Tucker touched the towel to his swollen nose. “Jesus, Ford,” he said with a grudging chuckle. “You’ve got some balls, I’ll give you that. But can I give you some advice? Watch yourself. Her dad is not a good guy.”
“I’m well aware.”
“I’m serious,” Tucker said. “As bad as you think he is, he’s a whole lot worse—”
A bone-chilling howl from the main gym suddenly filled the air. Tucker and I froze, then everyone in the weight room rushed inside, where a crowd had gathered around the mat beneath the horizontal bar. Someone was moaning and making strange, hiccupping noises of pure agony. Declan McConnell broke from the group to vomit in a nearby trashcan.
“Gideon,” Tucker murmured and pushed through the crowd, then stopped short. “Jesus fucking Christ, someone call an ambulance!”
My own stomach wanted to heave. Gideon Foster was on the mat, deathly pale and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He was sitting up, both palms flat on the ground, staring in wide-eyed shock at his right leg, which was bent at a ninety-degree angle at the knee, protruding obscenely away from his body.
The gymnastics coach and trainers rushed over, and the school security backed the rest of us away. We were ushered out of the gym as sirens wailed from the parking lot.
“Poor bastard,” Orion said from beside me. “He was set to go to World’s, then the possibly the Olympics. Guess that’s done.”
“That’s Castle Hill Academy for you,” said a guy at my left. “It chews you up and spits you out.”
“Yep,” Orion agreed. “First it’s Jack Wallace at the bonfire, today it’s Gideon.” He turned and gave me a grim look. “Now we wait.”
A shiver went down my spine. “For?”
“Strike three.”
Part III
We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.
—Marie Curie
Chapter 25
Xander
December
“Earth to Xander. Come in, Xander.”
“Hm?”
I blinked back into the fluorescent starkness of the classroom where I’d been counting down the seconds until later that afternoon when I’d be alone with Emery in the dim quiet of my loft. Six pairs of eyes—the Math & Physics Club—were on me, waiting.
Dean and Harper exchanged amused glances. No one at the school was supposed to know about Emery and me, but they were my best friends, and I’d never had best friends before. Or a girlfriend. Aside from the physical altercations with Tucker Hill, my little Experiment was going pretty well.
“I was asking if you’d given any more thought to hosting our annual Christmas party,” Kevin Huang, our president said. “Not to be forward, but it might be the best opportunity for us to meet your father.”
Jasper Reed, our VP Elena Clark, and Micah West—another newbie like Harper and me—nodded eagerly.
“It would be an honor, truly,” Jasper said in his stiff, formal way.
“I’m dying for him to sign my issue ofScientific American,” Elenasaid.
“I think he’d be touched that you want to meet him,” I said slowly. “But I have to see if he’s up for it.”
My dad’s illness was like a shadow that followed me around, stealing the light out of the best days. The medication they’d given him was working the same way putty worked to seal a leaking dam—it stemmed the tide of his dementia, but Dr. Mandel had warned me it couldn’t hold forever.
I’m going to lose him while he’s still here.
“Let’s not force the issue,” Dean said, jumping up to indicate the meeting—and the subject—was closed. “Until next week.”
