Just before the bell rings, ending your study hall, you DM Chelsea: What class u have now? You don't want to go to your last class of the day, and if you have a chance to talk to Chelsea again, you'd like it.
Her answer comes a minute later. (Bless her, she must be dutifully checking her DMs at most every class break, to be sure of catching a message from you.) Sudy hall in library, she tells you, with kendra and gloria.
And just as you're reading it, you look up in time to see Kendra come striding in. She gives you the briefest of glances as she passes, as though you're bug.
Kendra and Gloria are cheerleaders, and two of Chelsea's key sycophants. Kendra is a light-skinned black (her ancestors came from Kenya, she is always reminding people) with the physique of a track runner. Her hair is dyed a light crimson and falls in ringlets past her shoulders. Gloria is a lot plusher and more buxom, with thick, dark hair and pouting lips.
Either of them, being close to Chelsea, would be easy to get to, and you'd have no problems then talking and texting with her from behind their faces. But Chelsea mentioned neither of them as a possible replacement, and you can understand why: they are already "servants" of Chelsea, and replacing them with magical clones would be redundant.
Besides, you're leaning in another direction. The mermaid-like figure of Andrea Varnsworth is beckoning to your imagination.
Andrea might be the sexiest girl at Westside, even in a class that includes Chelsea Cooper and Cindy Vredenburg. She is tall, toned and tanned, sculpted by hours and hours of swimming. In the early fall and late spring she wears short-shorts to school that expose long legs all the way down to her ankles, and in the winter she wears jeans so tight they might have to be sewn onto her. Her breasts are large and full, like torpedos, and she covers them with t-shirts that drape and pour off her bosom to dangle just below her navel. Her face is a little hard, a little Slavic, and her dark, cool eyes are perpetually hooded. But somehow that look of skeptical disdain makes her even sexier: it makes her a challenge to be broken down.
She's going to be one of your recruits, eventually, there's no way she's going to dodge it. But she might be hard to get to. You've never seen her hanging out with anyone who looks like a close friend, but in her DMs Chelsea rattled off a lot of names that sound like they are friends of hers. You don't know much about Fatima Zahedi, Rebecca Sykes, or Brianna Gould, but if Chelsea vouches for them, not only as friends of Andrea's but as worthwhile recruits in their own right, then you're willing to trust her.
The only two names in that circle that you recognize, though, are Jelena Petrovic and Sienna Goldman, who both play in garage bands. Of the two, Jelena, who is an out lesbian, is probably the more attractive and has more charisma, and as Chelsea gleefully noted, replacing a "pop star"—or what passes for one at Westside—with a doppelganger would be a definite stroke for you.
But as you are composing a DM to Chelsea, the girl herself comes swinging into the library. She gives you a long look out of the corner of her eye as she passes you, then turns away when she reaches the table where Kendra is waiting. "Gloria's going to be late again, isn't she?" she sighs as she drops her backpack onto the table.
"She usually is," Kendra says.
"And it's not like her locker's on the other side of the school!"
"It's disrespect, Chelsea."
Chelsea clucks her tongue again . "Don't try to stir up shit, Kendra," she sneers. "Or if you're gonna try, at least try not to be so flipping obvious about it." She tosses her hair as she settles into her seat, and lifts up her phone to peer down her nose at it.
You've seen enough, and you don't want to tempt Chelsea into acting "in character" with you. So you scoop up your stuff and (against your earlier intuition) scamper off to class.
The delay gives you time to settle your own mind. When the final bell rings, you settle back in your desk to compose the DM to Chelsea: Need your help with—
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