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Taylor looked down at Isabela’s plate, where two greasy slices of extra cheese glistened. Her stomach growled.
“You’ve got pizza,” Taylor said icily. “A lot of pizza.”
“Yeah, but . . . how to put this?” Isabela blotted the grease off one of her slices with a napkin. “I am a shape-shifter, yes? So, there are some things I don’t have to worry about. Like, for starters, I stay skinny, no matter what.”
“What’re you trying to say?” Taylor asked through her teeth.
“The salad is me watching out for you,” Isabela replied. “You look . . . I don’t know. A little puffy.”
“You’re saying I’m fat.” Taylor’s voice had gotten loud. Now the tweebs were looking at her again. So were some of the other tables.
Isabela blew out her cheeks. “Are puffy and fat the same? Maybe it’s my English. Let me check my dictionary.”
“I’m tired of your shit all the time,” Taylor snapped at her roommate, her voice getting louder still. “It never stops.”
“Fine,” Isabela said, rolling her eyes. “You can have the pizza.”
“It’s not. About. The pizza,” Taylor growled, and, with one telekinetic swipe, cleared off their entire table. The pizza flew into the tweebs, and Miki had to react quickly with a telekinetic deflection to avoid the tray bonking him in the forehead. The plate shattered on the floor, eliciting a chorus of oohs from the other students. Now, everyone was watching.
Good.
“Puta, esta tu louca?” Isabela cried sharply, her hands raised to brush flecks of sauce off her shirt.
“I dare you to say that in English,” Taylor replied.
And then, before waiting for a response, Taylor used her telekinesis to shove the table out from between them. The other students jumped up and away to avoid the flying furniture. Taylor lunged forward and grabbed Isabela before she could even stand up.
There was shouting all around them now, but Taylor couldn’t make out any of the words. Probably telling her to stop. She was in a tangle of limbs with Isabela—scratching and tugging at one another. Isabela tried to push her away with telekinesis, but Taylor pushed back. The pressure in the air cracked a floor tile under their feet.
In the scramble, Taylor managed to get a hand free, cock her fist back, and punch Isabela right in the nose.
Isabela fell onto her butt with a stunned yelp, blood already coursing over her upper lip. She stared up at Taylor with wet eyes, at first too shocked and hurt to react. Then, she started bawling.
“My nose!” she cried, nasally and hard to understand. “You broke my nose!”
Taylor loomed over Isabela, her fists still clenched, not sure what to do next. Everyone was staring at her.
Right on cue, Taylor was lifted off her feet, her arms telekinetically pinned to her sides. Someone with more telekinetic power than she could muster had hoisted Taylor up and floated her towards the doors of the student union.
“Goddamn, Taylor. What the hell is the matter with you?”
It was Professor Nine. His face was grim as he set Taylor down in front of him. Nine’s arms—the real one and the metallic prosthetic—were crossed over his chest. This was Nine’s stern look. She stared at Nine defiantly. The student union was still mostly silent, except for the sounds of Isabela’s snuffled sobs, everyone trying to hear what would happen with Nine.
“I asked you a question,” Nine said.
“Do you aliens even understand human emotions?” Taylor asked with a sneer. She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Quit pretending like you care and just send me to Dr. Linda like you always do.”
“Have it your way,” Nine said. “Get out of sight.”
Taylor was shaking as she pushed by Nine, the whispers of the other students following her out. She wanted to cry.
It all felt so real. Especially the anger.
“What’s gotten into you, Taylor?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you realize this is the third violent outburst you’ve had in the last month?”
“I don’t know,” Taylor replied, one corner of her mouth curled up in a sneer she’d gotten from Nigel. “I haven’t been keeping count.”
Dr. Linda tapped her pen against her chin as she studied Taylor.
“Well, I have been,” she said placidly, after an agonizing few seconds of staring at Taylor. “Your teachers, your fellow students—we’ve all noticed, Taylor. Even if no one can precisely understand what you’ve been through, we all empathize. You know that we’re here for you, right?”
Taylor groaned. “I know. I couldn’t get away from you people if I wanted to.”
“An interesting choice of words,” Dr. Linda replied. “Do you want to get away, Taylor?”
Taylor stared back at the older woman in resentful silence. With her prim bob of graying hair and large-framed glasses, Dr. Linda looked more like someone’s sweet aunt than a corrupt mole.
“Yes,” Taylor said finally. “Now can I go?”
“It’s my job to be honest with you,” Dr. Linda replied.
“So that’s a no.”
“And I have to say, your personality has changed greatly since you first arrived here.”
“Uh, yeah,” Taylor replied. “Maybe because some alien entity that we humans can’t even begin to comprehend gave me superpowers. Think that could have anything to do with it?”
As usual, it was impossible to get a reaction out of Dr. Linda. “All the students here have Legacies,” she intoned. “Not all of them are prone to such violent outbursts, particularly not the ones like yourself, who have no history of aggression.”
“Uh-huh, well, maybe it’s because some shadowy organization kidnapped me and basically sold me to a Saudi prince. The geniuses at Earth Garde filled you in on that, right? They basically let it happen. Security around here sucks. Not to mention I’m just supposed to do whatever the government tells me, no questions asked—but if my family needs help? No, they don’t care about that. That’s outside the purview of the program.”
“That’s a lot to take
in,” Dr. Linda said diplomatically. “A lot of resentment.”
“No shit.”
Dr. Linda continued like she hadn’t heard her. “I’d like us to try to get in touch with that old Taylor. I want to know what she would think about your recent behavior. Surely, back at your old school, there were conflicts with peers.”
Taylor folded her hands in her lap. If she was being honest, her old school seemed like a million years ago. Her normal friends without Legacies . . . she could hardly picture them anymore.
“Yeah,” Taylor replied. “Okay. So?”
“Would you have ever resolved one of those conflicts by hitting someone in the face?”
Taylor looked down at her hand, where the knuckles were scuffed and raw. She touched the reddened skin and healed herself—a brief pulse of warm energy in her fingers, a cold draining exertion deep in her stomach. The give-and-take of using her Legacy.
“I didn’t even hit her that hard,” Taylor said sullenly.
“Before our next session, I want you to really reflect on who you were before coming to the Academy,” Dr. Linda concluded, closing the notebook in her lap. “I want you to think about that old Taylor and tell me what you miss about her and what she might think about who you’ve become.”
Taylor rolled her eyes. “I don’t need to think about that,” she said. “I already know.”
“Oh?”
“I never wanted Legacies and I never wanted to come here,” Taylor said measuredly. “The old Taylor was too chickenshit to say anything. I just went with the flow and did what you people told me. And look what that’s gotten me. Imprisoned here, basically. My dad’s whole life ruined—”
“I heard about the difficulties with your father,” Dr. Linda said. “Some things are beyond even a Garde’s control, Taylor. We could talk about that—”
“All you people ever do is talk. Talk and train me to be one of your foot soldiers.” Taylor shook her head. “It’s crazy, but you know what I realized not too long ago? I was probably better off with those Foundation people. I could’ve had a nice house and enough money to take care of my dad and I wouldn’t have to clean the cafeteria as a life lesson or spend another minute with your lame ass.”
