A Parthan Summer, Julie Steimle [best ereader for pdf TXT] 📗

then pursed his lips to think again.

Just from his tone, Jeff realized that his story was only partially believed, which was beyond unfortunate. Because, if he could not throw the FBI off of his trail, Jeff knew his life was going to become unbearable. Up until that moment, he never considered that he had already blown it when he spoke his native tongue in front of Damon and his friends. Zormna’s fault, of course.

Coach Brown cleared his throat and asked, “Where did you say you were from?”

Jeff leaned back, blinking. “I didn’t say. But can’t you just read that off the stupid paper?”

The agent didn’t ask. He merely waited.

Finishing the thought with a sigh, Jeff said, “St. Louis, Missouri. But my parents are living in Chicago now.”

“Uh huh,” the agent nodded with a look to his notepad.

Jeff flushed. It really was too late. Keeping his cool, Jeff laughed, and shook his head.  “You don’t believe a word I’m saying, do you?”

The agent looked Jeff squarely in the eye and replied, “Should I?”

Standing up from his chair, Jeff angrily huffed to keep up pretense despite all that had crumbled in one morning. “I realize that you are the FBI and aren’t supposed to trust anyone, but it is rude to suppose that a person is lying, especially when you barely know them.” 

Jeff headed off toward the entrance of the lodge.

Calling after him, Agent Brown said, “A pair of agents went to the home of your so-called parents a week ago. And they finally admitted that you weren’t their son.”

Jeff turned around, now extremely flushed and breathing hard.

“So, you don’t deny it?” the man asked.

“Uh…” Jeff hesitated, wondering what happened to the people posing as his mother and father. Were they safe? Had they been arrested? Were they now on the run? “What did they say?”

Coach Brown beckoned him back into the room. Jeff only turned completely around, staying near the doorway.

“They said their son Alex met you in St. Louis when they were running a bed and breakfast there, and that they took you in because their son took a liking to you. They didn’t know anything about you. Only that your name was Jafarr and that you looked like you had had a rough life. They thought you were a runaway. And considering all your scars, they thought you had either escaped an abusive situation—or were once in a gang.” Coach Brown’s dark eyes fixed intently on Jeff’s face, watching his reaction.

Jeff worked hard not to look too relieved. They had stuck to plan B—the plan just in case he was found out but would still keep everyone else safe.

“Really?” Jeff said, stiffening. “And what else did they say?”

The coach sighed, shaking his head. “They thought you were a smart kid who needed a second chance, so they pretended you were theirs so you could go back to school. They even let that social worker believe that Mr. Streigle was the one who had abused you, so you could move out and live with the uncle where there was a better school.”

“And…” Jeff nodded, hoping the coach got to the pertinent point.

“You finish the story, Jeff.” Coach Brown folded his fingers together, waiting. “Because we checked your school records. And though you are definitely in their files, not one teacher remembers you or the fights you got into. We can only safely conclude that you never attended those high schools. In fact, much of your police record in Chicago is also fake.”

But Jeff shook his head. Everything had to feel authentic. He was not going to divulge the backstory in case it came out sounding rehearsed. “You know what? I don’t care what you think about me. I have worked hard to have a normal life here. And I am going to graduate high school at Pennington.”

He turned to go again.

“You know it is a federal crime to forge documents,” Coach Brown said.

Jeff stiffened. He looked back. “Look—they were just trying to help me have a life. Give them a break.”

But Coach Brown stared hard at him. “Maybe they deserve a break, kid. But you are not what you seem.”

Glaring, Jeff shook his head and marched off. As he stormed away, he regained control of his thoughts. The FBI had bought plan B. That was good. That meant Al and the others at his home were safe. They still had an alibi. Unfortunately, that meant he didn’t. He only hoped he wouldn’t get taken away before he could warn Zormna.

He hiked up to the grassy knoll to search for her. He wasn’t sure she knew how much the FBI agents were informed, but he decided that it was wise to take the risk to tell her now, just in case he had to run.

When he arrived at the grassy knoll, to his surprise, it was empty. Jeff jogged to the far edge of it, wondering where the cheerleaders could have gone, almost slipping on the slick grass which was still damp from the rain. He found them all playing in the sand near the beach, not far from the Harvest karate club. A number of the girls were skipping rocks and wading. Some were out in the lake, canoeing. Some were doing a cheer routine on the sand, singing out the words to the Meghan Trainor song No as they danced to it. Zormna, oddly enough, was on the pier, practicing flips and kicks like she was training for a fight. Normally she wasn’t so blatant about it. But then he had noticed her little obsession with Holly Joyce and the karate team, and apparently it had gotten to her. The girl was so competitive.

Taking the initiative, Jeff slid down the knoll onto the rocky sand.

“Zormna!” he called out.

The fiery-haired cheerleader turned at the sound of her name and looked up the hill. Seeing Jeff, she openly groaned.

Jeff hastily skidded down the sand then jogged straight onto the pier. Several heads turned, as he was not supposed to be there, but he was supposed to be weight training with the wrestlers in a back lodge.

Zormna tried one more flip where she landed three feet in front of him. Startled, Jeff took a step back.

“What is it?” Zormna asked, sounding annoyed mostly. She then went on with her routine as if she were memorizing the sequence to perform it sometime.

“Coach Brown asked me questions today,” he replied just enough for her to hear, his voice taking on bite.

Zormna softly laughed. “Yeah, so?”

Jeff clenched his teeth, following her. “He found out Al is not my brother.”

Zormna flipped backwards and landed artfully on the wood surface, casting a confused look at him. “Am I supposed to be concerned?”

He nearly choked just from her attitude, following after her. He kept his voice down as he pursued her on the dock. “You had better be concerned. If they start watching me, things are going to get messy. I won’t be able to go back to school when it starts again.”

Zormna did another flip and then a kick.

 “I certainly won’t be able to sleep at night,” he continued, wishing she’d stop and listen.

She practiced a few hand moves. 

Following her down the pier, his anxiety increased. “And I won’t be able to keep you safe.”

As she practiced her motions, Zormna replied as if this was not important enough to take seriously, “Well, Jafarr. It wasn’t like you were doing a bang-up job anyway. Besides, now you are having a taste of my life.”

Jeff clenched his teeth tighter. Zormna had been flipping near the water’s edge. Having enough of her casual air, he pushed her off the pier.

Zormna crashed heavily into the water with a yelp.

Everyone who saw it, stared—especially those on the Pennington cheer team.

It was a minute before Zormna surfaced.

Sputtering water, she kicked and swam to get to the dock, gasping for breath. “What did you do that for?”

Crouching on the edge of the dock, he snapped at her in a low voice, “First off, I haven’t been doing nothing! I found you your cover, didn’t I?” He reached his hand out to pull her back on the pier. “Second, the fact is that you are the one who created this mess in the first place! If you did not call me Jafarr and make me slip into Arrassian in that fight, then I wouldn’t even be in this mess.”

Zormna slapped his hand away, pulling herself onto the wood without his help. Her shorts clung to her thighs, and her white shirt did as well. The outline of her medallion barely showed through. Shaking her shirt out, she grumbled, “That still doesn’t explain why you pushed me into the water.”

Scowling, Jeff resisted the urge to shove her back in. “I did that to get your attention, you selfish little prick. I came here to warn you.”

Hopping up to her feet, Zormna snapped with her hands in fists and her face shoved up into his—nose to nose, “There are other ways to get my attention, Jafarr!”

With that, she shoved Jeff off the pier.

—But he grabbed her sleeve and took her back into the water with him.

The other cheerleaders watched the two crash into the lake. Everyone watching burst into laughter. From their view, they looked like a couple stupid lovers in a romantic comedy.

It took less than four seconds for the pair to resurface. Both angrily splashed towards the wooden dock, with Zormna shoving Jeff away from her.

“Could you not do that?” Zormna pushed him away again. “You had my attention the first time! Now I’m completely soaked!”

Jeff grabbed onto the wooden edge, glowering peevishly at her. “If I’m going to fall, you’re going with me. We’re stuck together in this, you know.”

Pulling herself up and onto the dock again, Zormna sat onto the edge and hissed at him. “So that’s your policy, huh? We’re stuck together in this?”

Jeff heaved his chest up, feeling the weight of his drenched clothes drag him towards the water. Fighting gravity, Jeff managed to twist around and sit on the edge next to Zormna. “I was talking more about you pushing me in—but yeah. We’re stuck in this together now. The thing is, all I was doing was coming to warn you.”

Her eyes dark with a glare, Zormna replied, “I already knew about the agents, Jafarr. Come on. Who do you think you are talking to? I haven’t been lazy, you know.” Watching the weight of the water stretch out her curls, Zormna glowered over the situation with the FBI. She kicked the water. “But why should you worry? If your people are as good as you say they are, then you still have a tight alibi.”

Struggling against his surging anger at her, Jeff closed his eyes. “I had a tight alibi. But they broke through it. My so-called parents have moved to plan B.”

“Plan B?” Zormna leaned from him, immediately grave. Little ripples rolled across the water as the drips from their clothes fell back into the lake. Jeff’s reflection wobbled in the water along with the summer sun and pine trees as he shook his damp mop of hair out of his eyes. 

“It’s the plan in case my position is compromised,” Jeff murmured, finally glad she understood the gravity of the situation. “I don’t know how they scared them into telling, but the couple posing in Chicago fessed up that I am not their son.”

“Fessed up?” Zormna stared.

“Anyway,” Jeff rose. “The point is, if I can’t convince the FBI that I am just a guy trying graduate high school, we might have to run for it.”

She stared more. He had said ‘we’. In most cases, she would have expected him to say ‘I’—and she had a feeling he had first intended to say that.

“Are you crazy?” she finally breathed out in a whisper. “Where would we go? If they have targeted us already—”

He shrugged, thinking about that. He had to contact those back in Pennington to find out if they were also on plan B. If they were, if