“Uh, Scar”
I jerk. It’s been a minute since anyone has called me that–it was a thing at Yale, but I haven’t talked to those friends in…a while.
Sawyer taps my arm. “Is that you?”
I focus on where she’s pointing, and the color leeches out of my face.
There’s a flyer–no, there are at least seven–plastered to the board. A selfie from my Instagram is front and center, with red block lettering above and below it.
WANTED: in desperate search of new friends
Must be able to handle random fits of nonsense, unpleasant body odor, and barking
At the bottom, there are tear-away pieces that have my school email address on it.
What the actual fuck?
BARKING?
Unpleasant body odor?
This has Cross written all over it.
My face burns. Mortification screeches through me, and my nails scrape at the corkboard in my hurry to rip them all down. The papers tear and crumple, but it doesn’t seem like I’m moving fast enough.
Everyone is staring.
Sawyer is probably going to ditch me immediately–who wouldn’t?
When they’re finally all down, my chest heaves. I turn around and mentally brace for the horrified expression my new friend–new ex-friend, more like–must have.
But she’s not. She loops her arm in mine and tugs me deeper into the dining hall. She makes a beeline straight for the trash bin, where she takes the papers from my hand and stuffs them down.
“There,” she says. “Now, I can’t wait to hear the story behind that.”
“You’re not going to dump me?”
She laughs. “You kidding? Things just got interesting, girl. You’re stuck with me.”
[ 5 ]
CROSS
My phone chirps.The incoming alert is from the security system that Wallace–my mom’s new husband,notthe demon living across the hall from me–forced on us. I was around when they showed up and installed it, and Scarlett was nowhere to be found.
It’s not my fault she missed the instructions on how to shut off the alarm system.
That’s what the text is: an automated message that the silent alarm has been triggered. Wonder how many family codes she tried to type in?
And how long is it going to take her to give up and call me?
The text has asked if it was a mistake or if emergency services should be dispatched. Another minute, and I think I’ll get a call.
Bzzzz.
Yep.
“Hello?” I answer.
