The Watcher by Lisa Voisin Read Free Book Online Page B

You’re a comp-sci geek, Bill, not a mercenary.”
    “You’d be surprised what a good hacker can do.”
    Bill’s weekend visit ended much sooner than I would’ve liked. For a few brief days, we were a family again, and it wasn’t just Mom and me. After dinner that night, Mom and I drove him to the airport and I found myself missing him before he even left. By the time we said goodbye at the airport gate, both Mom and I were in tears.
    ***
    On Wednesday afternoon, we had the team and club fair, so our afternoon classes were cut. Though it wasn’t mandatory, Mr. Bidwell, head of the Language Club, suggested so strongly that we be there that I half-expected him to take attendance, but he didn’t. When the bell rang, I noticed Michael slip out to the parking lot and drive away in a shiny new white Volkswagen GTI. It was a rainy day, so instead of being outside, all the booths lined the cafeteria. Each club—sports teams, multicultural clubs, and cancer awareness groups, to name a few—had its own table. In the middle of it all was the Environment Club, where Heather was working. She had an extra seat beside her so I sat down, propping my almost-healed foot on a box under the table.
    “You’re helping?” Heather asked cheerfully.
    “I said I would.”
    “Right. I forgot with—you know,” she said and gestured at my ankle.
    “Hello, Mia.”
    I looked up at Heather’s math tutor smiling at me. A year younger than us, he’d skipped a grade and was at the top of our class.
    “Hi,” I said, wishing I could remember his name. The caption on his black T-shirt read This is my clone.
    Heather tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Hey, Farouk.”
    Farouk. That was it. He leaned on the table in front of us and his dark, curly hair fell into his eyes. I remembered him being a lot shorter last year.
    Farouk signed one of our petitions for using recyclable containers in the cafeteria, then turned to me. “How’d you hurt your ankle?”
    “You didn’t read the gossip column?” Heather asked. I hoped she was joking.
    He shook his head.
    I didn’t want to relive the drama of it, so I let Heather tell the story. Fortunately, she didn’t play Michael up too much—unlike the article itself.
    Farouk picked up a flyer for the city’s recycling program and curled it around his fingers. “Michael Fontaine. I heard he had an accident or something,” he said.
    “We heard that too,” Heather chimed in.
    “He nearly died,” I said a little too defensively.
    “Hmm, a near-death experience?” When I nodded, his face lit up. “I saw that in a movie once. This girl dies and when she comes back, she’s all weird and different.”
    “What movie?” I asked.
    He put down the mangled flyer. “I don’t remember. It was old. I saw it on TV a few months ago.”
    “You don’t believe movies are real, too, do you?” Heather asked, crinkling her nose.
    “No,” he said, “but some people who have near-death experiences do change.”
    “Change how?” I asked, leaning forward. Catching myself, I pulled back, embarrassed by how much the subject of Michael Fontaine interested me, especially since it was so one-sided.
    “Sometimes the person is so different when they come back that other people think they’re possessed.”
    “Possessed?” Heather leaned back and crossed her arms. Math genius or not, Farouk’s credibility was at stake if he believed in anything too “out there.” “You mean by a ghost or something?”
    Before we could talk further, a crowd of freshmen swarmed our booth and asked us a bunch of questions. Farouk helped us hand out flyers while Heather chatted and I passed around the petition. Who knew we’d be so popular?
    I tried to keep my thoughts from wandering, but failed. Was he saying that Michael had been possessed? It was almost too strange to consider. Everyone said he was different now, and there was something about him that was almost otherworldly, something you’d expect from a person