He was about to go on when I finger-halted him, needing another moment to process. “Wait. Doesn’t that mitigate the idea that I have super-natural intuition?” I was thinking aloud. “But I did think she was always askin’ me a lot of personal questions . . . and I mostly answered because I thought she genuinely—” An incredulous laugh cut off the humiliating thought. “I can’t believe how much I revealed to that phony!”
I had full burners of damning information boiling in pots, and was starting to feel pretty steamed.
Pete squeezed my thigh. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Honestly, these gifts are often hit or miss, especially when you’re as unaware of it as you seem to be. They always need to be worked on to develop properly, much like building a muscle or getting good at a particular sport . . . you can have natural ability, but you still have to practice to be really great.”
Hot tears burned my eyes. “I can’t believe it!”
He slipped his arm around my waist. “She really did like you. And didn’t mean you any harm . . . unless you got in the way of the mission, so you wouldn’t have gotten any bad vibes from her.”
Despite the warming presence of his palm against my ribcage, another chill crept farther up my spinal column. “Wouldn’t have harmed me unless I got in the way,” I repeated.
“Reese is a hardcore cadet,” he explained. “Lives and breathes Academy. Believes it’s her life’s mission to fulfill theirs. And she thinks a boy like Andrew would be better off in ‘The Academy’s superior care’, rather than”—he gave me an apologetic look—“‘living out in the country, in a trailer house, being raised by his teenage sister’—no offense,” he finished, lifting his hand to deflect my glare. “Hey. Don’t shoot the messenger . . . you know I don’t feel that way.”
My shoulders slumped. He was right. I just felt so betrayed and duped. But now that I knew Reese was one of them, I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me before. She fit the prototype exactly: beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated. So, so far above everyone else at that camp except for . . .`
Oh my God—Ryan! I’d completely forgotten about him since . . . well, since Pete walked through the door. Obviously, he’d been a set up, too. I cringed, feeling so manipulated. Reese had practically pushed the two of us together from the moment we met. Did Pete know about that? He watched the play of emotions on my face, waiting for my speech to catch up with my thoughts.
“Where does Ryan fit into all this?”
Pete made a little face. “He was first in line for the mission, hand-picked by the powers-that-be.”
“Why? Because he’s my type?” I thought back to Ryan’s poster-boy good looks. Didn’t do it for me. It was more me being flattered a guy like that was interested in me than me being interested in him. Plus, he got all sneery about Bible class, rolling his eyes at every camp activity that didn’t involve sports. I hadn’t really liked his attitude but was willing to overlook it because he was very solicitous towards me . . . I guess I knew why now.
The slow burn heated up.
Pete gave a little grunt. “I guess so, partly anyway. The Academy is really arrogant, always surmising a civilian will fall for any cadet.”
I hated to admit they were probably right about that.
“. . . So that was the assumption going in. Ryan’s also a couple of years younger, so they probably thought he could play the part better. And Reese was already signed up for the mission . . . just seemed like a natural fit to use him. But as the days went on, it was clear you didn’t immediately have the chemistry with him The Academy was counting on. So they had to . . . improvise.” Pete’s mouth had the audacity to quirk up again.
“Improvise?”
“Do you remember Reese instigating a little game with all the girls from your cabin?”
I stared into the space that was my past, feeling slow and stupid, my mind literally boggled as if I’d been cavorting around with aliens this whole time.
“She was always leading the charge for something: shaving cream fights, underwear up the flagpole, truth-or-dare,” I said, visibly seething at her for getting one over on me so completely. “The T-shirt game,” he prompted.
I thought back a second and froze. I knew what he was referring to now. Reese had invented a “super-fun” game where she confiscated shirts from “all the cute boys in the senior cabin.” Then she blindfolded the girls and had us pass them around to smell, noting which ones we liked best and rating them in order from best smelling to worst.
I remembered all the hilarity surrounding this game as we tried matching shirt to owner. Of course, she declared my favorite belonged to her brother, Ryan, then squealed and hug-jumped up and down with me like we were the winners of the game. She even went so far as to say we were going to be like sisters. I thought back, with a putrid burn in my stomach, to how flattered I was.
What a little faker. Were all cadets such good actors?
I just realized the real reason behind that little high-jinx was to see which cadet’s smell I would be most attracted to. And then get him to do the mission. My eyes flew to Pete’s.
He flashed his teeth at me in the dark. “I was the proud owner of the winning T-shirt.”
I flushed Hot Tamale red. Clapped my hands over my face. “Oh. My. God!” I groaned, not using The Lord’s name in vain.
“I know,” he simply said, relocating his hand to my shoulder.
I drew in a deep breath and looked at Pete with new eyes. “So, this-this thing,” I struggled for words, “this mission was a setup from the beginning . . . Y’all were spyin’ on us—I thought I was crazy!” I listed aloud all the things as they occurred to me: “My books disappearin’, that four-wheeler out in our pasture, you comin’ here—our relationship . . .” My voice broke after finally giving voice to my fears. “My emails back and forth to Reese, talking about you. You bein’ in my Spanish and P.E. class, the whole thing was a mission just to sign Andrew up, because he was thought to be a-a . . . PGC?”
He nodded. “Now you know the lengths they will go to procure the gifted.”
“What . . .” I swallowed, almost too scared to ask. “What do they do with them?”
“Whatever they want,” he stated flatly.
That feeling was right on my neck now, making the hairs stand on edge like prickly little icicles. “And you said Ranger wanted to do this mission? To be the one to vet my brother?”
Pete’s face turned grim as the reaper. “Yes. Next to Ryan, he was the favorite. He was pretty disappointed he was passed over.” He said this in a way that let me know it was an understatement. “Ranger knows it’s the wave of the future for The Academy. They’re sinking millions into the GAP program, and he wants a piece of the action. Procuring a legitimate gifted would be yet another notch in his belt.”
“I don’t understand why they would’ve considered him. I mean if you were the um . . . best man for the job.”
“Because I wasn’t anyone’s favorite for this mission”—tight smile— “except for yours,” he added, his expression softening. “As a matter of fact, I was probably Weston’s last pick. Fortunately, the T-shirt contest changed all that.”