Tears were sliding down Kaitlyn's cheeks, and she was losing her anger. She slammed Bri again and got it back.
"Kids at school would run up and touch me for a dare. And adults would get so nervous when I talked to them-Mr. Rukelhaus used to get a twitch in his eye. I grew up feeling like something that ought to be put in the zoo. Don't tell me I don't know what it's like. Don't tell me!"
She was winding down, her breath slowly calming. So was Bri's.
"You dye your hair blue and do stuff to look weird-but you're doing it yourself, and you can change it. I can't change my eyes. And I can't change what I am."
Suddenly embarrassed, Kaitlyn let go of Bri's arms and looked around for a towel.
"You're okay," Bri said in a voice Kaitlyn hadn't heard her use before. Not a sneering tough-girl voice. Kait looked around, startled.
"Yeah, you're okay. I thought you were a goody-goody wimp, but you're not. And I think your eyes are cool."
She looked more sane than she had since Kait had met her.
"I-well, thanks. Thank you." Kait didn't know whether to apologize or not; she settled for saying, "You can use the shower now."
Bri gave a friendly nod.
It's strange, Kait thought as Joyce drove her to school. Bri, Lydia, and Renny had gone in Lydia's car. It's strange, but for a while there she sounded just like Marisol. What was it Marisol said that first night? You kids think you're so smart-so superior to everyone else.
But we didn't think that; it was just Marisol's paranoia-a very particular kind of paranoia. Kaitlyn shot a look at Joyce under her eyelashes. And Joyce has that kind, too-thinking she isn't getting what she's due.
They all think the world is out to get them-that they're special and superior but everybody is persecuting them. Can the crystal do that?
If it can, it's no wonder they're out to get the world first.
Joyce checked her in to school, and Kaitlyn found herself going to the same classes she had when she'd come to the Institute. The teachers put her absence down as a vacation, which was mildly amusing. It was surrealistic, like being in a dream, to sit in British literature again, with all these kids whose lives were quiet and boring and completely safe. Who hadn't had anything happen to them in the last few weeks; who hadn't changed at all. Kaitlyn felt out of step with the whole world.
Watch it, kid. Don't you get paranoid.
At lunch several people asked her to sit with them. Not just one group, but two, called to her in the cafeteria. It was the sort of thing Kaitlyn had always dreamed about, but now it seemed trivial. She was looking for Lydia-she wanted to talk to that girl.
Lydia wasn't in evidence. Bri and Renny were off in a corner, bullying people and probably extorting lunch money. Kaitlyn wondered how their teachers dealt with them.
I'll look around by the tennis courts, she thought. Maybe Lydia's eating her lunch out there.
She was crossing in front of the PE building when she saw three people crowded in the doorway of the boy's locker room. They were looking out from behind the little wall that kept people from seeing in the open doors, and they seemed ready to duck back at any moment. The weird thing was that one of them was a girl. A girl with long dark braids . . .
And the tallest boy had hair that shone in the sun like old gold. Kaitlyn's heart leaped into her mouth and choked her. She ran.
"Rob-you shouldn't be here," she gasped as she got behind the wall. And then she was hugging him hard, overcome by how dear and familiar and honest and loyal and safe he was. His emotions wide open- not icy and shielded. She could feel how much he cared for her, how glad he was that she was alive and unhurt.
"I'm fine," she said, pulling back. "Really. And I'm sorry for running away without telling you-and I don't know why you're not mad."
Lewis and Anna were crowding around her, smiling, patting her as if to make sure she was real. They were all so dear and good and forgiving. . . .
"We were worried about you," Anna said.
"We camped out yesterday near the Institute Hoping you'd come out," Lewis said. "But you never did."
"No-and you can't do that ever again," Kait said shakily. "Gabriel saw you. I don't think anybody else did, thank God, but he's bad enough."
"We won't have to do it again," Rob said, smiling. "Because we've got you now. We'll take you with us-even though we don't exactly have a place to go yet. Tony's working on that."
Kait thought he had never looked so handsome. His eyes were amber-gold, clear and full of light like the summer sky. His face was full of trust and happiness. She could feel the radiant energy of his love.
"Rob... I can't." The change in his expression made her feel as if she'd hit an innocent child in the face.
"You can." Then, as she kept shaking her head: "Why not?"
"For one thing, if I disappear, they'll think I've betrayed them and they'll do something to my father. I know they will; I feel it in Joyce. And for another thing-Rob, it's working. I've got them snowed. They believe I've come back to join them and I've already had a chance to look around the house." She didn't dare tell him what had come of that; she had the feeling that if Rob knew, she'd be slung over his shoulders caveman style, being carried out of San Carlos.
"But what are you looking for? Kait, why did you come back here?" Anna said.
"Couldn't you figure that out? I'm looking for the crystal."
Rob nodded. "I thought it was something like that. But you don't need to live there, Kait. We'll break in sometime; we'll find a way."
"No, you won't. Rob, there are five psychics there, besides Lydia and Joyce, and they're all crazy-paranoid. Literally. We need somebody on the inside, who can move around the house freely, and who can figure out what's going on. Because I don't just want to find the crystal, I want to find the way to destroy it. I need to know everybody's schedule, figure out a time when we can get to it with the shard. We can't just go running in some afternoon waving it over our heads. They'll slaughter us."
"We'll fight back," Rob said grimly, his jaw at its most stubborn.
"They'll still slaughter us. They're loonies. You haven't seen what they've done to the house-" Kaitlyn caught herself. Too much description of the danger-she was about to get slung over Rob's shoulder. She changed tracks fast. "But they trust me. This morning one of the girls said I was okay. And Joyce wants me around because the rest of them are so far into the twilight zone. So I think everything will work out-if you'll just please let me get on with it."