“Hey! What the hell are you doing up there!”
Lukas turns his head to see a figure standing on the street and shouting in his direction. For a second, he’s stunned, but then his soldier instincts kick in and he quickly flips off his eyes. Then he leans hard against the tree until his skin, clothes, and entire body change into the exact same color as the bark so that he blends into the trunk like a chameleon.
Lukas stays perfectly still, knowing that even the slightest movement could be detected by the stranger. This is the first time in the entire month that anyone has noticed his presence. He shouldn’t have kept his torch eyes on for so long.
To his relief, about a minute later, Lukas hears the stranger walking away. The chameleon technique is even more physically taxing than the torch eyes. But still, he waits another full minute to make sure he’s safe before he jumps the twenty feet to the ground and lands without a sound.
That could have been a close call but, honestly, it made his adrenaline pump. Lukas looks up at Violet’s bedroom window. She’s earned herself another day to live, so there isn’t much more to do with her.
Five
Day 2: Alive
I SCRUNCH UP MY NOSE. The greasy glob of ground beef covered in goopy tomato sauce that is posing as lasagna on my plate smells like hot garbage.
“V! I saved you a seat,” Jessica shouts from the Squad’s table at the center of the busy school cafeteria.
Today is Friday, which means it’s game day. On game day, the cheerleaders and football players are required to eat together at the cafeteria to boost school spirit. I don’t know how being forced to eat lunch in a foul-smelling, ill-lit, windowless room that resembles the mess hall in a prison movie promotes anything but antidepressant meds, but like always, I go along with whatever is expected of me.
My stomach growls. I am still spinning from last night’s death match with Dr. Jenkins and that bitch Aiedeo. But no matter how distraught I am, I rarely ever skip a meal. Especially breakfast, which is my favorite. I look down at the mush on my tray and long for the PB and J that I reluctantly abandoned at home.
I deliberately avoided breakfast this morning, knowing that Dede was in the kitchen, lying in wait. I was way too shaken up to survive one of my nanny’s interrogations.
“What the hell happened to you?”
I look up to see Meryl. I’m not sure what she’s referring to exactly, but, like Dede, she also has a sharp radar for bull.
Meryl continues talking without waiting for me to answer. “I tried you like twenty times this morning because I lost my keys and needed you to get the spare set from my mom’s.” She takes a huge gulp from her McDonald’s chocolate chip frappé (Meadowdale doesn’t have a Starbucks). Juniors and seniors can leave campus for lunch, although they aren’t allowed to bring back food from the outside. But there always seems to be a special set of rules for people like Meryl.
“My cell is dead. I forgot to charge it last night.” Actually, I was too preoccupied with saving my life to even think about my phone, which is usually attached to me like an extra appendage. “Sorry I couldn’t help you. But did you end up getting your keys?”
“Yeah, I sorted it all out. I was just worried when I couldn’t reach you.” Meryl leans in closer. “Is everything okay, V?”
I pat my hair, which is plastered with so much hairspray that it crunches like caramel popcorn when I touch it. Game day also means that we have to wear our cheerleading uniform to school—navy-blue skirt and crop top with red and white trim—plus face glitter, white sneakers, and an extra-high ponytail clipped back with a shiny bow. Since these are our new uniforms, Naomi warned us that we’d better rock them or else. The threat is unnecessary in my case, since I’m keenly aware of the extra attention that game day brings from the entire student body and I certainly felt the pressure when I was getting ready this morning.
I don’t remember sleeping but I must have nodded off for a bit. When I woke, I tried to apply a dash of my good old denial and write the whole Dr. Jenkins episode off as a nightmare. But the skull chain the Aiedeo left me lay underneath my bed like a sick souvenir from a trip that I never agreed to go on.
Even if I am a wreck, I know I can’t show up on game day looking like it. I spent an extra half an hour fixing myself up so that I appeared as perky and fresh as I could, given the circumstances. I think I’m pulling it off but Meryl is always wise to my tricks. Most of them, anyway.
“Seriously, V, I was at Stumpy’s till four a.m. so I know why I feel like a cat shat on me, then died in my mouth. But you were supposed to do some homework and go to bed early. Did you sleepwalk to an all-night kegger instead?”
Meryl leans against the wall, which further accentuates her long, lean body. She doesn’t look like a cat did any of the things she claims. I’m pretty sure that the table of horny freshmen who are throwing all kinds of lusty stares in Meryl’s direction probably would agree.
In Meadowdale, girls are supposed to be pageant-pretty, with big hair and lots of mascara. But Meryl, with her blond pixie cut and no makeup, bucks that notion like she does most of the good-girl expectations that are imposed on us. Of course, it helps that she has the sun-kissed natural gorgeousness of Blake Lively, which gives her the hot-girl pass. If she were less attractive, her rebellious behavior would land her in juvie. Instead, with her looks, that attitude just adds to her appeal.
“I didn’t sleep much last night,” I reply without elaborating further. I still need time to process that the Aiedeo are back in my life before I tell Meryl about it. And I don’t want to talk about it here, with the entire student body around us.
Meryl’s father is a bigtime DA and she prides herself on her cross-examination skills. I can tell that she definitely wants more answers.
“Okay, so you couldn’t sleep and that’s why you dumped at least a pound of makeup, hairspray, and glitter on yourself. Which I guess was a smart move, since these people do get easily distracted by shiny things.” Meryl gestures toward the various long white tables packed with kids from all levels of the social pyramid. She stops at the Squad’s table. “Especially them. They see only what you want them to see. But turning yourself into a Christmas ornament isn’t going to fool me. What’s up?”
“Samosa! Get over here. Now. We’re taking group selfies.” Naomi’s annoyingly shrill voice carries over the blaring buzz of excited teenage chatter that fills the cafeteria.
“She still calls you Samosa? Why do you let her treat you like that?” Meryl turns in the direction of the Squad. “Suck my nuts, Naomi!”
Naomi scowls but that’s all she does. She’d go ballistic if anyone else spoke to her like that, but even she doesn’t mess with Meryl.
Meryl lets out a frustrated sigh. “If I pinned you to the ground and sat on you, you’d still avoid my questions and find a way of going over there to those douchebags, wouldn’t you.”
“Duty calls.” I punch my fist in the air. “Go, Pioneers!”
Meryl smirks. “You know that Naomi’s, like, industrial-grade doucheiest of them all, right?”
“Totally aware.”
“Okay, just want to make sure you haven’t drunk too much of their Kool-Aid.”