Isobel pretended to ignore them by searching for something in her bag but paused when she heard the squeak of approaching sneakers. She looked up enough to count eight pairs of gold-and-blue-accented tennis shoes. Raising her eyes, she saw that it was Alyssa who led the pack, Nikki only one step behind.

“I’m surprised you decided to show up today,” said Alyssa, loosing her platinum hair from its tight ponytail.

Isobel lifted her chin. “If only to save everyone from having to watch you try to do more than a single twist for the rest of the season.”

A trickle of giggles ran through Alyssa’s buddy patrol. Isobel let a cool, subdued smile tease up one side of her mouth. Alyssa’s cheeks flared pink and her whole face pinched together, as though she’d just chomped down on an extra-green crabapple. The laughter at her back dissolved quickly into sniffs and coughs.

“So what happened to your leg?” Alyssa asked.

Feeling that this must be of some sort of trick, Isobel resisted the urge to check her legs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, looking away. She wished Coach would come back already. What was taking her so long?

“Oh, I think you do,” said Alyssa. “I’m talking about that mark on the back of your thigh. Why don’t you stand up and show everybody?”

Isobel kept her seat. She tried to guess what was going on, tried to remember having done anything that would have put a mark on the back of her leg.

Had they left something for her to sit in? What?

Then she remembered.

“Rug burn,” she murmured, not liking that she couldn’t guess Alyssa’s game. And too late she realized it would have been better to have said nothing.

Isobel turned away to zip up her bag as giggles erupted from the group. She stopped and slowly raised her gaze again to the faces of her squad, wondering how these people had ever been her friends.

“Oh,” Alyssa said, her mouth on the verge of bursting into one of her radiant, blinding, too-much-whitener smiles. “That’s funny. We thought it must have been something like that, what with your new undead boyfriend and all. Bet you’re sorry now, though. Gosh. Especially after putting out. Tell me, how does it feel to realize you’re a skank and get dumped twice in one day?”

Isobel launched up from the bleachers, the sudden action spurring the collective squeals of backtracking sneakers and cheerleaders. She shoved Alyssa hard, hard enough to send her stumbling backward through her backup party and straight to the floor. She hit with a jolt, landing on her backside, her glossed mouth fixed in a shocked O.

“Hey!”

The shriek of a whistle split through Isobel’s throbbing head again and in her peripheral vision, she could see Coach bustling up to them, her oval face reddening to a ripe beet color.

Isobel trembled with fury. Her eyes remained locked on Alyssa, who stared up at her from the floor, her hands clenched. Coach seized Isobel by the arm and with a strong, yanking grip ended the hate-stare between them.

“What the hell is wrong with you two?” shouted Coach Anne, this time focusing her attention on Alyssa. “You know I don’t tolerate fighting on my squad!” She swung around to glower at Isobel again, her face purple. “In my office! Both of you!”

Then she spun on her heel and stormed toward her office door at the far end of the gym.

Alyssa smiled at Isobel as she picked herself up from the floor. Revolving in a slow turn, she followed after Coach Anne.

Scalding heat crawled up Isobel’s face. She couldn’t bring herself to take so much as a single step in the direction of that office. Not with everyone staring again. Not when she wanted so badly to put her fist through Alyssa’s flawless teeth, to crush that perfect button nose flat and permanently erase that conceited smile from her stupid face.

The heat of rage coursed through her veins like a deadly poison.

She had to get out of there. Now. Or she’d blow up.

On impulse, Isobel grabbed her gym bag. She looped the strap over one shoulder and started to walk hard and fast for the gymnasium doors.

“Lanley!” she heard Coach howl after her. Isobel, her head down, plowed forward. She had to keep moving. She had to, or she’d look back. She’d see everyone staring at her, thinking whatever they wanted about her, and she knew she would explode.

“Lanley, stop right there!”

Isobel cringed, covering her ears.

“You walk out that door, you’re walking off the squad! You hear me?”

She heard. But she was on autopilot now and couldn’t have stopped herself anyway.

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