The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Webb of Friendship

Previously: "The Challenge" 

You can talk to Caleb anytime, so with a jerk of the shoulder you gesture Aaron to follow you back to your trailer. There, you sate your hunger with a couple of cans of microwaved Spaghetti-Os, and settle onto the sofa to play some Halo on a decrepit Xbox.

"Hey," Aaron says, "if I give you my grammar homework, can you do it for me?"

"Sure." You keep your eyes glued on the screen, where you're trying to hunt Aaron down through the corridors of a challenge level.

"Solid. I wouldn't ask, only I'm down to like a sixty-two average and I can't let it slide more."

"Your mom making a stink?" You hunch forward as Aaron's avatar swings into view, and you blast him into pulp.

"Aaaiigh! Fucker!" Aaron slaps you in the side of the leg. "Nah, it's Coach who's— He told me at practice yesterday my grades were sucking an' I hadda get 'em up."

"Who fucking told him? Ms. Cho?"

"I dunno. I guess."

"Oh, shit," you snort. "Maybe it was Lindsay."

"What? No!"

"Betchu it was. Fecking little dicksnag. She totally would, you know." You strafe to one side and again blast Aaron into a puddle of raspberry jelly. "Fat-faced little runt."

Lindsay Cho, a girl in the sophomore class with you, is the kid sister of Ms. Cho, the English instructor Aaron has. No one can stand her. She's a sour-faced little bitch who gets off on getting other kids in trouble when they're just trying to have fun or blow off steam.

And she's ugly, too. Fat, plain, and mopey-mouthed, to go with a personality like a water-logged garbage dumpster.

"I dunno," Aaron mutters as he leans in on his controller. "Maybe it was Mr. Fernandez."

"What are you fucking defending Lindsay for?"

"I ain't defending her! Just saying! Mr. Fernandez pissed all over my last history paper, 'cos, like, he said he couldn't understand it."

"Fucker was just crunked."

"I dunno." Aaron hurls the controller away as you slag him for the third time in a row. He swipes his forearm across his forehead. "I just can't ever get the words t'come out right. You know? Like I need a brain transplant."

"Don't let 'em fucking get in your head, man. You don't need to know that shit."

"I do if I'm gonna keep playing," he grumbles.

"That's what you got me for," you reassure him. You clamber up onto the sofa and squeeze behind him, straddling his shoulders with your knees and giving him a neck rub. "I'll get you up to a seventy percent. Eighty."

Aaron mumbles something, then hangs his head, giving you a better grip. The curls that tumble onto the back of his neck are soft and loose and kinda girly (when you get right down to it), and despite yourself you start to get an erection.

Does he notice? He tenses a little and raises his head fractionally. "What are you doing back there?" he asks.

"Pretending you're Madison and I'm about to get lucky."

"Euugghh!" He twists away and throws a hard elbow at you. You slap it away with a sniggering laugh. He dives in with a grin, and soon you're both rolling on the floor, trying to pin each other. Your chubby quickly dies during the struggle (which is fine), and the match ends with Aaron on top of you, hocking back a loogie and dangling it over your face.

* * * * *

You spend the evening dreading a text from "Evelyn Cummings"; worse, you dread that your new friends will get one. Eventually, you can't stand the anxiety, and after Aaron has gone home for the night you send him and Elijah both texts of your own asking if they've heard from her. When they both say no and why? you lamely admit that you're worried that she'll have a wigout or something after your "study session" at the library. She's so weird, you tell them, hoping that will inoculate them against anything she might try to say to them.

At least Andrew and Evie don't share any classes, so you don't have to worry about seeing her in classroom, but you do keep alert for signs of her. You think you glimpse her in the hallways at one point, but her back is to you, so you can't be sure.

Is this what it's going to be like? you wonder with no little irritation. Constantly looking over your shoulder in case the real Andrew starts to come after you? Maybe I should do another swap, you think. Find some pissy little nobody and swap with them. That way they're someone who won't come after me, and Andrew will be going after them. You know of course that that's not a real solution, that's just compounding a problem that started when Caleb talked you into swapping places with Gordon Black. But you can't put the idea out of your head altogether, which is probably why you don't talk to Caleb to let him know where and who you are now.

But school ends without any crisis breaking. Your mom texts you with a set of errands she needs you to run for her, and that fully occupies your attention after school lets out. Back home, you text Aaron and Elijah to see about getting together, but neither of them respond. That would—and maybe should—worry you, but you're also fielding texts from Ethan Clayborne, who's got questions about Geometry, and that keeps you busy and happy. If anyone deserves the title "Most Popular Guy" in the sophomore class, it's Ethan, which ought to piss Andrew off (and maybe it does, a little) but even he can't resist a sneaking admiration for the charismatic wrestler, and you plump up with pride at the way you're texting so casually with him, especially when he sounds interested in a party you tell him will be happening this weekend.

So you're not expecting trouble when Aaron finally gets back to you, and you're not looking for any when you swagger into his trailer. But trouble is waiting for you nonetheless.

It takes the form of a pink-skinned kid with the face and body of Andrew Webb.

* * * * *

Aaron socks you in the stomach again. You'd howl, but you have no air left in you, and his other blows have already turned your guts into a cauldron of fire.

Aaron and Elijah grabbed you from behind as you came in, knocking you to the floor and pinning you. They yelled and grabbed at you as you howled back. Andrew's upside face loomed into yours, and you felt him clasp your face. You roared with a sudden fear, and felt your eyes bulge as a strong hand gripped your forehead. "Fucker!" you spat through foaming lips. "Get the fuck off m—!" Then you felt your face being torn away, leaving you blind and senseless.

But not for long. The darkness was rent by a red flash and you jerked awake with your stomach heaving like a pan of boiling pain. "Fucker!" Aaron screamed at you. "What's your name? What's your fucking name?"

You'd have answered him more quickly if he hadn't kept hammering you in the guts.

Eventually, gasp by painful gasp, he and Elijah drew it out of you. Your name was Will Prescott, and you were a senior at the school. It was a book of magic spells that taught you how to make masks that let you steal Andrew Webb's face and body and life. And you did it because you were hiding from guys you needed to hide from.

Andrew himself wasn't present for the interrogation. Early on you heard him say, "I'm gonna go try putting it on," but what "it" was you couldn't tell and didn't have time to worry about, not with Andrew pounding you into pancake batter while Elijah held you down. Even when Andrew reappears some minutes later to look down at you with a hard smirk, Aaron stays concentrated on you. But you notice as Andrew gloats, "Fuck me, dude, I can remember everything you did as me!"

"Whaddaya fucking mean?" Aaron growls as he glares down at you.

"I mean, I put that mask of me on, and now I can remember all the stuff I did yesterday. When it wasn't me. Like, fuck! Dana's throwing a party this weekend! You guys know about that?"

"No." Aaron cocks his fist again. You cringe and clench your eyes shut.

"Fucker was listening in to her and Madison talk about it, butted his ass all in and—" Aaron pounds you the side of the head, and the rest of Andrew's words are lost in the clamor of your ringing skull.

Elijah speaks. Unlike Aaron, who is boiling with rage, he is calm and soft-spoken. "So, like, you remember where the real Evie is?"

"Oh, I knew where she was all along," Andrew brags. "She's being some hairy kid, up in the senior class, I think. Not this guy. Some other guy."

"Dane," you groan.

"You know where his shit is?" Aaron says. "The stuff he used to fuck around with you?"

Andrew pulls at his nose, then nods. "Oh, sure. Back at my place. He put it in my closet. Want me to go get it?"

"What we gonna do about Evie?" Elijah asks.

Andrew sniggers down at you. "Turn this fucker back into her. He was her before, he can be her again."

"Fuck," Elijah says, very softly. Andrew says, "Was she in on it?" When no one answers, he slaps you across the face. "I asked you a question, fuck-face!"

You shake your head. "No. She— I told you, I was trying to hide, I just did the thing with her like I did with—" You try swallowing, but it hurts too much.

"We should go help her," Elijah says.

"Uh uh." Andrew leans over you with a leer. "We're gonna turn this fucker back into her, and then we're gonna make him show us how to do this shit so we can do it too."

You shiver all over. Trapped as Evie Cummings, under the thumb of these assholes and helping them, might be even worse than hanging out as Dane with the threat of Gary Chen looming over you.

Next: "Flight of the Prodigal" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"