The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Dane's Destiny

Previously: "Putting on Paulina" 

Evie Cummings pins you by the shoulders and pushes her face into yours. Her eyes are pools of fire, and her long, dirty-blonde hair drapes over your face.

"Who are you?" she growls at you from the back of her throat. "Who the freak are you?"

"Evie!" you croak. "Get off me!"

"I'm not Evie, and you know it!"

"Evie, get off! Or I'm gonna—!"

She slugs you in the side of the head. You gasp, and tears spring into your eyes.

Off the bed she jumps to slam the bedroom door shut. You scramble back as she leaps for the dresser.

"Listen, you!" she snarls as she digs inside the top drawer. "I'm gonna tear that stupid, freaking, fake face off you if you don't tell me who you are and—!"

She whips around and brandishes a steel nail file at you. You almost shit yourself.

"And I don't care what happens to me," she snarls, lapsing into Polish. "But I will stab out your eyeballs and then stab you in the brain if you don't—!"

"Alright, alright!" You cower behind upraised hands. "Jesus, just calm down!"

She shows her teeth, and advances one menacing step on you.

She's not making idle threats. Paulina's own mind and personality are inside yours, and you know perfectly well that she means every word she says.

"Paulina," you croak. "Paulina," you repeat, so she'll recognize that you're not going to bullshit her. "Just don't do anything stupid."

Her eyes narrow. "Who are you?" she hisses.

You feel your lips twitch. Could you bluff her? "Who do you think I am, Paulina?" you tease.

She stares. Then her eyes flash and she raises that nail file. "You're not Evie, I know that!" she spits. "Evie would never—!"

"Okay, alright!" Bluffing's a bad idea, you decide. "You're right, I'm not Evie."

"What kind of a ... monster—?" Her expression twists up with loathing and fear.

"I'm not a monster! I'm just a guy! I go to school with you, even! You don't know me, but—!"

"So who are you?" She raises the nail file over her head. For half a second you weigh your chances in a fight, then surrender.

"I told you, you don't know me," you tell her. "I'm up in the senior class. I'm on the run. I'm hiding."

"Hiding?" Evie shrieks.

Footsteps sound in the hall, and there's a knock at the door. "You okay in there, girls?" Paulina's mother calls. Her Polish accent sounds heavily.

Evie pales, but raises a stiff forefinger in warning at you. "We're fine, mom," you call back. Evie's expression falls. "We're just talking!"

There's a silence from the other side of the door. "No talking," your mom says in a doubtful tone. "Studying."

"We are! Evie's helping me!" You grin weakly at the other girl, whose eyes narrow with suspicion. "Keep your voice down," you urge her after footsteps retreat from the door. "You don't want your mom busting in on us."

"Then talk!" Evie retorts.

"Just put the nail file down! And promise me you won't pick it up until after I explain everything."

* * * * *

You could just take off the mask to show her, but if anything would make Paulina Nowack explode, it would be the sight of your hairy male body apparating inside her clothes. Instead, you hurriedly give her your name and story, and go online to show her the few social media posts you've made over the years, while assuring her that you can prove your real identity by pulling your magical disguise off.

She listens to all this with an angry frown, interjecting only a few curt questions here and there. And she's silent (to your surprise) when you conclude, with a sigh, "I guess you want to switch back now."

She's leaning against the dresser with folded arms (but is still clenching that nail file in one fist) and glaring at you. "We can switch back," you repeat. "I can take off this mask I'm wearing, and take the mask off you. Then I can go back to Evie's house, and you can— Oh," you interrupt yourself. "I guess you want me to put Evie back, too."

But still she doesn't answer, and only stares at you from under a reddening brow. "What?" you bluster when the silence has gotten very awkward.

She draws and exhales a deep breath before answering. "Can you make more of these mask things?"

The question staggers you, but you don't challenge it. "Yes," you admit.

"Okay, show me how to take mine off. But don't—" she adds as you start to get off the bed. "Don't actually take it off. Just tell me how."

"I have to show you how to hold your hand."

"Show it on your own face. Okay," she says after you've obliged. "Where did you say Evie is?" You give her Dane Matthias's name again, and directions to his house as best you can remember.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she says as she moves toward the door. "You're going to stick around," she says, saying it like it's an order and not a question. "You're not going to jump around someplace else."

"I'd have to make another mask first."

"Then don't," she spits. "Not till I tell you to."

Until she tells you to? The order leaves you gaping, and she strides out the bedroom before you can ask what she means by it.

* * * * *

You give some thought to contacting Caleb—you haven't told him yet that you've made any of these jumps since leaving Dane's mask behind—but decide not to. Even if he agreed to help you out, he'd yell at you first for getting yourself into so much trouble.

You're killing time in front of the drama wing the next morning, talking with Lindsay Cho about your mutual friend Melanie Heath when Evie Cummings come running up. Her eyes are shining with a feverish light.

"Oh my God, Paulina!" she gasps. "You have to come with me!"

"What?" Instinctively you bat her away as she clutches at your arm. Then you pale when you remember that you're not Paulina, and that the real Paulina might get pissed at you for slapping back at her.

"I want you to meet someone!" Evie says.

"Who?"

She goes up on tiptoes to whisper loudly in your ear. "A guy!"

Alarm bells go off. What happened since you and her parted last night? Has she forgotten who she really is? This girl with you now isn't the pissed-off queen-bee who cornered you in her room and threatened to stab you through the eye. With her wide-eyed stare, her breathless excitement, her twitchy enthusiasm and her squirmy impatience, she is ... Evie Cummings.

Must be the real girl, you cautiously decide. Paulina must have taken the mask off her.

But you're doubtful. Evie—the real girl—shouldn't be even this enthusiastic to see you, the guy who shoved her into the hairy body and horrible life of Dane Matthias.

"What guy?" you demand. "The hell, Evie?"

Lindsay smirks at you. "Don't you want to meet a guy?"

You shoot her a hot glare. "I don't wanna just go running off—"

"Please!" Evie begs, and grabs at your arm again. "Before first bell!"

"I think we better go see him." Lindsay's smirk widens, and she takes your other arm.

"Guys, let go! I'm not—!"

"No, Lindsay!" Evie shrieks. "Just me and Paulina!"

"What's wrong with—?"

Evie hops up to your ear again. "Second period!" she hisses. "Skip second, meet me here! You freak!"

You feel yourself paling. "Okay, I'll meet you later! Just not now, I've got to get to class!"

"We got five minutes before the bell," Lindsay reminds you.

"I don't wanna fight about it!" Now you're scared. "Come on, let's just go in."

"Meet me!" Evie calls out as you back away. "You better—!"

"I will! Jeez!"

Lindsay follows you in. "Must be a really special guy," she says, sounding really smug.

"I bet he is," you retort. You say it sarcastically, but you're pretty sure he is special. Because you're pretty sure he's going to turn out to be Dane Matthias.

* * * * *

So it is, as you confirm when you rendezvous with him and Evie in front of the theater at the start of second period. You have the small quad all to yourselves, but you keep your voices low.

"We have to get Evie out of that thing," growls the girl who looks like Evie Cummings. "Today. Like, this afternoon."

"So take it off her," you reply. You glance at Dane, who looks pale and sickly. From the way he's standing, you have the impression he is trying very hard not to touch himself anyplace. "I showed you how."

"It's more complicated than that," not-Evie continues. "Tomorrow, Dane here is being packed off to a military school in Oregon."

"What?" You feel your eyes nearly bugging from your head. Not-Dane swallows.

"Yeah. So here's what I want," not-Evie says. She ticks off her fingers. "We take these masks off. I go back to being me, and she goes back to being her. But you, you freak, get to be one of my friends!"

"Huh?"

"Okay, not one of my friends," not-Evie corrects herself. "But you get to be some other girl, and she gets to be packed off to military school!"

As you gape, confused and uncomprehending, she rattles off four names (which you recognize as girls that Paulina Nowack cordially dislikes), and grimly demands that you pick one as your new and permanent alias.

Next: "Mad for Madison" 

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