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ground.
    “Maybe someone would want to get into yours if you were a little nicer,” I say.
    Becca smiles, baring her teeth like a wolf about to attack. “You’re new here, bitch, so I’ll let you off this once.
    But nobody talks to me like that.” . . . gonna find some dirt on you and worse . . . major payback . . .
    What happened to my blend-in-with-the-Normals pol-icy? I can’t believe I’m messing it up already.
    I look away from Becca again to let her think she’s smarter, harder, than me.
    Rachel’s looking at me with hungry-dog eyes . . . . god, she’s not just cute, she’s nice, too. Why does she have to be straight?. . .
    “Come on,” I say to her, and shove through the heavy school doors.
    45

CHAPTER 6
    Thoughts rush at me, skewering my mind with jagged noise. Why do Normals have to be so loud? I focus on the sickly looking yellow-green lockers, the beat-up white-and-gray-speckled linoleum tiles, and the flickering fluorescent lights to ground myself, and the mind-noise retreats to a buzz.
    Rachel turns to me, her face serious. “Look—uh—
    there’s something I need to tell you.” . . . queer . . . lesbian
    . . . no, queer . . .
    We walk together, ignoring the slamming lockers, the students shouting, laughing, yelling. I try to look encouraging. I wish I could tell her that we actually have a lot in common. We both get judged or hated just for being who we are.
    Rachel blows out her breath, her bangs fanning her forehead. “Okay. I’ll just say it. I’m queer. I’m not going to hit on you or anything like that, but I thought you should know, in case you got a problem with it.”
    “Nope, no problem—as long as you’re okay that I’m straight.”
    46
    HUNTED
    Rachel snorts. “I thought you would be. You still wanna hang out?”
    “Of course.” I can’t believe she’s asking me that. But then, she doesn’t know that I’m a Para.
    Rachel smiles at me, her cheeks flushed. . . . why couldn’t she be queer? . . . “So—where’re you from?”
    “All over. My mom and I—we’ve moved a lot.”
    “Army position?”
    “No. My mom—she just doesn’t like to stay in one place too long. Not since my dad died.”
    “I’m sorry,” Rachel says, touching my arm.
    Jumbled thoughts and emotions burst through me. I catch a glimpse of her dad—red cheeked, broad shouldered, smiling, and then staring out a window, gray faced, eyes bleak and weary.
    I move my arm away, then reach up to scratch my nose, trying to make it look like that’s what I meant to do.
    I wish for relief, for anything to stop the noise in my head.
    “Is there a swim team here?”
    Rachel blinks and the images fade. “Sure. They practice every day after school, but it’s so late in the year, I’m not sure there’d be any positions open.”
    “No, but maybe I can swim a few laps.”
    “I can take you around after school, if you like. My brother’s on the team.”
    “That’d be great!” I smile at her—a real smile. I’m starting to like her, though I don’t want to. No attachments.
    It’ll just make it harder when we move on.
    A huge ParaWatch poster scowls at us from the wall.
    47
    Cheryl Rainfield
    It’s double the size of the regulation poster, the text fresh-blood-red on nighttime black.
    PARAS THREATEN US ALL. DO YOUR DUTY—REPORT A PARA. REWARDS GIVEN FOR ANY INFORMATION LEADING TO AN
    ARREST.
    It’s worse than the last town we stayed at. So many more posters. My breath shudders in my throat.
    Rachel follows my gaze. “We’re not all that dogmatic.
    Mr. Temple encourages the ParaWatch groupies.”
    “Mr. Temple?”
    “The principal. He’s a real bigot.” An image of the man with the balding head flits into my mind—the man who made my skin crawl.
    Rachel looks at me out of the corners of her eyes.
    “He’s racist, sexist, homophobic—and, of course, a Para-hater.”
    I blink. She’s a Para-supporter! I knew I felt good about her.
    . . . lookit that big lesbo and the new girl trash . .