The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Close Encounters of the Vee Kind

Previously: "Using What You've Got" 

by Masktrix

You burst out laughing. You can’t help yourself. You’ve sold Chris Fiore so hard that you’re Mark Pederson he’s hidden the Libra in your locker! The asshole must have stolen the book from Kristen on Saturday, which makes – by your count – at least the fourth or fifth time the St Xavier’s students have tried to screw each other in the past three days. The sooner you get away from this nest of vipers, the better.

As for the two masks, when you examine them you are startled to find that they are masks of yourself and Shelly. You have to rewind far back into your adventures to place them: they are the masks that brought into the school with you, which Kristen found and put on, thus setting off this whole, horrible farce.

Well, neither one matters now. You shove them aside and scoop out the book, whipping it open, finding it stuck right at the torn page where you left it. You hug it close to your chest and—

But now what? If you take it now, Chris Fiore is going to know that his roommate isn’t who he seems to be. Mark, for all his creature comforts, doesn’t have a car here, and you can’t exactly call an Uber without one of the prefects noticing. You could call the Will golem, of course – but that means relying on yourself, and if the past two days have shown anything, it’s that Mark Pederson is far better than Will Prescott when it comes to just about everything. You discount the Shelly golem entirely. Like, how is a freshman going to get twelve miles across the county?

Then your eye falls onto Chris's pillow. You check beneath it and find that the mask of Abi is now gone. And that gives you the inspiration for how to bluff Chris while still reclaiming your property.

You grab a sticky note off your desk and write in Mark’s looping cursive: I told you yesterday – ASK!!! I’ve put your kink shit in my stash. You stick it to Chris's pillow with a hard smirk. If the prefects couldn’t find Jacob's Scotch, Chris won’t know where to look either.

So that should buy you a day with the Libra and a chance to make a new mask, under which you can slip out without Abi or her former friends catching you. You grab up your backpack, shove the book and masks in with your textbooks, then change into a pair of dark sneakers and head for class.

The first period – an English linguistics class – is a tense affair. Bad enough that Abi is in there, but so is Vee. You take Mark’s seat in the back row of the class, and are very careful every time you open your bag so as not to reveal to any prying eyes that you’ve got the Libra.

And if your first class makes you regret carrying the book around, it’s a feeling that only intensifies during second period, as you sit down at the lab bench in the chemistry department – and find yourself partnered up with Davina Macklin herself.

Shit. C’mon, Will. You can do this. Just be yourself. Be Mark Pederson.

It’s no good. You feel every muscle in your body tense from her presence. The last time you were this close to Vee, she was threatening to suck out your brains, and grabbing your fevered head and tossing it around like a rag doll as she interrogated you. Here, in the daylight, the shadows that seemed to drape her features and elongate them into a dark sorceress are gone. But even so, she remains the girl that tortured you on Halloween.

She reaches over the bench and you instinctively flinch, pulling your hand back as if it’s been caught in a mousetrap. Vee turns and looks at you. Your heart thuds against your chest. She pauses a moment, then continues to reach over to turn on the gas tap. You try to drag up every ounce of Mark’s cool and fail miserably. You’re paralysed with fear.

Stay still. Stay calm.

"Are you going to get your textbook out or not?" Vee asks.

Shit. You daren't open Mark’s rucksack in front of her, lest she glimpse the Libra and the masks in there. Your mouth is dry, and you can't speak. All you can do is stare straight at her.

"What?" Vee snaps. "What’s the matter?" The faint smell of gas from the tap begins to poison the air.

"Nothing," you finally manage to gasp. "I left my book in my room, everything was tossed in the dorm search, it’s among Fiore’s crap somewhere. Can we share?"

Vee’s expression remains icy. "What were you staring at me for?" she demands. The gas whistles from the tap, making it uncomfortable to breathe, and you feel as if she’s about to lunge across the lab table to rip your face off. Say something! Say anything!

But nothing comes to you, and you shrug weakly at her. With a snort she sets her textbook between you, then ignites the Bunsen burner. And yet, even as its flame flashes across the bench, her eyes remain locked on you.

You work in silence throughout the whole class. It’s a horrific feeling, being so close to the one person who, genuinely, terrifies you, and yet unable to break character. You try to focus on the chemistry problem – a relatively simple experiment, you making notes, Vee doing the actual legwork – and struggle to ignore the suspicious glances she shoots you throughout.

She’s suspicious. Of course she’s suspicious. You’re acting suspiciously. Stop it!

You gasp with relief when class ends, and hurriedly scoop up your pack. “I’ll email you the data later tonight,” you tell Vee, glad you’ve managed to get through the class without further drama.

“Thanks, Will,” she says.

“No problem,” you reply as you turn away.

Then it hits you.She called you "Will."

You wheel. A grin of Grinch-like glee unfurls across her face. She says nothing, though, and coolly saunters from the room. Your heart falls past your past, past your ankles, cratering in the floor beneath the soles of your feet.

You've blown your cover. In a shameful moment of weakness and terror, you blew your cover with Vee. She saw through your disguise, through the fake face, to read your real character in your sweaty, tongue-tied, pale-faced performance. It doesn't matter what you look like. It only matters what you do, how you act. And you gave yourself away by acting like yourself. And how she confirmed it was you was masterful: a slow rise in tension before casually using the wrong name.

She’ll be looking for Todd Baldwin now, or Abi. It doesn't matter which. Abi won't be able to protect you, not with yourself exposed to the full fury of the gang – she’ll have to lie to cover her own ass, and you’re not sure if you trust that she’d rescue you from under any golem mask they choose to place you under.

You have to get out of here, hide, call your doppelganger and get him to ditch school and come out to switch places back with you. They'll know you were Mark, but if you escape with the Libra and use the day to pick up supplies, you can probably get yourself another hiding place before they can chase you down at your house. After all, they'll be trapped at Xavier's by their own stupid suspension of the exeats. The St. X kids may have all the cards, but they still can’t leave the grounds.

You appraise your surroundings. The classroom has emptied by now, and there's a thirty-minute break before third period. Thirty minutes to find a hiding place before that walking wall of muscle that is Todd Baldwin hunts you down. But, as you take out your cell, two alternate plans hit you from opposite sides, pinioning you in a three-way agony of indecision.

You've got two other masks with you—the masks of yourself and Shelly. The first is worse than useless inside the Mutants' school. But the second... Todd and the others will be looking for Mark Pederson. If you can get into New Hall or the laundry and snag a uniform, you could hide out for the day as Shelly. True, she doesn't belong at Xavier's, but no one knows everyone at the school, and while under that face you might be able to fashion a mask or two and slip into another hiding place.

On the other hand... Is your identity as Mark really blown? So what if you were nervous around Vee? And so what if acted strangely when she called you by the wrong name? You could still try brazening it out. After all, you've already bluffed Chris into believing that you don't give a shit about the masks. Hell, you even left him a note telling him that you were taking the mask and books! That should throw suspicion onto him, given that he was the one who put them in Mark's locker! You could just play innocent and hope that they don't remember how to pull masks off.

Of course, the latter is a really awful risk to run. If you make one more slip, you’ll be at the mercy of the Xavier’s kids once again …

Next: "Masks Beneath Masks" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"