Hola!! So I’m writing this book for my best friend for Christmas (shhh she doesn’t know) but I decided to put it up here to help give me incentive for writing. I think you guys will like it anyway, if you understand what’s going on. I try to make it very plain though.
You see, this is sort of an inside-joke between me and her (I think you’ll understand once you start reading) and she’s the narrator in this book. I’m someone else, I think you’ll figure out who, and basically this takes place at my school and stuff, but I changed names and places, etc, so don’t worry about privacy stuff cuz no one will ever know. Hopefully. I mean, it’s not bad or anything but they’d be a bit weirded out lol. So yeah I hope it’s not confusing but I think it’ll be fun. Maybe I could actually make a legit series out of it haha.
Well, here’s the first chapter, so enjoy! Please vote/comment, tell me what you think please!!! Gracias <3 vb123321
Chapter One
My Best Friend Wasn’t Actually Lying All Those Times
Most books start off by saying “It all started on a normal day,” so I won’t begin that way, but basically, it did. I mean, normal for me, which might not be normal for everyone else, as I go to an all-girl Catholic high school that wears saddle shoes. But when it all started, I was sitting in my second-period algebra two class, staring at the chalkboard and struggling to make sense of what my teacher was saying.
The class was half-sophomores, like me, and half-juniors, but everyone looked as bored and lost as I felt. One of my best friends, Kate, sat behind me and was jabbing her pencil into my back every other second to amuse herself. Molly sat on the opposite side of the classroom – stupid alphabetical order – and she looked a little sulky, probably because she had gotten a hundred on the quiz but Kasey had gotten a hundred and one. Our teacher had been droning on for what felt like hours, and yet it was only 8:12.
As taking notes was basically a failed attempt at that stage, I slid my notebook to one side to look at the Austin Mahone picture on my binder, beaming at it and then pulling out my agenda to glance at the countdown to his concert. Finally it was October!
“And so when x-squared is here, what is the answer? Um – Natalie?”
Jumping, I quickly put my eyes back on the board, swearing at Mr. D inwardly. He always called on random people, generally those that weren’t paying attention. Scanning the chalk numbers, I tried to figure out what they represented but had no clue. Kate was whispering something behind me, but as I highly doubted she knew the answer, I didn’t try to repeat it.
Thirty-six y minus two, Molly mouthed at me – how the heck did she just know that? – and I had opened my mouth to answer when a knock sounded on the door. Mr. D peered myopically in its direction, calling, “Come in,” and as it swung open we all turned in our seats to look at the tall man in a suit that stood there. He looked around thirty years old, with dark hair and a pronounced jaw line.
“Sorry to disturb,” he said, his voice smooth and polite as he glanced around the classroom. He didn’t offer an explanation for his entrance as he walked to the front, our heads following him as Mr. D looked a little confused. Seeing this, the man said, “I just need to see one of your students for a second.”
Did he really feel it was necessary to come all the way in? Still, an interruption to this class was always great, so I crossed my fingers and hoped it would be me. An easy smile hovered around the man’s mouth, his hands casually thrust deep in his pockets as he said, “Can I borrow Molly Vandenberg?”
I glanced at Molly, ready to see her smirk at me because she got to leave class, but instead she had gone very still – and still for Molly is pretty weird. Her face looked a bit whiter than its usual tan color, and she didn’t look at me. Mr. D shrugged and said, “Sure,” with a bored expression. “Molly, just make sure you get the homework from a friend.”
But Molly hadn’t moved, her eyes jumping between the man and Mr. D with a strange expression on her face. “Actually,” she said slowly, “I think I need to stay for this part of the lesson – I’m a little confused as to what’s going on.”
Which was basically the biggest lie of all time, seeing as she was Molly.
“It’ll just be a second,” the man said with that smile still on his face as his eyes snapped to Molly’s seat as if just spotting her. I noticed that his hands moved in his pockets, as if his muscles were tensing.
“No.” Her voice was firm; the whole class was staring at her.
“They told me you would be difficult.” The smile had disappeared from the man’s face, his eyes darkening. “I guess I’ll just have to convince you.”
In a sudden movement, his hand whipped out of his pocket and the whole class gasped as one: He was now brandishing a gun, still completely calm as he pointed it at Molly. Mr. D tried to say something, but the man said, “Shut up,” in a quiet but dangerous voice, and my math teacher quickly closed his mouth. I clutched the edge of my desk with wide eyes; Kate had stopped jabbing her pencil into my back and her face was even paler than usual.
“Everyone keep quiet,” said the man, stifling the cries of the other girls, and we watched in terrified silence as he looked back at Molly. She still hadn’t moved, nor did she look scared.
“Okay, shoot me,” she said, as if he had asked what flavor ice cream she wanted. “I thought they would want me alive, but okay.”
I goggled at her. She had always joked about being shot during particularly difficult cross-country or track practices, but I had always figured she would pee her pants if she ever actually saw a gun.
The man did not look like he was joking. He stared at her for a long moment as the class held their breaths as one. I thought of the emergency call button in the back, way too far for me to reach in time, and hoped desperately that someone would walk past the window and look into the classroom. Sweat trickled down Mr. D’s face as he stood stock-still.
“Okay,” said the man evenly, lowering the gun. “Yeah, I won’t shoot you. So I guess we’ll just have to find out how many of these lovely girls are your friends.”
And all of a sudden the gun was a foot away from my face.
Immediately my heart leaped into my throat, pounding quickly as if it realized its beats were numbered. My palms left a smear of sweat across my math notes as I slowly raised them into the air, my eyes fixed on the barrel of that gun. Mr. D tried to speak again, only to be silenced, and everyone was staring at me in terror.
“Okay, okay!” Molly got to her feet at last, very slowly, her eyes darting between the man and me. “There’s no need for that, I’ll come.”
“I knew that’d get you,” he said with satisfaction, but he kept the gun leveled at my sweaty forehead until Molly got to the front of the room with her hands up. He then pointed it back at her, one hand in his pocket again as he approached her with a wary expression.
“What do you want?” Her voice was flat, her face still expressionless.
“Turn around.”
Molly hesitated but obeyed as the gun twitched in my direction again. I was still having trouble breathing, watching with frightened eyes as the man pulled something that shone silver in the light out of his pocket and stepped up behind her. He raised the gun and I couldn’t help crying out a warning as he swung it down, crashing into the back of her head.
Several girls screamed and Mr. D stepped forward in protest as Molly lurched forward from the blow. Quick as a wink, the man grabbed the back of her uniform polo, spinning her around to face him, and the handcuffed her wrists in front of her before she could react. She looked a little dazed and more than a little angry, glaring at the man as he smirked at her.
“Sorry about that,” he said in an indifferent voice. “I would rather handcuff a tiger than a conscious Molly Vandenberg, honestly.”
What was that supposed to mean?
Molly swore at him – Mr. D looked shocked and I would have sniggered if it hadn’t been such an unfunny situation – and then her leg jerked up suddenly. We all gasped, expecting it to slam into the man’s crotch and him to crumple to the ground, but he merely sidestepped it, shaking his head and sneering right in Molly’s face.
“Who wasn’t expecting that? I thought you were supposed to be a profess –”
And then the smirk was wiped off his face as she butted her head right into it with a nasty crunch that was probably his nose. His head jerked back with a startled expression, his grip on her loosening slightly, and she kicked him in the balls again. He couldn’t avoid it this time, a strangled gasp escaping his throat as his knees weakened. Her foot then collided with the side of his knees, and he fell to the ground.
Immediately Molly stepped on his wrist so that he released the gun, and then she bent down and awkwardly picked it up with her handcuffed hands. We were all practically kneeling on our seats, peering over the tops of our desks to see what was happening on the floor, and as I glanced behind me I saw a girl in the back row press the emergency switch.
Molly held the gun in his face, and I found the look on her face almost as scary as the man as she looked up at me. “Nat, can you help me out a second?” she asked, and I nodded wordlessly, standing up on shaky legs. “Just point this gun at him,” she directed as I came to her side, and before I knew what was happening, she pressed the cold metal into my hands.
I could feel goose bumps popping up on my arms as I held the gun tightly with both hands, pointing it shakily at the man and wondering if I could actually pull the trigger. He obviously was wondering too, beginning to come out of his haze of pain, and the look in his eyes was rather nasty as he looked at me. Molly worked fast, though, and soon she found the handcuff key in his pocket and had somehow unlocked her hands, putting the handcuffs around the man’s wrists instead.
“Thanks, buddy,” she said, quite calmly, and took the gun from me.
“No problem,” I said numbly, staring. Suddenly I remembered her texting me jokes about being a CIA agent, saying she went to Chicago once a month for “training” and that she had missed school some day for a “mission.” What if they – but it couldn’t be – what if they hadn’t been jokes?
“What” – Mr. D was finally moving out of his daze – “what’s going on?”
Molly ignored him, looking instead to the girl in the back row. “Did you press the emergency button?” she asked, her voice sounding a little stressed, and when the girl nodded with a terrified look, she swore again. Looking annoyed, she reached down to her saddle shoe – all of our eyes followed her movement – and from it pulled out a small electronic device, all the while pointing the gun at the man. People always did say that our saddles could hold anything.
Tapping something into the device, Molly pressed it to her ear and waited. “Yes, obviously it’s me,” she said after a moment. “Who else? Yeah, it’s him. Took them long enough, I know. I’m fine, don’t worry. Okay – yeah, I’ll stay here. Come quickly, okay, everyone here is gonna know about it in, like, two minutes. Yeah. See you.”
She ended the call, and though her voice had been flippant on the phone, I could see a note of panic in her eyes as she looked at the man handcuffed on the floor. He was glowering at her, still not saying anything, and she gave him a good glare back.
“Molly –” Kate’s voice, coming from where she still sat frozen in her seat, sounded shrill. Her best friend looked up at her as if barely seeing her, frowning, and Kate didn’t seem to be able to continue, so I helped her out.
“What the hell just happened?”
Molly looked over at me, something like a smile slipping onto her face. “I dunno why you’re so surprised, Nat,” she said. “I’ve told you a million times.”
My mouth dropped open. The texts. Good lord, she hadn’t been joking. Even though my legs were shaky with shock, I still didn’t appreciate the way she was smirking at me, and so I kicked her in the back and called her something I wouldn’t have if my mom had been in the room. She just grinned at me and said, “I’ll tell you it all later, I promise, it’s just a bit more complicated right now.”
And she scowled at the man again.
“You have no idea,” he snarled, speaking for the first time since she knocked him to the floor. “This is just the beginning.”
“Yeah…” Molly was frowning at him again. “That is what I was wondering. Why are you even here? I thought coming from Chicago would be too long a commute for you.”
“Chicago?” I said loudly, and all at once I had to sit down in an empty front-row seat.
Molly had gone to Chicago once a month last school year, which was about as inconvenient as it sounds, and though she had told me it was this program that she found out about at camp, she had once joked that it was for her spy work. Why did I have an awful feeling about that, too?
“Later,” Molly said over her shoulder, still looking at the guy, who was sneering.
“Wouldn’t you like to know what we’re up to?”
Molly rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure we’ll find out sooner or later, anyway. I’m also pretty sure you’re going to drop some cryptic hint pretty soon to get me anxious.”
The guy looked a bit disappointed. “Yeah, you’re right.” But then he smiled slyly again and said, “All I’m supposed to say is that this one is going to strike a little closer to home.”
What was? I didn’t figure it would do any good to ask, so I continued to hang onto every word, as the rest of the class was.
“Okay, whatever that means,” replied Molly, checking the electronic device again in a seemingly careless manner, but once again I noticed her eyes were tense.
“What’s the name of that school your little sisters go to?” The man pretended to think about it for a moment. “Oh yeah – St. Paul. Nice place, on the lake, good playground…”
“Actually, their playground sucks,” cut in Molly, though she was looking at him again with narrowed eyes. I recognized her I’m-trying-to-be-casual tone that she usually took up around hot guys. “What’s your point?”
Now the guy’s smile was positively scary. “Let’s just say we took a visit.”
The muscles in Molly’s shoulders suddenly tensed up, the gun moving closer to the guy’s face as she dropped to a squat right in front of him. “What are you saying?” she growled, and I wondered if I were the only one who noticed her voice shaking.
“School started for St. Paul about half an hour ago,” said the guy, propping himself up on his elbows with handcuffed hands behind him. “But one little third-grader’s going to be marked absent today, I think.”
Kate and I gasped in unison as his words sunk in: Molly’s little sister Rosie was in third grade. We exchanged horrified looks as I wondered what I could possibly say to Molly, whose face was suddenly motionless. She still didn’t look at anyone but the guy, her eyes burning as she pressed the gun against his forehead.
“Don’t b.s. me,” she said, and her voice scared me almost as much as the guy’s smile.
“Please,” he said, smirking, “you’re a professionally-trained agent. I’m sure you can tell when someone is lying to you.”
I saw Molly’s hand shaking as she held the gun, could almost hear her mind whirling. Her eyes darted to the windows of the classroom; as I looked over there, the familiar sound of clicking heels reached my ears and I could see the outline of our vice principal coming down the hall. Molly looked back at the agent, biting her lip, and finally her reserve seemed to crack as he sneered at her again.
All at once she swore at him again, raised the gun, and smacked the handle against the side of his head. His eyes rolled back and he fell to the floor again with a crash. Most of the girls screamed again, and Mr. D said something that he probably wouldn’t have if he realized the vice principal was right outside. Molly gave them an exasperated look, saw my shocked expression, and said impatiently,
“He did it to me, remember? What goes around comes around.”
Her philosophy wasn’t exactly fitting for the Catholic school she was attending, but no one dared argue as she stood up and stuck the gun in the waistband of her kilt. The whole class stared at her in silence as she let out a long sigh, readjusted her headband, and twirled her ponytail around her finger. At least she hadn’t fallen out of character.
And then Mrs. Graham, our vice principal, marched into the classroom.
“Molly Vandenberg!” she exclaimed, her eyes popping as the clicking of her heels came to an abrupt halt.
“Well, crap,” said Molly after a moment.
I thought that summed it up nicely.
“What on earth –” The vice principal looked like she couldn’t believe her eyes, staring at the guy on the floor and then at the gun still jammed in Molly’s kilt. “What on earth –” She scrambled for words. “Should we – call the police – what is going on –?”
“Don’t call the police,” said Molly with a note of urgency. “I can explain everything; I promise you I’m not some psychopath about to shoot a bunch of students – that’s what this guy is. Sort of. Um – it’s a long story.”
Mrs. Graham was staring at her as if she had never seen another human in her life. Now that the terror of the moment had passed, I was actually finding it difficult to keep myself from laughing at the look on her face. Molly looked edgy, glancing down at her phone thingy again and then at the windows.
“I’m going to call the office,” said the vice principal with authority after a moment. “And they can call the –”
But she was cut off as Molly let out a loud “Thank GOODNESS!” as she looked out the windows. Immediately all of us turned in that direction as well to see another guy sprinting past, hair flying and one hand inside a sweatshirt pocket. Two more men followed him, though at a slower pace, and as we watched with open mouths, the first guy dashed into our math classroom. He looked young, definitely no older than twenty-five, and his sandy hair was a mess.
“Mrs. Graham,” he panted, “I can – explain – everything…”
“Could you have taken any longer?” snapped Molly, though I knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t really angry with him but worried about what had been said about Rosie. This guy seemed to realize this as well, just giving her a calm-down-will-you type of look and facing the scandalized-looking Mrs. Graham.
“I told the office not to call the police,” he told her, taking deep breaths. “We have this under control –” And he showed her something from a pocket that made her eyes pop even further. “– and now Molly will just come with me, and my superior will sort the rest out regarding your students and everything.”
Leaving Mrs. Graham speechless and the class all goggle-eyed, the guy turned to Molly. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s not me I’m worried about – Chris, this guy said something about my sister…”
Chris came forward to look at the guy Molly had knocked out. “This is him? Jeez, you made it sound like a whole team was after you. He couldn’t have been a problem.”
“He wasn’t,” said Molly crossly. “But in case you haven’t noticed, every single one of my classmates witnessed him pulling a gun, so what was I supposed to do? I wasn’t going to go with him.”
This was too much for me. “Does this kind of stuff happen on a regular basis?” I demanded, staring at the person I had thought was my best friend. “How the hell did I never notice anything happening before now?”
“Watch,” said Kate, also staring; “now we’re finally going to get an explanation for the bajillion days of school she skipped because she was ‘sick.’”
Molly laughed, which I considered very inappropriate for the situation. “Yeah, explains loads, doesn’t it? That’s also how I hurt my knee during track, even though you guys never believed me.”
“She did hurt her knee,” affirmed Chris, who looked highly amused. He was kind of cute too, but way too old for me. “But if it makes you feel any better, she was being an idiot when she twisted it – tried to jump off this –”
“Whatever,” mumbled Molly as Kate and I snickered. Maybe I had gotten to know her pretty well, even if her entire existence that I had known was basically a lie.
“But we really have to go now,” said Chris. “Carter’s going to be flipping out, and the sooner we get back, the better. Don’t worry,” he added as Molly looked down at the unconscious man, “these guys can take care of him,” glancing at the two guys who had followed him into the classroom. They were big and burly, though they didn’t say anything or look at any of us. Strong and silent personal bodyguards – nice.
Nodding, Molly walked over to her desk, the whole class following her with their eyes, and scooped up her books. Trust her to be thinking about schoolwork in such a situation – but then she dumped it in front of me and said, “Can you take care of these, please, Nat? Thanks, dear, you’re a doll.”
Chris was giving me a weird look. “You’re Natalie Grimm?”
Hearing my full name was really strange; nobody called me Natalie but teachers and strangers. “Yeah,” I replied, giving Molly a quizzical look that she ignored. What a butt; that much hadn’t changed even if everything freaking else had.
“We can talk on the way,” said Chris, glancing back at Molly with what I thought was a very significant look. She nodded, giving me and Kate a little wave as she followed Chris to the door; he was saying, “You said something about your sister? Jackson’s called in; his report is weird, too…” His voice trailed away as they disappeared from the classroom. They must have taken another way out, because they didn’t walk past the windows again.
Without a word, the two goons walked over to the guy, who was still dead to the world (I just hoped he wasn’t actually dead) and picked him up like he weighed nothing. We all stared as they walked out of the room after Chris and Molly, the guy hanging like a limp doll between their massive arms. Mrs. Graham looked like she had been hit over the head with a frying pan, and though it was funny to see her like that, I had to admit I was pretty much feeling like that, too.
“I’ll be right back,” she said after a solid minute, obviously flustered. “I need to straighten out some things – go to the office – just stay here – we’ll make an announcement…”
Her heels clacked hurriedly out of the room.
Realizing that my mouth was hanging open in shock, I snapped it shut and pushed my glasses up my nose. Kate’s blonde head turned slowly away from the door in my direction, and as I met her blue eyes, we had one of those moments between best friends where we knew exactly what each other was thinking. Though maybe it was just because Molly’s words from earlier were echoing in our ears, and they suited this moment just as well as before.
Well, crap, indeed.