inside of the couch, then shredded it. Ms. King had been clear on that, at least. Any written communications from the Agency were to be destroyed as soon as they were read. I wasn�
�t sure if this counted as being directly from the Agency, but it did mention Agent Smith. I put the pieces of the tag on a plate and lit them on fire. A moment later, they were curled, charred slag I could throw in the trash.

  After I cleaned the plate I’d used to burn the message, I glued a few pieces of bread together with peanut butter and jam. It was a sorry excuse for dinner, but I was exhausted. I put one sandwich in Mom’s hands, then watched to make sure she ate it. When she was done, I watched her take her medication, then tucked her into bed. She dozed off almost immediately.

  In spite of my exhaustion, I laid in bed for a long time, staring at the spartan walls and ceiling. Part of me wondered what I would say when Mom inevitably asked about the couch again. How many times had I lied in the last week? How many more times would I have to lie to cover the fact that I was never home? Mom was going to get worried if I didn’t have some sort of excuse for being on base all the time—but I had a job to do. I had people to protect.

  I rolled onto my side and clutched the blankets closer.

  Part of me wondered why I had to lie. Wouldn’t it be better to let her in on this new world? But then I saw her pallid skin and gaunt cheeks in my mind. She didn’t need anything else to worry about—especially not me.

  I was going to have to ask Tolden for more time off, though. When Mom got this bad, sometimes she had accidents. I would need to check in on her as often as I could. Maybe I could convince someone from Tac 47 to drive me home for a few minutes at the end of every school day.

  I started running some probabilities as I had another thought. If I could see something inside Mom’s head burning, then maybe someone at the Agency would be able to help her. Maybe doctors couldn’t figure out what was going on with Mom because it was a Psionic issue?

  My blue lines ran into some snags, calculating the percentages, but I drove them through those rough patches. These numbers were important. If someone at the Agency could help Mom, I would do anything I had to in order to heal her mind.