Stuck With The Four Hotties

We go over the dance several times before coach calls for another break. After this, we’ll come out in groups of three and perform it in a row. Scores will be passed out, and after, members will be chosen for the team. I have to get on it. I have to invade their spaces. By lifting myself up, I put them down. And that’s their own problem. My success should have nothing to do with them, but it pisses the Bluebloods off. Infuriates them. When I succeed, they feel like they’ve failed. If that’s how they want to live their lives, I’m okay with that.

During the next water break, the entire crew heads over to worship at the Idols’ feet, leaving me alone with the bottles, duffel bags, and an entire span of time where nobody is looking.

Kiara’s orange bag, and Ileana’s black one are right next to me. Bending down, I move my own bag, so that it looks like I’m digging through it. Instead, I search through theirs. Kiara’s is empty save for her clothes and some condoms. But in Ileana’s … there’s a half-empty bottle of ex-lax.

I knew she was up to something over here. That bitch.

A shadow moves over me, and I jump, but it’s just Zack.

“Do it, quick,” he tells me, using his huge body to block me from the view of the Idols. While I’ve got a chance, I quickly dump Ileana’s water into my own duffel bag, hoping the moisture resistant material will hide what I’ve done. It’s worth the sacrifice. I pour the remainder of my own water into her bottle, and let fate take its course. If she hasn’t messed with my water, she’ll be fine.

If she has, she’s screwed, and it’s her own damn fault.

Zack moves out of the way just as I place Ileana’s bottle back, and she appears on his left side.

I sit down and change out of my sneakers, grabbing a pair of socks that’ve managed to escape the water fiasco, and pretend like this is what I was doing all along. Ileana chugs her water and wipes her arm across her mouth as I stand up. She moves toward us, a horrid smirk twisting her pretty features into something ugly.

She doesn’t get a single word out before Zack is inserting himself between us and moving me behind him. I don’t need his help, and frown, but he does it anyway.

“What? Are you her pet now, too?” Ileana asks, tossing her long, blond ponytail. “She spread her legs for you nice and good?”

“You should shut your mouth,” Zack whispers, his voice so dark and cruel that I shiver. “You should kill yourself, Marnye. Nobody would Fare. In faFt, we’d have a party Felebrate.” My mind shuts that down quick, locks the bad memory away, and tosses the key. That’s the last thing I need to be thinking about right now. “And keep it closed before you say something that really pisses me off.”

“What, you gonna hit me or something?” Ileana asks, stepping forward and getting in Zack’s face. I move around to stand beside him and catch a glimpse of the darkness that skirts across his expression. It’s ominous and chilly, and I realize then that the side of himself he turned on me is still very much there, crouching inside of him like a demon waiting in the shadows.

“No, but you’ll wish I had, when I’m done with you.” He looks her up and down, and then grins. Only it’s not like a grin I’ve ever seen from him, not even when he was making my life a living hell at LBMS. No, this is glee in the maliciousness, something he never displayed to me before. “Why don’t you tell everyone why you have those bruises on your inner arms? What sort of naughty things did you get into this summer? Because those are most definitely needle marks.”

“I had tests done,” Ileana blurts, but her face is reddening, and I can’t tell if she’s just embarrassed or if Zack is telling the truth.

“What kind of tests?” Zack presses, stepping even closer and putting his hands on her upper arms. Ileana shivers, but when she scowls, it’s as nasty an expression as it ever was. “Surely, that’d be an easy question to answer … if you were actually telling the truth. What was it, really? Meth? Heroin? Careful, Ileana, your trailer park is showing.” Her eyes widen, and I can see Zack’s struck a nerve. He’s good at that, though, and I get no pleasure out of watching him destroy someone else with his special talent. No, it hits too

close to home. As awful as Ileana is, I can’t watch this anymore. “Did you know her parents got cut off from their fortune once, just like I did? They ended up in a trailer park, high on drugs and out of their-”

“Zack.” Just that one word from my mouth, harsh and final. Rule #6: Know when enough is enough. “Go back to the judges’ table.”

He stares at me for a moment, and then moves around Ileana.

I reach for her water bottle, but she jerks it out of my hand and spits on me. Literally. Spits right into my palm.

“Keep your grubby whore hands to yourself. The last thing I want is to get chlamydia.”

“No, you’re more likely to catch that from Tristan,” I blurt into the silence. This tension settles over the room as Coach walks back inside with a duffel bag bursting with pom poms. She sets it aside as I turn and meet Tristan’s gray gaze from across the room. He’s stoic and unmoving, looking at me like I’m a fly that needs to be pinned to a board and left to squirm.

I stare right back.

Ileana tips her water bottle to her lips and drinks deeply. She makes a weird face, and I wonder if the ex-lax has a taste. Unfortunately for her, she doesn’t seem to make the connection.

Coach assigns her, me, and Kiara (go figure) into a group for the official tryout portion. Ileana doesn’t make it through two minutes before she grabs her stomach and flashes me a look of terror. I don’t stop dancing as she runs off toward the restrooms.

I’m not sure when she comes back, but when she does, I’ve already been measured for my uniform.

On my way out of the gym, I meet the stare of every Blueblood in that room-paying special attention to the three Idol guys-and then I flip them off and heaCopyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

d outside into the starlight.