Convergence - The Last Science #2.1 - In Plain Sight

B2: Chapter 11 - The Emerald City (Part I) - III

  The next class felt like entire years were passing by. Natalie swore she could see her desk aging, like they did in time lapses in end-of-the-world movies. She half-expected plants to start bursting out of the ground around her and start reclaiming the whole building for nature, like they always talked about in the books and shows she liked.

  That sounds better than dealing with this whole mess.

  She still had no idea what Quinn was thinking. Was he trying to bring up the brief moment she'd let magic slip in front of him? Or was it genuinely an invitation to play Conquest, and Quinn had completely forgotten they'd never actually started playing? Did he have ulterior motives? Was Natalie just making it all up in her head?

  "Jenny!"

  "What?" she spluttered, looking up at the board.

  "Can you tell me what the value of X in this problem is?"

  Natalie looked over the board, trying to focus her eyes on it. Everything seemed so hazy. Quinn was in the desk next to her, and she could see him surreptitiously writing the answer on a piece of paper beneath his desk.

  I know how to do this. Natalie forced her eyes back into focus. The problem wasn't actually that hard, once she remembered the order things were supposed to go in. She didn't even need scratch paper to solve it. Nice and straightforward. Rules to follow. No confusion.

  "X equals six."

  "Good. Does anyone need help knowing how she got to that?" The teacher still looked vaguely concerned, but moved on to the next problem after no one else spoke up. Natalie's eyes fell back to the desk again, forgetting the class entirely.

  "Are you okay?" Quinn asked later, once they'd switched to group work. The class conveniently split into groups of four that left only two extra, and—as her horrible luck would have it—that left just Quinn and Natalie leftover, in the corner of the room together. He scooted his desk around so that they'd be next to each other, dropping his voice low. "Did something happen?"

  "Nothing happened." Natalie looked down at her workbook and tried to start on the first problem.

  "You can tell me anything, you know. I'd never tell anyone."

  "Nothing happened," she repeated. She looked up and saw Quinn's eager eyes. He said he wanted to help and that he was there for her, but all she could see was a source of danger. "Let's just finish these, okay?"

  "Okay."

  He wasn't going to give up that easily. He knew it, and she knew it too. Natalie tried to focus, but she couldn't stop dreading every word out of Quinn's mouth. Her mind kept flashing through images of terrible things happening to him and his friends, and it would all be her fault. Because she couldn't keep one little thing secret. They'd only gotten through half of the problems when he spoke up again.

  "I was thinking. I'm pretty good with the internet. Maybe I could help you find them?"

  "Find who?" she asked, against her better judgment. Her hand gripped the metal bar on the side of her side so tight that her knuckles started to go white. She could feel the urge to push out magic into her hand, but that would lead to a permanently damaged desk and even more questions she couldn't answer. Natalie managed to control it, and the cold metal stayed intact.

  "Your real parents, duh."

  "My... what?"

  His voice was so low she could barely hear him, but since every other group was joking around by now and the teacher was barely paying attention, she doubted they'd be overheard. "I mean, Lily's not your real mom, right? That's why you call her Lily. She's who they assigned to you."