“I’m sorry for not finding you faster,” Addison says. It’s the millionth time she’s apologized for the night at Shamrock’s. She thought she saw me go into the bathroom after I ran from Kyle, and she’d been waiting outside the stall. My best friend was shocked when someone else walked out and then she went into panic mode.
“It’s okay.” And it is. Maybe life would be different if she had found me before Razor did, but I don’t regret my time with him. I just hate Kyle.
Four more Bragger messages pop up. Because I’m a glutton for punishment, I click on the new messages, and sure enough, two of them involve me.
Lily @lilybear · 20 s
This morning was interesting. Is she sleeping with Razor from the Terror?
Because the use of pronouns and not my real name will mislead me to thinking the message isn’t about me. Blah...just blah.
Deke @deke575 · 10 s
Y’all crazy. Twenty dollars @breanna212 is tutoring his stupid ass and he tried something and Kyle came to her rescue.
My heart hurts. I went to the bar to find magic and I did find magic—magic that combusted into a curse when Kyle invaded my privacy by snapping a photo. No one deserves to have their private moments put on display and to be called names. It’s like we’ve regressed to age two and we all need to relearn basic kindergarten manners.
“Finally,” says Reagan as she sits across from me and Addison, obviously reading my cell. She doesn’t understand the term personal boundaries. “A reasonable explanation, plus points to Deke for at-mentioning you instead of talking about you like you aren’t watching the feed. I should totally accept his invitation to next week’s dance for that.”
“What are people saying?” I peer over at Reagan and she purses her lips.
Reagan’s small, but she’s full of personality. One of those people you know is there the moment she jazz-hands her way into a room. She’s shorter than me, shorter than most of the girls at school, but she’s runway pretty.
She befriended Addison and me in sixth grade and, I won’t lie, my relationship with her has had its share of ups and downs. Reagan is infatuated with drama. She’s like watching a busy little bee bouncing from flower to flower and Addison and I are the home-base hive.
Addison clicks her tongue in disgust at Reagan. “You’re a gossip. It’s a compulsion for you. We’re aware, so dish what you know.”
At least Reagan has the decency to fidget with her rings in guilt. “I didn’t really gossip about you, Bre, as much as I discussed your current situation so I could get an appropriate sampling of the thoughts of the student population.”
She’d make an excellent politician.
“I’ve considered buying you a muzzle,” Addison says.
Reagan flashes us her brilliant smile. “Put diamonds on that baby and I’m your girl. But I swear, I didn’t trash you.”
What she’s excluding is how she didn’t defend me, either, but that’s a part of Reagan I’ve had to learn to accept...or not accept. We’re friends, but we’ll never be close.
“What are people saying?” I ask again.
Reagan rests her elbows on the table and there’s a spark in her eyes as she misreads my question as forgiveness. “The story going around is that Razor tried to hit on you and Kyle came to your defense when you got scared. Razor was pissed Kyle interfered, so he threw him in the bathroom and they had a shouting match. I’m wondering if Kyle started that rumor because it makes him less assholey than normal.”
She drenches a fry in ketchup. “Everyone thinks Kyle is all heroic for saving our poor, defenseless, quiet Breanna Miller from the clutches of the Terror.”
Kyle is a psychopath. “No one thinks I’m sleeping around?”
“God, no.” Reagan chokes on the fry and pounds her chest as if she can’t breathe. I glance over at Addison and she rolls her eyes. As I said, Reagan’s dramatic.
I release a relieved breath, but tension still cramps my muscles. I’m safe, but for how long? In theory, if I write Kyle’s papers, then I won’t be branded with a big scarlet letter for life, but it kills a part of my soul to think of helping him cheat.
“The bright side of the whole debacle is that your number of Bragger followers is going through the roof,” says Reagan. “Everyone wants to see your response.”
If it weren’t for the fact that being on Bragger and following Kyle’s account is the only way I feel secure he hasn’t posted the picture, I’d delete my account in a nanosecond. Bragger is proving to be a nightmare. “There won’t be a response.”
Addison and Reagan share a long look and I consider crawling under the table to die.
“A nonresponse is still a response,” says Addison. “It means you’re hiding.”
“I am hiding,” I mutter.
“Posting a cute picture of a kitten should do the job.” Reagan dips another fry into the ketchup, then points it at me. “It’ll say you’re innocent, plus half the girls in school will share it. I’ll find one and send it to you via email next period. If you don’t post it immediately, I’ll steal your cell on the way home and I’ll post it for you.”
Reagan would also make a great public relations savior.
“So...” Addison cuts the hamburger in half and takes a bite. “What really happened in the bathroom? And let’s not forget you were in a boys’ bathroom. I have to say, Bre, I had no idea so much drama would be coming from you.”
Me, either.
The bell rings and I hop to my feet. “We’ll talk later.” No, we won’t. I’m praying Addison’s right and that the rumors will dissipate and everyone will forget. “See you.”
I squeeze into the crowded hallway and, like a salmon, fight against the current of bodies to reach the stairs. There’s three floors, and the higher up I go, the less populated it becomes.
Nausea crawls along my insides when I arrive at the desolate third floor. Kyle leans against the lockers like he was waiting for me. He jerks his head to a hallway off to the side that has a clearly marked no-trespassing sign.
I scan the hallway. No other students. No other teachers. Only two rooms are used on the third floor because the heating and cooling systems fail whenever they attempt to regulate the temperature in more than two classrooms.
I follow Kyle but stay near the corner in case I need to run. I could have turned and gone the opposite direction, but it doesn’t matter if I run. He’ll find me, and I can’t deny he holds all the power.
Kyle acts like he’s normal, but every hair standing on end informs me he’s completely unstable.
There’s an unnatural silence surrounding us compared to the echoes of noise from the corridors below. The air is stale, like no living soul has visited here for centuries. People have told ghost stories surrounding the third floor—a girl who killed herself a few years back, a boy who snapped the neck of another fifty years ago, the forever fables of homeless students who squat here because there’s nowhere else to go.
I believed they were stories until now. What else would explain the cold chill slithering down my back?
“In case you’re wondering,” he says, “I have a plan in place if Razor touches me, or if I go missing or end up dead. That picture will still be posted on Bragger and then a letter from me will be sent to the police and you will be arrested for being an accomplice in my murder.”
Talk about being dramatic. “Razor isn’t going to kill you.”
“You spend ten minutes alone with the most psychotic member of the Terror and you think you have them figured out? You heard about the Terror shooting in Louisville this summer, right? I’m sure you’ve also heard about how Razor was seen tearing through town a few days ago chasing after the rival gang involved in that shooting.”
A sickening sensation causes a cold sweat to break out on my palms. No, I hadn’t heard that. Be
ing around Razor, talking with him, listening to him...it makes it easy to forget there are some rumors that are true—that the Reign of Terror are dangerous.
“I’m saving you by telling you to stay away. Remember Mia Ziggler? She trusted the Terror and no one’s heard from her since. I’m doing you a favor.”
“He’s not the one blackmailing me.”
“I’m not blackmailing you,” he says in a clipped tone. “We made an agreement. You write my papers, I’ll help you make this a great senior year, and I’ve already started on my part. Our problem is that I had no idea Razor would be pissed. The way the Terror runs through girls, I had bet he would’ve forgotten when that picture was taken and who he was with.”
It’s like he socked me in my stomach and I wince with the verbal impact.
Kyle eyes my reaction. “Did you think you were special with him on Friday night? I’ve seen this guy and his buddies work. Girls are like running faucets for them.”
A stupid part of me did feel special with Razor. Special in how he listened, special in the way he touched and treated me. A lump forms in my throat. I threw myself at him, and the boy who goes through girls like toilet paper rejected me. Like Kyle, Razor’s sole interest in me is for my brain. “The lies on Bragger, that’s from you, isn’t it?”
“I may have said a few things. Explained how Razor was bothering you and I was helping you out. The story took off from there. Consider it my gift to you for writing my papers.”
“Everyone is focused on me and him. That doesn’t feel like help. That feels like a threat.”
“I’m reminding you to stay away from Razor and I will continue to remind you of that every time I see you together. I am not the asshole here. He’s the threat, not me!”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
“That’s not true!” Kyle rams his fist into the cinder-block wall. I stagger back, a scream teetering on the tip of my tongue. He turns his back to me and paces like he’s a caged tiger.
I should run. I should race down the stairs and out the building shouting “fire” the entire way, but it won’t solve my problem with Kyle. I’m trapped in this inferno.
Kyle shakes out his arms and it’s scary how fast he calms down. “Everyone thought of you as the freak, shy girl. Now you’re the girl I stuck up for. I already had two guys on the football team asking if I bagged you this summer because I stood up for you, and I told them no—that you weren’t that type of girl, that you were the type worth dating.”
“Am I supposed to thank you?” I clutch my folders tighter to my chest.
He gives me a “duh” expression. “Yeah. I built you up to them. Those two guys are thinking differently of you and it’s not as the school freak or the easy lay. They’re looking at you as the girl to take home to Mom.”
“Is that how it works?” Disgust swims through me. “Some closed-door boys’ club in a locker room and a girl’s reputation is forever set?”
Kyle shrugs. “I didn’t make the rules, I just play along.”
“You’re a pig.”
“I’m a pig that’s going to help get you on homecoming court if that’s what you want, or a date with one of my buddies. A real date. Flowers. Dinner. Respect. Stop being so negative and start looking at what we can do for each other. I have a paper due this semester on some book. 1980 something by George somebody.”
“Orwell. George Orwell and it’s 1984.” I roll my neck to stop the flood of information on him, like how he also wrote Animal Farm and he was born on June 25, 1903, and...
“Yeah, him.” Kyle interrupts my crazy train of thought. “Five pages. Double spaced. One-inch margins and, I’ve been thinking, you should throw in a few grammatical errors. If it’s too good, my teacher may not believe I wrote it.”
“If you’re that concerned, maybe you should write it yourself.”
“Could, but I’m not. Look, the rules of this game are easy—write my papers, stay away from the Terror and tell me what you want from this arrangement. As I said, it’ll be easier on both of us if we don’t consider this blackmail, but an agreement.”
The bells rings, and my head starts to throb. I don’t answer him because there is absolutely nothing he has that I could ever want—besides that picture banned from the universe. I pivot and slowly walk to my classroom. It’s hard to breathe as the walls close in.
RAZOR
THE BRAGGER MESSAGES are like taunts from a drunken frat boy begging to be punched:
Jenny @cutekitten · 30 s
Like she’s a catch. If Razor feels like playing, I’ll play with him. Bet he wasn’t coming on to her. Bet she was coming on to him and she struck out.
Kyle @koaltime · 10 s
Everyone back off @breanna212. Not her fault the Terror are terrorizing her. @cutekitten
Lauren @laurenrose · 10 s
@koaltime @cutekitten I saw her crying after math. She looked scared. Thank you for standing up to the Terror Kyle. The Terror suck.
“How the hell do you play football with these assholes?” I whisper to Chevy. He’s a great running back. Can read a defender like no one else. That is, when his coach will give him playing time. Being a kid of the Terror has stalked him onto the field.
“They’re not all like that,” he replies. They aren’t. Just like how all bikers aren’t criminals on parole.
Another round of messages involving Breanna, and the pencil in my hand snaps with a crack. Using those fast hands, Chevy swipes his cell off my desk and tucks it into the pocket of his jeans before the teacher can spot what’s set me off. The bell starting sixth period rings and it takes everything I have not to lose my shit.
People stare at me like I’m about to go nuclear bomb fallout. The guy in front of me scoots his desk forward. Yeah, asshole, I’m going to knock the hell out of you because someone else is putting lies on the internet.
He glances over his shoulder and I glare. On second thought, maybe I should beat him and every guy in this room senseless as a warning to mind their own business instead of expressing an opinion on someone else’s life. Piping in to join the masses because they’re grateful they aren’t the one being picked on. The kid in front of me with the overgelled hair turns red and mutters to his buddy next to him that I’m crazy.
“Fucking right I am,” I say.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Turner?” my science teacher asks.
I shake a no. The incredulous expression on her face says she doesn’t believe me.
This town has talked shit about me since Mom died, and most of the time I can tune it out, but this bull involving Breanna pisses me off. They can talk trash regarding me all they want, but they need to leave her alone. The only sin she’s committed has been being in the wrong place at the wrong time—with me.
Chevy’s writing in his notebook, then sliding the paper toward me. On it is the one word that makes me feel like a dick: firefly.
As an answer, I cross my arms over my chest, slouch in my seat and kick out my legs, letting my combat boots hit the chair in front of me. The kid flinches like he’s terrified. My lips edge up but then fall back down as Chevy’s message circles my mind: firefly. I spend a few minutes alone with Breanna and I’m killing her.
Our teacher has begun to bore us with her theatrics when Mr. Duncan leans in from the hallway. He’s a tall man, gray-haired, old enough that he taught my dad and Eli, and is built like a linebacker. His best attribute? He’s one of the few people in town who’s a friend of the Terror.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “But I need Thomas Turner.”
Chevy peers over at me and someone does that annoying “Ohhhh” in a singsong voice, like getting called into the principal’s office is the equivalent of being sent to death row.
I grab my notebook and haul it to the hallway before my teacher asks question
s. Duncan starts toward the stairwell and I follow him down.
When I catch up with him on the landing, he speaks. “Talked to Cyrus, Eli and your dad today. They’re on board with what I’m about to tell you.”
When he knows I’m solidly listening, he continues down the stairs. “Remember those tests you took at the end of the year? Not the state ones, but the ones to figure out placement?”
We take a shit ton of tests. Sometimes it feels we test more than we do actual learning.
Duncan pauses outside his classroom. “Turns out you did well.”
My forehead furrows. “What?”
“Enough seniors tested high enough that we were able to create college credit classes for the other subjects, but only four of you passed the science AP exam. We received permission from the state to set up an independent study for AP physics. You’ll sit in the back of my earth science class and watch videos, take tests online, and there will be projects you’ll turn in to me on occasion. You’ll need to buddy up with one of the students for projects. I’ll leave it up to the four of you to decide who is paired with who.”
I nod to confirm I’m absorbing. Gotta admit, it’s a high to hear I’ve done well.
“Either you can do this on your own or you can’t. If you act like a fool, then you’ll go back to biology. Some of the administration are balking at you being in this program, but I stuck my neck out for you. If my head gets chopped off because you act like an idiot, then I’m tearing your balls off, son.”
Besides the fact that his son is our brother, his attitude is why he’s a friend of the Terror. “Yes, sir.”
A grin cracks onto that weathered face and he pats my back. “I also told the administration you’d start leaving your cut at home.”
“Tomorrow.” I strode into school with it, and if I don’t leave school with it on, it’ll be the same as shuffling away with my tail between my legs.