Pwned

  “I don’t know. I just wanted to talk, I guess?” I asked, though it wasn’t actually a question.

  I saw slight disappointment pass over his face, which made me wonder what he thought I had come over for.

  Boys.

  “Would you still like me if I wasn’t a cheerleader?” I asked.

  I hadn’t really expected to ask that question, and apparently it was just as unexpected to him as well.

  “Um. I don’t understand the question,” he said slowly.

  I could tell he was worried about giving me the wrong answer. He must have suspected that this was some sort of relationship test.

  “Would you still like me if I wasn’t popular?” I asked again, trying to rephrase the question.

  I wasn’t sure why I was even asking him this. Zane was shallow—I could readily admit that. He probably wouldn’t have looked twice at me if I hadn’t been on The Squad, prancing around school in my short skirts and winking at everyone I saw.

  “I’d miss the uniform, but you’re still hot,” he answered, both solidifying the depths of his shallowness and confirming what he thought an acceptable answer to that question would be.

  “Oh, great, Zane. Thanks for that,” I answered sarcastically.

  “Okay, don’t ask me questions if you don’t want an answer,” he stated simply, shrugging his shoulders and falling back into his bed.

  Sometimes he was so frustrating. In his defense, though, I wasn’t exactly being clear on what I wanted out of this conversation. To be honest, I didn’t even know what I wanted out of it. I just knew that I had been getting too lost in the imaginary world of my online game and it was starting to throw off my normal, everyday life.

  “Just forget it,” I finally said, even though I was pretty sure he had already fallen back asleep.

  Apparently, since I wasn’t there to offer anything more than confusing conversation, Zane had lost interest. I sighed into the darkness in frustration and took one last look around his messy room that smelled of cotton candy before leaving, pushing my troubled thoughts to the back of my mind.

  8. More Backstabbing Than a Guild Full of Rogues

  Tawny hadn’t ever told me what her plans were for Parker at the upcoming party, but she was definitely excited over something, which worried me. It was Friday night and we were out getting a manicure/pedicure after a long afternoon of shopping for our new party dresses.

  She had gone with a fire engine red mini dress that hugged her curves in a way that left little to the imagination. I had decided on a teal scoop back sequined mini dress with capped sleeves.

  At first Tawny was hesitant about me wearing a dress that covered my shoulders because, as she put it, I “had the collar bone of an anorexic ballerina.” That was apparently a good thing. But when she saw the scoop back and just how flattering my shoulder blades and back looked when on display, she took back her hate of the sleeves.

  “So, the party starts at nine tomorrow. Normally I’d say be there at ten, but that dorky kid will probably show up right on time and I don’t want to risk him disappearing on us,” Tawny said as she examined one set of bright red nails.

  “Plus, you don’t want to run the risk of Kimber pulling off your little prank without you there to appreciate it,” I added, trying to be my old self again.

  If I was going to commit to getting back on Tawny’s good side, I’d have to do it full-force, even if it meant hurting Parker’s feelings. Besides, he wouldn’t really know it was Xandris hurting his feelings; he’d just think it was some random snotty cheerleader doing it.

  “Very true,” she said with a happy grin in my direction. Apparently she was glad to have her old friend back. “What shoes are you going to wear? I think teal might be a bit over-the-top, considering the dress is so bright.”

  “I think I’ll wear the black stilettos,” I answered disinterestedly, glancing into my shopping bag to make sure the teal my nails were currently being painted actually matched the dress.

  “I don’t care how many times I say it, teal is definitely your color,” she said seriously.

  “And red is yours,” I added, thinking that statement was more true than she knew.

  When you looked at Tawny, you saw someone who was exotic, gorgeous, and completely devious. There was something frightening and powerful about her, and her beauty only added to that. She was the person you wanted to know, not the person you wanted against you.

  “So, what are we doing after this?” I asked, leaning my head back against the chair and closing my eyes. It was nice to be pampered sometimes.

  “I think I might just go home. You know, get some beauty sleep for tomorrow,” she said elusively.

  It was the first time Tawny had ever turned down an opportunity to go out at night, and it made me think maybe I hadn’t completely redeemed myself for my previous little slip-up.

  “Yeah, I need to get rid of these dark circles under my eyes,” I agreed, even though I didn’t have any dark circles under my eyes.

  It was always a safe bet to be self-deprecating around Tawny.

  “Shut up, you’re totally gorgeous,” she said with a roll of her eyes. Her flattery was far more unsettling than her insults.

  +++

  That night, I hung my new teal dress up so that none of the sequins would fall off before I got the chance to wear it. I glanced over at my computer and fought the temptation to log into Voyager’s Quest, even though it had been causing so much confusion in my life. I didn’t want to talk to Parker online tonight because it would only make my new resolve to phase him out of my real life too difficult.

  Besides, I wasn’t an angel by any means, but I couldn’t bring myself to be nice to him online the night before we were about to do something so mean to him . . . whatever that mean thing was.

  It definitely hadn’t escaped my notice that Tawny wouldn't clue me in on what we would actually be doing to Parker.

  She didn’t trust me anymore.

  Instead, I distracted myself by going downstairs and playing Cannon’s science game with him.

  My brother had nine flashcards laid out with different shapes, colors, and patterns on them and you had to find sequences that had two of the three categories in common. Once you found them, you’d say “match!” It sounded easy, but the game itself was harder than any strategy game I had ever played on the computer.

  Like I said, my brother was a genius. It was kind of annoying.

  “You’re going to a party tomorrow?” Cannon asked as we stared at the nine cards in front of us.

  I was pretty terrible at this game and he was always the first to find matches, but he gave me a shot by not taking any of the easy ones.

  “Yeah. Why?” I asked, using all of my concentration to find some pattern in the cards on our living room floor.

  “Are parties fun?”

  I abandon my vigilant watch on the cards to glance up at my nine-year-old brother. Obviously I wasn’t going to say he should go out to party, but he was smart enough to see through any lie I'd be tempted to tell.

  “Yeah, they’re pretty fun,” I said finally.

  “Why?” he asked, quickly adding, “Match!” before picking up his three cards and replacing them with three new ones, completely changing the game before I had a chance to see whatever match he had found.

  “I don’t know. It’s fun to be with friends, I guess,” I mumbled, trying not to be outsmarted by a nine-year-old.

  “Even if your friends are mean to you?”

  “My friends aren’t mean to me,” I lied, even though we both knew I did have mean friends.

  They weren’t really that mean to me, though, unless I got on their bad side . . . Which I was apparently doing lately.

  “Whatever you say, Reagan,” he answered, letting me know I wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “Match,” I said quickly, snatching up the few cards I had managed to collect.

  “You’re a smart person,” Cannon said without a hint of sarcasm.

/>   “Yeah, me and my one set of matching cards,” I joked.

  “I mean it. I know you pretend to be dumb so you can be a cheerleader, but you’re smart deep down.”

  I stopped short at his words, looking into his intelligent blue eyes that were identical to mine. It was weird to hear someone so young saying things so grown-up. All of the other nine-year-olds I had ever encountered were busy whining about what toys they got, or not wanting to go to bed when adults told them to.

  Cannon didn’t ever whine; he kept to himself and silently observed the world around him, picking up the details and storing them somewhere in his massive brain.

  “Would your friends be mad at you if they knew you were smart?” he asked, sounding almost like a child for the first time ever due to the simplicity of a question that actually resonated quite deeply with me.

  I heaved a sigh, thinking about my answer rather than just throwing out a quick joke to gloss over the question.

  “They wouldn’t be mad. They don’t hate smart people. It’s just not my role,” I explained with a shrug, realizing as I spoke how pathetic the truth really was.

  “Is that why they can’t know about the video games?” he asked seriously. “Match,” he added.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I said.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said my genius little brother who understood everything.

  I guess I forgot the fact that he was only nine, sometimes, and didn’t understand the complexities of making and keeping friends.

  “You’ll understand when you’re older,” I said, trying not to be condescending, since I knew that was Cannon’s biggest pet peeve.

  “I don’t think I will,” he answered seriously.

  We both stared at the cards laid out before us for a long time and I suspected neither of us were actually looking for patterns anymore. We needed a good excuse to be introspective for a while.

  “Reagan?” Cannon finally asked after our long silence.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do I need to stop being smart if I want to make friends?” he asked in his small, little boy voice.

  I looked at him with a sad smile—a boy so much younger than me, who still seemed to know so much more.

  “Not if you want to make good friends.”

  +++

  I couldn’t sleep that night thinking about what Cannon had said. I wondered if Zane and Tawny would be as accepting of my nerdiness as Cannon seemed to think they should be. Somehow I doubted it, but I had a small glimmer of hope in the back of my mind that because they had gotten to know me as “cool cheerleading Reagan,” they could look past any nerdy obsessions I might have. Maybe they would shrug them off as some weird quirk I possessed, like Tawny’s constant posing.

  Maybe my small glimmer of hope was more like a fading memory of hope. After all, Tawny’s posing was cute. My gaming was just . . . well . . . weird. Either way, I couldn’t sleep and felt like I should go talk to Zane again, since my last midnight talk with him didn’t exactly go as well as I had hoped.

  I snuck out the same way I had before and drove to his house, trying to go over what I would say to him in my head. It wasn’t like I was going to tell him I had the plague or something. I was just going to say, “Hey I have some hobbies that most people would consider slightly less than cool. What about you?”

  How wrong could it go, right?

  Feeling pretty good about the situation, I parked my car in front of his house, and then noticed something wrong with his normally empty street.

  Tawny’s red sports car was parked at the curb, right behind Zane’s black truck. I stayed completely still in my car for a moment, turning off the lights and killing the engine as I stared at it.

  “Maybe they’re getting ready to pull another prank on Parker,” I thought aloud, sounding even less convincing out loud than I had in my head.

  I wasn’t going to get all crazy over a car until I knew what was actually going on. I may have been a nerd, but I could keep my composure and not flip out like a psycho jealous girlfriend.

  Taking a deep breath and calmly getting out of my car, I walked through the crispy frozen grass to Zane’s window, readying myself for whatever I might see and convincing myself that I would soon be laughing at how paranoid I was.

  It was a little annoying that Zane and Tawny apparently felt the need to hang out without me, but that didn’t mean something was going on between them. They hated each other.

  I willed myself to glance through Zane’s window quickly, but instantly wished I could take the glance back and live in complete, blissful ignorance of just how horrible my friends really were.

  I could definitely confirm that Zane and Tawny weren’t “innocently” hanging out without me. They were sitting on his bed, looking like they were trying to eat each other’s faces off.

  It made me want to puke.

  Who knows what else had been going on with the two of them when I wasn’t looking.

  I felt the heat rise up in my cheeks as I strode across the frozen lawn in furious silence. I went to my car door but didn’t open it, feeling like the rug had been pulled completely out from under me. Here I was, being a complete snob to everyone just to impress two people who obviously didn’t care about me at all.

  Oddly enough, I was madder at Tawny than Zane. Zane was a jerk. Not only was he a jerk, but he was a shallow jerk who had readily admitted that he was only with me because I was pretty and popular. His treachery didn’t really surprise me as much as it should have.

  Tawny was the one I was truly pissed at.

  I knew she was an awful person, but I had always assumed I was safe from her complete lack of a conscience. We understood each other. I was one of the few people in this world she could stand, and even if I had been a little nicer lately and didn’t get as excited about destroying people’s lives as I used to, she still seemed pretty happy with me.

  I stood in the freezing cold in my sweats and tank top, trying to decide what I wanted to do.

  It felt like I had to do something.

  I wanted to run right back to Zane’s house, throw open the door and let them both have it, but unfortunately, I knew nothing I ever did would really faze Tawny, and the only thing that ever fazed Zane was his stupid truck that I now knew he loved more than me.

  Then the thought struck me.

  Not wasting any time to remind myself what a horrible idea this was, I grabbed my cheerleading trophy from nationals out of my trunk. It felt heavier in my hands than it had when The Squad won it. More powerful, like my status was the only weapon I could really use at this point.

  Gripping the base tightly in my frozen hands, I swung the trophy like a baseball bat at Zane’s headlights, not caring how much noise I was making on the silent, dark street.

  It took a few hits before the first headlight broke, and I moved on to the next, sending pieces of thick plastic and glass everywhere. I ignored the pain I felt when the little pieces of glass penetrated my thin slippers and cut the bottoms of my feet. Instead, I concentrated all of my energy on Zane’s windshield, deciding headlights weren’t quite enough punishment for him.

  When the glass finally broke, I took a step back on my now bloody feet and surveyed my handiwork with a satisfied grin before getting into my car and driving away into the night. I briefly considered leaving my cheerleading trophy in his front seat as a little calling card, before realizing I’d probably go to jail if I did that.

  I left Tawny’s car completely untouched, deciding I’d find a better way to get back at her. With Tawny, it was probably best if I remained subtle and pretended to be her friend for as long as possible.

  In fact, I’d be a better version of her than she was. If I had ever needed a good excuse to get out of the life-ruining business, this was it. Now I could just be horrible to one more person before taking control and being the person I wanted to be.

  I’d just have to play along until the perfect moment.

  9. Dungeons and Drama

&nbs
p; I spent the majority of Saturday trying to make myself perfect for the party that night. I had decided to wait a few days to officially end things with Zane so the whole truck smashing incident didn’t look too suspicious. I half wondered how he’d get to the party that night without a windshield, which made me grin up at the sun.

  I was lying on a blanket in our backyard in my teal bikini, soaking up a bit of sun so that my skin would be glowing for the party. I ignored the sharp pains I got periodically in my feet from all of the glass I had stepped on the night before, deciding that I would look at the tiny cuts as battle wounds. Something to be proud of. A symbol of how I was taking control of my life.

  I wiggled my sparkly teal toes in a satisfied way. I hadn’t gone completely psycho with my rage and revenge. I considered it a pretty good trade-off to stop being a jerk to everyone in exchange for only being a jerk to the two people who deserved it.

  Besides, I was pretty much done with getting back at Zane, and I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do to put Tawny in her place. Most likely whatever I came up with would be a much nicer punishment than she ever gave her poor, helpless targets.

  I spent the rest of the day in ultra-shallow mode, taking forever to curl my long blonde hair, apply my makeup, and get dressed for the party.

  By the time 8:45 rolled around, I looked flawless. I realize that was a pretty conceited adjective, but honestly, after taking that much time to be shallow and self-absorbed all day, anything less than flawless would be a waste of time.

  My sequined teal dress showed off my tanned legs nicely, ending a few inches above my knee. I’m pretty sure Mom would have a thing or two to say about that. My hair cascaded down my bare back in golden ringlets, and I had applied some liquid eyeliner so that the thin black lines curled up at the corners, making it look like I had cat eyes. The effect was very flattering, if I did say so myself.

  Honestly, even if I hadn’t looked that good, tonight was all about being confident and giving Tawny a run for her money. I’d have to stay alert if I was going to figure out the perfect way to exact my revenge.