Free The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans Page B

That was so cool,” she said, her brown eyes locked on mine.
    “Thanks.”
    “What school do you go to?”
    “Meridian. I’m in your math class.”
    “Really? I’ve never seen you.”
    “I sit right behind you.”
    “Oh,” she said, blushing a little. “Lucky me.”
    Taylor grabbed my arm. “Come on, Michael.”
    “We’ll catch up later,” I said to her.
    She smiled and waved. “See you in math.”
    Everyone was giving me high-fives and patting me on the back as Taylor dragged me off.
    “Why do I have to go?” I asked.
    “So you don’t get a big head,” Taylor said.
    “Where are we going?”
    “Where no one will hear us. Come on, Ostin.”
    “You got my name right,” he said.
    We went back inside. Ostin grabbed another brownie from the table and the three of us went upstairs to a bedroom. Inside, Taylor locked the door behind us.
    “Where’d you learn that move?” Ostin asked. “That was awesome.  You took down gorilla-man without your powers.”
    “It wasn’t me,” I said. I looked at Taylor. “Was it?”
    She sat down on the bed. “It was sort of you. You did knock him down.”
    Ostin’s eyes darted back and forth between us. “What did she do?”
    “The same thing she did to Poulsen. She rebooted him. Didn’t you?”
    “What?” Ostin said.
    I looked at Taylor. “Can I tell him?”
    She rolled her eyes. “You just did.”
    “Well, you showed him first.”
    “What are you talking about?” Ostin said, looking back and forth between us.
    “Taylor has powers like mine,” I said.
    Ostin’s jaw dropped. “She can shock like you?”
    “Not exactly. She can shock people’s brains.”
    “What?”
    “She can reboot people.”
    I didn’t have to explain “reboot” to Ostin—he was all about computers. “Ah,” he said, a large smile crossing his face. “Like pressing the reset button. I get it. That’s why Poulsen looked like he’d been sucker-punched. I just thought he had a brain tumor or something.  So how does that work?”
    “I don’t know,” Taylor said. “I just look at them and concentrate.”
    “So how did you knock that guy over?”
    “I didn’t, Michael did. I just rebooted him a second before Michael crashed into him. He didn’t even know where he was.”
    “That’s awesome!” Ostin said.
    “No, it’s not,” I said. “She shouldn’t be using her powers in public like that. Someone will figure it out.”
    “I know.” She looked down, covering her eyes with her hands.
    “I need to confess something.” She looked up at me. “But first, you need to promise me that you won’t get mad, okay? I feel bad enough about it.”
    “What did you do?” I asked.
    “Promise me.”
    “All right. I promise.”
    “I won the basketball game for us. At least I might have.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I rebooted that guy as he was shooting his free throws. That’s why he missed so badly.”
    “That’s just wrong,” Ostin said.
    I looked at her in disbelief. “After what you said to me at the game? What happened to not using our powers in public?”
    “I know. I just didn’t want to lose. I’m such a hypocrite. I, like, ruined that guy’s life.”
    Ostin started pacing. “People, we need to keep this under control. That’s why we need the club, to set standards.” His mouth spread in a broad smile. “And I have a name for our club. The Electroclan.”
    “What’s an Electroclan?” I asked.
    “It’s just a name,” Ostin said. “The electro part is self-evident. A clan is a group of people who all have the same . . .”
    “I like it,” Taylor said before he finished. “It’s catchy.”
    “I told you he was good at this,” I said. I could tell by his crooked smile that Ostin was feeling pretty good about himself. First Taylor had remembered his name, now she liked the name he’d come up with for the club. “Now we need bylaws and a mission statement.”
    “What kind of bylaws?” Taylor asked.
    “Like, for