The Pyramid Chronicles: Tyche Point (#1)

Chapter Thirty: Impending Doom

Mornings in the school library were quiet, the perfect environment for Willow to work in undisturbed. Today, she had her laptop displaying the energy field data and an open notebook in front of her. Ever since her call with the Director, she'd been working nonstop to unravel the mystery of alterium.

"Hey, Willow."

Willow jumped at the sound of Adam's voice. Her gaze darted up to him. How had she not seen him walk up to her table?

"Can I sit down?" Adam held out a cup of coffee.

Heart still pounding, Willow took it and nodded. Adam slid into the empty chair next to her. "What are you working on?"

Willow closed the laptop. "Um, just a...physics project."

Adam glanced at the equations she'd scribbled in the notebook. "That looks way more advanced than the stuff we do in my physics class."

"It's...advanced physics." Willow took a sip of the coffee. "Uh, you really didn't have to get me a coffee to talk to me—"

"Don't worry about it," Adam insisted. "I pass the coffee shop on my way here."

He was making it very difficult for her to dislike him. And lie to him.

"Excuse me." The librarian peered out from behind a nearby bookshelf. "Could you keep it down?"

"There's no one else here," Willow told her.

"It's still a library."

Adam glanced at Willow. "Should we go outside?"

Willow closed her notebook. It wasn't like she wasn't going to get anything else done at this point. "Sure."

They found a place to sit on the curb on the east side of the school. The sun was still crawling its way above the horizon, turning the sky pink, and bathing the world in soft golden light.

Before either of them had a chance to speak, Willow's phone buzzed. She quickly unlocked it, and it opened to the new code she'd been working on. The code designed to access the Wireless Emergency Alert system.

"Is that for tech club?" Adam asked.

"No, it's—" Willow grimaced. She couldn't have him asking what the code was for. Maybe she could distract him. "It's not. I'm actually not in tech club anymore."

Adam frowned. "What? Why not?"

"They basically kicked me out." Willow turned off the phone and set it on the ground next to her. "I guess I'm not leadership material."

"Oh, come on. I bet you're a great leader."

"Do I really strike you as a team player?" The words came out harsher than Willow intended.

Adam, to his credit, didn't seem fazed. "I guess not. But I'd bet you're smarter than everyone else in the club."

"There's more to it than that," Willow muttered.

"All right," Adam said. "Why kick you out now, though?"

Why all the personal questions? Willow bit back the remark. It wasn't his fault. He didn't know the details. She sucked in a deep breath. "Remember when I said I hadn't heard from my father in years?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"It wasn't entirely true. After I started making headlines with my projects and winning competitions, he started sending me messages. Trying to get me to intern at his company." Willow picked a rock up off the ground and stared at it. "He keeps offering me more and more money. But it doesn't change the fact that he left me behind in this stupid town and only cared when I did something useful." She chucked the rock into the street.

Adam didn't take his eyes off her. "Does he know about your powers?"

"No." Willow met his gaze for a moment before lowering hers to the ground. "Neither of my parents do. I've managed to hide them from my mom since I found out."

"Really?" Adam asked. "Eric and I almost burned down our house too many times to keep it a secret from our mom."

Willow let out a cold laugh. "Well, that sounds like a nightmare to deal with."

"Yeah, I feel awful about it. But we got better about keeping it under control." Adam rested his arm on his knee and stared out at the lightening sky. "So, what does all that have to do with tech club, exactly?"

"Oh, right. My father contacted the club email and offered to sponsor everyone in the upcoming competition," Willow told him. "I didn't want to take the money, but everyone else did."

"I mean, I get where they're coming from. Money's money, and there's not a lot around here." Adam quickly added, "But I can't blame you for wanting to say no."

He was right about the money. But Willow couldn't let her father win. Her expression darkened. "Yeah, which is why I can't wait to leave this place."

"You hate it here that much?" Adam sounded strangely surprised.

"Of course I do. What's to like, anyway? Everything's shutting down. We're all gonna have to leave eventually." Willow shrugged. "I'm just getting out sooner."

"And where are you going?" Adam asked.

"As far as possible." Willow picked up another rock. "I'm just waiting to hear back from a few more schools."

"Oh." Adam rested his hands on the pavement behind him and leaned back. "Well, I'm sticking around California."

Willow lifted an eyebrow. "Good for you." She tossed the rock.

"I mean, it's a big place with some pretty good schools. I just thought you might wind up somewhere nearby, too."

"And why would you care about that?" Willow asked.

Adam stared at her for a long moment. "I don't know how many of us there are. But I do know you. I don't know, I just feel like this whole superpower thing—" He looked at his hand. "It's not every day you meet someone else like that, you know?"

Not sure what to say, Willow picked up her coffee and took a long sip.

"Well, what about that job offer you mentioned?" Adam asked. "Is that around here?"

Damn it. Willow had forgotten she'd brought it up to him. "Uh, it's...remote. Right now, it's basically a paid internship that could turn into something more in the future." She took another sip.

"What's the company?"

"You wouldn't have heard of them. They're a new startup. Some billionaire's new side project."

As Willow sat in the brief silence that followed, taking in the warm sun and the chatter of nearby birds, a strange calm washed over her. In a way, the inevitability of the town's impending doom made her feel better. She could watch it all burn and know there was nothing she could have done to stop it.

She glanced at Adam, and had the impulse to warn him about everything: the energy field, the town's coming destruction—

The bell rang. The impulse faded. The spell was broken, and Willow was suddenly thinking about her code and the equations and the fragments and the realization that she no longer knew what her life would look like in a month.

Adam stood up and stretched his arms. "Ugh," he said. "I've got a calc test."

Willow blinked. "Did you study?"

Adam looked down at her. A half-smile crossed his face. "Until my brain hurt." He offered a hand to help her up. God damn it. Why did he have to be so nice?

Willow took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.