Chapter 21

"This time I think it's going to be the real thing," Jason said to the others the next morning in the parking lot, now an increasingly familiar sight to them. "She's going to take more students."

"And we have to find out who, right?" Melinda said.

Jason nodded.

"Same pattern?" Heather asked.

"Yeah. Nyssa seems to keep them right up to the end of the period. So we can catch them just they're coming out. I tried to assign you guys to cover it when you have a class that's really close to the nurse's station."

"What if I don't recognize who it is?" Cassie asked.

"Yeah, and I hardly know anyone here yet," Melinda lamented.

"Just go up and ask, I guess," said Heather.

"Assuming anyone will even talk to me," Cassie said in a forlorn voice.

"Just do the best you can," Jason said. "Cassie, your dreams telling you anything more? Anything about that silver stuff?"

Cassie shook her head. "No, which probably means it's not happening today. My dreams are not precognitions. I only dream about things that have happened or are happening now." Cassie looked over to Heather. "What about you? Are you getting a clearer Precog vision?"

"Um, yes, it's clearer today," replied Heather. "I saw another scene of someone with Nyssa in her examination room. I couldn't see who it was, I just had the strong sense that it was going to happen, and very soon."

"That combined with what Cassie didn't dream about probably means she's going back to taking people today," Jason said.

Heather paused and looked about to say something but subsided. Her sense was subtly different than that, but she couldn't put it into words. She felt like Jason's assessment was both right and wrong.

"So, are we ready?" asked Jason.

"Not really, but that never stopped us before, did it?" Melinda piped.

Jason gave her a wry grin. "We'll meet at the auditorium later like we always do."

The others nodded. Richie turned away first and headed quickly into the school. Jason hesitated a moment, then ran to catch up with him. "Hey."

Richie glanced at him and just nodded once.

"You okay?"

Richie shrugged. "Yeah, I guess," he drawled.

"You sure?"

Richie looked at Jason. "Huh?"

"You're just really quiet this morning. Hardly said a word on the bus."

Richie shrugged again. "Don't got nuthin' to say."

"That's unusual for you."

"Yeah, well... I guess this is gonna be an unusual day, you know?"

Jason nodded slowly. "Nervous?"

Richie's gaze snapped to him and narrowed. "About what?" he demanded.

"Just about all this. Trying to find out who Nyssa is taking."

"Oh," Richie said, quickly appearing less defensive. "Yeah, I guess."

"I know, it's hard for all of us. We're not even sure we can do anything about it once we find out who it is."

Richie nodded. He appeared as if he were listening to some far-off sound. "Not sure I even know what the fuck I'm doing..." he muttered.

"You?"

Richie blinked and looked at Jason. "Huh?"

"You said you didn't know what you were doing?"

"Oh. I meant 'we'. All of us."

Jason nodded again. He remained silent until they got to Richie's locker. "And... there's nothing you want to talk about?"

Richie paused to open his locker before turning back to Jason. "Nah, man, I'm fine. In fact..." He grabbed some books almost haphazardly and slammed the door closed. "I think I finally figgered out a few things."

"I hate to pester you about this, Richie, but does that mean you're going to be getting out of detention soon?"

Richie paused a long moment. He broke into a wide grin. "Yeah. Yeah, it does, in a way."

Jason thought that was somewhat oddly worded, but took it at face value. "That would be cool if you did, we..."

"Yeah. Real cool. More than you can imagine, dude."

Richie's grin widened. Something about it sent a chill up Jason's spine.

"Marcie, you are looking simply wonderful," Laura said with a smile.

Marcie was standing somewhat sheepishly by her desk, wearing the shirt that Laura had bought for her. She managed a small smile, but her cheeks flushed pink.

Laura stepped up to her. "Now, no need to feel embarrassed."

"Miss Bendon, some of the students... they... they were looking at me!" Marcie said in a soft, scandalized voice, her eyes wide. "I mean... really staring, Miss Bendon... it felt..."

"Good?"

Marcie paused. Her mouth worked a few moments before she finally said in a very low voice, "E-embarrassed, Miss Bendon. This... this is not me... I..."

"Nonsense, Marcie."

Marcie lifted her gaze to Laura's.

"They were looking at you because they liked what they saw. They found you attractive."

Marcie swallowed. "Sh-should they be d-doing that, Miss Bendon?"

"Why not?"

"But... ?"

"After all, you are attractive."

Marcie stared. "I'm not... I... I am? Oh, but only because I'm wearing..."

"This just brings it out, Marcie. You always were attractive."

Marcie paused. The corners of her lips started to rise tentatively. "I just... I just never thought of myself that way, Miss Bendon..."

"Then it's about time you start." Laura looked into Marcie's eyes again. "Isn't it?"

Marcie slowly nodded. "Yes... yes, Miss Bendon."

"You're an attractive girl, Marcie. And that's why the boys look at you."

She nodded again, staring into Laura's steady gaze.

"And it feels good to be looked at."

"I... yes... yes, I guess it does, Miss Bendon, but... "

"But what, Marcie?"

"Why have I never thought that before?"

"You're thinking it now, aren't you?"

Marcie nodded.

"Then that's all that matters."

"Yes, Miss Bendon," Marcie said softly. She let her breath go as a small, soft sigh as a small wave of pleasure washed over her slightly flushed skin. "You're right as always."

"Of course. And remember... you'll always feel good about yourself around me."

Marcie shuddered as another wave of pleasure came over her. She swallowed. "Y-yes, Miss Bendon."

Laura smiled and turned away, heading into her office.

Marcie smiled dreamily for a few seconds before blinking rapidly as she snapped out of it. She placed a hand to her cheek, blushing. The next moment, however, she smiled and giggled.

She did feel good. She didn't completely understand why, but that didn't matter. Miss Bendon was right. Miss Bendon was always right. All Marcie had to do was trust her, and everything would be fine.

Humming a happy tune to herself, she started on her day's work.

Heather gave the others a stricken look when they met. "Oh my God. Becky Davis."

"You know her?" Cassie asked.

Heather nodded. "She's totally in love with Harold Gallan. I mean, they keep talking about getting married. Oh God. What if her fantasy involves someone other than Harold?"

Richie snorted. "Guess they shouldn't've got together in the first place, then, huh?"

Jason frowned. "Richie, I've been reading up on the psychology of fantasies. It doesn't work that way. Even the most devoted mates have fantasies about other people."

Richie rolled his eyes and shook his head but said nothing further.

Jason took a glance around them and withdrew a notebook. He opened it to the back, where he had a printout of all the students of Haven High and their addresses. He quickly scanned down the list. "Okay, she's not too far from where Frank lives, and it takes him only ten by bike to get to me."

Cassie peered and nodded. "If that's close to your own neighborhood, then you want to handle that one?"

"I thought the plan was to have you drive us around," Melinda said.

"Well, I could," Cassie replied. "But we'd get there early anyway and have to wait for the school bus to take them home. And if we have somewhere else in town to go as well for the next one..."

"Oh, yeah, I hadn't thought about that..."

"So we okay with doing it that way?" Jason asked as he looked up at the others. Melinda and Heather nodded. Richie just shrugged. "Okay, who else?" Jason asked as he made a notation next to the name.

Melinda sighed. "I saw someone else, but he turned down the other hallway as I saw him. He went inside a classroom before I could get close enough to find out who he was, dammit."

"What did he look like?"

"Tall and skinny. One of those weirdos that likes to wear his shoelaces untied. Or at least they looked like that to me. Sorta had a big nose."

"Wait," Richie said with a smirk. "Did he have a scar on one cheek?"

Melinda paused, then nodded. "Yeah, I think he did."

Richie snorted derisively. "So Nyssa went after ol' Ned the Nose. Shit, not even that can help that dude's luck with the girls."

"Last name, please?" Jason said in irritation.

Richie shrugged. "Dunno. Only know him as The Nose."

"Just look for someone with Ned as a first name, Jason." Melinda said.

"The names are sorted by last name, it would take forever. Richie, can you try to remember, please?"

"Gimme a break, Jason. You think I take the time to... wait... maybe it started with 'L'. Yeah, something weird like 'Lulabelle' or 'Lucifer' or something."

"Lussander?" Jason said as he looked up, his finger pressed against a name. "Ned Lussander?"

"Yeah, that's him."

Jason's eyes dropped. "Cassie's going to have to take that one, he's on the other side of town."

Cassie peered at the address and nodded. "Okay, I can do that."

Jason made another notation. "No one else?"

A shaking of heads. "She might be splitting them up," Cassie said. "Some in the morning and some in the afternoon."

"One more, anyway. If she's consistent with what she's done before, she'll do three. She has one more to take. Good job, everyone."

The girls managed small smiles. Richie just shrugged, looking bored.

"Okay, we'll meet in the parking lot after school. We'll figure out the third one, and then plan who goes where and how we'll report to each other."

The others nodded and the Harbingers separated. Richie followed behind Jason into the cafeteria. Cassie tagged along, but kept Jason between her and Richie.

"Nice going helping us pin down Ned," Jason said. "I really appreciate that."

"Whatever," said Richie. "Too bad, though."

"What's too bad?"

"Ned's only chance at some pussy and we're gonna take it away from him."

Cassie uttered a small gasp at hearing this, but said nothing. Jason stopped and stared. "I can't believe you just said that."

Richie grinned. "Then you don't know me as well as ya think, huh?"

"He's going to try and take away someone's free will!"

"Yeah, I know, all right?! I'm not stupid, I've been followin' along."

"Then why did you say something like that?"

Richie sighed. "Maybe... as a joke?"

Jason glared. "Some joke."

"Aw, fuck, what did I tell you before? Lighten the hell up. Look, the Hair-bringers..."

"Harbingers."

"Whatever... will ride in and save the day, just like you want."

"It's not what I want that matters. It's what we have to do."

Richie was silent for a moment. Cassie glanced nervously between them. Finally Richie smiled. "Yep. You're right. We all gotta do what we hafta, don't we? Now, let's get some grub, I'm starvin'."

Jason and Cassie exchanged looks that were as worried as they were puzzled.

"Heather! Heather, wait up!"

Heather whirled around. When she spoke, her voice had a slight edge to it. "Hi, Diane. Can we talk later? I'm almost late for class."

Heather had been the one to see the third student that Nyssa took. It had taken her awhile to get the kid to tell her his name. Unfortunately he was a freshman, so Heather had no idea who he was just from sight. She had barely had enough time to fetch her books from her locker as the time crept closer to the hour.

"How much later?" Diane demanded. "After last class?"

"Ye... no. Can it wait til later in the afternoon... uh..."

Heather trailed off. Only now did she see how stricken Diane looked. "I'm not sure if it can wait," Diane said gloomily.

"What is it, then?"

"Heather, I... I can't explain this very well, but... but it's like something really strange is going on."

Heather's heart skipped a beat. "What, you mean here in the school?"

Diane nodded quickly. "I just had P.E. with Sally Franner," she said hollowly. "Heather, what happened to her??"

"I, uh, I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"Have you seen her? Have you tried to talk to her? She's a total airhead! But just last week she was the smartest girl in school!"

"Oh, that. Uh, yeah, I've heard of that."

"And, Heather, my mother... I know you said I shouldn't worry, but... she's still acting really weird whenever I try to bring up the school nurse or the medical program. Yesterday afternoon, after I tried to talk to her about it, she was in her bedroom... she was making these noises..." Diane's voice lowered to a whisper, and she blushed. "... s-sex noises..."

Heather's eyes widened. Her surprise was not in what happened, but that Diane had managed to come out and actually say it. Diane was that distressed over it.

"What's going on around here?!" Diane demanded in an urgent whisper. "Why is all this happening? You know something about it, don't you?"

Heather fought a struggle in her mind. Keeping anything more from Diane was going to cause her a great deal of guilt. She had already strained their friendship to the breaking point as it was. She couldn't see herself doing this any more to Diane.

Anyway, Mara had said they should find allies. She didn't necessarily say that they had to come solely from the people they turn away from the Darkness.

Heather took Diane's arm and pulled her towards the lockers. She drew close and dropped her voice. "Okay, Diane, I'll level with you. There is something going on. Something pretty bad."

Diane bit her lip but said nothing, staring at Heather and waiting to hear more.

Heather glanced up at the clock, the halls now nearly empty. "I don't have much time to explain it to you right now. But Sally does have something to do with it. And some other students as well."

"Is it Debby Vance?? She's been acting really weird, too!"

"Yes, her, too. Look, I'm going to be really busy this afternoon with some stuff that has to do with all this."

"Can I come along?" Diane pleaded. "Please? This is starting to scare me!"

Heather sighed. "Diane, I promise, I'll let you in on everything I know, but it will have to be after I get done this afternoon. Let me call you this evening and we'll set something up, okay?"

Diane paused and then nodded quickly. "Let me just ask one more question, okay?"

Heather nodded quickly.

"Am... a-am I in danger? Is something going to happen to me?"

Heather paused. "I hope not, Diane, if we can stop this."

"It has to do with the school nurse, doesn't it? She's not really okay after all!"

"Yeah, it does, Diane. So try not to get sick or hurt in school. Don't give her an excuse to try and examine you."

Diane nodded. "I won't."

Heather forced a small smile. She knew that this advice was hardly worth anything. Nyssa was calling students as she pleased, regardless of their state of health. But if it managed to calm Diane for a bit, that was worth something. She had never seen Diane this scared about anything before.

She wondered if other students were starting to put two and two together and realize that something was wrong.

"Okay, I have to get to class." Heather started away. "I'll call you!"

"Thanks, Heather. You're a real friend, you know that?" Diane called out with a relieved grin.

I'm trying, Diane, Heather thought with some chagrin. I'm really trying.

The Harbingers, minus Richie, met again.

"That's great, Heather," Jason said after Heather told him about the freshman boy, name of Steve Jarrow. After finding the name on the list in the back of his notebook, however, he sighed and looked up, making a face. "Though we've got a problem."

"Another one that's across town?" Cassie asked.

"Worse. He's across town in a completely different direction from Ned."

"Could we split up?" Melinda suggested. "Cassie goes after whichever one is the furthest from us, the rest of us split up for the other two."

"I think Steve is closer," said Jason. "But how would any of us get there?"

"I could drop you off," Cassie suggested.

"But then we risk not getting to one of them on time. Wait, I almost forgot, did any of them stay after school?"

"Not Becky," Heather said. "I saw her get on one of the other buses."

"Ned did, too," Jason said.

"And Steve?"

Several looks were exchanged. All shook their heads.

"So we don't know," Jason said. "Okay, I suggest we go after Ned and Becky."

"What, and forget about Steve?" Melinda piped. "I know him. He's a real nice guy. He told off some other guy that was making fun of me."

"I know, Melinda, but we can't... wait, you have people making fun of you?" Jason said indignantly. "Who? Where?"

Melinda blushed slightly at Jason's sudden protectiveness of her. "Never mind that now," she said softly. "We'll talk about it later. But you can't just leave him!"

"We can't get everyone, Melinda," Heather said. "We have to go for the ones we can. What if we go for Steve and found out that he's still at school?"

Melinda sighed and stamped her foot in frustration. "It's not fair."

"Nothing about this is," said Jason.

"How about I have Harry stop in Steve's neighborhood before he takes me home?" Cassie suggested. "I mean, it may be too late by then to catch who he's going after, but at least it's better than nothing."

"You sure your driver will do all this for you, Cassie?" Melinda said skeptically.

Cassie gave her a wan smile. "My Mom would often give me a roll of money and tell me to go shopping. Anything I wanted. Anywhere Harry could drive me. He's used to me going on larks like that. He never questions it or reports anything back to my parents."

"Wish I had a setup like that," Heather commented with a small smile.

Cassie sighed. "Actually... being left with very little supervision is not as nice as it sounds. Unless you like wondering if it's because they're just being permissive, or they really don't care what you do."

Heather's smile quickly faded. Cassie dropped her eyes.

Melinda threw an arm around Cassie's shoulders. "It's okay, Cassie," she said softly.

"Uh, anyway, we, uh, better get on the bus," Heather said awkwardly.

Jason nodded and turned to Cassie. "Have you got that address?"

"Yes, I have it. I know the neighborhood, actually. There's a few shops in that area that my mother likes to visit."

"Good. The rest of us can figure out our part on the bus."

Richie lingered at his locker.

His face held a troubled look. He arranged and rearranged his locker several times, as if trying to work out something in his mind. All the while, his mother's words from the night before echoed in his head. They both chilled him and excited him at the same time.

He remembered what Cassie had tried to do to him. He remembered what his friends had done to him when they used the power in the House. He remembered what Principal Bendon had done to his mother.

But above all else, he remembered when he had wielded the power. He remembered how it had felt to be on top of things, to have everything go as he wanted. It had felt so good when life was easy and predictable. He never had to worry if things would turn out right. He always knew that they would.

And the price to be paid? A chunk of someone else's free will. And a little of his own.