Group Work*

Despite the week starting with some unique situations, the next two days passed without anything of note. I spent my lunch period alone on the roof without anyone interrupting. I did take a detour to check on Adam both days to sate my curiosity. Two days after his rooftop rendezvous with Chloe he still had fading remnants of the euphoria in his Noise.

That was a hell of a pick-me-up.

The mystery surrounding Chloe’s business success was clear. It wasn’t the sex she was selling, but the euphoric aftereffect that came from it. Sure, it was less than a quarter as strong as it had been after two days, but that was a hell of an uptime. Her Gift was incredibly powerful if it was providing mood enhancements that lasted days. People were considered above average if their Gift lasted a few hours after exposure. Rarely was anything more than a day.

I wondered if people knew how strong her Gift actually was. The only reason why I could tell was because my Gift allowed me to ‘see’ what others felt. Euphoria was a rare emotion--especially at these levels. It made it easy to track. It also gave me an idea of how widespread it was. Once I knew what I was looking for, I saw Adam wasn’t the only one walking around with remnants in his Noise. From what I could see and at two or three hundred a session, Chloe was doing well for herself.

“I have good news and bad news.” Pulling my attention from the window, I focused up on the teacher. Mr. Braun was a decent enough teacher and I enjoyed his class—for the most part. “Good news, we aren’t having a test for the unit!” That got a round of relieved sighs as a unified wave of relief and happiness crashed against my mind. “Bad news? You’ll be doing a project that will take its place!” he said with false cheer.

The class groaned in unison. I was in agreement. Testing was easy. Provided you paid attention and did your work nothing here was that hard.

“Relax, it will be group work.”

Even worse. Normally when it came to groups, I got stuck with the, ‘this is below me,’ assholes who left me to do all the work. Teachers here didn’t differentiate by who was doing what, meaning if I wanted a good grade, I would do most of the work. The others coasted by on my sweat and toil.

“Can we pick our partners?” a girl near the front asked. Angela, I think. She was a good student and had a sharp mind. She stressed out a bit too much over grades though. Her anxiety gave me anxiety. Fortunately, that didn’t affect me as it did her.

“I already came up with pairs.”

I tuned out from the groans. A lot of emotions were hitting me all at once and I needed to disengage. I ignored Mr. Braun as he called out names, rubbing my temples. My head was throbbing, edging a headache. It wasn’t as bad as when my Gift first awakened, but when people got riled up like this I had trouble maintaining distance. It took work to sort through all the emotions hitting me all at once and it could be overwhelming.

A faintly familiar Noise separated from the general static of emotions. I knew it from somewhere, but I couldn’t quite place it. Lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t realize the voice was next to me until I felt a hand against my arm. Once again, my stoic nature prevented my startle from showing as I calmly looked over to find Chloe standing next to my desk.

“Jake, right?”

“Chloe.”

She let out a breath of relief and quickly settled down in the empty chair next to me. “Thought I recognized you! From the roof?” I nodded in confirmation. She smiled. She was proud of herself for remembering my name. Her Noise stood out from the others. Was it because she was closer to me than the others, or did it have something to do with the euphoria that lingered there? Either way, it was easy to pick out from the crowd. “So this is where I recognized you from! We are in the same class, yet I had no idea—” She stopped suddenly as regret and embarrassment spiked in her Noise. She brushed at her hair. “Anyways. Sounds like we are partners.”

That was news to me. Taking a moment, I glanced around the room. No wonder people were giving us looks. Chloe was aware of them too, but she was doing a better job at ignoring them than I was. The disdain I felt from the other girls in class was intense. She wasn’t popular among the girls. I suppose that was to be expected. Quite a few relationships had ended because of her. A lot of girls here didn’t take well to finding out their boyfriend was a regular customer. It was an interesting situation to think about. Instead of being angry at their boyfriend for cheating, they blamed Chloe. I may not have been knowledgeable about the whole situation, but I did know Chloe wasn’t going around throwing herself at boys. Boys came to her. Provided they had the money to pay, she had no reason to refuse.

The guys were a weird mix. Half seemed to be envious of my position, the other half was hostile. The intensity was a spectrum.

“I see.” I felt her confusion as I focused on my laptop. Bringing up the project assignment the teacher posted, I quickly skimmed what it was asking. Fairly standard stuff for a Gift-oriented class. We were being asked to do a deep dive into a particular Gift. An overall easy assignment, but time-consuming considering all the research we needed to do.

She was still staring at me when I turned back to her. “I suggest we do something on a negative oriented Gift. Semi-active or active since those are generally better understood and studied than passive ones.” Saying nothing, she continued to stare. “Unless you want to do something else?”

“You really are an odd one, aren’t you?”

My face remained passive as I thought over a response. “Excuse me?”

“I’m usually a decent read of people. You though?” She shook her head. “I can’t get anything from you.”

“That a problem?”

She had a nice smile. It was even better when it matched her Noise. “No. It’s refreshing in a way.” She hesitated and I felt the concern souring the happiness she was feeling. “You really don’t mind being in a group with me?” she asked, pretending to focus on the assignment to avoid seeing my reaction.

“Should I be?”

“Most people are.” She let out a huff as she looked at me. “Last time, I was paired up with a girl who blamed me for seducing her boyfriend. As if it was my fault her man was paying for some side action. I am either paired with someone who wants to kill me or someone who thinks they’ll get freebies because we're in the same group. Don’t know which one is worse,” she muttered.

I looked back at the screen. I wondered if she was saying all that to make me uncomfortable. Unfortunately for her, that didn’t work on me. Even if it did, I’d put money down Alexis would have worked that out of me a long time ago with the situations and flirting she put me through. Looking back, I kept my face flat.

“So semi-active or active?”

My blunt and emotionless question took her by surprise. She had been expecting me to be flustered by her statements.

She leaned forward, voice low. “Want to know a secret?” I said nothing, waiting for her to continue. The faint smell of sweetness and flowers reminded me of the last time we spoke on the rooftop. She was grinning, half expecting her sudden closeness to knock me off balance. She was attractive and had some experience with flirting, but her efforts came off as amateurish compared to what I regularly received from Alexis, the true mistress of seduction. “You’re lucky we’re in the same group.”

“I am?”

She nodded. “Mr. Braun and I have an arrangement when it comes to grades in his class. We can literally turn in a blank assignment and I personally guarantee a B.” I felt my eyebrow quirk. A reflex from me practicing to be more expressive. She looked proud, her Noise confirming she was being honest regardless of the negative emotions in the undercurrent. “So you can leave it to me. We can spend the next few days chilling and I’ll take care of the hard part.”

I said nothing at first, looking back at my laptop. She’d all but said she was sleeping with the teacher. Now that I thought of it, I seemed to remember that telltale euphoria in select administrators. More pieces of the mystery were revealed and fell into place. How did a student with such notoriety operate with zero restrictions or punishments? The scandal it would cause if it got out would be considerable, and the school valued its reputation more than anything. Administration wasn’t anywhere near as stupid or blind as they pretended to be. She wasn’t getting in trouble because the people in charge were using too. Chloe was a specific sort of **** dealer, and it was looking like everyone big enough to throw their weight around was a user.

A sound business decision.

“I’m thinking active terror Gift. There are some pretty famous cases that should be easy to—”

Her confusion hit me pretty hard. “Didn’t you hear me? I’ll take care of the grade. We don’t actually have to—”

My look cut her off mid-sentence. “This work was assigned to us. You can do whatever you want, but I’m doing the assignment.”

“But—” She didn’t finish. Her gaze would have been unnerving. She didn’t mind staring right into you. If she was used to people flinching and looking away, she wasn’t going to get that from me. I stared right back, not feeling embarrassed or uncomfortable in the slightest.

She broke, looking down at my screen. There was a mix of emotions I couldn’t catch with the way her Noise was rapidly shifting. To her credit, she pivoted quickly. “Terror Gift? Why not love or lust? Those are pretty popular.”

“Because I’m guessing two or three other groups will pick that. There is a presentation aspect to this project. We’ll get a much better response if we try to do something a bit more unique.”

“But why terror? As you said, another group is probably going to pick that.”

I said nothing as an old memory surfaced. The look of sheer terror on my father’s face as he abandoned me without a second thought. The way he and others around him didn’t care about anything but fleeing from the man in the monster mask—even if that meant running into traffic. The squeal of brakes, the screams suddenly silenced by blunt impacts.

The confusion behind the mask as the man wondered why a lone child stood before him, unaffected by his Gift.

The memory collapsed as quickly as it surfaced. “No reason,” I said at last.

She was mixed on whether to believe me or not. In the end, she let out a huff as she leaned against my desk. This close, her sweet scent was tickling at something in my brain. It seemed I enjoyed it even if I was prevented from doing so. “I’d rather just take the B.”

“And I prefer an A on an easy assignment like this. I’m not asking you to do any work.”

“Well, I’m not going to let you do all the work alone. You want to work on it, I’ll do my part.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“I’ll be in the library after school then.”

Surprise roiled through her Noise. “You’re starting today?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not due for two weeks.”

“And?”

Her jaw went slack. “So… we don’t even have to start until like… next Friday.”

“I prefer to get my work done sooner rather than later.”

She groaned, head falling to the desk. “Of course you would be a workaholic too.”

“So I take it I won’t see you there?”

Chloe lifted her head. “I’ll go—” She stopped abruptly and I felt the mix of shame, guilt, and concern swim through her noise. “Oh wait. I uh… I have some prior engagements today. Meeting right after school would be… difficult… for me.”

I understood what she wasn’t saying. She had clients to take care of after school. Her Noise was showing that mix of emotions but she hid them well.

This was understandable since I did spring this on her rather suddenly.

“That’s fine.”

“No. I can… I can still come. Just… not right away.” She pulled out her phone. “How about you add me?”

“Add you?” She was holding her phone and I saw the app she was loading. “Oh. I don’t have that stuff.”

She gave me a questioning look. There was a bit of amusement in her Noise. “How about we exchange numbers? I can text you when I’m free.”

I didn’t think twice and pulled out my phone. It was a bit confusing why she was surprised I was doing it considering she was the one who suggested it.

“There,” I said after entering my number.

“Thanks,” she said softly. No idea why she was reacting the way she was. She was happy, holding the phone tightly. Chloe called me odd, but she was getting worked up over a phone number. We couldn’t say much else, because Mr. Braun was telling everyone to get back to their seats. Standing, she brushed at the hair on her face, giving me a warm smile. “Later then?”

I nodded. “Later.”