by Cassie James
“Can it be reversed?” I hear Brennan ask as I plant my hands on the granite bar top and try to catch my fucking breath. I don’t hear Tyler answer, but he must give some kind of response, because Brennan growls, “This is fucking bullshit.”
Several minutes pass where nothing else is said. I’m half tempted to kick the two of them out of my house so I can deal with my own bullshit in peace. The last thing I need is for them to question me right now, not when I’ve got fucking emotions running rampant through me. Because if I’m being honest with myself, even though I really don’t fucking want to be, it’s not my partner-in-crime Piper that I want. It’s that so sweet it makes me sick, tougher than she looks, shitty replacement Piper that I need. I’m not done with her yet.
“I don’t want another new Piper, I want our Piper. I want 2.0,” Brennan says, putting words to the same thoughts running through my head.
Tyler laughs humorlessly. “A little late for that.”
I turn back to face them at the same time Brennan lets out a growl. “Don’t either of you fucking dare try to tell me that you don’t feel something for Piper. There’s something about her…” He trails off, has to clear his throat before continuing, “We fucked up you guys. We should have been protecting her, and instead we were too busy fucking her and fighting her every step of the way. We owe it to our girl to fucking fix this. Somehow.” He sounds less and less confident the longer he goes on.
For a long moment, no one says anything. That’s confirmation enough. I’m obviously not the only one fucking gutted by these unexplainable feelings.
Brennan nods to himself. “Yeah, I thought so.” He looks from me to Tyler. “It’s fucked up, I get that. But we’ve got to figure out how to get our Piper back. Not the original. Not some weird goddamn hybrid. Whatever bullshit tension or jealousy or whatever the fuck is happening between has to go on the back burner until we figure out how to fix this. We get our girl back, then we figure out the other bullshit after. Deal?”
I’m itching to agree. To agree to anything, really, so long as it means getting what I want. And there’s no question about it—what I want right now is to get my fucking girl back.
“Jackie’s not going to make it easy,” Tyler points out quietly. He runs his hand over the back of his neck, his face set in grim determination. This is his way of letting us know he’s in. “Pretty sure she’s gone full-psycho now. She barely let me in the door, she was so spooked about something going wrong with the new replacement.”
Tyler and Brennan both look to me.
“Jackie Hawthorne can go fuck herself,” I bite out. “Let’s get our girl back.”
5
Piper
Somehow, I make it to Sunday night before I realize my phone is missing. I’ve been so caught up in going through my computer that I didn’t stop to consider how much my phone would probably add to the mix. Surely there’s something there that could help fill in the gaps of my memory. Particularly… the last few months.
I thought Tyler had to be wrong. I didn’t want to even consider what he was suggesting when he came by here telling me I’d been back since August.
My social media accounts hadn’t been touched since April. My school e-mail was suspiciously emptied. And I don’t have any new phone backups even though I know I back my phone up religiously. But then I found something that sent me scrambling in search of my phone. A photo from a party. Jude’s annual Halloween party—my favorite party. And there I was in the background, wearing the exact same dress as last year.
Anyone else might have missed it, just a flash of me in the background, passing by on the way to who knows where. Not me. I spent years obsessively searching myself out in pictures. I know I did that because I found a whole folder on my laptop where I’d circled pictures that had me in the background. Weird, and slightly obsessive, but undeniably something I kept up with.
I need to find my phone.
I dig through my school bag, but it’s devoid of anything interesting. Just fresh notebooks and my signature purple pens. Vanity—also empty. Purses. Empty. Dammit, where could it be? For a split second, I consider asking Mom, but there’s something in the back of my head that warns me that’s not a good idea. Because if what Tyler said was true, and I’ve already been back before… Mom deliberately kept that from me. And that means she can’t really be trusted. Which would explain a lot considering how totally deranged she’s been.
Giving up, I plop back onto the bed and pull my laptop into my lap. There’s got to be something else I missed. “Shit,” I mutter when I realize the battery’s dead. I frown as I look next to my bed where I thought I left my charger. Oh, right. Now I remember, I accidentally kicked it under the bed earlier. I kneel down in the floor and reach blindly under the bed, but my hand touches something that is decidedly not my laptop charger.
Are you kidding me? All this time, and my phone was under the bed, hiding like some kind of damned monster.
It’s dead, of course. I hastily plug it in on the charger next to my bed and hover as I wait for it to juice up enough to turn on. After what feels like an entire lifetime has passed, the screen suddenly flashes white and starts to come back to life. I can feel my whole body tense as I bark out a short laugh. I’ve got literally hundreds of notifications waiting for me. It’s going to take hours to weed through them all. Days, even.
I need to be smart about this.
If—and it’s still a big if—I’m not the first Piper replacement, to what lengths would Mom have gone through to hide that from me? One thing stands out, in particular. No school emails on my laptop. Rosewood Academy is infamous for spamming everyone with schoolwide announcements. If my email is still active, those should have been there. Mom might have had access to my computer, but obviously no one has touched my phone. I bypass the missed calls and texts and go straight for email. And there it is, right at the top.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:... An unrestricted view into a robot girl’s thoughts, MUST SEE.
Yeah, just like I thought. Mom’s been fucking sneaky, trying to erase my emails as if I wouldn’t find out about this some other way. Too bad for her, I’m much better at this game than she is. I have to scroll back through dozens of nasty replies to find the original message. I brush them all off, fuck these people for thinking they could take a swipe at me just because I’m not the original Piper. I’m still her, just with some… artificial upgrades. No different than plastic surgery, really. Like Tori’s nose job.
What the fuck?
No, seriously. What the actual fuck?
Whatever I thought I was going to find, this is a goddamn shock of epic proportions. The Thorns… ousted me? Me? And Tori, of all fucking people, was left leading The Roses? Doing a shitty job of it, too, if all of this is true.
They called me Silicunt. Thanks, Alton, you asshole. Of course he’d be the one to coin a stupid nickname like that. It gets worse, too, because Jude Alton didn’t just give me a dumbass nickname, he groped me. No one touches me without my permission. No one. Not ever. I can already feel myself plotting my revenge as my eyes land on a surprising name. Macie Wharton.
She’s not just mentioned once, either. She’s all over the document, the only person that apparently was on my side when I came back as… 2.0. God, that nickname is just as awful as the other.
“No one wants you, Silicunt. You’ll never be anything better than a cheap replacement for Piper.” I’m going to slaughter Tori Pruitt. And when I’m done, everyone will be thinking of her as the cheap replacement instead of me. How dare she think she could take my spot at the head of The Roses and talk to me like that without suffering serious consequences? That bitch clearly forgot her place.
Just when I think it’s surely not going to get any worse—it absolutely does. Because I did something real bad. Sex with Tyler? Totally makes sense. We’ve been dating for years, so despite how fucked up the circumstances were, it makes sense that we’d find our way back to bed together. Or rather, the floor. Whatever works
.
But Jude Alton? What the fuck did they do to me that would ever make me think that was a good idea? He took my… robot virginity. Is that a thing? Fuck. Tyler must be furious. Except, Tyler’s not the one apparently mad enough at me to send out what’s clearly some kind of internal diary. Brennan. What on earth did I do to sweet, sweet Brennan? Hell, I guess I should just be relieved that whatever it is, at least I didn’t sleep with him, too. Now that would be a real goddamn mess.
The worst part might actually be that Jude said I was only marginally better than a fleshlight. I’ll show you I’m better than a fleshlight, you fucking asshole. Wait, what? I have no idea where that fucking thought came from, but I swallow it down. I’m not fooling around with Alton again. That’s sure as hell not happening. Let him think whatever he wants.
“They can get on board, or they can drown in my wake. I’m tired of trying to calm the waters. Now, I’m ready to be the storm,” I read my own words aloud.
Funny, how I could say something so fierce and then end up cowering like a bunny instead. I barely survived my time at Rosewood, this log makes it so obvious. So what the hell was I fighting to stay there for? Why didn’t I just burn it all to the ground? I don’t understand 2.0’s motivations. And speaking of 2.0—does that make me 3.0? I have so many damn questions and no way of getting answers.
I wish I could call Brennan. He’s the one that put this whole email together, and based on the way some of the information seems spliced together, I’m sure this isn’t all of it. He could probably answer a lot of my questions. I wonder though, if I did something so terrible to him that he was willing to go out of his way to humiliate me like this, is there really any chance of him helping me?
I keep scrolling until something else catches my eye. Shit, did I really tell Macie Wharton I was into the idea of polygamy? “I do think I’d be comfortable in a relationship with multiple people. I don’t want to settle for one mediocre, middle of the ground relationship. And I shouldn’t have to.”
That makes… way more sense than it should. I try testing the concept out in my head, and without meaning to I trigger something that sends me down an internet hole on the merits of polyamorous relationships. I had no idea what a harem was before, but I sure as hell do now. Turns out, there’s even a whole genre of books dedicated to the idea that a woman shouldn’t have to choose just one partner.
Almost involuntarily, my eyes seek out the photo of Tyler and I that’s taped to the mirror of my vanity. We look happy. We look like two young people foolishly in love. I don’t have anything to necessarily suggest otherwise, but if things had been as good between us—them—as that picture suggests, would he really have slept with my replacement? I mean—me? Brennan’s email doesn’t exactly make it look like Tyler had any hesitation fucking his dead girlfriend’s android replacement.
I might think he’d just been buying into the idea of the replacement, if it wasn’t for the fact that I have cold, hard proof at my fingertips that he joined right in on making my life hell and trying to run me off. He didn’t want my replacement, but somehow slept with me anyway?
I’m just turning myself in fucking circles trying to make sense of all of this.
There’s nearly a month of time between when the log ends and now, but Brennan’s email was sent out less than a week ago. Seeing that gap in time really irks me, and only makes me want answers that much more. I push a frustrated noise out of my throat as I silence the phone and hide it in the pillowcase of one of my decorative pillows. It’s almost seven, and Mom for some reason has been adamant we all eat dinner together despite the fact that we never did that before.
My stomach churns with what I imagine is the android equivalent of nausea as I prepare myself for the farce I’m about to go downstairs and participate in. It’s a good thing there’s plenty of video from me visiting set a few times when Jude had acting roles, because I’m about to play my own role of a lifetime.
After that bombshell Brennan left for me, I have no idea right now who I can actually trust. Obviously not Mom and Dad, who had the nerve to fucking start me over like some kind of computer game. If I want to figure out what the hell’s been going on, it isn’t going to happen in this house. My best bet is to play nice with the parents tonight, so that nothing will stand between me and Rosewood Academy tomorrow.
Jackie Hawthorne might think she’s running things now, but she made one serious error when she decided she wanted to try for a 3.0. I’m more Piper than ever, and that means I know exactly how easily Jackie will bend to my will. Just as she did for her precious daughter.
She has no idea what the hell she’s in for. None of them do.
6
Piper
I stand in front of the back-lit mirror in my closet, running my hands over the pleats of my plaid skirt as I straighten it for what must be the hundredth time. I’m pretty sure Piper Hawthorne has never been nervous for school before, which means this feeling must be all me. Because I’m not just nervous—I’m terrified. I have no idea what I’m about to walk into.
Whatever was going on before I woke up as 3.0, it was apparently bad enough that my parents decided staring over was better than dealing with it. Though, to be fair, that’s some seriously flawed logic. What do they think everyone else is going to do? Just pretend nothing ever happened the way they’re doing?
It says a lot about Mom’s shitty mental state that this was the only plan she could come up with.
Still, I’m the one left facing the fallout of whatever happened, and it feels like I’m going into battle without any armor. If I just knew what went so terribly wrong, maybe I could still spin things in my favor. 2.0 might not have been able to handle what it means to be part of The Roses, but I can. I can take my spot back and put things back to order—first I just have to figure out what happened.
I scoff at myself in the mirror. Oh yeah, Piper? Is that all you have to do? I’m talking an awfully big game for a girl made out of silicone and mechanical work.
I take a deep breath as I finish dressing, buttoning my shirt carefully. There’s no room for any stupid mistakes today. I need to be in top form. I let myself consider my options. For some reason, I can’t stop thinking of Macie Wharton.
2.0 trusted her. That doesn’t mean I have to. After all, I have no way of knowing if she was involved in whatever mess led to Brennan releasing my personal files. She’d given up trying to text me while The Thorns had still been at it up the moment Tyler came by to check on me. That doesn’t seem to me like the kind of behavior fitting a bestie, top of the social hierarchy or otherwise. Besides, I’ve still got long ago messages with The Roses bitching about how Macie didn’t want to be one of us. That sort of brush-off can’t just be overlooked, no matter how she treated 2.0.
I’m sitting at my vanity a few minutes later when someone knocks on my door. I really wish people would stop doing that. This is supposed to be my oasis. I’m not interested in visitors. Especially when that visitor is— “Mom,” I greet her in a dry voice when she opens the door before I’ve given her permission.
I let my gaze barely brush over her before I turn my attention back to my hair and the hot curling wand in my hand.
“I need you to be downstairs and ready to leave by 7:45, okay? I’m meeting a client in Malibu at 9:00, and I don’t want to be late.”
I don’t bother looking up as I reach for the next section of hair to curl, focusing on not burning myself as I answer her. “You can leave whenever you need to for Malibu. I have a ride to school.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see her clutch the door handle so tightly her knuckles start to go white. “With who?” she snaps. I raise an eyebrow but don’t answer. “You didn’t ask my permission, Piper.”
The disdain that fills my face is real, and I don’t bother hiding it from Mom as I meet her eyes. “I didn’t realize I needed permission.” I roll my eyes haughtily when her mouth drops into a deep frown. “Puh-lease. You didn’t actually expect me to let you gi
ve me a ride to school, did you? Imagine what that would do to my reputation. It’s bad enough that I can’t drive myself.”
She hesitates, but doesn’t back down immediately like I’d hoped she would. “Who’s taking you to school, Piper?” she asks again, growlier this time.
I want so badly to keep pushing her buttons, but a mild sense of panic sparks in me. I can’t push her too far. She’s already proven once that she’s not above forcing me to give her a do-over until I’m a version of her daughter that she’s happy with. And if she starts me over again, I might end up more in the dark than I am now.
Alright, Jackie Hawthorne, what is that you really want from me? At the moment, she’s not accepting me acting like the original Piper, so maybe that means she needs a little Piper 2.0. I soften my face and offer a placating smile. She starts to melt for me immediately. Bingo. She’s gotten too used to 2.0, the one that did what she demanded mostly without question. The one that deferred to her. It’s weird how one minute she wants me to be as much like her real daughter as possible, and the next it’s like she’s waiting for me to act more like the original replacement. Make up your damn mind, woman.
This is a fine line I’m walking, more like a high wire than anything else. Swing to far to either side, and I run the risk of plummeting right over the edge. And in this particular acrobatic feat, there’s no safety net.
“Tyler’s giving me a ride,” I finally answer. “He offered Saturday night. It makes sense, people will expect to see us together. Right?” She has no choice but to nod. I can’t believe we’re seriously pretending like everyone doesn’t already know about me and—oh right, they all hate me, too.
