“And what’s the significance of that?” asked Ajay.
“Charlemagne had another name for these guys,” said Brooke. “His twelve knights … were the original Paladins.”
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I’d stopped dreaming about him as soon as he got here. But the danger he was in hadn’t vanished with the dreams. If anything, I sensed it was worse now, and drawing closer. Had he brought it with him, or had it been waiting for him all along?
He should be safe here. The school has ways. Should I tell him what I know? Maybe he hasn’t learned any of it. Would it help? How can I be sure that telling him won’t make it worse?
Sleep is becoming impossible.
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THE TUTORIAL
The roommates packed it in after one in the morning, satisfied that they’d at least put a name to what they’d found. But Will lay awake worrying about the implications of the last piece Brooke had discovered: The original Knights were all Paladins. One of the contemporary Knights, dressed as a paladin, had come after them with an ax. The Paladin had been the school’s mascot since 1915.
Did this suggest that the school was somehow involved?
Then there was the even crazier stuff he hadn’t told them yet: The connection Nando had found between the Caps and the testing agency that had brought him to the school. The repeated appearances of his guardian angel, the monsters from the Never-Was, and this paranormal “war” that Dave said he was smack in the middle of.
Will heard a soft knock, moved to the door, and opened it a crack.
It was Brooke. “I need to ask you something,” she whispered. She was close enough for him to catch a sweet hint of peppermint on her breath. He stood aside, inviting her in. She wore an oversized white men’s dress shirt and floppy socks. She crossed to his bed and sat down, folding one bare leg underneath her. Will sat nearby, but not too close. She leaned toward him, her big eyes wide and bright with alarm, caught in a fragment of moonlight through the window.
“I’m lying there, staring at the ceiling,” she said, her voice low and trembling, “and I can’t stop asking myself, why did the Paladin show up down there?”
“Maybe he followed us,” said Will.
“But how did he know you were down there in the first place?”
“Maybe we set off a silent alarm—”
“I think Lyle has some way of watching you,” she said with conviction. “The same thing used to happen to Ronnie. Lyle always seemed to know where he was.”
Will shivered as he thought about it.
“And, Will, think about this.” Brooke put her hand on his. “If Lyle really is part of the Knights, and they’re working with the men who tried to kidnap you …”
Will felt a chill run down his spine. “Then there’s a good chance that word’s gotten back to them and they know I’m here.”
“I’m sorry if I haven’t been more supportive,” said Brooke sincerely. “I really don’t believe that rules are made to be broken. But this is different. You’re in real danger and I want to help in any way I can.”
“I’m really glad to hear that,” said Will. “There’s something I need to tell you, too. Chances are good that Todd’s part of this. With some of the other seniors from the cross-country team.”
She looked away and sighed. She seemed more saddened than surprised.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Whatever’s going on between you is none of my business.”
“Nothing’s going on between us,” she said, eyes flashing. “Our families are close, that’s all. We’ve known each other our whole lives.”
“If you need me to help, I will,” said Will.
She looked at him again, her eyes full of concern. “All this is going down, and you want to help me?”
Will got lost in her eyes for a second before he looked away. She reached out with her other hand and held his.
“Seriously, Will. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said.
“But I am worried,” she said. “I knew you’d been through something awful the moment we met.”
“Well, I was lying there with stitches in my head.”
She punched his arm lightly. “The technical term is emotional intelligence? Give me some credit. I don’t want to help just because it’s the right thing to do. I want to because I like you. Because you’re smart and nice and kind of, well, brave.”
Will had to look away.
“You haven’t heard that a lot from other kids before?” she asked.
“No,” he said quietly.
She tried to meet his eyes. “What about friends back home? People you’re close to?”
Will shrugged. “Don’t have any.”
“Not ever?”
Will shook his head.
“Okay, that’s just wrong. And not because there’s something wrong with you,” she said gently. “What were your parents thinking? Your life should have been filled with friends. From now on it will be.”
He hoped she couldn’t hear his heart beating because it was about to bust through his ribs.
“And if you ever want to talk about … whatever you’ve been through or football or eighteenth-century English poetry, just know I’m up for that. Because that’s what friends are for.”
She said it like someone explaining the concept for the first time in human history. She squeezed his hand and headed for the door.
“I’ll work on Todd and see what I can find out,” she said at the door.
“You be careful, too.”
She seemed amused. “You really don’t know much about girls, do you? Get some sleep, champ.”
Fat chance. After flopping around for half an hour, Will noticed that his tablet had turned on. He was certain he’d switched it off and laid it flat before he’d gone to bed. Now it was standing on its legs, pointed directly toward him with a message floating on-screen:
WOULD YOU LIKE TO BEGIN THE TUTORIAL NOW? (RECOMMENDED)
“I surrender,” said Will. He stumbled to the desk and sat down. “Yes, I’d like to take the tutorial.”
The screen dissolved into a curtain of bubbling effervescence that gave Will a strange visceral impression: It’s happy. A series of questions appeared, dissolving in and out at an increasingly rapid pace as Will responded:
WHAT IS YOUR HEIGHT? YOUR WEIGHT? YOUR BIRTHDAY? YOUR FAVORITE COLOR? YOUR FAVORITE SPORT?
When that ended, it asked him to put his hands on the screen, one at a time. A bright blue light issued from it each time. It instructed him to move his face six inches from the screen, hold still, and shut his eyes, and when he did he felt a symmetrical grid of intense light moving slowly across his features—
It’s mapping me.
One last message appeared: THIS DEVICE WILL BE ACTIVATED FOR YOUR SECURE AND PERSONAL USE. DO YOU STILL WISH TO PROCEED?
“Yes,” he said.
The screen dissolved to a deep, shimmering blue. A faint pulse began beating, creating rippling disturbances like pebbles dropped in a still pond. A tiny round pale dot appeared in the center. With each successive heartbeat, the dot grew in size. Then Will realized that the pulse on-screen was keeping pace with the beating of his own heart.
He couldn’t take his eyes off it; within minutes the spot grew to the size of a dime. Something about its rhythmic regularity relaxed his mind enough to finally let go. When his chin sagged onto his chest, he dragged himself to bed and instantly fell asleep.
A few hours later, he woke in sunlight. Will looked over and saw that the dot on-screen had continued growing while he was asleep. The pale shape that had formed overnight looked like the outline of a human body lying on its back, suspended in space. Vague, unfinished, but evolving.