Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Kyle couldn’t sleep. He imagined the worst Brock could be cooking up with the team, without him. What he planned to do to Tristan, how they would teach him a lesson. Kyle wrestled in his bed, turning left and right, on the verge of tears one second, then dead-faced the next and staring at the ceiling.
Kyle couldn’t sit still any longer.
Something had to change.
“Teach me,” said Kyle.
It was the next day at lunch. Tristan nearly fell asleep in the mashed potatoes, and Kyle’s voice stirred him. What? Calculus?
“How to do the sleep thing. How to do anything you can do, anything useful. I want to know how you do it.”
Tristan lay his head back down. I was having a nice nap, too.
“I don’t care, this is important.”
Really, and I dreamt I was strolling through the woods at night, you were with me, and we stopped to gaze at the moon together …
“They’re planning to do something to you. Tonight.”
Tristan lifted his head again, curious.
“Brock and the team. They said it would happen before the game. The game is tomorrow, so it has to be tonight.”
Tristan blinked. What are they planning to do? Braid my hair?
“This is serious, Tristan. I messed up. I made things worse. I tried to stop them in the locker room yesterday, but … but I got into a fight. A big one. With Brock.”
Tristan frowned. Then his eyes descended to Kyle’s cheek, focusing. So that’s what I was sensing. I assumed you had slept on it wrong in homeroom, you always nap on that side. Brock hurt you?
“The whole team is against me now. They think I’m your friend, which I am, but now they’re talking about taking sides, and Brock threatened to end my career in football, and now—”
Still, with the violence. Still, with his suppressions. Tristan let out a frustrated huff, shook his head irritably, frowned. I’ve not been one to believe in lost causes. I should try something else.
“You can’t instigate them even more, Tristan, I’m telling you, things are already bad.”
Instigate? Haven’t I proven I’m the opposite of an instigator? I am a diffuser. A calming agent in a sea of turmoil. All of this drama, this teenage drama, it will be so silly later in life, oh, you will be so embarrassed you gave it this much energy. Here, have a bite of my rectangular cardboard pizza, it’s disgusting, you’ll love it.
“Tristan, you can’t take on ten of them. You can’t put ten of them to sleep at once. I don’t know if it’ll be something you can avoid, what they’re planning. Maybe they found out where you live, or they’ll corner you between classes, I don’t know. Just teach me your thing, we can both take them on, maybe.”
I don’t actually dream, by the way, said Tristan. A side effect of my being an employee of Death. Or what did we decide to call it? My affliction? Disease? Job perk …?
“Are you listening to what I’m saying?”
And I don’t think the Brock thing is something I can teach you. Tristan folded his long arms on the table and leaned forward. Comes with my condition. Package deal, like puppies and butt worms.
“You can’t go up against the whole football team. I want to be there with you. I fucking hate Brock. He can’t just do this.”
Tristan smirked. This anger isn’t about me. It’s about him. He makes your heart race, but not in the way that I do.
“I don’t—” Kyle flinched away. “It’s not racing. I’m—”
Hearts never lie.
Kyle rose from his seat so fast, the utensils on their lunch trays rattled. “I’m sick of feeling invisible. I’m sick of my life. I don’t care if you hate the word ‘hate’ … there’s no other word for how I feel. I hate Brock Hastings. I want to take him down just as badly as he wants to take you down. Teach me.”
Tristan, unaffected as ever by Kyle’s outburst, continued to watch him calmly, saying nothing. As if waiting for something he knew was coming, like a cold front, or the apocalypse.
Tristan always looked like he knew things.
Secrets. Futures. Things no one else knew, no one else saw.
“How did you become one?”
Whatever levity existed on Tristan’s face fades at once.
“I want to know,” said Kyle. “I want to know how you got it, your condition, your thing. How you became what you are.”
That, said Tristan, in a disquietingly level, frosty tone, is a story I pray you never make me tell.
“Can you … change someone else … into what you are?”
I would never dare.
“But what if they wanted you to do it?”
Not a chance.
“What if I wanted it?”
Now it was Tristan’s turn to rise from his seat. This is not a joke. This. What I am. Whatever you think you’re coveting.
“I don’t think it’s a joke.”