Heroes 'Til Curfew (Talent Chronicles #2) by Susan Bischoff

problem.”
    “Well, as much as I would like to engage in
the historic event of you talking voluntarily , we’re going
to have to do it at the Pit. My man is waiting for me, and he does
not like to be kept waiting.”
    I muttered something rude that doesn’t need
to be repeated.
    “Kiss your boyfriend with that mouth?”
    I made a big-eyed shut the hell up face at Heather, but Kat didn’t even seem to notice. She was
heading for the twins’ SUV. Well, it would belong to both of them
if Maddy could ever pass her road test.
    The last thing I wanted to do was hang out
at the Pizza Pit with a whole crowd of people. More specifically, I
didn’t want to go hang out with Dylan in front of a bunch of
people, trying to act like nothing was going on, since I still
didn’t know if there was anything going on.
    I mean, obviously there was something going on.
    “It’ll be fine,” Heather said, as we climbed
down from the truck.
    “Care to expound?” I asked.
    “Can’t.”
    “Of course not.”
    “What are you guys talking about?”
Kat growled. “It drives me nuts when you do that.”
    She flounced off into the Pit, which was
getting crowded, and plopped herself down in Eric’s lap for a
sloppy kiss before sliding off onto the chair he was saving beside
him. Dylan was lounging in his long-legged sprawl pose next to
Eric, Maddy had the seat next to him. She looked at me when we came
in, pointed to her chair and raised her eyebrows like, Want this
seat? I shook my head slightly.
    I didn’t make eye contact with Dylan. I
wasn’t there yet. Heather sat next to Kat, and I took the last
chair between her and Elizabeth. And then realized that this put me
directly across from Dylan. Damn.
    A can of diet slid across the table and
bumped my hands. I picked it up and finally looked at him. He was
looking at me kind of weird. Part his concerned look, part his don’t be mad look…it was some kind of question, but I didn’t
know what it was. And Heather could tell me, because she was
sitting right next to me, but she wouldn’t.
    “Thanks.” I popped the top and took a swig,
because my mouth was really dry, plus it gave me something to
do.
    “Okay,” Kat announced as she rose, in a very let’s get started voice that immediately made me edgy. That
was all it took for me to know that this was not about pizza.
“Let’s get started.”
    “On what?” I asked.
    “The first meeting of the Fairview Talent
Society.”
    “Will you shut the hell up and sit down?!” I
hissed.
    “What’s your problem?”
    “Kat,” Dylan said, “you might want to
re-think that name.”
    “Did you know about this?”
    He looked across the table at me, guilty.
“Sort of.”
    “Okay, forget the name,” Kat said. She had
retaken her seat and was now leaning on the table. “We can vote on
a name later. The important thing is that we start to organize
ourselves. We Talents—”
    “If you use that word in this place one more
time, I swear I’m going fix it so you can’t talk again for
weeks.”
    “Joss!” Maddy sat up to start in on me.
    “Don’t even. I cannot believe you guys.
What, you don’t like Fairview High? Think it’s gonna be
better…there?” My voice was pitched low, as private as I could be
in a place like the Pit, but unmistakably full of wrath. “Keep it
up, and you’ll find out.”
    “But Joss,” Elizabeth said, quietly, “that’s
the whole point. We need to stick together if we’re going to
protect ourselves. And each other. Like at Kat’s party.”
    Oh, Jesus. Like at Kat’s party, when NIAC
agents stormed in with Tasers and you animated a small army of
porcelain dolls to throw plates at them? Yes, let’s get together
and do that again soon. And now that Kat’s kitchen repairs are
finally finished, maybe I can rip out all the cabinets to barricade
the doors again. Ugh!
    I pressed my hands against my head, not
wanting any more replay of that disaster. Yeah, we’d saved Phil
“Laser-Vision” Meeks from