In the end, I settled for disbelief. A month ago, Lucy and I hadn’t even lived on the same plane of social existence, and now she was throwing knives at me, in the friendliest of all possible knife-throwing ways.
“Yeah, Luce,” I said. “Really interesting.”
Her smile brightened the second she got that I wasn’t mad at her, and she immediately began babbling. “We don’t use knives that much. Most of our weapons are a lot more covert, and we don’t engage in much hand-to-hand contact with our marks. I mean, if cheerleaders started pulling out knives, then people wouldn’t see us as cheerleaders, you know?”
It occurred to me to wonder where exactly she’d managed to hide the knives. Cheerleading uniforms weren’t exactly ripe with knife-shaped hiding places.
“I’m thinking of seeing if I can fit one of these things into some kind of brush or comb,” Lucy continued. “Or maybe some poms. That would be awesome.”
This conversation was disturbing on so many levels, but as the two of us straightened our ponytails and headed off to class, I couldn’t help but think that it could be worse.
For example, I would have been far more disturbed had Lucy taken her cue from the twins and started talking about Noah.
CHAPTER 3
Code Word: Rumor Mill
“Miss Klein, how kind of you to join us.” Mr. Corkin, my history teacher, flashed me an evil look as I slid into my seat. I’d somehow managed to make it through my first four periods and lunch before taking a fevered (and, I might add, futile) stab at glitter removal. As a result of that last-minute attempt, I was late to fifth hour, and Corkin, who hated me as much as I hated history, was thrilled to have a reason to engage in Toby bashing, his favorite non-Olympic sport.
Before I’d joined the Squad, he would have done more than verbally berate me for coming into class a good three minutes late, but at this school, being a varsity cheerleader or football player meant something. As sick as it was, my uniform and the insane amount of blue glitter on my chest completely insulated me against the threat of detention. Plus it really didn’t hurt our cause that the vice-principal, the man in charge of discipline, was our faculty sponsor.
“Perhaps you’ve gone deaf as well as ill-mannered.” Mr. Corkin was intent on getting a response out of me, even if it meant repeating himself. “How kind of you to join us.”
Despite my Cheerleaders Get Out of Jail Free card, I didn’t respond to Mr. Corkin’s comment with, “How kind of you to KISS MY CHEER-SKIRT-COVERED BOOTY,” which was, believe me, on the tip of my tongue. Instead, I went with a slightly more diplomatic approach.
“Body glitter emergency,” I said darkly, my face completely and utterly devoid of expression. It was, all things considered, an asinine excuse, but if anyone other than me noticed that fact, they hid it well, and without a word, Mr. Corkin moved on with his lecture.
After about five minutes, I started to get twitchy, and surprisingly enough, it had nothing to do with Corkin’s monotone and everything to do with the fact I wasn’t used to sitting through class in my uniform. Between the spandex underwear covers (“bloomers” or “spankies” depending on your mood and which made you feel like less of a complete idiot to say) and the supershort polyester skirt/shell combo, I was in cheerleading agony. Add to that the fact that trying to scrub off the glitter had simply resulted in itchy, glittery skin, and whatever dignity I’d originally managed to hold on to during my transformation from “not” to “hot” was seriously in danger.
As class progressed, I could feel myself getting more and more wound up. I wasn’t a fan of sitting still, and whatever steam I’d blown off dodging knives that morning was long gone. Even remembering the glint of steel as Lucy flung her weapon directly at my body did nothing to allay my misery.
I was beginning to wonder if this class would ever end. Then again, once class was over, it was only T-minus two hours until the final bell, the pep rally, and the official end of my life as an outsider. The majority of the student body had already accepted me as popularity royalty. Brooke’s word was law, and she’d chosen me for the God Squad. I’d already moved from the fringes to the central table at lunch, and when it came to halftime performances, I was officially a veteran of butt-shaking.
But in another two hours, as I waved goodbye to my last ounce of dignity, I was going to stand up in front of the entire school and encourage the student body to put their hands together for our football team, a group of guys who, by and large, deserved a kick to their collective crotch far more than they deserved applause.
I tried not to let myself think about the fact that there was one football player who seemed to have as much derision for the whole system as I did. His name was Jack Peyton, he was tall, dark, and drop-dead gorgeous, and even though he was the school’s most eligible bachelor, he accepted that position with an ironic detachment that I almost had to respect. He was smart, sarcastic, and more charming than I’d ever given him credit for. And three weeks earlier, we’d kissed.
At the time, he’d been my mark—the son of a local baddie, the head of a law firm that had its well-protected fingers in everything from terrorism to the mafia. As if that didn’t complicate things enough, the discovery I’d made about our superiors, the one that I’d spent the past few weeks trying to sort out, was that Jack Peyton was almost as connected to our program as he was to our enemy. His uncle was our liaison in Washington, the Charlie to our Angels, and most of the girls on the Squad didn’t have a clue. I had no idea how one Peyton had ended up at the head of what was more or less a terrorist cell, while the other headed the CIA unit designated to take that cell down, but either way, Jack was the crown prince of Evilville, and as a bonus, the ex-boyfriend of not one, but two varsity cheerleaders. He was off-limits in every possible way, and I’d kissed him. Not, in retrospect, my best move, and the fact that I’d followed the kiss by punching him in the stomach and bolting out the door hadn’t exactly shown the kind of grace under pressure you might expect from a teenage operative. It definitely wasn’t my finest moment, and since then, I’d been doing my best to avoid Jack. Not an easy task considering we sat at the same lunch table and shared a bus to away games.
“Psssssssst. Toby.”
It took me a second to realize that the girl next to me was saying my name. Even after being on the Squad for nearly a month, I still wasn’t used to the fact that people actually knew my name. I’d gone to eight schools in the past ten years, and except for the bullies that I’d been forced to take out, none of the other kids had ever paid much attention to me. I was anonymous, and I preferred to stay that way.