The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Ambushed by the New You

Previously: "A Switch in Time" 

Fuck! you think as you rub hard at your eyes and face. The only thing worse than waking up naked in the backseat of your car is waking up naked in the backseat of someone else's car ... and you're suddenly them!

You grunt and groan and stretch and try to get used to the idea that you're not Will Prescott anymore ... That you're now Justin Roth.

It might be easier if you didn't feel Justin himself breathing in a panicky way down the back of your neck. If you turned around, you'd almost expect to see him, sitting behind you, staring at you with freaked-out eyes.

Even worse, you feel infected with his thoughts. Your brain feels hot and moist, and it squirms with alien thoughts, like a mud clod crawling with worms. It's like being eaten alive from the inside, and if the alien thoughts eat you all up, will there be anything left?

Stop freaking out, man! you tell yourself as your breath comes in short bursts. Your limbs twitch with the suppressed urge to spring from the car and run away. Nothing's changed! You're still you!

But who the fuck am I? comes the panicked reply.

"Fucking quit it, man," you mumble to yourself, and surprise yourself with the baritone rumble. You clench and flex your fingers, studying them. They are strong and calloused. So are the palms of your hand. Your forearms are also thicker. You bury your face in the crook of your elbow before your eyes can fall to your lap and crotch and cock.

Fuck! Okay! You suck in a deep breath. The fact that I'm freaking out at least tells me that I've got Roth's personality in here with me, too. Your lips twitch into a ghastly grin as you remember some of the drug-fueled waking nightmares he's given himself. This is just like that, man, you tell yourself. You'll just get up, get dressed, get out to do a little stretching, a little limbering up, clear your head, get some oxygen, get woken up, and you'll see everything's normal again.

Or, at least, you'll be able to fake your way through by pretending you feel normal.

You search for the discarded clothes: boxer shorts; cold, stiff, dirty Levis; a t-shirt; woolen socks and broken-in hiking boots. Once dressed, you run your fingers through your thick, shaggy mop of hair and clamber from the car.

The sun is above the horizon but not above the tree tops, so the school parking lot is still cloaked in shadows. You crouch and push at the car, stretching your calves, then stand and lean back to stretch your spine. You suck in, hold, and slowly exhale several deep breaths. As you'd anticipated, you soon feel more centered. Exhausted and wrung out, because you've woken early, in a panic, after not much sleep, but more centered. After pacing the parking lot for a few more minutes, letting the cool morning air raise prickly goose bumps all over you, you crawl back into the car.

But what is there to do? There's no point in returning home. Justin's friends will still be in bed. The school will still be shut up. After turning the matter over in your mind for a minute or so, you set the alarm on your new iPhone—

Well, it's new to you; Justin's phone is an old model, battered and stained with a spider-web crack on the screen

—and close your eyes to try catching a cat nap.

* * * * *

You wake with a start. Fuck, am I late? The alarm is chiming, but it's only seven-thirty when you lift the phone to blink at the time.

Oh, fuck-diddly-duck. You lay back down and blink at the roof of the car. Then a wave of determination rolls over you, and sit up, yank the keys from your worn pockets, and slide them into the ignition. The old sedan roars to life, and you back away from the school.

Your first stop is a 7-11 to get some coffee and a donut. You grimace to yourself as you trudge into the pastry section, then pause to let a small smile tug at your lips. That was totally a Justin Roth reaction, you marvel to yourself—he's been trying to cut out junk food. So you cuss at the glazed donut that you take—goddam motherfucking temptation—and glower at the ones you leave behind.

You're at the coffee station, wincing at the sugar packets as you hover a hand over them, when the door chimes and familiar, raucous voices sound behind you. You glance back. Alec "Brownie" Brown does a double-take at you; his lip curls up into a hard sneer, and he swaggers over.

"You fucking pot-head." He grabs you by the side of the head and punches at your gut. "When are we gonna see you out at the Warehouse again?"

A grin pops into your grimace. "Jesus," you gasp, "I was only out there, like— Uh—"

Fear seizes your heart. I don't remember! What happened to Justin's memories?

Brownie sniffs at you. "God damn, you got like weeks of weed on you. Leave some for the rest of us."

Your mind races, but the words seem to come from somewhere else: "So come out to the wilderness with me some time, I'll bring my stash."

"Shit." Brownie rubs his nose. "We just got back from there, me and Laurent, you know." You follow his glance, and see the captain of the wrestling team studying a rack of junk food. "Morning run." Brownie slaps you in the stomach. "You should start running with us, if you're up this early anyway." He glances you up and down with a critical eye. "Bro, you lifting these days?"

"A little." You shrug. "Workin' out with my bow, mostly. You gotta get in some kind of shape for that."

Brownie sneers down at your donut. "Not eating that kind of shit, you're not." He snatches it from you and jabs it in his mouth. "'Oo 'eed a 'iet 'oach," he says around it as he jams a large Styrofoam cup under the coffee spout.

"Oh, fuck." You snicker and rub your eye.

* * * * *

Your heart is still beating rapidly on the drive out to the school—and the coffee isn't helping—but at least you're not panicked again. Justin's memories haven't slipped away, and his instincts carried you through at the 7-11 almost without your noticing. (The bit about the bow came blurting out when you weren't looking, but it was the right answer.) No, only the reason you couldn't tell Brownie when the last time you were at the Warehouse was because ... Well, because it's lost in the fog of Justin's own memories.

Though that fact perturbs you a little too. The fact is, he's been having paranoid flashes, some related to memory lapses like you suffered in front of Brownie and some just free-floating anxiety attacks. You really oughta cut out the fucking drugs, man, he's been telling himself off and on. 'Cept what else is there to fucking do?

But it is a reason, you decide, to get out of Justin's identity and back into your own—or into the identity of a second beta—as soon as you've got him set up as an ally.

* * * * *

You're changing out books before first period when Jessica Garner falls against locker next to you. "I'm looking for Will Prescott," she says, and she holds your eye as she says it.

For a count of one ... two ... three ... four ... you stare back at her. The temptation is strong to play clueless, to deny seeing him or even knowing who he is. But after a hooded glance around, you mutter back, "You found him."

"I figured," she says. "I was hoping." She leans in and hisses, "Why isn't he wearing that goddamn fucking expensive wardrobe we bought for him?"

"Who?"

"Your beta!"

"He isn't?" You blink.

"No! I just talked to him at his locker, and he's back to dressing up like he's in kindergarten again."

Oh. Right. He doesn't know anything about Project Make Prescott Popular. "I'll talk to him. There was, uh, kind of a screw-up last night."

Her eyebrows lift. "Oh? What kind of fuck-up?"

"I said screw-up. Don't fucking misquote me. It's nothing. He just needs, uh, debriefing is all."

"Yeah, so when are you gonna do it? I'm telling you, man, I don't appreciate seeing all the fucking hard work that me and Mike and Philip—"

"I'll talk to him! Okay? Jesus! I'll talk to him—" You grapple with the fogbank that is Justin's knowledge of his own class schedule. "Third period. I can hang out with him then."

"How about second?"

You mentally run through Justin's schedule again. "No. That's, like, the only class I don't skip. Look, just stop spazzing out, man—"

Jessica wheels, just in time to see Kendra Saunders lowering her iPhone.

"Too cute, Jessica," Kendra simpers. "If you have to dumpster dive, he's definitely the one to dive for."

"Gimme that, you fucking—!" Jessica leaps for her fellow cheerleader with a snarl, but Kendra melts back into the crowded hallway, trailing an echo of derisive laughter behind her.

* * * * *

You could go find your beta and tell him directly that you want to see him third period. But that wouldn't be Justin's style. So you text Eva—and a light leer pulls at your lips as you think back to yesterday, and at how strongly she came on to Justin in order to occupy his attention—to ask her to tell your beta to come looking for you out by the portables third period.

You don't want to be bothered by any of Justin's friends before then, so you attend his English class (first period) and Constitutional Law class (second), where you space out. But third period you trudge out to the old portables in back of the school, to drop with a grunt to the ground. You dig inside your bag for a pack of cigarettes—another bad habit Justin needs to give up—while cussing softly. It'll fucking help me relax, you tell yourself.

But you tense up again when you see Will Prescott approaching you from one direction while Brianna Gould approaches from another.

Next: "Flirtation Walk" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"