NIGEL BARNABY
HEALTH AND WELLNESS OFFICE
THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA
THE NIGHTMARE ALWAYS STARTED THE SAME. NIGEL was barefoot, in the cozy pajama pants he used to wear as a kid, his arms shoved inside his T-shirt sleeves and crossed over his stomach to keep warm. His breath misted in a cloud in front of his face. His toes were numb, but he could still feel the brittle ice beneath him, cracking and buckling with his every step.
He was back in Iceland. Out on that frozen lake.
Nigel looked over his shoulder. There should’ve been land behind him, a cabin, but there was nothing. Nothing except for ice in all directions.
So, he staggered onwards, unable to do anything else. His teeth chattered. The sound of the ice snapping echoed in his ears. A snow flurry blew across his face and he could feel snot frozen to his upper lip.
There were shadows in front of him. People, barely visible in the gloom. If he could just make it to them . . .
But then he heard their voices, their cruel laughter. Mocking him for his stupid pants. They were the boys from the Pepperpont Young Gentlemen’s Preparatory Academy. His old school, the one he’d left behind when the invasion happened, when he leaped at the opportunity to become someone else. The old dread came over him. He wanted to hide, but there was nowhere to go.
They were coming towards him now. Some of them brandished lacrosse sticks and riding crops.
Nigel gritted his teeth to stop them from chattering. He wasn’t weak anymore. He had Legacies. But somehow, he knew, they wouldn’t work out here. Not on the ice. He couldn’t decide whether to run back the way he had come or submit to whatever humiliations the prep schoolers had in mind.
It was in that moment of painful indecision that Nigel fell. Always the same. The ice parted underneath him and the dark water swallowed him up, freezing cold as it rushed into his lungs.
“And then I wake up, gasping for breath,” he told Dr. Linda. “What do you make of that, eh? Used to be I dreamt about cool shit, like the one where I’m running round the burbs, busting windows with Siouxsie Sioux.”
Dr. Linda stared at him blankly, her pen poised over her notebook.
“Siouxsie Sioux?” Nigel reiterated, aghast. “Siouxsie and the Banshees? Bloody hell, Linds, weren’t you alive in the seventies?”
“Yes, Nigel, I was alive.”
“Don’t sound like it,” Nigel replied. “Anyway, what’re we going to do about these nightmares?” He ran the back of his hand across his pockmarked cheek. “Not getting my beauty sleep.”
Nigel sunk deeper into the cozy couch in Dr. Linda’s office, his gaze flitting around the room. Her office was cluttered with tchotchkes from all over the world; the little objects served as conversation pieces for Dr. Linda to break the ice with some of the foreign students. On the walls were variations of the same multicolored splotchy painting, which, considering Nigel still had to come here at least once a week, he was totally sick of looking at.
“It isn’t unusual for two traumatic experiences to bleed into each other, particularly when they share a unifying theme—”
“Huh?”
“Your experience in Iceland and your background at the prep school,” Linda explained patiently. “There are similarities.”
“What’re you on about?” Nigel replied. “Buncha pricks who tormented me for years got nothing to do with drowning.”
“Is it the drowning that frightens you?”
“Drowning sucks, don’t it? I was playing would-you-rather the other night with the lads and we had total agreement that we’d all rather burn to death. You’d think that would hurt more, right?”
“Nigel.”
“But the thing of it is, you pass out from the smoke long before your actual skin gets to roasting.”
“Okay, Nigel. That’s lovely.” Dr. Linda sighed. “The point I’m trying to make is that, despite your close call, you don’t have anxiety about drowning.”
“Says you,” Nigel replied. He put his combat boots up on the coffee table. He’d been meeting with Dr. Linda often enough that this no longer got even a raised eyebrow from the woman.
“The similarity, Nigel, is your feeling of powerlessness,” Dr. Linda said.
“Whoa now. Aren’t we skipping the part of the therapy where you ask me what I think the connection is and gradually lead me to that conclusion?”
Dr. Linda smiled dryly. “I’ve learned that a direct approach works better with you.”
Nigel gazed out the window, the California sky crisp and blue, bright even in this so-called winter. He made a fist and kissed the first knuckle, thinking it all over.
“That why I’m thinking about revenge all the time? Against those assholes from Pepperpont once in a while, but more often against that fancy-dressing mind-boy who brainwashed me?”
“Revenge, I think, can be a lot like thin ice, Nigel,” Dr. Linda said. “It won’t hold you up for long.”
“Wow, Linda, that’s a heroic reach for that metaphor, eh?” Nigel turned and smiled coldly at her. “Thing I still can’t figure, all these weeks later, is how that Icelandic wanker knew so much about me.”
Dr. Linda met Nigel’s eyes for a moment, then looked down at her notebook. She tapped her pen thoughtfully.
“If you’re truly having trouble sleeping, I could prescribe you something.”
“Now we’re talking, love. Something that I can get a solid buzz off, yeah?”
She looked at him levelly over the rim of her glasses. “Obviously not.”
“Then never mind,” Nigel said with a wave of his hand. “I’m right as rain, Linds. As always.”
Nigel had been suspicious for weeks. After the first time he had the nightmare—Einar and the Pepperpont boys, the great villains of his life uniting to torment him in the middle of the night—he’d lain awake wondering.
How did Einar know?
The thing was, Nigel actually liked Dr. Linda. He’d felt dumb for spilling his guts to her, but it was nice to have an adult take an interest. So, he’d buried that suspicion. Hadn’t wanted to believe.
Not until they were sure the mole was one of the administrators. Once they knew that, there was no way to keep denying it. He didn’t need to make a copy of her hard drive or hack her email like the others were doing with Greger and Archibald.
Nigel could see the guilt in Dr. Linda’s eyes.
In the empty hallway outside her office, Nigel clenched his fists and let loose a scream. With his Legacy, he could’ve amped that scream up loud enough to break all the windows on the floor. Instead, he muted himself. The rush of air left his lungs soundlessly—all the catharsis of shouting, none of the noise.
He knew.
That night, beneath the training center, Nigel stood in front of their board of clues and suspects, glaring at Dr. Linda’s picture.
“Lady looks me right in the eye,” Nigel growled. “Right in the eye and pretends she doesn’t know.”
“Did you give it away?” Ran asked. “You are talking like you gave it away.”
“No,” Nigel said sharply. “At least, I don’t think so. Not bloody easy for me to be so chipper with her.”
“I know.”
“Like to scream at her smug ass until she goes flying out her window.”
“Perhaps,” Ran said evenly, “that would be too far.”
“Evil crone,” Nigel grumbled. He grabbed a marker and doodled devil horns on Dr. Linda’s forehead. “Gotta sit there and let her bloody treat me when . . .” He shook his head. “Think she even cares that her big mouth about got me killed? Not to mention the violation of her freaking sacred oath!”
Ran bumped her shoulder against Nigel’s affectionately. Her voice was as coolly dispassionate as ever. “I know it isn’t easy, but we must maintain appearances. We can do more harm to our enemies when they think we are ignorant.”
“Bloody Sun Tzu over here,” Nigel replied. “You didn’t almost drown.”
“No. I was only shot in the leg by a sniper and then had my chest compacted by telekinesis.” Ran eyed him. “Also, Sun Tzu was Chinese, but I have read his book. It’s a little dry.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nigel replied, and he smiled in his wild way at Ran. “I’m just saying, I’m not a revenge-served-cold type’a bloke. I like it hot and I like it often.”
“Mhm, we know,” Ran replied, used to Nigel’s bravado.
Their group gathered once again around the conference table. The data they had hijacked from Archibald and Greger came back clean. Lexa, meanwhile, had simply been able to hack Dr. Chen’s email and hard drive without any assistance from the students—Chen had the lax data protection of an innocent person. That left only Dr. Linda, who Nigel laid out the case against, limiting his curse words as much as possible.
When Nigel was finished, Nine looked over at Malcolm and Lexa.
“I’m sold,” he said. “But then, I’ve been told that I don’t always think things all the way through. What do you two think?”
Malcolm grimaced. “I really wish it wasn’t her, but the evidence seems to add up.”
Lexa nodded in agreement. “I think it’s time for phase two,” she said.
“Let’s see how Linda handles a terrible student who wants to escape the Academy,” Nine said.
All of them turned as one to look at Taylor.
She slouched in her chair just like Nigel had showed her, eyes drooping like she was about to fall asleep, loudly chewing gum. With a toss of her hair, she sat up slightly, glaring at her friends.
“You bitches talking about me?” Taylor asked.