“Hi.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.” He heard how curt he sounded, so he added, “Sorry I didn’t show for lunch. I was out for most of the day resting.”
“But you’re okay now?”
“Just tired.” He began walking along the path that led to the stadium entrance. Ursula followed. It made him edgy, but the fence was ten feet tall. Ten whole feet. And it was metal.
Ursula asked, “So… Why not just go home?”
Kane forced himself to keep walking. “Had to chat with some teachers. And I need to talk to Coach O’Brien.”
Kane watched Ursula for her reaction, but her eyes were trained on the stadium. Haltingly, she said, “You can’t. He’s busy with football practice.”
“That’s okay. It’s quick.”
“Oh, well…you can just talk to him tomorrow, can’t you? And besides, they’re doing a scrimmage. He’s busy.”
“He’s expecting me. At the practice.”
She raised an eyebrow. Kane wondered where he was going with this very obvious lie. He desperately tried to recall how people did football. He’d seen a few movies, and sometimes the start of the Super Bowl after the most important part ended, which was the national anthem.
“Yeah, he invited me to…bring him his coin.”
“His coin?”
“For the coin part.”
“Do you mean the coin toss?”
“Yes.”
Kane picked up his pace. Ursula followed. They were behind the football bleachers now. The stadium had locker rooms, and Kane could use the back entrance to get through the fence.
“Oh, you know what? I have a coin in my equipment bag. I’ll bring him one! Why don’t you head home, okay? I’ll talk to O’Brien for you. Isn’t that what friends are for?”
Kane was out of excuses and out of patience. His hands were shaking. Actually shaking. Ursula disgusted him with her desperation. He disgusted himself with his desperation to believe her. His eyes burned, a preview to tears. The fence didn’t turn the corner, and he readied his escape.
“Kane, you’re looking kind of pale. Why don’t I just drive you home?”
“Stay away from my house.”
Fear opened on Ursula’s face. “What?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Kane spat. “I heard you talking in the boiler room with Elliot and Adeline.”
Ursula went white.
“You were following me that night on the path, weren’t you?”
“Kane, listen—”
“What’s a reverie, Ursula? Why are the lobsters glowing?”
“Kane—”
“What happened to Maxine Osman?”
The dimple between Ursula’s eyebrows spread into a series of disbelieving lines. Her head shook in slow horror.
“Did you guys kill her?”
“Kane, stop, you don’t understand. You’re confused, and if you’d just calm down—”
“I’m not confused, and don’t tell me to calm down.” His voice smoldered. “I thought you were my friend!”
She looked hurt, as though she actually cared. “I am! I was going to tell you, but not like this!”
His withering glare was his only response before he pivoted toward the locker rooms.
“Kane!” she called. “Just wait a second, okay? We can find a place to go. I’ll explain it. I’ll explain everything. Just give me a chance.”
“I gave you your chance,” he called back, done listening. He was going to find out for himself what Ursula was hiding. Like a cresting wave, the betrayal swept him into a jog.
“Kane!” Ursula screamed. “You can’t go in there!”
He ignored her.
“STOP!”
It wasn’t a plea. It was a command. Kane had to look back. Ursula’s hands were bunched in the chain links, her face dark with sudden contempt. And then, in one swift motion, Ursula tore the fence apart like a curtain of beads.
Now Kane was sprinting. He rounded the corner at a dangerous speed, sliding on a patch of mud. In a whirl he was on the ground, hands full of muck. He threw a glance back. Ursula rocketed around the corner, closing the distance between them.
His mind screamed for him to get up. To do anything but watch as she bore down on him. And instead of terror, he felt a sensation at once familiar and foreign. An inward reaching, a crystallization of panic, anger, and determination. His body moved against his retreating mind, throwing him onto his feet, toward Ursula. His palm shot out to stop her.
“Leave me alone!”
A needle of pain sliced through Kane’s temples as a dazzling blaze engulfed his fingertips. With a sound like the air itself ripping apart, pure iridescence rocketed from his hand. It struck Ursula directly, surging over her like a thick jet of water, dragging her off her feet and into a brutal backward tumble.
A breathless beat passed. Ursula lay in a small crater, smoke curling off her stilled body, probably dead, and Kane’s hand still crackled with the otherworldly light. The flames were faceted like gemstones but had the fluidity of fog, and they held every color imaginable in their dancing depths.
Kane waved his hand frantically, desperate to get the fire off his skin. He dug his knuckles into the soupy mud, but still the light boiled over his flesh.
“Help!” Kane screamed, though the fire did not burn him. Instead, an electric vibration pulsed through the bones of his hand, in time with the pastel flames, as though Kane clutched not fire but sound.
Then Ursula sat up. “Kane,” she growled with pained restraint. Her uniform was burnt through in places. Bits of rock fell from her hair as she stood and glared at Kane with eyes that now glowed a neon pink.
She stalked toward him.
“We’re friends, Kane, remember? If you’d just listen to me I can help you.”
“Stay away!”
This time when the plume erupted from Kane’s hand it did not sweep Ursula over. Instead it came within a foot of her and collided with… Kane didn’t know what. The beam hit an invisible barrier and burst apart, swarming past Ursula in a million harmless embers.
She was only steps away now. She looked pissed.
And just like that, the fire winked from Kane’s palm. He ran for his life. The locker rooms were his only option and by some maniacal grace the door was propped open. He lunged for it as Ursula lunged for him.