Free Tremble by Jus Accardo

your mama. She told me all about you on the drive over.” She had on a baggy green sweatshirt with a picture of a snowman—Frosty if I had to guess—roasting over an open fire and a small pin of a Christmas tree with flashing lights on her right shoulder. Long, straight hair with no real shape, no makeup, and odd fuchsia jeans. She was the kind of girl the guys at school would have made fun of—slightly overweight, with a quirky fashion sense and a thick accent.
    Me? I thought she was kind of awesome.
    Taking her hand, I returned the warm smile, and in an attempt to get her to move along, said, “Well, welcome to the funny farm. Lemme know if you need anything.”
    But she didn’t take the hint. “So I know I just got here, but I wanted to see how you were. Your mama said we were in the same boat. This whole thing is a little—”
    “Crazed?” There was a noise at the other end of the hall. Someone was coming. My time was up. “Lu, is it? Let’s get to know each other.” I placed my hand over Ginger’s door and instead of the brass handle pictured one made of Nerf. The texture changed—and unfortunately so did the color. I’d been thinking of Alex’s old Nerf ball. The damn thing had been neon yellow.
    “Holy hound dogs. Did you just—”
    I pushed open the door and tugged her inside. “Nothing says bonding like a little breaking and entering.”
    “Whoa,” she breathed as I closed the door behind us. “Do y’all do stuff like this often?”
    I shrugged, made a beeline for Ginger’s desk, and pulled open the top drawer, yanking things out one by one. “Depends on the day.”
    Lu stood by the door and shuffled from foot to foot. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
    Bank statements, an ancient-looking address book, and about a hundred old food store flyers—but no file folder. On to the next drawer. “Go for it.”
    “When do you turn eighteen?”
    “My ticker is up on February first.” Crap. Nothing in the second, either. “What about you?”
    “My birthday is on March sixteenth.”
    “Bites the big one, eh?” I slammed the third drawer closed and dove for the fourth—the last. “So how did they convince you to come back here?”
    “No convincing needed.” She stepped farther into the room, seeming to relax a little. “I knew they’d be coming. Six perk. I was all packed when they showed up this mornin’.”
    “What about your parents?”
    “They won’t miss me. I wasn’t theirs, after all.”
    That made me stop and look up. She was still smiling, but it was sad somehow. “So you knew? For how long?”
    “I’ve known about it since I was twelve. We lived in Kansas most of my life, but last week we moved here.”
    “I don’t understand… If you knew, why stay? Why come with them to Parkview at all?”
    She smiled. “I knew your mother and her friend would come for me.”
    “If it’d been me, I would have jumped ship and run as far away as possible.”
    She shook her head and stepped around the desk. “No you wouldn’t have.” Shifting the contents of Ginger’s desktop around, she uncovered a yellow folder. “Is that what yer lookin’ for?”
    In her hand was the yellow folder Ginger had earlier in the common room. “You are the very definition of awesome, Lu!” I dove for the folder and yanked it open. Several sheets in, I found what I was looking for. “Gotcha.”
    Lu leaned over my shoulder. “Who’re all those people?”
    I tapped the page, flipping through a few more. “They’re like us. The rest of the Supremacy kids.”
    “There are so many.”
    “Twelve of us total,” I said. Names, addresses—some sheets had pictures. Some didn’t. Nothing struck me as super secret and I couldn’t imagine why Ginger wanted to keep this hidden—until I got to the fifth page and it all made sense. “Holy shit.”
    Lu jumped and spun for the door. “What? What’s wrong?”
    “This is why they didn’t want me to see the list.” I pulled my cell from my back