Gwen Diaz thumbed through the contact list on her phone with a gloomy look on her face. The classroom she had chosen to stay in was empty during lunch, but she made no attempt to go out in search of her new acquaintances. Her new life had left her feeling more alone than she had ever felt before.

  It was certainly a blessing to be outside of the grasp of Zoey Brahm, she thought. That that girl had grasped her weakness was a failing of her own. She shouldn’t have gone into the girl’s house with Tristan that day. Curse her kind heart for letting that small dog get the best of her.

  However, the cost of her sanity, the cost of being far away from Zoey Brahm, was that she was now also apart from some of her closest friends in the world. She stared at the bracelet she had received for her 18th birthday. Penny Taylor, Krista Klein, Lawrence Young, and Warren Jackson. She had even grown to like Naomi Fraise and Lance Harley during her final interactions with them. Without the connections she had forged throughout the past few years of high school, suddenly stepping into a new world of longstanding relationships with their own sets of inside jokes and old stories, she realized now that she was alone.

  The fluorescent light shining down on her cast a dark shadow beneath her as it danced along to her every anxious fidget in her chair. She had been in constant contact with Penny since moving. They would text each other consistently, as Gwen kept her updated on what was going on at her new school while Penny filled her in on new happenings at the old one, and they even occasionally had video calls with one another out of a premature fear that they may forget each other’s faces.

  But school wasn’t the same for Gwen, no matter how much the connection with her old friend eased the pain for her. She was still an outcast, and the her new acquaintances’ friendliness did nothing to change that. She couldn’t express the complicated emotions she felt outside to any one of them. She was still dealing with the pain of losing the love of her life, and the fear of being hunted by that psychopathic girl. All she could do was continue wearing the mask that she had taken off for a brief moment that night at the Bird Cage.

  But even still, it was fine, right? At the very least, she had thought that she would be safe now. When she decided to hop into her car and drive all the way over to the Atlanta metro area after tediously organizing her own transfer, she had expected that the shadow Zoey Brahm had cast over her life would finally be a thing of the past. That is, that she would be nothing more than a bad dream that she could wake up from, relieved that reality was a place far removed from those terrible memories.

  However, that all changed when the film club of her new school, Peach Gardens High, approached her about a video that had gained a decent following on the internet. As it turned out, Zoey had uploaded the short film to the photography club’s Youtube channel, and it had amassed over 50,000 views in just a single day. As a result, her new school’s photography club, who was vaguely familiar with Deer Valley High’s due to its abundance of success, had forwarded the video to the film club, and the rest was history.

  Mary Gray, the head of the club, expressed her interest in speaking to everyone involved in the filmmaking process directly about perhaps working on a collaborative project together, namely, a minidocumentary covering the game between the two schools’ basketball teams. Their first game against one another was the season opener for both schools, and there was a good chance that both teams, as the favorites, would make it deep into the playoffs if not outright the finals. It was a chance to document the rivalry of the schools and draw more eyes to the players on each team. She would be doing everyone a favor by helping to bridge the two clubs together, including Deer Valley High’s basketball players.

  However, the issue was that to do so would allow Zoey a new path into her life. She had just escaped the girl, so how could she just accept this role as a mediator between clubs? Her feet tapped rhythmically against the ground like a hammer driving a nail in. She was at a crossroads. To cross the tiger and create a better world for the people close to her, or to hole up safely in her sanctuary across the forest.

  But then again, was it okay for her to leave it be? After all, there was something else that had been bothering Gwen. She recalled the feeling in the pit of her stomach when she received the video from Lawrence’s phone the day before. He mentioned that he’d get Zoey to kiss his feet after Gwen had told him everything that monster did. But for it to suddenly backfire into something like that… or was it staged?

  No. For all his faults, ‘The Law’ was a genuine friend to her. She immediately shook off the idea that it might have been something the two of them did together. Zoey had played Lawrence somehow. She played him so badly that the boy was too ashamed to face her after the incident and hadn’t responded to a single one of her texts. If his confronting Zoey was Gwen’s design, then she was responsible for what had happened to him. So really, was it okay to just leave things as they were? Was it okay to leave Penny and Krista and the rest of them in that school with that girl? Gwen had been so terrified of being confronted by her worst fears that she had accidentally condemned the people close to her to being at the mercy of a hungry tiger.

  I have to protect them, she thought suddenly. I need to come up with a plan.

  “A plan…”

  When she uttered the words, that boy’s face came to mind. Really, she still had no idea if the plan during the homecoming game was something he conceived on his own or not. That kind of dirty trick sounded like it came from straight out of Zoey’s playbook.

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  “What am I thinking…?”

  Tristan Collins could not be trusted. He had betrayed her. He knew her weakness. He knew the consequences. He knew that she might have died. Yes, Tristan was just as bad as Zoey.

  And yet…

  Why didn’t she tell Lawrence that that boy was just as culpable?

  Why did she finish the script despite everything?

  And why was she considering asking for his help?

  Gwen’s mind was juggling the different versions of Tristan Collins that existed in her head.

  The easily manipulated loser that was hopelessly in love with the that evil woman.

  The shrewd mastermind who manipulated the outcome of the homecoming game.

  The kind boy who stood up for others at their lowest.

  Which one are you, she wondered.

  Is Tristan Collins one of these people?

  Is he all of them?

  Or is he none of them at all?

  She found herself scratching her head. She had a pretty good idea of who Naomi and Lance were, but Tristan was an enigma. Like a Rubik’s Cube she couldn’t solve.

  Knowing is half the battle, and she didn’t know what to make of Tristan. But what she did know was that she wanted to know. If she didn’t know, then she couldn’t be certain of whether it was a good idea to take the film club up on their offer. Therefore, she decided to know.

  And it was that thought process that guided her into picking up her phone in order to make a very important call to someone in the photography club.

  ---

  Warren Jackson and Penny Taylor sat together at the usual table.

  Alone.

  Two love birds joined in isolation, as their newly found feelings for one another was the only spice their lunches needed. Benjamin was seated with the rest of the basketball team, and Lawrence was away with the photography club.

  Yes, the photography club.

  That is, Zoey Brahm and Tristan Collins’s photography club.

  Warren was all but convinced that Tristan was, if not the mastermind, then at the very least the moving piece that spun the homecoming game into chaos under the pseudonym “Travis”. And that aside, there was also Gwen’s sudden transfer. It came the day after he received the strange call about Zoey. Tristan and Zoey were definitely behind the incident at the game, and they were probably responsible for Gwen’s transfer too. He would have asked the girl herself if he weren’t so worried about stepping on her toes. But regardless, that did beg the question. Why was Lawrence with them now?

  “Soooo, Gwen’s decided not to join the cheer squad at her new school, but she’s looking at working with the film club on their new project.” She looked down and touched her bracelet with a smile. “She told me her next project would be a surprise, but ... I’m already surprised. To think the script she did for the photography club would cause such a stir, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  Penny’s gaze shot up from her bracelet to Warren, who was staring off into the distance.

  “Renny, are you paying attention? What are you looking at?” Penny followed Warren’s gaze and found herself staring over at the photography club and their friend ‘The Law’. “Oh, Lawrence huh? Well, it kinda makes sense. Tristan and Naomi were there at Gwen’s birthday. The four of them kinda hit it off, huh? Gwen, Lawrence, Naomi, Tristan…”

  “They did,” Warren said.

  “Still, I won’t accept them,” Penny protested, folding her arms. “Gwen is mine. I won’t let them have her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know Renny, I really do feel like Gwen and Ben’s relationship was the glue that held our group together. I would have never gotten to know you three from the basketball team if it weren’t for them.”

  “Mm.”

  “Lawrence and Krista used to fill that role, but… then he cheated on her. That was really unforgivable of him. I still hate that Krista left our group instead of him, but I don’t exactly hate Lawrence. He’s a nice person sometimes. He’s nice, but I don’t get why he keeps doing the things that he does. And I don’t get why the three of you forgive him for it. Gwen especially. I can’t tell if he hits on her as a joke or if he’s really being weird. If it wasn’t for her being so fine with him, then I probably wouldn’t be anywhere near Lawrence out of principle.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is, do we really have to hang out with Lawrence now that Gwen is gone?”

  “Well, he’s my captain,” Warren said.

  “Yeah, but… he can just be your captain at club, right? Do we need to be his friends outside of that?”

  Warren turned to face Penny. His head movement was so sudden that it caused her to flinch. “W-what? Don’t scare me like that.”

  “Lawrence is a good person.”

  “But…”

  “Ben is a good person too,” Warren said.

  “I… really doubt that,” Penny said. “I think you’re the only good person here, Warren. You and Gwen are.”

  “And you,” Warren said.

  “Me? I’m not…”

  “I believe in all of my friends. Gwen, Lawrence, Ben, and you too.

  “I… see…”

  Penny averted her gaze as Warren turned back to face the photography club.

  The guilt was tearing her apart. The past few days had been a dream come true for her. She loved Warren, and she was overjoyed that she could finally spend time with him not as just a friend, but as his one and only girlfriend. However, she couldn’t escape the truth. The truth that she had had her own ulterior motives in getting together with Warren so hastily.

  The meeting was soon after all, and she wanted him to join her as soon as possible. But how would she find the opening? How could she convince him to take the first step as she had? Would she be enough of a motivator for him? Her grip tightened on the pamphlet in her pocket.

  Hopefully, she thought. Hopefully he goes with her and finds his true self in the Order as she had.