This choice: Wait to see if she's already been copied • Go Back...Chapter #25Three in One Blow by: Seuzz   You decide that you shouldn't risk making a redundant mask, and pass by the girl.
But when you emerge from the stacks and glance around, you catch sight of three people at the "make out" table: Connor and Marc and -- judging by the top of her head -- Marc's date. You glance back at the girl you passed, and pause. Must be a different girl, you think, and turn back toward where Connor and the others are sitting.
You ignore them, however, and move over to the table where Caleb and Eva are sitting. Books and papers are still spread out between them, but your two friends are sprawled out listlessly. They are talking in soft murmurs.
You glance over your shoulder and see that Marc -- though facing toward his sister -- seems absorbed in a cheerful conversation with Connor. It must not be much of a date he's on, and you wonder what the girl is thinking.
You position yourself as best you can to block Marc's view of his sister. Caleb looks up with a wary expression at your approach, and Eva turns around. She smiles quizzically, but only has time to open her mouth and eyes very wide before you've covered her face with the mask in your hand.
Caleb practically levitates. A choked cry turns into a cough and a gasp, but you ignore him as you catch Eva and lay her head back on her arms, in the position she'd been resting in already. "Marc and them," you murmur to Caleb. "Did they see what I just did?"
"You're only worried now about what you did?" he says in a soft but furious shriek.
"Just look and see if Marc noticed."
Caleb peers around you with a terrified expression. He stares for a moment, then darts back to hide behind your trunk. "It looks like we're okay," he whispers. "Until Eva wakes up, and then Garner's going to kick our asses all the way to the river."
"We're not going to be here when she wakes up. Text Hutchison, tell him to meet us in the bathroom. Caleb, did you hear me?" you add when Johansson doesn't move. "I said -- "
"I heard you, I'm just trying to figure out -- "
"Never mind that! I've got it figured out. I think."
"You think?"
"Shh! Just text him."
Caleb seems struck with horror, for it's only very slowly that he takes out his phone and thumbs a message to Connor. "Tell him to stop by the table here first, give me the masks he's got with him."
He gasps. "You're not gonna try hitting more people, are you?"
"Shut up. Just tell him."
With a groan, Caleb complies. A long minute seems to pass, during which you return Caleb's white-faced stare with a stony one of your own, before you hear voices raised behind you. A hand claps you on the shoulder, and Connor looks around and into your face. "So apparently I have to use the head," he says in an undertone. "What's the -- ?"
"Just give me those two masks you took earlier."
"What's up?"
"You have to take an urgent piss, remember? Don't argue."
"Actually, I've got a bladder of iron."
"Then why did you tell Marc and his date that you had to use the head?"
Connor grimaces. But something about being taller -- being his height, in fact -- gives you the wherewithal to force the issue. He opens his bag, and you surreptitiously extract the two masks. "Now you two go wait for me by the front door."
"What about Justin?"
"I'll collect him later."
"Did you get -- ?"
"Just get the fuck out of here, okay?"
Caleb draws a ragged breath, then quickly scoops his stuff together and follows Connor out.
You keep station over Eva until they're gone, praying that Marc will be preoccupied with his date until you're ready to move. But even though you've figured out what you're going to do, it takes a supreme effort of will to unglue your feet from the ground and turn toward them.
Marc Garner is not one of those big, muscle-bound jocks who make daily life at Westside into a merry game of "Dodge the Bully." But you've seen him without his shirt, and despite his bona fides as an AP jockey, he's got a strong, solid build and the athletic training to use it. All three of the Garners, in fact, go in for a solid mix of brain- and body-building. It's just that he puts his physical training into soccer instead of gymnastics.
He looks up at you now with a cheerful twinkle in his blue eyes and a bright glint in his white smile; his crew cut hair seems to stand at attention. "So everyone takes off the minute you show up," he teases. There's no meanness in it, and you doubt there'd be any meanness in his jest if he thought he was talking to Will Prescott and not Geoff Mansfield, who is a closer friend. It doesn't look like he means to move, since he's got an arm draped around the girl's shoulders. You wonder how long he's had it there.
"Yeah, they all left, but you'll do," you say. You've got a mask in each hand, but you lay one of them briefly on the table as you stretch across with the other. Got to take Garner out first, you tell yourself. Then it'll be safe to get the girl.
Marc is a little faster than his sisters, and he twitches to the side. But he has to move his whole head and body, while you've only got to follow with your hand. You press the mask onto his face with one hand, catch the back of his hand with the other, and let him gently sag onto the desk.
His arm falls off the girl, but she seems too dumbstruck with puzzlement to react. She's been forewarned, though, so she reacts more forcefully when you sweep the second mask toward her. But the much-drilled habit of being quiet in the library keeps her from screaming out, and she's sitting with her back to the wall, so you catch her without much fuss or difficulty. Before lowering her head to the table, you hold it up to study what this girl looks like.
Something about the face reminds you of a lioness. Not that it's misshapen or ugly; she's handsome enough. But she has a strong muzzle, and her eyes are narrow. Maybe it's also the tawny, sun-drenched color of her face and bare arms; Connor said she played soccer, and she does have a healthy, outdoorsy look to her. Her hair is long and thick, and it would have lots of curls in it except that she's got it pulled back in a long, thick braid that falls at least to the middle of her back.
You perch on the table and glance around warily, then text Justin, telling him to meet you once he's recovered the mask from Jessica. Once you've got the other three masks, you'll dash off, leaving Geoff Mansfield to take the blame for this goofball assault.
Ten minutes pass, and you're away with the prizes. Connor and Caleb are outside, waiting around a dark corner when you and Justin come hurrying out, and they hiss at you. "The fuck is going on in there?" Connor demands.
"Nothing, it's all taken care of," you tell him, and hold up the bag containing all four masks. Adrenaline is coursing through you, and you can hardly keep from hopping with excitement. "Eva and Jessica and Marc and -- Whatever her name was. Hang on, I'll check."
Connor grabs you by the shoulder. "How did you manage to -- Are we totally fucked or something?"
"No, but I bet Mansfield is." You grin. "I just went in and pow!" You clap your hands. "Then I was just bored for ten minutes waiting for the masks to finish up."
"So what are they gonna do when they wake up?"
"Wonder what the fuck happened and why Mansfield did it. What are you so upset about? The four of us are in the clear. We weren't around when it all went down."
Connor stares at you, and at the others. All three of your partners seem uneasy. "I was there when you put the mask on Eva," Caleb says. "What am I supposed to say to her about it?"
"Say you weren't there. You got up and went to the bathroom. When you came back, she was conked out on the table, so you left without waking her up."
Caleb rolls his eyes. "She's gonna know that I -- "
"She's gonna be all confused, so just lie, man! Now come on, let's get out of here, get these things back to the school so we can seal them up."
Anticipation makes the drive back to Acheson seem unbearably long, and you play the stereo loudly all the way there.
* * * * *
The names of your victims gleam inside the masks, even in the dimly lit basement, and your quartet hands them quietly around. Here they are: magical masks containing exact copies of the minds and bodies of four of your classmates: Eva Garner, Jessica Garner, Marc Garner, and Hannah Westrick. All you have to do is press one to your face, and you will become their exact duplicate.
Well, that's all your friends have to do. You have to get out of Mansfield's mask first. You're happy enough to do that. Wearing his form was a means to an end, that's all, and now that you've got these other four masks and stirred up some trouble for Geoff, you are eager to cast him off. While the other three are still passing the masks around and conversing in low tones, you move over to a nearby table and grab onto your face. One darkness merges imperceptibly with another, and when the first kind of darkness returns you're not even sure you're awake again until you kick and flail your legs.
And you seem to be alone. "Hey," you call. "Hey!"
Caleb's voice floats back from nearby. "Are you finally awake?"
"Uh huh. Where are the other guys?"
"They home."
"The fuck? What about the masks?"
"They took 'em with them." You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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