“No,” I said. “I mean, yeah, but this place is worse.”
“I’m with Noa,” Jenny said. “There was a kid in my xenobiology class who wouldn’t stop talking, so they sent him to the office. I’ve never seen someone cry like that over being kicked out of class. This school is freaky.”
DJ leaned against the tree and tried to scan the area in a way that looked casual. It wasn’t. There were other students outside, clustered together in groups, each of whom was watching us the way we were watching them. Teachers patrolled the perimeter of the grassy knoll, and herded students toward the center if they wandered too near to the edge.
I had told DJ and Jenny about Thao and Clayton and my experience in gym class, but they hadn’t been able to make any more sense out of it than I had.
“What do we do?” DJ asked.
“Leave,” I said. “When the bell rings, we make a run for the shuttle and get the hell off this rock.”
“Are you sure?” DJ asked. “We might be giving up the chance to find a way home.”
I slipped my hand into DJ’s. Maybe my feelings were the result of chemicals, but the more time I spent with DJ, the more time I wanted to spend with him. “I’d rather live the rest of my life on Qriosity than here.”
Jenny made barfing sounds into her napkin.
“Besides,” I continued, “I feel like the longer we stay, the more at risk we are. For all we know, this could be a Nutreesh processing facility, and we’re about to learn that Nutreesh is made from rebellious high school students.”
Jenny looked at her empty wrapper. “I thought you said Nutreesh was probably roaches.”
“Well, now I’m saying it might be people.”
“Nutreesh isn’t people.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Are you certain enough to keep putting it in you?”
DJ wedged himself into the conversation before Jenny and I really got going. “We’ve only got two classes left after lunch. It’ll probably be easier to sneak away after that.”
It was a good point, and I was about to say so when Jenny said, “Well, actually,” in a dramatic fashion, and then waited for us to give her our full attention. “There’s a dance this evening. The Equinox Formal.”
“Okay?” I said.
“I’ve been asked to go,” she said. “Officially.”
I didn’t mean to snort. It just happened.
Jenny slapped my arm. “What? I’m a catch.”
“I would’ve thrown you back.” I winked at Jenny, and she hit me again.
DJ said, “Staying for another class is one thing. But a dance? I don’t know.”
Jenny shrugged. “And I don’t care. A living, breathing person who thinks I’m attractive has asked me to attend a social function as his date, and there is no way in hell I’m not going.”
“It’s dangerous,” DJ said.
As soon as DJ and Jenny began to argue, I tuned them out. Mostly because the sound made me want to stuff my ears full of Nutreesh. Over the past few months, Jenny had helped carry my emotional baggage, discovered an intruder, fought aliens, and been forced to endure unwanted isolation due to my and DJ’s burgeoning relationship. Jenny had had to smile and be happy for us even as we pulled away and left her alone. If she wanted to spend a couple of hours slow dancing to cloyingly sweet songs while her date worked up the nerve to try stick his tongue in her mouth, then I felt like I’d be a jerk to stand in her way.
“We should stay for the dance.”
I don’t know who looked more surprised by my decision, DJ or Jenny.
“Really?” DJ said.
I nodded. “You heard Jenny: she’s got a date. Besides, we have ten hours until Qriosity leaves.”
Jenny laughed. “I love how I’m the only one of us who can fly the shuttle, but it’s your decision.”
“There’s also that,” I said. DJ opened his mouth like he was going to raise another objection, but I stopped him. “It might be fun to live normal lives for a while.”
DJ motioned at the nearest Teacher. “How’s that normal?”
“Sure, there are robot teachers and this is a space school filled with Stepford students—”
“Just agree to stay, DJ,” Jenny said. “You’ll feel much better when you do.”
DJ threw up his hands in surrender. “Fine. I guess we’re staying.”
Jenny’s scream of joy caused heads to turn, students’ as well as Teachers’, and I wasn’t entirely comfortable drawing so much attention to ourselves. But it had been a long time since I had seen Jenny so happy. She wasn’t the only one excited about the dance, though. I might have been slowly adapting to my role aboard Qriosity, but I was still sixteen, and I was looking forward to doing something where the stakes weren’t life and death.
“The dance could be the perfect opportunity to break into the school’s computer system and see what we can learn,” DJ said.
“That’s a good point too.” I was disappointed that DJ only saw the dance as an excuse to sneak around, but I tried to hide it. Not well enough, apparently.
“What’s wrong?” DJ asked. Lunch had ended, and he was walking me to my next class. Jenny had abandoned us when the second the bell rang.
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
I shrugged, trying to play it off like it was no big deal. “I was looking forward to the dance a little. That’s all.”
DJ held my hand, and we strolled across campus like we belonged there. “We’re going.”
“But only as cover for breaking into their computers.”
DJ pulled me to a stop, ignoring the dirty looks thrown our way from the people forced to walk around us. “To potentially find a way home. Don’t you want that?”
I nodded. “I did. I do.” I sighed. “I guess I’d gotten used to the idea that we were never going home. That I’d never go to prom or graduate high school or worry about college. That I was never going to have the experiences I’d expected to have. Then we came here, and it’s weird, but it’s also a reminder of everything I lost.”
I expected DJ to tell me I was being silly, because I was and I knew it. Instead, he wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed me.
“No exchanging bodily fluids!” the nearest Teacher yelled, but it was too far away for me to care.
“If you want to dance all night, then we’ll dance all night.”
It was so tempting to give in. To enjoy a few hours with DJ as a normal high school couple. Our relationship didn’t have to be complicated. We didn’t have to be DJ and Noa, strangers who were abducted and stranded aboard a spaceship. I could just be Noa, the devastatingly handsome popular kid, and DJ could be my hot but nerdy boyfriend.
It would have been nice, and it would have been normal, but that wasn’t our story.
THREE HOURS EARLIER
FRESHMAN YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL, second-period English, I was seated next to a new kid by the law of alphabetical order. Mrs. Forrester had us team up to work on a project. The new kid’s name was Victor, and he was kind of cute. I wouldn’t say I had a crush on him, but I definitely wanted to impress him. He was telling me about his life—how his family traveled the world because his mom was a famous photographer—and I made up a story about my dad being an actor. It was a ridiculous lie, but it spilled out of me before I could stop it. Victor learned the truth—I should have known he would because I’d been going to school with most of the same kids since first grade—and he told everyone what I’d done.