Picture of Abby on the side!

Chapter Fifteen

Delaney

"Attention, students of Beverly High." The principal's voice crackled over the intercom. "This is just a reminder; the Superiors will be coming in nine days, on the thirty-first. The Choosing ceremony will occur on this day, and the two who are Chosen will embark on their journey to the Capitol on the following day. Good luck to you all, thank you, and have a nice day."

My stomach clenched. Nine days left. There was a feeling of anxiety sitting in my gut, as if I was the one in danger of being Chosen. That, though, had become completely out of the question. When I came to school that day, it was as if the drama with Caleb had never happened. Either everyone had forgotten, or they had simply ceased to care.

"Nine days," the girl next to me breathed, startling me back to reality. When she noticed me watching, she blinked and turned bright red. "I mean, it's not like I'll actually be Chosen, but hey, a girl can dream, right?" She laughed nervously. I flashed a small smile in return.

"Yeah, sure," I said, deciding that, since she hadn't glared or gasped at me, it was safe to talk to her. She grinned and nodded, then looked away.

"So, are you all excited?" my Marine Biology teacher, Mrs. Phey, asked. "You're Sophomores, it's your year. I remember being fifteen, wondering who would end up on their way to the Capitol..." She got a dreamy look in her eyes.

"Sorry to ruin your trip down memory lane, but...I'm a Freshman. And I really don't understand what's so great about being Chosen."

Every head turned to the back of the room. The speaker was a girl I had never noticed before, leaning back in her seat casually and watching the class with eyes hidden behind flashy, red-rimmed sunglasses. She was wearing a black skirt and t-shirt, all dark colors except for her shoes and belt, which were both a stark white. As Mrs. Phey glared at her, the girl pushed one strand of long, red-streaked black hair behind her ear, her face expressionless.

"It's all about opportunity, Ms. Kaiser." Mrs. Phey walked the length of the classroom, her sky-high heels clicking on the tile floors. "Being Chosen is a chance for young people like all of you to become something greater than what they could ever imagine!"

"Ms. Kaiser" tilted her glasses down and raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, I get that. But it just seems, well, stupid."

A hush fell over the class. Everyone glanced at each other in utter shock, appalled at what they were hearing. I just watched in interest; this girl definitely had my attention.

Mrs. Phey didn't get a chance to answer because just then, the bell rang. In the crowd of people trying to exit the classroom, I lost sight of "Ms. Kaiser", but ran into the girl whom I had spoken with earlier in class.

"Hey, um..."

She whipped around, her blonde ponytail nearly slapping me in the face. "Hm? Oh, hi!"

"Hi," I said, raising my voice over the conversations of the other kids pushing their way into the hallway. "Do you know the name of that girl who was talking back to Mrs. Phey?"

"Um...." The girl thought for a second, a crease forming between her eyebrows. "That would be....oh! Abigail. Why?"

"Oh, no reason," I mumbled, losing myself in the mass of bodies before she could ask anymore questions. As I shouldered my way forward, looking for a less cramped area, I was once again struck It was amazing to me, how quickly people went from obsessed to uncaring. My Rank had already dropped down to a four overnight, and I was perfectly content. Everyone seemed to have forgotten my face.

Lizzy, however, remembered.

As I made my way around a couple of Seniors, I saw her standing by a locker with several other girls, all of them laughing and checking their makeup in the screens of their cell phones. Right as I passed she looked up and we made eye contact, but she pointedly glanced away a second later. Whatever.

By the time I'd made it to a space with more air to breathe, though, I had forgotten about Lizzy. I checked the time one my phone: there were two minutes left of the six we had to get to our classes, and I still had a few things on my agenda. My classes, however, were just around the corner.

Perfect. On the Rank-checking app I did a search for Abigail Kaiser and clicked on the first and only result. Rank, eight. I was surprised; she didn't seem like the kind of person to have a Rank that high. But I guessed she was probably one of those punk-rock, self-proclaimed outcasts who were really friends with half the student body.

Either way, she seemed to have a mindset similar to mine. I'd definitely be keeping an eye on her.

I had just started walking again, and was closing down the app, when all of a sudden, someone rammed into me, nearly knocking me to the ground. I crashed into the nearest lockers, automatically covering my head with my arms.

"Hey, watch where you're going," the person muttered. Then, "Wait, Delaney?" I looked up and found myself staring into Caleb's face.

"Oh," I said awkwardly. "Hey."

Caleb frowned, then looked to his left. Beside him was the boy who had given me the note on Monday, and he looked thoroughly confused. I smiled at him tentatively, still remembering the sense of honesty I'd gotten from him.

"Hold on," I said quickly, as Caleb began to pass me. "Will you meet me at lunch?"

His frown deepened. "What?"

"It'll just be for a few minutes, I swear. Please, I really need to talk to you. It's about"—I widened my eyes—"you know."

After a brief glance at his friend, Caleb nodded. "Alright, fine. Meet me by the baseball field."

I ran a hand through my hair. "Sounds good."

"I'll see you then," Caleb said shortly. "I gotta get to Geo." I waved as he walked away, but he didn't look back. His friend however, did, and he looked suspicious.

I sped up down the hall to get away from the boy's calculating gaze. Just before I reached my classroom, however, the bell rang.

Dammit, I thought. Mr. Rae, my English teacher, wasn't very lenient when it came to being late.

"Miss Escott," he acknowledged as soon as I walked in, "that's a tardy."

I groaned, but I had expected it, so I shuffled to my seat without retaliation. Mr. Rae collected my essay, which I had half-arsed quite expertly, and spent the rest of the period lecturing. I took semi-legible notes, but all through class, I was counting down the minutes until lunch began.

Caleb

Trai began interrogating me the moment Delaney was out of earshot.

"What was that?" he demanded.

"What?" I asked smoothly. "I was just talking to Delaney; no big deal."

"Tell the truth, Caleb. I've known you forever; you can't get anything past me anymore. You've been really out of it for the past few days, and you still haven't given me good reason as to why you were with her at Savory's in the first place."

There were ultimately three ways to respond: I could lie through my teeth, as I did so well. That would most likely be the easiest. But I could also change the subject, with something so abrupt and unexpected that he would forget about what we were talking about. That, however, was less likely to work. Then, of course, there was the good old solution of telling the truth. You know, honesty is the best policy and all that crap.

I studied Trai as he watched me, waiting. We had stopped in the middle of the now-empty hallway. There was no doubt I could trust him; he'd proved that over the course of ten years of being friends. Still, there were some things that just couldn't be shared.

I decided that this situation didn't fall under that category. Besides, I had to get it all out of my system eventually.

"A little over a week ago, I asked Delaney for help," I began at last. And I told him everything, speaking in quick, hushed tones. Every last thing that had happened in the past week. Each detail, no matter how tiny. The bell rang at some point during my explanation, but we both ignored it. It would be easy to talk our teacher out of a tardy.

When I was through, Trai let out a long, slow whistle. "Wow, that's intense," he remarked. "I can see why you need her help."

"No kidding," I muttered. "And look, don't tell anyone, okay? The last thing I need is—"

Trai helped up a hand, smirking. "I won't tell anyone," he said solemnly, "on one condition." I groaned. "I want to come with you to talk to Delaney at lunch. I'm interested to see what she has to say."

I shook my head. "This is blackmail."

"Take it or leave it!" he sang, though I knew even if I said no, he would never tell anyone.

"Fine," I grumbled, rolling my eyes. "I guess it's a deal."

○●○●○●○

When Trai and I arrived at the baseball field at the beginning of lunch, it was empty. We waited by the home team dugout, which was littered with helmets and bats, for Delaney to show up. She came dashing into the field a few minutes later, backpack unzipped and glasses askew.

"I had to stay late 'cause I was tardy," she explained, slowing to a walk as she approached us. She dropped her stuff by the dugout, then smoothed back her hair and turned around. Only then, it seemed, did she notice Trai.

"What's he doing here?" she asked, her expression guarded. Trai smiled and stepped toward her, holding out his hand.

"Hey, I'm Trai Kaiser," he said matter-of-factly, "and I know everything." I saw him give Delaney a pointed look as she shook his hand, and she nodded.

"Well, if everyone's all caught up, then I guess I can begin." She looked around for any objection.

"Go ahead," I urged, both bewildered and eager to find out what she had to say.

She shifted from foot to foot in a deliberating sort of way. "I'm hungry, though," she admitted. "So why don't we sit down and eat first?"

I clenched my fists, aware that she was toying with me, stalling her explanation until I was ready to rip it out of her. There was a mischievous smirk playing at her lips.

"Fine," I said at last, smoothly keeping my anger in check. I sat down, as did Trai, and we both pulled out the cafeteria lunches we had bought before going to the field. Delaney followed suit, removing from her bag a Tupperware container with a pink-frosted vanilla cupcake inside.

"Is that all you eat for lunch?" Trai asked her curiously, swallowing a bite of his burrito.

She smirked. "Everyday for the past four years. Of course, Lizzy always said"—she stopped, and her eyes hardened—"she always said that it would all go to my butt, but I never listened to her. Sugar is like, my natural stimulant."

I frowned at the change of subject. Fiddling with the mystery meat in my sandwich, I asked, "So what, Delaney, did you change your mind? Am I here for a reason, or is this just a waste of my time?"

Pursing her lips, Delaney ran her finger down the center of the cupcake and licked off the frosting. Much to my irritation, she responded with a patronizing, "Patience is a virtue, Caleb."

"Are you kidding me?" I demanded loudly. Delaney raised at eyebrow.

"You'll have to excuse him," Trai interjected calmly. He nodded his head in my direction but looked at Delaney. "He has a chronic impatience disorder..."

Rolling my eyes, I shoved Trai so that he landed on his elbows, grinning, in the dirt. Delaney shook her head.

"Since it appears the two of you are resorting to violence, I guess I'll give in," she said, and though she sounded haughty, I could see excitement sparking in her eyes.

Putting her cupcake back in its tin, she reached into her bag, from which she pulled out a single sheet of white paper. She slid it face-down across the ground to me and Trai, smiling triumphantly. Anticipation rushed through my veins, but when I picked up and paper and read its contents...

"What the hell?" I murmured slowly, thinking Delaney had given me the wrong paper. I turned it sideways and upside down, trying to make sense of it. A moment later, Trai snatched it from me, and his brow furrowed.

"What is this, some kind of faulty HTML code?" he asked. I took back the paper and stared at the series of random numbers and symbols printed on the center of the page.

|o|20-!|\||=3|2!0|Z |\/|337!|\|& @ |Z45(@1z o|!|\|3|2

After skimming through just the first line, my brain hurt. I handed the sheet back to Delaney. "Sorry, but I really don't understand what this is supposed to mean."

She laughed. Glancing down, she read, "'Pro-Inferiors meeting at Rascal's Diner.' That's the first line."

Trai and I just gaped at her as she continued. "'Wednesday, May twenty-second, at eight o'clock PM. Ask for the Farrows Special."

"How did you get that," Trai wondered, "out of"—he pointed at the paper—"that?"

"It's leet speak," Delaney explained. "I learned it from my seventh grade Media teacher. He got me interested in computers and stuff. Granted, this is rather...thorough leet, compared to what I'm used to. But it's still English. Kinda."

I was hardly listening. My mind was racing, still going over the words Delaney had just said. However, I couldn't seem to make any kind of sense of them. There were several key pieces of information that I was missing.

Delaney watched me expectantly, and Trai glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. I took a deep breath. "Okay," I said. "I have a few questions."

Delaney

"And basically, they want to destroy the Superiors," I concluded. I watched the two boys' faces to gauge their reactions. They had both remained stoic the entire time, but now I saw hints of disbelief beginning to appear on their features.

"So let me get this straight," Trai said slowly. "You tricked your dad into bringing you to work with him, hacked a computer in a restricted office, and stole half the files from their database?"

I smirked. "Pretty much."

"Damn."

"And these...Pro-Inferiors," Caleb said. "How do we know they're the good guys?"

"We don't," I replied. "But their very existence proves that the Superiors, on some level, are corrupt."

There was a short pause. "So," Caleb began, "the meeting is tonight, huh?" I nodded.

"How do we know it's current, though?" Trai was frowning.

"The post date was from hours before I checked it," I informed them. I had found the simple paragraph posted in a forum on a discreet chat website. Its title was "Pro-Inf," which immediately caught my attention. After realizing what it said, I'd copied the text into a text document, then promptly fell asleep. When I'd checked the site the next morning, the post was gone.

There was silence as the three of us returned to our food, and our own thoughts. As I finished the last of my cupcake, I wondered what Trai and Caleb were thinking. Both of them were uncannily good at disguising their emotions, and wore blank faces that made me more than a little bit uncomfortable. Though I tried to be just as emotionless, I knew they could read me like a book.

"I'm really not sure what to say," Caleb said eventually.

Trai muttered, "That's a first."

I looked at them very seriously, saying what I'd been thinking since I'd read the post late the night before. "You know what we have to do now, right?" They stared at me with that twin blankness. "We have to go to that meeting," I said, answering my own question. "It's the only way to find out more about not only the Pro-Inferiors, but the Superiors as well. Are you guys in?"

Trai agreed readily, but Caleb hesitated.

"There's a basketball game tonight," he explained. "My parents are expecting me to go. I haven't really shown my face since Carlie and I broke up, and they think people are going to forget about me."

"Is there anyway you can get out of it?"

He shook his head. "I doubt it. Sorry, guys."

Trai shrugged. "Then Delaney and I can go, right?"

I glanced over at him in surprise. "We can?"

"What, you don't want to go places at night with a strange boy you hardly know?" he teased. "I promise, I'm a perfect gentleman."

I hesitated.

"You two should go, Delaney," Caleb urged.

With both of them now staring me down, I didn't have the heart to argue. "I'll go."

Trai grinned that lopsided grin of his and shook his hair out of his eyes. "Great. But hey, where's Rascal's Diner, anyway? We should probably know where we're going."

"It's in Tukwila." I grimaced. "The city with one of the highest crime rates in the state."

"Oh." Trai raised an eyebrow. "Fun."

The bell chose than moment to ring, sending us all to our feet automatically. As I gathered my things, Trai said, "So, how about I pick you up at like seven? It shouldn't take to long to get to Tukwila, and that should give us enough time to get a feel for the place."

"Yeah," I said, smiling nervously. "Sounds good."

"Then it's a date!" He gave a comical salute, punched Caleb lightly on the side of his head, and walked back around the dugout.

When he was gone, Caleb turned to me, his expression solemn. "Does this mean you're back in?" he asked quietly. After a moment, I nodded slowly.

"Yes," I murmured. "It means I'm back in."

A/N: I've now caught up to myself in how far I've edited this D:.