Pwned

  Scratch that. It wasn’t The Squad. It was Tawny. And I had to stop her.

  “What’s your number?” I asked sullenly, wanting a good reason to change the subject.

  “What?” he asked, surprised by my question.

  “So I can send you the picture?” I said, holding up my phone that now displayed a picture of Parker and me on either side of Lights, grinning like crazy people.

  “Oh, right,” he said, grabbing my phone and typing the number in.

  “Sent,” I said dully.

  “Sorry if I upset you,” Parker offered. “I just think you’re better than them.”

  “I appreciate that, but I’m really not.”

  “You’re actually talking to me. That’s way more than any one of those airheads would ever do.”

  I had to admit, he did have a point. Of course, if he really knew the extent of how “different” I was, he’d be shocked.

  My mom pulled up before I could respond to his statement, and so I stood from the bench we were seated on and headed for the car.

  “Thanks for tonight,” I said over my shoulder, throwing him a quick, slightly sad smile as I walked away.

  “Thanks for not being one of them,” he answered.

  13. A Leaf Out of Captain Hammer’s Book

  Monday brought with it an interesting turn of events that completely caught me off guard. Though I had been naïve about Tawny’s dedication to me as a friend, nothing could have quite prepare me for the sight of my “best friend” sitting on my ex-boyfriend’s lap during lunch.

  Tawny’s permanently tanned legs were crossed, her perfect dark hair fell across her bare shoulders, and she threw her head back and laughed her beautiful melodic laugh as I walked up. It felt like she was laughing at my mistaken belief about her actually having a heart, but in reality she was just laughing at something Zane had said.

  “Hey Rae!” she said happily as I walked over.

  There was no, “I’m sorry that I’m with Zane now, but I really like him.” No, “This might be weird since you guys dated.” Not even a, “Hey do you see that I’m with your ex-boyfriend.”

  Oh no, there wasn’t even a hint of acknowledgement of the current awful situation I had walked into. Tawny simply sat there on her new Zane throne acting like life was perfect and nothing was weird.

  I took a deep, steadying breath and put on my best plastic smile, knowing that I had to play by Tawny’s rules if I wanted to win her game.

  “Hey guys! Sorry I had to be lame this weekend and ditch you. My mom grounded me,” I said dramatically, trying to sound like it was the worst thing in the world that I couldn’t hang out with my former best friend while she put the moves on my former boyfriend.

  I had really missed out on a fun weekend, hadn’t I?

  “That’s fine, we found ways to stay busy,” she replied with a wicked grin at Zane that made me want to throw up.

  Yes, I had broken up with him, and yes, he had the IQ of a tree stump and was kind of a jerk to me, but none of those things gave Tawny permission to dangle her kill in front of me.

  Too bad you couldn’t permaban someone from your life.

  I could feel my smile faltering and I tried anxiously to keep up the façade of a popular girl who was happy to be single, but all that did was point out to me how pathetic the whole high school hierarchy really was.

  “Good, I’m glad,” I said, tightening my high ponytail until it hurt and gritting my teeth that were still sensitive from a recent mandatory Squad bleaching.

  “You can sit next to me, Rae,” Tawny offered sweetly, knowing full well that sitting next to her was actually sitting next to Zane with Tawny on his lap.

  Zane didn’t look at me, though that may have had something to do with the fact that he was staring at Tawny’s full lips. I highly doubted his actions were motivated by some sort of remorse for his abhorrent behavior.

  “I’m feeling kind of fat today, I think I’ll stand,” I said, pulling the self-deprecation card, since Tawny loved someone who hated their body.

  “Good move,” she said, giving me a conspiratorial wink.

  Gosh, I wanted to punch her.

  As she and Zane went back to being perfect for each other and completely ignoring me, I let my eyes wander (involuntarily, in my defense) over to Parker’s table.

  He was sitting with his normal nerd squad, laughing about something, and I had to pretend I didn’t notice the pang of longing that watching him brought on. As much as I hated to admit it, I wanted to be over there with them, not caring what the popular crowd thought and talking about things I was actually interested in; things that didn’t have to do with bleached teeth or fake tans. I’d much rather talk about dailies and epic armor.

  Parker pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose just like a stereotypical geek from a movie and a grin crept onto my face.

  He really was kind of cute.

  As if he could hear my thoughts, he suddenly glanced over in my direction, meeting my eyes and letting his laugh die off quickly.

  My mouth twitched in the corner just slightly, and had he not been watching me so intently, he might have missed the almost non-existent smile I gave him. He smiled back at me, making the pit of my stomach go warm once more, and gave me the smallest of waves, barely lifting a finger in my direction so that his friends wouldn’t see.

  “Ew. I think that nerd has a crush on you or something,” Tawny said, trailing her finger down Zane’s cheek possessively as she spoke. “That’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Hey, he looks like that guy on Spiderman. Not the dorky one. The one that gets to hook up with Emma Stone,” Zane said, adding his brilliant commentary to the conversation.

  How had I ever dated him?

  “Yeah, that doesn’t make him any cooler,” Tawny droned, picking at her non-existent split ends as if she’d forgotten that she was supposed to be taunting me with Zane.

  “I don’t care who he looks like,” I began, trying to play my best version of Tawny, “I haven’t had my nerd vaccination yet, so I hope he doesn’t come over here.”

  “I could go dump him in the trash can if you want him to stop looking at you Rae,” Zane offered, giving me a painful mental image of my guild mate’s legs kicking in the air as he tried to climb out of a trash can. “I bet I could lift him. He’s a skinny little guy.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Tawny interjected quickly. She didn’t seem too pleased that Zane had sort of stood up for me. “I’ll take care of this,” she finished darkly.

  Her words instantly made me wish I’d agreed to Zane’s trash can dumping. It would have been more humane than anything Tawny would do.

  She glanced over at Parker and his table full of dorks, and then motioned for him to come over to our table. He looked over his shoulder for a moment to make sure there wasn’t someone popular standing behind him before he stood and began cautiously walking over—infiltrating the ranks of The Squad. The cheerleaders, who could sense that something was up, closed in around us, trapping Parker in a ring of bleach-blondes and lip gloss.

  The quick, nervous glance he gave me broke my heart, but I tried to remain neutral, keeping my eyes trained straight ahead and not looking at him.

  “Hey,” he said to Tawny, in the manner of someone who had just had the ground below them blasted away.

  “What’s with your shirt?” Tawny asked.

  The obvious disgust in her voice was incredibly annoying and I gave Parker a sympathetic look. I guess I wasn’t doing the best job of keeping up my snobby appearance.

  “It’s from a game called Voyager’s Quest,” he stated simply.

  I was actually quite impressed. Instead of looking like he was terrified of what might come next (which I totally would have been, with the stare Tawny was giving him), he just looked . . . bored.

  “Are we done here?” he asked. “Or were you hoping I’d show you how to play? It requires some brain power to succeed in this game, and I’m not s
ure you’d be up to it.”

  My mouth dropped open in a display of very unattractive shock.

  Had Parker seriously just called Tawny dumb? I was pretty sure that was like asking for her to take it upon herself to personally ruin your high school years.

  “Excuse me?” Tawny spat, now standing up from Zane’s lap, fuming. “What did you say to me, you loser?”

  “You know what I said. I don’t need to repeat it,” he answered, still sounding bored even though I was about to have a heart attack from the suspense of waiting to see what Tawny would do.

  “Zane, did you hear what he said to me?” Tawny asked in shock.

  “Sorry babe, one sec,” he said in her general direction as he continued to type on his phone.

  Tawny let out a furious growl before turning her attention back to Parker. This wasn’t going to end well, and I had to ask myself—if it came down to a fight between the two of them, whose side would I pick?

  “Listen to me, you little reject,” she began slowly. “You don’t belong here, and if you don’t hurry up and figure that out soon, I’ll be forced to remind you in the most inconvenient way possible.”

  “Tawny,” I said quietly, hoping I could stop the inevitable oncoming rampage. Parker shot me a silencing look.

  I didn’t quite know why he didn’t want me standing up for him when only days before, he’d told my character that I (cheerleader Reagan) didn’t have a backbone. The boy was a walking contradiction.

  “Shut it Reagan,” Tawny shot at me.

  “Whoa, hey, remember who the real enemy is,” I said with my hands up in surrender.

  I looked over at Parker and shrugged when he gave me an indignant look that very clearly said “You’re such a coward.”

  If he wanted me to stop standing up for him, I could do that. Not standing up for people (including myself) had been my entire high school experience. It was my comfort zone.

  “He,” Tawny said, gesturing to Parker, “must be the real enemy since you’ve been completely lame ever since he showed up.”

  “Seriously? You're turning this from hazing the nerd into a personal attack on your best friend?” I asked, not sure where her anger was coming from . . . and also using the term “best friend” loosely.

  “Oh, don’t act like you haven’t been a complete loser ever since we accosted this dork at the café.”

  Accosted.

  Good word.

  I didn’t think Tawny knew what that meant. She must have been studying behind my back.

  “I haven’t been different at all,” I said defensively, mad that all of my hard work to appear “normal” wasn’t exactly paying off.

  How did she know how to push my buttons so well?

  “Ugh, whatever. I don’t even know why I bother defending you,” she said slowly, her dark eyes burning a hole through my head as she spoke. “Maybe it’s a good thing the dork has a crush on you, since you can’t hold onto an acceptable boyfriend, huh?”

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked, rage beginning to build up inside of me.

  Oh yeah, I was about to do some massive DPS here if she didn’t watch it.

  “Tawny, I know about you and Zane, all right? I never said anything because I’m such a good friend,” I told her, wondering how it made me a good friend to turn the other cheek while my best friend cheated with my boyfriend.

  It was backward logic, but in The Squad, it made sense, as was evident by the sea of blonde heads nodding in solemn agreement to my statement. It wouldn’t surprise me if Tawny had taken all of their boyfriends too and just “forgotten” to tell me about that charming personality trait of hers.

  “Oh please, Reagan. You didn’t say anything because you knew there was no way you could get Zane to pick second-rate you when he could have perfect me,” she said with a smile.

  Parker looked over at me apologetically, obviously feeling as though he had started this whole thing.

  I guess in a way he had, but right in that moment, before I did something way dumber than kissing a nerd in a closet, I was glad he’d started something by showing up to my school.

  I let out a guttural noise as I launched myself at Tawny, tackling her to the ground and landing a pretty impressive punch at the same time.

  “I hate you!” I yelled, trying desperately to hit her again but finding that almost all of my energy was spent trying to stave off her hits. She was surprisingly strong and fast for someone who spent a great deal of her time posing.

  “Regan!” I heard Parker yell. He tried to pull me off of her, but I was determined not to let her go. She was a life-ruiner! It was my job to show her that she didn’t have power over everyone.

  “Get off of me, you psycho!” she yelled.

  I could hear Zane and some voices I didn’t recognize from the quickly amassing crowd chanting, “Fight, fight, fight,” but I tried to ignore them, holding Tawny’s skinny wrists and trying to avoid the head butts she was now attempting to strike me with.

  Oddly enough, it kind of felt like being in the game. I was like the tank, taking the hits for the rest of the guild.

  Though, unlike the game, it actually hurt when I felt Tawny’s forehead make contact with my cheekbone with a sickening thud.

  Stars sprang to life in front of my eyes and the world suddenly went sideways for a moment before I heard the voice of our principal over the shouts of the cheering students saying, “Ms. West and Ms. Perez, I’d like to see you both in my office. Now.”

  14. LFG PST

  “Fighting, Reagan?” my mom asked incredulously as she drove me home from school.

  “I’m sorry,” I answered dully, holding an ice pack to my swollen cheek.

  It had stopped bleeding, luckily, but the bruises on my cheekbone only proved how inhumanly evil Tawny was. Who could do that with their forehead and not get hurt at all?

  “Suspended for fighting,” my mom repeated in disbelief.

  It seemed that if she kept saying it over and over again, she would suddenly understand how her perfect cheerleader daughter had suddenly gone berserk on a fellow member of The Squad.

  In Mom’s defense, she hadn’t ever seemed too thrilled about the idea of her daughter becoming one of the zombie-eyed cheerleaders but she wanted me to choose my own path, so she’d kept quiet about it. Now she was probably wholeheartedly regretting that decision, thinking that The Squad had turned me evil.

  Honestly, that was pretty close to the truth.

  “First the dress and the party, now fighting.”

  “Mom, I promise I’m not going crazy. I won’t be that after school special where the daughter suddenly gets a tattoo and starts doing drugs because she hates her mom or something,” I promised, already seeing the wheels turning in her brain. She thought I was losing it. “I’m not a bad person, I just have crappy friends.”

  “No, Reagan,” my mom interjected. “Your friends can influence you, but they can’t make your decisions for you. Everything you’ve done has been your own choice.”

  Ouch.

  That was a bit harsh, if not painfully true.

  It was quickly becoming obvious to me that my cowardice was a well-known element of my personality. Parker had pointed it out to me online, Tawny was well aware of it, and now my own mother was letting me know I had no backbone. I could only hope Cannon hadn’t heard that his sister was a coward. He was the only one who still sort of respected me.

  “It goes without saying that you’re most definitely grounded for this week-long suspension?” my mom asked rhetorically as we pulled into the driveway.

  “Yes Mom,” I answered dutifully.

  Entering the house that would be my cell for the next week, I contemplated just what Tawny might do to me when I got back to school. Would she go back to pretending everything was normal, or would she eat me alive for the black eye I had given her?

  Somehow, I didn’t exactly think Tawny would be the forgiving type.

  I walked up the stairs to my room, wondering how I had
let my anger get the best of me. For the past few years I’d been so good at pretending Tawny didn’t bother me, and now I was sentenced to solitary confinement because of her.

  “Oh, and Reagan?” my mom called up after me.

  “Yeah?”

  “No gaming while you’re grounded.”

  +++

  I knew I was in a lot of trouble and that it wouldn’t kill me to listen to my mom and stay off the computer, but somehow that didn’t stop me from waking up at midnight and logging on.

  Secretly, I hoped Parker would still be on and I could talk to him about everything that had happened that day—as Xandris, of course, not as Reagan. I still wasn’t quite ready to let my identity slip to him.

  Shoving a towel under my door so my parents wouldn’t see the light from my computer, should they happen to wake up, I sat in my well broken in desk chair and spun around to face the screen that was now informing me I had to wait for a patch to update before I could play the game.

  I sighed in annoyance as I scrolled through the patch notes, hoping that this inconvenience would at least yield some cool new features in the game, but as I scrolled, my mind wandered.

  Tawny had apparently noticed how different I was feeling ever since Parker moved to our town. Did that mean that she was on to my little secret? If she was, was there really any point in hiding my inner geek any longer? Chances were I’d be ostracized from The Squad upon my return to school anyway, especially since Tawny had somehow managed to only get suspended for two days whereas I was suspended for a whole week. That would give her plenty of time to poison The Squad against me.

  The whole thing just—oh! They added new hairstyles to the game in this patch!

  Right.

  Focus.

  I had to prepare myself for the worst when I went back to school the next week. More importantly, I had to decide what I would do in my worst-case scenario. Really, this could be my ticket out of plastic purgatory. I would most likely get picked on at school, but I’d probably be even happier than I was when I was a part of The Squad.