“Should we check it out?” I ask, this little niggle of suspicion working its way up from my stomach and into my chest. My heart pounds as I check my phone, pulling up the footage from the security cameras. There’s nothing there, but a quick rewind shows … My mouth drops open as both Zack and Miranda lean over to peer at the screen.


    It’s Creed, rifling through my stuff, looking for my journal, finding my journal.


    “Oh my god,” Miranda whimpers, pping her hand over her mouth. “Creed, you fucking idiot.”


    I push up from the dock, leaving my heels behind, and take off for the graveyard with the others following along behind me. Deja vu hits me hard and fast as Ie around the corner and find Creed lounging on top of one of the mausoleums with a horde of ghouls and ghosts surrounding him. Devils and demons, Miranda calls the Idols and their Inner Circle. She is spot freaking on.


    Just likest year, I stand there with my heart pounding as Creed clears his throat, lifts up a bobby pin and picks my look. Just likest year, he’s the perfect picture of beauty and cruelty as he flips through the pages and stops on one at random. Just likest year, he opens his mouth to read my personal thoughts and feelings to an uncaring audience.Content is ? 2024 N?velDrama.Org.


    Unlikest year … I’m ready for it.


    “Give me the word, and I’ll kick his ass,” Zack snarls, reaching up to take off his dangly earrings. It’s pretty funny actually, but I don’t want Creed Cabot to know that I’ve been onto him and his asshole friends all along. I put a hand against Zack’s chest to hold him back.


    Creed smiles, this easy, satisfied expression, like a cat who’s just killed a mouse. What he doesn’t know is that the mouse was already poisoned and now he’s infected, too. Curiosity killed the cat, after all.


    “Dear Journal,” Creed begins, his beautiful voice dripping ice. The crowd titters already, excited at the thought of bloodshed. Becky, Harper, and Ileana are lounging on tombstones in their short-shorts and miniskirts, grinning andughing. Tristan and Zayd each sit on a different headstone nearby. “Today was hard. Too hard. When I walked into math ss and saw Jalen and Ebony sitting together, it all Fame baFk to me.” Creed pauses for a minute, looking up to scan his audience. His gazees to rest on me, and I swear, I almost just throw my head back andugh. When he returns his attention


    back to the page, I stifle my chuckle with my hand and Zack gives me the strangest look.


    “Creed, don’t,” Miranda pleads, stepping forward and pulling off her pink wig. She moves between our little group and the gathered horde of Bluebloods and Plebs. Several of the boys step up to block her, but keep their hands well off of her person. There’s not a person at Burberry Prep who doesn’t know what Creed did to Craig Taittinger. “You’re better than this: prove it to me.”


    Her twin pauses for a moment, looking up again. There’s a war going on in his eyes, but the battle’s over before it’s even begun. Tristan turns around and levels him with a deadly stare.


    “Keep reading.”


    “I don’t take orders from you,” Creed snaps, and this strange bird of hope takes flight inside of me. An Emily Dickinson poemes to mind: “Hope” is the thing with feathers. If Creed actually defies Tristan, if he puts aside the journal, then …


    “So you take orders from your sister then? Or is it Charity that’s got your panties in a wad?” Tristan turns fully to face Creed, and they have a stare down that reminds me of two alley cats I once saw outside the Train Car, locked in a fierce battle of wills. Unfortunately, Creed scowls and breaks the stare, opening the journal back up.


    “This should be good,” Harper crows, and I feel this satisfied little twitch in my hand when I think about punching her. I shouldn’t have resorted to violence, but my dad … My daddy … No. I can’t think about that right now. Charlie is having a bunch of tests done this week, and I’ll know more by the time fall break rolls around. This time, I am most definitely not staying at school to y poker with the Idols.


    “It all Fame baFk to me,” Creed repeats, carrying on without a hitch in his voice, “that night when Tristan triumphantly announFed that he was going on a date with Ebony.” Creed pauses for a moment, crinkling up his face. I can see Tristan’s shoulders stiffening from here. Jalen Donner is no longer looking at me andughing. Neither is Ebony. Instead, she’s gaping at Creed while Jalen turns his attention to Tristan.


    “Keep going!” Becky shouts, and the crowd echoes their sentiment. The confusion on Creed’s face quickly shifts to perverse joy.


    “I had wondered when he and Ebony had broken up. Unfortunately, it Fame out that she was still dating Jalen and had no intention of breaking up


    with him. I guess they’re Fhildhood friends or something? Anyway, it seems Tristan and Ebony had ns to meet up and … have sex? I’m not sure, but sinFe I’ve already Faught him in the aFt with Kiara Xiao and some random fourth-year girl, I doubt he had ns to piFk flowers and make daisy Fhains.”


    Creed pauses as Jalen lets out a roar of frustration andunches himself at Tristan. There’s a split-second there where I think he’s actually going to get him, but then Tristan steps nimbly out of the way and Jalen stumbles into the cement side of the mausoleum.


    “Jalen, stop!” Ebony is screaming, her little red riding hood costume fluttering as she chases after her boyfriend. “It’s not like that.”


    Tristan dances back from the cluster of headstones, putting himself in the center of the gravel path and crouching like he fully expects a fight. He gets one, too, when Jalenes at him again, throwing a punch that Tristan just narrowly ducks. His top hat flutters off andnds on the ground, crushed in seconds by Jalen’s boot. He’s dressed up like Lara Croft-probably thought it was funny as hell-so when heunches himself forward again, his fake boobs bounce.


    And … I’ve got everything on film. It’s shaky and blurry and probably not at all in focus, but my phone is running constantly, clutched at my side and carefully aimed in Creed’s direction. In the foggy darkness, it’s pretty hard to see, especially with the glowing jack o’nterns everywhere.


    “Jalen, don’t,” Ebony screams again, and he whirls to face her, panting, pointing a finger in Tristan’s direction.


    “Did you sleep with him?” he asks, and Ebony nces away sharply. Jalen lets out another roar of rage, and then he spins and goes for Tristan yet again. This time, they end up exchanging blows.


    “I didn’t!” she shouts, trying to yank her boyfriend back. “We never slept together.” Jalen pushes Tristan, and the king of the school actually stumbles a bit, blood running down the side of his mouth as he sneers at one of the most loyal members of his Inner Circle. One of his most loyal members who’s just been thoroughly betrayed.


    “Marnye,” Zack breathes, and he looks at me with a new level of respect, eyes wide. “Holy shit.” I smile tightly, but this isn’t over, not even close.


    “We never slept together, but I wanted to,” Ebony chokes out, tears running down her face. “You’re so obsessed with football and working out. We never spend time together. Tristan is …”