The Anomaly Protocol

A semi-truck rumbled past the front of the school just as I stepped onto the sidewalk. The trailer was white and painfully clean against all the dust, stamped with a sleek green logo that read CrestGen BioSystems. Beneath it, smaller lettering promised Sustainable Tomorrow. A few students barely glanced at it, like seeing company trucks in town was as normal as seeing the school buses. I watched it disappear down the road toward the industrial side of town and felt something tighten in my chest.

“Lou, just think of this as a new adventure—moving out here could be a good thing.”

I scoffed as I stepped out of the car, the air smelled like sun-warmed dirt and something faintly sweet, like corn husks left out too long. While the air hit my skin sharper than it should have. I could feel the shift in temperature instantly, the change in humidity, the faint vibration of insects in the grass. My body catalogued everything automatically, like it ran on some overclocked internal system that never really powered down.

Mom rolled the window down, leaning slightly toward me. “Listen, I know you might feel overwhelmed, but understand that Johnathon had to do this, it is a big step for him.”

“Mom—” I started, but I did not even bother finishing.

Johnathon was my mother’s new husband. They got married barely a year after my father died. I was seven at the time, old enough to understand loss, but not old enough to process replacement. I remember standing at the top of the stairs the first night he slept over, wondering how my mother could bring another man into our home so quickly, especially knowing I was not exactly… stable back then. My abilities were harder to manage at such a young age. My strength flared without warning. My emotions triggered things I could not always control.

Mom told him before he moved in permanently. I still remember the quiet conversation in the kitchen, the way she braced herself like she expected him to walk out. But he did not. He stayed. And when he looked at me afterward, there was caution there, yes, but there was also acceptance.

He had two children of his own, though I never met. Their mother left, said he was wasting his time on a foolish ambition. So she wanted nothing to do with him and asked for a divorce. She kept the children away out of spite. But when Johnathon began to prosper, and his company exploded and the money multiplied, she tried to crawl back into his life. He never gave her that chance.

And that was when everything fell apart.

She killed them.

I was still young when it happened, but I remember the silence in the house afterward. The way Johnathon stopped speaking for days at a time. The way Mom moved softer around him, like loud sounds might shatter him completely.

Despite everything, Johnathon was, objectively, a good man. Now a wealthy CEO whose father had left him a some of money, and instead of wasting it, he invested. He started a biotech company centered around renewable energy. CrestGen... using corn and agricultural byproducts to create fuel alternatives. It was revolutionary, environmentally conscious, and wildly profitable. The idea took off faster than anyone expected. Investors lined up. Contracts multiplied. Within a few years, he was worth billions.

I would hear his name in the background of adult conversations and catch words like 'pilot plant,' 'clean output,' and 'byproduct efficiency,' as if the future was something you could buy if you got there first.

But he wanted proximity, to oversee operations directly. That was why we moved. Not because we needed to. Not because our life in New York was failing. But because his empire required land, and land meant relocation.

Of course, I protested.

For him, it was strategy. Growth. Vision.

For me, it meant leaving behind everything I had carefully rebuilt after my father’s death. My friends. My cheerleading team. The routines that made me feel anchored. The version of myself I had slowly stitched together after grief tore me open at seven. Every hallway, every late-night practice, every familiar street had been part of that healing. And now, once again, I was uprooted.

Johnathon saw opportunity.

I saw loss.

And now that I was in this new place, a town with a population of barely over nine thousand people, I would have to be even more careful. A smaller town meant close knit. Close knit meant people noticed everything who you talked to, what you wore, how you walked, what time you left your house. And if they noticed too much, if they noticed the wrong thing, my secret would not stay hidden for long.

When I stepped inside CrestVille High, the building smelled faintly of polished floors and old paper. The chatter in the hallway dipped for half a second as several heads turned toward me. I adjusted the strap of my bag on my shoulder, kept my head slightly lowered, and walked straight toward the office to get my class schedule and locker combination, pretending I did not feel the weight of their eyes.

I often thought that if my dad had not died, none of this would be happening. I would not have stepped off a plane, shoved into a car, and then driven straight to school without even knowing where I was supposed to go after the final bell rang.

“Louis Henry,” I said to the woman behind the front desk.

She glanced up at me briefly before nodding. “Of course. You are scheduled in AP classes, just follow this map and that’s all.”

She slid the papers toward me, already looking back down at her phone, her thumb scrolling lazily through what looked like TikTok videos. She did not seem thrilled to assist me, or even to look up for more than a few seconds.

I wandered the halls for a while, scanning locker numbers and adjusting the stack of textbooks in my arms until I finally found mine near a large trophy case. I paused there longer than I meant to, staring at the polished glass and the rows of shining awards inside. CrestVille High had won titles for cheerleading competitions, basketball championships, football games proof that even in a small town, they took their pride seriously.

And as I stood there, staring at the trophies and my own faint reflection in the glass, I could not help but wonder what kind of place CrestVille really was and whether it would survive having someone like me here.

I tore my gaze away from the trophy case and shoved my books into the locker a little harder than necessary, the metal door rattling as it shut. Then I turned and started toward my first class, unfolding the small paper map the office lady had given me. I studied it for longer than I probably needed to, my eyebrows pulling together as I traced the lines with my finger. I did not like the idea of attending an outdoor school at all. I was used to indoor hallways, everything contained in one building where you just walked down the corridor, climbed a few flight of stairs, or turned a corner. Here, I would have to step outside between classes, cross open school grounds, and move from one separate building to another like I was navigating a campus instead of a high school. It felt exposed too open, too visible.

I sighed, folding the map halfway before opening it again. Maybe I was just being a grouch. Maybe Mom was right and this could actually turn into something good. They had a cheer team, and the trophies meant they were good. I could try out, see how it goes, maybe carve out a place for myself here before anyone had the chance to push me out.

I lifted my head from the map, and for reasons I could not explain, my attention drifted to the left. That was when I saw him.

He had black, messy hair that fell carelessly into his grey eyes, like he had run his hands through it one too many times and never bothered to fix it. He was laughing with his friend, talking animatedly about the upcoming game, and from the jersey stretched across his broad shoulders, I could tell he was on the football team. When he smiled, dimples appeared in his cheeks, flashing against impossibly white teeth and for a second, I forgot where I was. I could not stop looking at him. Even after I passed him, even after I knew I should focus on where I was going, I glanced back again.

He did not notice.

But his friend did.

The moment I turned forward again, I slammed straight into someone. The impact sent her sprawling backward, and she let out a strange hoofing sound as she hit the ground. For half a second, I almost laughed. I had never heard anyone make that noise before but the sharp crash of glass shattering at my feet wiped the amusement right off my face. This was entirely my fault for paying more attention to a boy than where I was walking.

“Are you okay?” I asked quickly, bending down to help her up.

She scoffed, brushing herself off. “I mean, if some of us were actually looking where we were going.”

“You are totally right—this is entirely my fault. I’m sorry.”

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Tell that to my science project.”

The two boys walked over then, crouching down to assess the damage.

“Lindsey, are you okay?” the boy I had been checking out asked, kneeling beside her and gathering broken pieces of what used to be her project.

“I mean, I have to settle for an F because Mrs. Jamal wouldn’t believe me even if I had video proof of this,” Lindsey muttered bitterly.

“Again, I am sorry,” I repeated, my voice smaller this time.

That was when he looked at me, like he was trying to figure something out. His eyes scanned my face, thoughtful, almost curious, and for a second I forgot how to breathe.

“Hey,” I said softly, the word barely more than a whisper as it slipped past my lips.

But just as quickly, he looked away.

I bit the inside of my lip, swallowing down the sting to my pride. Why did I even assume he was single? I could see the way Lindsey was looking at him, like he was already hers. The way he rushed over to help her said everything I needed to know.