Pretty Monster by Somers Jill

Author:Somers, Jill [Somers, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Superheroes | Dystopian
Published: 2018-04-12T04:00:00+00:00

10. THE RESISTANCE

The week dragged on at a steady decline. Quinn’s productivity in her classes became worse and worse. All of her teachers were worried about her, but their speeches made no difference. Haley was no longer willing to be her partner in power tech, for obvious reasons; Trent and the others, for less obvious reasons. Since Quinn still refused to work with Dash, that left her partnered with Shade.

He didn’t look pleased with the pairing, but Quinn took it as a good sign that he hadn’t flat-out refused like the others.

Their session started the same way they had left off several weeks earlier: Shade sent a mild, sight-based illusion her way. There was no Kurt in it, nothing aimed at alarming or upsetting her. Just standard practice.

But she wasn’t in the mood for standard practice. She was in the mood for answers. And even though she felt fairly certain Shade wasn’t involved with whatever Dash and the others were, she was starting to think just about everyone was on one side or the other. Just about everyone had answers.

She focused all of her energy on pushing the illusion away, the same way she had with the illusion of Kurt all those weeks ago. It hurt, stirring up those feelings again—forcing herself to remember the illusion of him in order to remember what it had taken to send the illusion away. But it worked, and it left her staring face-to-face at a bewildered Shade.

“Again?” he asked. “How is this possible?”

“Don’t worry about it. Listen, Shade. Remember what I said to you at the party? That we’re not monsters—that we’re human?”

Shade nodded carefully.

“I stand by that statement. But I want to elaborate. We aren’t monsters simply because we’re deviants. Okay? We get to choose who we want to be.”

He stared at her, confused.

“Some of us, though,” she continued, “make the wrong choice. Choose the wrong friends. Become a part of something that might just turn us into monsters.”

“I’m not friends with any of you.”

“Yeah,” she said, laughing shortly to herself. “I’m not exactly friends with any of them at the moment, either. But I have to ask you, Shade—do you have friends? Other friends, maybe? On the island?”

He looked away from her. He looked almost nervous, strangely enough—like she was the first person to ask him these questions in a very long time.

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“Who?” she asked, taking a step toward him. She could sense that her desperation was triggering him, but she couldn’t help herself. “Is it Savannah? Is it Reese? Is—”

But he shook his head, eyes frantic, looking everywhere but toward her. Before she knew what was happening, he was leaving. Running away from her, away from class.

Everyone looked over at her, no doubt assuming she had done something horrific to him again. No one even seemed surprised.

• • •

Reese came to see her that weekend. He asked if she wanted to go on another flight, but she declined. She remained convinced that he was one of the

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