Page 100 of Good Girl, Bad Blood
She re-navigated her way back to Layla Mead’s profile and clicked on the message button, bringing up an empty private message page and an input box, waiting for her.
‘OK, what do I say? What vocabulary do strangers typically use when they slide into the DMs?’
Ravi laughed. ‘Don’t ask me,’ he said. ‘I never DM-slid, even before you.’
‘Connor?’
‘Um. I don’t know, maybe we should just go with aHey, how are you?’
‘Yeah, that works,’ Ravi said. ‘Innocent enough until we know how she likes to talk to people.’
‘OK,’ Pip said, typing it in, trying to ignore that her fingers were shaking. ‘Should I go for the flirtyHeyy, double Ys?’
‘Y-not,’ Ravi said, and she knew immediately the pun he was attempting.
‘Right. Everyone ready?’ She looked at them both. ‘Shall I press send?’
‘Yes,’ Connor said, while Ravi shot her a finger gun.
Pip faltered, thumb hovering over the send button, reading back her words. She ran them through her mind until they sounded misshapen and nonsensical.
Then she took a breath, and pressed send.
The message jumped up to the top of the page, now encased in a greyed-out bubble.
‘I did it,’ she said, exhaling, dropping the phone in her lap.
‘Good, now we wait,’ Ravi said.
‘Not for long,’ Connor said, leaning over to look at the phone. ‘It saysseen.’
‘Shit,’ Pip said, raising the phone again. ‘Layla’s seen it. Oh my god.’ And as she watched, something else appeared. The wordtyping. . . on the left side of the screen. ‘She’s typing. Fuck, she’s already typing.’ Her voice felt tight and panicked, like it had outgrown her throat.
‘Calm down,’ Ravi said, jumping down so he could watch the screen too.
typing. . . disappeared.
And in its place: a new message.
Pip read it and her heart dropped.
Hello Pip, it said.
That was all it said.
‘Fuck.’ Ravi’s grip stiffened on her shoulder. ‘How did she know it was you? How the fuck did she know?’
‘I don’t like this,’ Connor said, shaking his head. ‘Guys, I’m getting a bad feeling about this.’
‘Shhh,’ Pip hissed, though she couldn’t hear if either of them were still talking, not over the hammering that now filled her ears. ‘Layla’s typing again.’
typing. . .
And it disappeared.
typing. . .
Again, it disappeared.
