He stuffs the money into his pocket and adjusts his taped glasses. “Make your boyfriend take it first, okay? So you’ll know not to if he drops dead.”
I laugh. “That’s friendly.”
Grady shrugs. “I don’t really care what happens to him. See you around, Sarah.” Then he turns and walks away. For all my glossing over Grady’s drug dealing, there’s a darkness to it that I never really considered. Grady sells drugs because he honestly doesn’t care about the people who take them. And why would he when they’ve done way worse to him over the years than not give a crap?
I curl my fingers around the bottle of Dexid. Things are going to get better for kids like Grady, I tell myself. I leave the athletic center feeling as though Wes and I truly are doing a public service.
I’ve scored ten pills off Grady. That night, we use five: two for Wes and two for me to add to the pill we get at the clinic. The last one is for Kiara.
I review our plan, treat it like a play from a playbook, repeat it until I know it by heart. The set up: drug Kiara, dose ourselves with extra pills to get even better control, find Kiara in Grand Central, follow her into her dream. Then for the main event: jump into her commuter body in the dream and wake up in her actual, flesh-and-blood body in real life. Control her, make her do what I want. And when I’m finished with her, exit her sleeping carcass and return to the train station.
Whether it’s the anticipation of a perfectly planned attack or the addition of yet another pill, I can’t say, but my body feels electric as I lie on the cot at the clinic, waiting for the Dexid to kick in.
Heat emanates from my skin.
Static crackles at my fingertips.
Electricity pulses beneath my eyelids as
they…
slide…
shut.
• • •
I come to in the station. Wes is already waiting for me, a smile that’s more dopey than dangerous plastered on his face. It matches mine. We come together behind a tottering Kiara and, hand in hand, we follow her into her dream.
It’s a gothic rave where thumping music meets weeping angels and gargoyled cathedral spires. Though I know her as a party girl and bully, Kiara’s super religious and overachieving tiger mom and professor dad have always seen their little straight-A student in the unblemished white that she wore at her first communion.
“I think this girl has some serious issues to work out,” I say as Wes leads me through the sweaty crowds to a pulpit where Kiara is dancing seductively with a priest.
“Ready?” he asks.
I nod, and he pulls me to him for one final intoxicating kiss. Then he shoves me backward
and I free-fall
into Kiara’s body.
That first gulp of air after you’ve become someone else is frantic. By the time you acknowledge that your whole being has just contracted into what seems like an infinitesimally tiny ball, it is already expanding again, birthing into the unfamiliar shape of someone other than you. In an instant, you must learn to see through their eyes, touch with their skin, and breathe with their lungs. I can only imagine that this breath is akin to that of a newborn baby, trying out this oxygen thing for the first time. It is desperate, painful, confusing, and, above all, terrifying, because what if it doesn’t work?
But then it does.
My gasps turn to even breathing, and it’s time to get down to business. I throw off Kiara’s covers and go straight for the bottle of Jack I remember she used to boast she kept in a shoebox at the back of her closet. The plan is to expose her for the heathen that she is. To get her so plastered that, when her parents find her in a less than saintly position, they send her away for conversion therapy or an exorcism. If I can find a diary that exposes some of her less-than-Christian acts, all the better. But as I rummage around for her stash, I come across something way more damning.
Hidden beneath a pile of Bible camp T-shirts is a legal-size metal box secured by a tiny diary lock. I grab a nail file from Kiara’s dresser and jimmy the lock open in no time. It strikes me that a girl on track to being named salutatorian should be smarter than to use such a flimsy lock, but when I see what’s inside, all other thoughts flee.
If there’s one place Kiara Taylor’s parents want their daughter to get into more than heaven, it’s Harvard. I never questioned Kiara’s good grades or Ivy League ambitions. Almost all the girls on my team are fierce competitors in sports and academics. But as I sit in her body on the floor of her closet and sort through paper after paper of stolen answer keys and essays written by other people, I realize what a long con she’s been playing.
There’s pre-calc homework forged by the mathletes, civics papers from the valedictorian. There’s even a poetry assignment written by the sophomore who kick-started our new lit magazine. And a sheet of paper I can only describe as a ledger matching every IHS student Kiara’s bullied into letting her cheat off them to the work they’ve done on her behalf. When did she graduate from taking kid’s lunch money to shaking them down for their smarts?
Instinctively, I grab her phone and hold it above the trove of incriminating evidence. But as my finger hovers over the camera icon, I pause. Judging from her ledger, Kiara’s been using our classmates for years. If I expose her, won’t I be damning them too?
The clock on her phone advances another minute. I have to make a decision. So I do as Kiara would.
I snap pictures of every bit of evidence there is. Then I upload everything that doesn’t specifically mention her accomplice-victims by name to her Instagram account under the post, “Let the punishment fit the crime.” Everything else, including the ledger, I e-mail to Wes, being sure to delete the sent e-mail so she can’t track his involvement. Then I write Kiara an e-mail from her own account to herself: Bring anyone else down with you, and we’ll post the rest.
I hit send and toss her phone onto her bed. I gather up all the papers and stuff them back in the metal box, careful to return it to its hiding place at the back of her closet. As I return to the open space of her bedroom, I catch sight of us in a mirror. Defiantly, I look directly at the gorgon whose head I’ve just lopped off.
I sit back on Kiara’s bed and wait to leave her body and return to her dream.
I wait.
And wait.
There’s no twinge of a seizure, no hint of an exit. I start to panic. Is it the extra Dexid that’s keeping me here, tethered to Kiara’s reality when I just want to get out? I get up and pace the room. What if her parents come in? What if I get stuck inside Kiara and can never escape? Would I have to be her forever? I kick myself for ignoring Grady’s warning, for my hubris in thinking I had everything figured out. I doubled down on a drug that I know absolutely nothing about. Scratch that. I know plenty about it, and none of it is good. How could I be so stupid as to take the drug that makes me conscious in unconsciousness, that allows me to body-snatch my classmates and ask for more, please? I have offended the gods, and my punishment is to be trapped in the body of a bully-hypocrite-cheater for the rest of my life.
My jaw locks, and my chest constricts. I try to calm myself with deep breaths, but my breathing is simply too erratic to get a lock on. Think, Sarah, think. Was there something that brought on the seizure when I was in Grady’s body? Anything I saw when Wes sent Gigi into an epileptic fit? Fear? Distress? Check to both, but I am still here. What about Gigi? What was I feeling when I began to shake out of her—
I stop pacing. I didn’t exit Gigi’s body the same way I left Grady’s. In Gigi’s dream-walk, I was mad. I fought my way out.
I turn and walk to the far end of Kiara’s room, gearing up for the self-inflicted violent act that will separate me from my host. Then, in one utterly graceless move, I hurl her figure at the wall, tripping on my way and knocking myself out of her body as her head crashes into the blush-colored sheetrock.
Whoosh.
Pop.
I am back in Kiara’s dream. Wes is hovering near me, keeping a solid distance between himself and the two Burners that are lurking on the dance floor. Grabbing his hand, we run from them, through the crowd and out of the church-cum-club into the street-lamped twilight of an eroding metropolis.
As it was in Gigi’s dream, the more distance we put between us and the dreamer, the less the Burners seem inclined to follow. When we are far enough away, I pull Wes down a deserted alley and shove him against a damp concrete wall. The rush of revenge—and getting away with it—turns me into a predator. Wes has no complaints.
We kiss and pant and fumble and grunt until waking separates us.
Chapter Seventeen
At school, everyone’s talking about Kiara’s confession. I’m running late from the clinic, so I don’t make it in time to see her escorted from first period English to the principal’s office. But as it turns out, I’ve only missed the coming attractions.
Wes intercepts me on my way to homeroom and leads me toward the admin office, where we loiter at the far end of an unusually crowded hallway. While some of the kids legitimately have to be there because their lockers are located in what’s suddenly become prime real estate, most of our fellow gawkers are like us: desperate for a ticket to the circus.
A miserable-looking Kiara sits on a bench just outside the office as Principal Hatch ushers her parents inside. Though she surveys the crowd with a fierce evil eye and, at one point, even puffs out her chest and snarls an intimidating, “What’re you looking at,” no one backs away.
While everyone is fixated on what’s about to emerge from the office though, a tornado strikes from the opposite direction. Amy Lawrence, valedictorian and author of many of Kiara’s forged essays, comes stomping down the hall.
Her cheeks are flushed, and her ponytail’s coming loose. She stops beside Kiara, her legs shaking so violently, it’s a wonder she can stand. The whole crowd inches forward.
“Why would you do this?” Amy hisses. “Why would you go public?”
“Are you stupid?” Kiara snaps. “Obviously, someone found my stuff and uploaded it. Was it you?”
“What?” Amy cries in disbelief. “If they find out about me, I’m in as much trouble as you are!”
“You’re right,” Kiara says flatly. “You are.”
Though I can see Kiara’s threat for the impotent, last ditch power play it is, to the already tightly wound, type-A Amy, it’s the final straw that doesn’t just break the camel’s back but eviscerates and desecrates it.
“You can’t,” she shrieks. “You can’t do this to me. I could get suspended! I’ve done everything you’ve ever told me to. You can’t take my future away from me. I won’t let you. I won’t—”
“Shut up,” Kiara says, getting to her feet. She towers over the girl, who flinches, but it turns out there’s no need. Kiara’s shoulders are hunched, her hands clasped tightly at her chest, as if in prayer. Her lips are dry, her eyes pleading. For once, Kiara Taylor isn’t scary but scared. “No one’s going to suspend you. I destroyed all the evidence, okay? I’m not going to say anything. No one is. There’s no proof, so if we all deny it, it’ll be like this never happened, and everything will go back to the way it was in time for midterms.”
I stop breathing. Is it possible? Will Kiara walk free?
As if answering my silent query, Amy shakes her head. “Back to the way it was for midterms?” she asks. “No. I’m not going back.” She turns to address the crowd. “The first time Kiara copied my homework was in fifth grade. After I told my parents, she broke my glasses on the school bus for being a snitch.” She looks back at Kiara. “You told me to tell them I tripped or the next time you’d break my wrist. So I did, and after that, you owned me. I’ve done everything you’ve told me to every day since. For almost eight years. Eight years! Well, now it’s over.”
We all stare, stunned, trying to process what Amy’s saying. Could she actually be threatening Kiara? Could it be that, by simply articulating the truth of the way things work around here, the meanest of mean girls has unwittingly pushed Amy over the edge of hysteria and into the valley of blind courage? As the valedictorian moves toward the door of the office, Kiara grabs her arm. I take a step toward them, but Wes holds me back.
“Please,” Kiara pleads. “Please help me.” Her voice is shaking. She begins to cry. “You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know my parents. The pressure I’m under. What they’ll do if they find out. I’m begging you, Amy. Please.”
Kiara isn’t a good enough actress to be faking this. And even I feel a pang of empathy tug at my breast.
But Amy has endured too much abuse to be moved. She yanks her arm free and says, “Tough. You’re right. I probably won’t get suspended. But even if I do? It’ll be worth it if it gets rid of you. Besides, I’m guessing that once I tell them about the years of psychological torture and physical intimidation I’ve suffered at your hands, I won’t even get a slap on the wrist. Who knows?” she says with sudden, surprising sass. “Maybe if I throw in a nervous breakdown, I’ll get an extra free period.”
Amy straightens. “I can’t believe I forgot that I’m the smart one. And you, Kiara,” she says as she smooths her ponytail. “You’re done.”
With that, Amy throws open the office door and marches inside.
Kiara stares at the spot where Amy stood in disbelief. I wonder if I should feel bad that Amy’s going to be implicated in Kiara’s takedown. But as I watch the smartest girl I know stand taller than ever before, I am convinced she’s going to be more than all right. Amy Lawrence has blossomed into a badass in front of my very eyes.
Kiara doesn’t move. She stares at the office, catatonic.
And we can’t have that.
I catcall from the far end of the hall, and she snaps her head in my direction. Raising my phone, I take a picture. I wave good-bye as Wes slips his arm around my waist, and we strut off to homeroom.
“One down, one to go,” he growls into my ear once we’re out of sight.
“This totally turns you on, doesn’t it?” I tease.
“Mean girls getting schooled? I can take it or leave it. What turns me on,” he says as we round a corner and he pulls me to a row of deserted lockers, “is seeing you on a power trip.” He gently pushes me against a locker and brings his lips to my neck but doesn’t touch. They hover less than an inch away from my skin, and my toes curl in that blissful agony of anticipation. “No qualms, no regrets, all Dark Phoenix.” He exhales hotly, and my skin is on fire. “Guys who can’t get behind a powerful woman have no idea what they’re missing.”
I close my eyes as his mouth lands on my skin and the tips of his teeth nip at my neck.
“Tonight,” he whispers between nibbles. “Let’s do four pills. Really get in there. Do some damage.”
“I think we’re doing plenty of damage,” I purr. “Three was pretty intense.”
“Pfft,” his breath dismisses. “What’s a little nightmare in exchange for making your real-life dreams come true? The low may be sub-basement, but the high is a mile above the Empire State Building. Let’s see what we’re really capable of.” Suddenly, his nuzzling stops cold. He pulls his mouth away and looks at me, perplexed eyes through thick lashes. “Unless you’re afraid you can’t handle it?”
I know instantly that he’s calling me chicken. That he’s using the oldest trick in the book to get me to do what he wants. I know I am smarter than this, and so my first instinct is to dig in my heels and be the living embodiment of the reverse psychology fail. But the truth is, I am kind of curious about what more Dexid might feel like. The extra surge of control that just a couple more pills gave me turned out to be the difference between an awkward bump and grind in Grady’s body and the graceful choreography of Gigi and Kiara’s sleepwalking ballets. And now that I know how to get myself out of the dreamer’s body, why not gi
ve it a try? Why not find out what I can do with more of this wonder drug in my system? So I say, “Four it is.” And I pull Wes’s mouth to mine and choke down any reservations.
It only takes a moment of making out until I am once again losing track of our environment. Then a throat clears beside me. Mrs. French stands in the doorway of my homeroom, looking about as interested in teenaged lust as I am with her insistence that taupe is a legitimate color.
Wes takes his time pulling away from me and says, “See you in my dreams.”
When I finally, reluctantly, let his hand go, I stride into the classroom, past Mrs. French as if she isn’t even there.
Parking myself at my regular seat for the remaining five minutes of homeroom, I pull out my cell phone and bring up the photo of Kiara, playing with different filters in an effort to best highlight her fall from grace. I’m laughing at a particularly comedic manga version of the scene when someone says, “Oh good. I need a laugh. What’ve you got?”
Jamie leans over me, planting his hands on the back of my chair, and I look up into his eagerly smiling face.
“I call it Mean Girls: They’re Just Like Us!” I say, laughing.
He cringes.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he replies. “It’s just, I didn’t think you’d get such a kick out of seeing someone publically flogged, given recent events.”
“Uh, it’s Kiara,” I snarl. “I think I can make an exception in her case.”
Jamie doesn’t say anything.
“Look, if anyone has it coming, it’s her,” I continue. “Did you know she’s been shaking down Amy Lawrence since middle school? Poor girl’s a wreck. I just saw her go into Hatch’s office to confess everything.”
“Whoa,” he says. “That’s awful. Middle school? That’s years. I can’t believe how many people are going to be hurt by this.”
“You mean by Kiara,” I correct, my tone acidic. “Hurt by Kiara.”
“Well, yeah,” he says, shrugging. “Including Kiara. She’s pretty much screwed up her own life too.”
Sleeper Page 12
