Charlie shook her head. For a moment she couldn’t believe that she was really trying to force the love of her life on a super-eligible bachelorette. “He doesn’t want me anymore,” she managed. “He likes you.”
Allie J squinted like she was trying to spot Charlie in the distance.
“‘Boys come and go, but in the end I see, it’s my friends who complete me…’” she said, quoting the chorus of “I Like My Boys Like Salad Dressing—On the Side.”
“Huh?” Allie J blinked in confusion.
“Do you even believe your own lyrics?” A spray of water found its way into Charlie’s mouth. She spit it out.
A look of panic crossed Allie J’s pretty face. “No I-I do,” she stammered. “Of course I do.”
“Then you understand what I’m talking about. Darwin was my whole life. And now that we’re done, I have nothing. I want to move on. I want friends.”
“Fine,” Allie J. said. “But we should include Skye, too. She’s been depressed about her ankle and…” Her voice trailed off for a second. “And the fact that we kinda accused her of being the spy.”
“That’s fine,” Charlie agreed.
“But no Triple,” Allie J added quickly. “She might tell.”
Charlie smiled. “Deal.”
Allie texted Skye, and just a few minutes later, Skye limped through the bathroom door, blond waves bouncing around her shoulders.
“Um, knock knock,” Skye rapped on the stall door. “What are you guys doing in the shower? Together.”
“Come in!” Allie J pulled Skye into the steamy fold, then broke the news that C IS SPY via shaving cream.
Skye stomped her foot in a lavender-scented puddle. “I told you it wasn’t me!” She looked more relieved than surprised. “So who are you going to turn in next? My ankle is getting much better, by the way. I can show you.”
“Don’t worry.” Allie J turned up the pressure on the shower so that it ran at a loud hiiisssssssssss and leaned in. “That’s the point. She’s on our side. She’s gonna to help us see the boys.”
“Why would she do that?” Skye asked Allie J, as if Charlie weren’t sitting right there.
“Because she’s not as bad as we thought,” Allie J explained.
Charlie’s insides warmed, and it wasn’t from the shower steam.
Skye sat down on the stall bench, downgrading her stare from murderous to curious. “Why are we talking about this in the shower?”
Allie J shot Charlie a nod-glance. Charlie lifted the gold skeleton key and winked.
“What’s that?” Skye asked.
“Shhhhhhh,” Allie J and Charlie hissed at the same time.
Charlie reached for the can. It was almost empty. She shook it twice and managed to eke out enough foam to write: TUNNEL BOYS.
Skye’s white-blond brows slammed together in bewilderment. “Ohmuhgud, what are you talking about?”
“Trust us, it’s good,” Allie J explained, and then mouthed, “Taz.” Skye’s brows drifted back into place.
“Why are you doing this?” Just as Allie J had, Skye asked the inevitable. Charlie couldn’t blame either of them.
“Because it’s like we’re living on some kind of reality show,” Charlie said quietly. “I’m tired of being watched and forced to compete against people who could be my friends. This ridiculous competition isn’t what anyone signed on for, and I want to do something about it. I want to go to a place where we can just hang out and be normal. Dial down the drama and—”
“Make out,” Allie J blurted, then dialed back her enthusiasm. “Sorry,” she said to Charlie.
“It’s okay, I told you. We’re done.” For now, anyway.
Skye smiled radiantly. “When you put it that way… I’m in.”
“You have to agree to some things first.” Charlie smoothed her hands over the frizz formerly known as her hair. “First, no more Charlie Brown-nose.”
The girls nodded in agreement.
“Second, we trust each other completely.”
Allie J tried to write a check mark on the wall, but a little slanted foam line was all the can had left to give.
“And third, full disclosure about everything,” Charlie added, knowing that she was still holding back one more secret: Why she’d really broken up with Darwin. Or rather, how she hoped that one day in the future, when he’d grown tired of Allie J, they would still end up together. But that was hers to keep.
“Deal?”
“Deal,” the girls responded.
“So when are we you-know-what-ing with you-know-who?” Skye might have been as beautiful as a Bond girl, but the girl did not speak spy.
“Tonight,” Charlie promised.
A smile started to stretch across Skye’s face, but it stopped at a grimace. “Uh-oh.”
“What?” Allie J asked. Her eyes were as round as the pesos in the wall, as if she were anticipating major disappointment.
“Toes before bros,” Skye pouted. “I’m supposed to coach some dancers.”
“So meet us after,” Charlie suggested.
“Thanks.” Skye smiled brightly.
“Sure.” Charlie could feel her feet expanding from the heat, and if she wasn’t mistaken, her heart had a little more volume too. So this was what having friends felt like? “Let’s make a pact. What we’re doing is dangerous, and we need to have each other’s backs. We have to protect each other and our secret. To the grave!”
“The grave!” Allie J and Skye agreed.
Charlie didn’t bother hiding her grin. On a campus where everything was an illusion, she had finally found something real.
24
THEATER OF DIONYSUS
DANCE STUDIO
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 8TH
8:03 P.M.
Skye had been elevating her swollen ankle on the barre for the last twenty-eight minutes. It was the longest she had ever balanced flamingo style, and she imagined her muscles were aching pretty badly. But she couldn’t feel a thing. As always, pain faded into the background like a shy friend when she was doing what she loved.
“Lead with your torso, Tweety!” Skye shouted over the jazz music. “Not your head.”
Tweety nodded like she understood, then proved it.
“Perfect!” Skye called. “Did you feel the difference?”
“Totally!” Tweety chirped with glee. “Thanks!”
“What about me?” Ophelia asked, mid-pivot.
“Ever since we twisted your hair into Princess Leia buns your balance has been much better,” Skye called. “You’ve got it!”
“Now me,” Sadie pant-asked, her choppy Robot oiled to a smooth slice.
“Keep carving butter and Mimi will love it.”
With each critique, Skye could feel her inner alpha returning. Even the color of her ankle was fading from purple to rotten banana yellow–ish brown.
“Prue, what are you chewing?” Skye winced.
Prue blush-swallowed. “A bran bar.”
“Why?” Skye asked, and then remembered Mimi’s suggestion. “I don’t think she literally meant ‘loosen up.’ She probably wanted to see more hips and less spine. Can you try that?”
Prue swayed like Shakira, practically knocking out a window with her sharp ilium bone. It was clear the ballet prodigy was having a hard time adapting to the free flow of jazz.
“Okay.” Skye took a patient inhale. “Imagine your hips are a pot filled with water,” she tried. “What you want to do is shake the water from side to side without spilling it. Try again.”
Prue tried and spilled.
“Again.”
Spuh-lat! Prue spilled.
“Again.”
Prue sloshed and wobbled and spilled…
… and then she got it.
Everyone burst into applause.
“Yes!” Skye shouted, good tears pinching the back of her eyes. She wanted to dance for joy but settled for a series of enthusiastic single-leg knee bends. “Music louder!” she commanded. “Let’s keep going.�
��
Sadie launched into a tour jeté–pirouette followed by a donkey kick.
“Ride the beat, Sadie, don’t just hit it!”
Sadie smiled her thanks.
All of a sudden, a series of vibrations shocked through Skye’s leg. Ohmuhgud! Were her limbs seizing? Had she just fulfilled her destiny? Was it time to die? She forced herself to make eye contact with the site of the leg shake, fearing the worst about what she would find there.
Instead of a gangrenous thigh, Skye saw the aPod in her hip holster, flashing in emergency mode. She had five urgent messages. Every one of them was from Charlie. Most of them said WHERE R U????? The other two were something about a map.
Skye’s forehead stung with how could I possibly have spaced on this sweat. It was almost 9:00 p.m. She’d been so wrapped up in the session, she’d completely lost track of the time. But wait—hadn’t she just made a pledge with herself? Toes before bros? Now here she was cutting the lesson short to sneak off and see Taz. But it was more than Taz. This was about the new pact she’d made with Charlie and Allie J.
Or at least that was what she told herself.
“Music off!” Skye clapped sharply. “Okay, you’re done. Mimi is going to be so impressed.”
“Wait!” Ophelia cried. “My turnout isn’t quite right yet.”
“Yeah, and my leaps still have lead,” Sadie whined.
Skye’s ankle began throbbing. She felt more torn than cheap tights. “I really have to go.”
“Where?” Prue stiffened. “Did your spy signal beep?”
“Huh?” Skye squinted like she was hard of hearing.
“We heard you were the spy.” Ophelia loosened her side buns. “And it kinda makes sense. You’re useless with that ankle, but you’re still here. It sort of adds up. Why else would Shira keep you?” She shook out her thick black hair. “No offense.”
“Um, is coaching you useless?” Skye managed, despite what felt like a balled-up leg warmer in the back of her throat. “’Cause from where I’m limping, you needed more saving than the beluga whales.”
“Then why are you going?” Sadie zipped up her silver sweatshirt and flipped the metallic hood over her head.
“I just have to do something, okay?” The backs of Skye’s eyes pinched again, but this time it was the bad tears. The girls who’d just been hanging on her every word were now hanging her out to dry. It hurt like doing the splits in skinny jeans.
“What?” Tweety asked, cocking her ample head. “Like spy?”
For a split second Skye considered dropping Charlie’s name to clear her own. But they’d made a pact. There had to be another way. “I’m not the spy, okay?” She sniffled.
“Oh, cry me a Riverdance,” Prue challenged. “Prove it!”
“Fine!” Skye snapped, reaching for her aPod. “I will.”
Skye: B there in 5!
Her thumb went white as she rage-pressed the SEND button. “Let’s go!”
Skye hobbled out of the studio with a pack of four dancers following her lead, possibly for the very last time.
25
ALPHA ACADEMY
THE DARK
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8TH
8:28 P.M.
The night air smelled like a passing rainstorm even though it had been sunny all day.
“So how do you know so much about this place?” Allie scurried to keep up with Charlie as they darted across the dark campus. Charlie had somehow orchestrated a campus-wide blackout to keep the surveillance camera from seeing them. Even the moon was cooperating.
Charlie stopped and looked squarely into Allie’s green eyes. “Truth?”
Allie nodded earnestly, like truth was something she practiced every day. Ha!
“I invented a lot of this island.”
“Liar!” Allie blurted. “There’s no way! I assumed Shira brought in some inventors from the future.”
“Nope.” Heavy sadness fluttered over Charlie’s eyelids, forcing them downward. “More like someone from her past.” She swallowed. “But Shira can never know. She thinks it came from her research and development team. If she found out I used her lab…” Charlie finger-sliced her neck. “The people who need to know about my… abilities… do. And that’s enough for me.” She blinked like she was lying to herself. Of course she wanted Shira to know. Who wouldn’t?
Allie studied Charlie’s face for the first time. It was perfectly symmetrical. Her skin was clear. Her dark eyes were soothing. Her lips were full (enough). She was like that sketch of a woman’s face Allie had once gotten at the MAC counter. The makeup artist had brushed colors over the sketch’s eyelids, cheeks, and lips, demonstrating the proper way to apply the latest palates. Once she was done, the drawing’s bland features came to life. In Charlie’s case, it wasn’t makeup that had brightened her face—it was skill. And it upgraded her beauty to the kind people wanted to stare at.
Just like Trina with her art.
“Honest-leh,” Allie exclaimed. “This is amazing. You’re so… smart. I can’t believe Darwin broke up—” She stopped herself before her callused bare foot got stuck in her mouth. But it was too late.
Charlie smiled like someone about to cry, then picked up the pace.
“I didn’t mean that. Well, I did, but I didn’t mean to mention him.” Allie scampered behind like an eager puppy. “It’s not like he’s into me anyway,” she panted, immediately regretting her insensitivity. Charlie, of all people, should not be expected to stroke Allie’s ego. Not when it came to Darwin. But he was Allie’s hot stove and she couldn’t resist touching it. Even if it meant coming off as a self-absorbed lovesick desperado to her new friend who just so happened to be his ex.
Charlie unlocked the fence that protected the organic vegetable garden from salad-obsessed alphas. “Hurry, get in.”
Allie slipped in, almost gagging on the moist, muddy smell of earth—a smell often associated with slimy worms. Worms who were probably gearing up to wiggle over her bare feet and lay eggs under her toenails…
“So why do you think Darwin doesn’t like you anymore?” Charlie asked, closing the gate behind them. Allie considered asking where they were going but didn’t dare change the subject.
“He didn’t look at me in class the other day. Not once. And he never bothered to text after I bolted.”
Charlie led them through two rows of onions. “What happened to you?”
Allie shrugged. “Keifer hated what I wrote, and I was embarrassed. I’m, um, used to creating alone in the wilderness. And this feels like speed-dating, only with writing, and it’s not working for me. I’m blocked. So I ran off to reconnect with nature.”
The truth was, the muse from Oprah had found Allie sobbing under an açaí palm, and she’d pretended she was lost. She’d been thinking about how happy Darwin and Charlie’s toes had looked when they found each other in the sand. And now, standing in the shadow of Charlie’s genius, Allie felt like running all over again. How could she possibly impress Darwin when he’d had Charlie first? It was like buying makeup at Bath & Body Works after a lifetime of Chanel.
“I don’t even know why I’m on this secret mission. It’s not like he wants to see me.” Tears came all over again. At least this time she could blame it on the onions.
Charlie crouched down by a bed of lettuce. “What are you talking about?”
“I was supposed to meet him the other night—but he never showed.” Allie sniffled.
“I wouldn’t worry about how Darwin was acting.” She snapped off a crisp leaf of romaine and used it to clear away a soil pile. “Shira’s been tracking her sons with cameras. The feed goes straight to digital picture frames in her office. Darwin knew he was being watched and didn’t want to get busted, that’s all.”
A cool breeze snaked by Allie’s cheek and her heart lifted in her chest. “So he might still like me?”
“He definitely does.” Charlie didn’t look at her as she cleared away another scoop of mud. Traces of silver glittered between the brown mu
ck, and suddenly a hatch appeared. Charlie yanked the handle.
“Whoa,” Allie gasped, wishing she had a better vocabulary. But what else does one say when someone lifts up a hatch in an organic vegetable garden that leads to a seemingly endless, underground spiral staircase?
A new sense of purpose filled Allie. She wasn’t just along for the ride, hoping for one last look at a boy with a fetching lip freckle. She was back in the driver’s seat, speeding toward a make-out session with a boy who made Fletcher look like Tofurky—a less appetizing substitute for the real thing.
But it wasn’t just Darwin-joy that made her want to jump down the spiral steps two at a time. It was Charlie-joy, too. They were becoming friends, and it had been a while since she’d had one of those.
“Follow me.” Charlie slipped inside. “Leave the hatch slightly open for Skye.”
Allie shimmied in after her. “Eeeeeeeeee,” she squealed. “It’s freezing in here.” Her breath puffed from her lips like cigar smoke. She stepped onto the cold cement step, wondering what kind of bacteria lay in waiting. But an itchy foot was a small price to pay for love.
“Press alpha-H on your aPod,” Charlie whispered. “Your uniform will heat up.”
“Ahhhhhh.” Allie sighed like she was finally peeing after driving from California to Oregon.
“Shira thinks the cold will keep her skin from aging.”
“In bed.” Allie giggled.
Charlie giggled back.
“So how do we let the boys know we’re here?”
Charlie kept winding down the steps, her brown hair swishing back and forth across the back of her champagne-colored blouse. “Whenever Darwin and I snuck out to meet each other, I sent him a song from a fake e-mail address with an untraceable IP address.”
Allie felt a flicker of jealousy despite Charlie’s assurances. Charlie and Darwin had secret codes. She and Fletch hadn’t even bothered to coordinate ringtones. The most romantic thing they’d ever done was get matching highlights.
“So what was your song?” Allie asked like someone who never got jealous.
“‘We Belong Together’ by Mariah Carey.” Charlie shrugged matter-of-factly. “We kind of had goofy songs for everything. ‘I Turn My Camera On’ by Spoon when Shira’s tattling assistant was lurking. ‘SOS’ by Rihanna for ‘meet me after Shira’s done torturing you.’ Weezer’s ‘Say It Ain’t So’ when Dingo was about to pull a prank. But Mariah was the default.”
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