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of real life Merlin.”
    I froze. “You're joking.”
    “ Nope,” Kyle replied. “It was on TV last night, and Yahoo's been running news features on it ever since.”
    Someone bumped into the back of my chair, but I barely felt it. “You mean like he's saying he can make broomsticks dance and turn lead into gold?”
    Becky jumped in again. “No, like real stuff. He made a ball of fire appear right there on his open hand in front of the cameras and freaked the reporter right out of his chair. And he claims that's how his sons blew up the president and that airplane. That they just lost control or something.”
    “ Yeah, and now there are hundred of people on YouTube claiming they’re outcasts from some group called the Clann, and posting videos supposedly showing what they can do,” Kyle hissed.
    There was that term again... the Clann . Goose bumps raced down my arms.
    “ They have to be making it all up though. Right?” Becky asked.
    An uneasy silence formed at our table .
    “ That reporter ought to be jailed for not helping the police catch Simon during the interview,” Kyle said, glaring at the empty center of our table's fake wood grain laminate. “He was right there! Now he's out running around on the loose somewhere. Isn't there some law about aiding and bedding a wanted criminal?”
    “ Abetting,” I corrected him even as the pizza turned into cardboard in my mouth. “And since the dad's not being directly blamed for the D.C. explosions, technically I think the reporter wasn't really aiding a wanted criminal. But even if he was, why are you so ticked off about it?”
    Kyle scowled. “Dude, think about it! What if there's more outcasts and descendants out there running things from behind the scenes like he claims? What if these freaks are all around us, and we don't even know it?”
    A couple of guys at our table nodded in agreement.
    What if one of those freaks was sitting beside you right now?
    The thought made my mouth twitch. “Okay, so what if they are?”
    Kyle stared at me. “We'd have no idea what they could do to us. Blow us all up in a second, like the D.C. bomber brothers.”
    “ Or drown us inside a building,” someone else suggested.
    “ Or read our minds and rob our bank accounts,” Kyle added.
    “ Exactly!” Becky said.
    I couldn't decide whether to laugh or feel sorry for them. Or just feel sick with worry. “Y'all are really that worked up about this?”
    “ Everyone should be,” Becky replied. “Look at what these so-called outcasts have already done! Hundreds died on that plane in D.C., and hundreds more at the White House. They even killed our president!”
    Kyle's scowl darkened as he slammed a hand flat against the table. “I tell you, man, if we don't find a way to track down all these freaks of nature and exterminate them, the rest of us are history.”
    Exterminate them? He had to be messing with me.
    I searched his face.
    Nope. He was serious.
    And everyone else at our table was nodding right along with him.
     

C HAPTER 3
    Tuesday, December 1st
    Hayden
    A s expected, my family’s first Thanksgiving holiday without Damon was grim, in spite of how hard Mom and Dad worked to keep things upbeat with all their forced smiles and too cheerful chatting about nothing of any importance. I still hadn’t gotten used to Mom's continued habit of setting a place at the dining table in memory of Damon, and it was all I could do to choke down even her excellent cooking while staring at that empty plate and chair. Watching the annual football game between Texas A&M’s Aggies and the University of Texas Longhorns with Dad was worse. I kept expecting Damon to stroll into the entertainment room with the usual bowl of seven layer dip and platter of little smokies on toothpicks that we’d always end up fighting over till Mom made more.
    By the end of the break, I was all too ready to return to school where I figured things would be a little more chilled out and back to normal.
    I