Premeditated by Josin L. Mcquein Read Free Book Online

better source for data mining than the kid shuffled to the fringes who does nothing but watch everyone all day.
    “And Jackson Dexter, who you will avoid, is a complete idiot. It’s odd, considering he’s a scholarship case and probably the smartest guy in school.”
    “He hides it well.”
    Just then, he was hiding it by engaging one of the posters on the wall in a heated (and one-sided) argument. He scolded the “healthy living” bicycle rider—loudly—for insulting Chandi’s choice to wear a shirt that was two sizes too small and therefore required open buttons. She pulled her blazer tighter and hunched her shoulders when she realized most of the room was listening in.
    “Complete loser, by choice,” Abigail-not-Abby said. “He spends all his time trying to distract people because he’s afraid they’ll remember he sleeps on the couch since there’s only one bedroom in his house and his mother and sister have to share it.”
    “Why should I avoid him?”
    “Because he’s weird, and he gets ideas that turn into disasters for everyone involved.”
    “So he’s a typical teenage boy?”
    “Not really,” she said. “Grades or not, I doubt he’d still be here if he didn’t have Brooks to hide behind.”
    “I sort of pictured the two of you teaming up against Chandi.”
    “Ah. She told you about the name change? Did she tell you that she was changing Pepperidge, too? She thinks a cookie last name makes her sound like a stripper.”
    “Funny, I thought it was the missing buttons on her shirt that did that,” I grumbled.
    Abigail-not-Abby snorted and stole another fry. She hadn’t even touched her pasta.
    “Brooks doesn’t mind people ogling his girlfriend?”
    “She’s not his girlfriend. Not really. Channing thinks she is, but she also thinks no one remembers her old nose.”
    She reached for my tray again; I scooped the fries to her side of the table.
    “She and Brooks have been friends since primary. He puts up with her because in his head, they’re still friends. In hers, they’re destined for each other. It’s sad, really. She can hardly function without him, and he’s too nice to make her try.”
    I was beginning to wonder if one of Mr. Wonderful’s hidden talents wasn’t hypnosis. Since when was issuing orders considered “nice”? If Chandi was so completely taken in that she’d transferred control of her own life to this guy, then reaching her was going to be more difficult than I thought.
    I wondered if those were her scratches on his neck, which got me to thinking about the way she kept playing with her sleeve. The safe bet was that if she’d left her mark on Brooks, he’d done the same with her.
    “Brooks is a light touch,” Abigail-not-Abby said. “Especially considering who he hangs around. He doesn’t ignore me, anyway.”
    “He should tell her the truth,” I said, but I knew there was no chance of it happening. What guy would give up his between-hookups fallback girl?
    “Why? Hoping to fill the gap?”
    “Dating him is the last thing on my mind.”
    “Flunk trig,” she said again, and downed the last french fry.

7
    By last period, I’d stopped thinking of the Lowry School as Stepford and reassigned it as Wonderland. It was easier that way. No one seemed quite human if they were absurd characters in a storybook.
    Channing Pepperidge was the Queen of Hearts, able to slaughter detractors with barely a look. I’d seen it firsthand in history, and in our shared chemistry class after lunch. Half the guys in the room had to have her inverse image burned onto their retinas from staring so hard.
    Dex was the Mad Hatter. Pretty much everything he did made sense to him (and only him), but if he threw a party, you knew everyone would come.
    Abigail-not-Abby played the White Rabbit. She was always hurrying from here to there as though she was already late before she even had a destination in mind.
    The shifting chorus of extras who shared space with the group made pretty