Chapter 25

When I got to school the next morning, everyone was abuzz talking about something. Kids gave me cautious looks as I wandered through the halls, going to my band locker and stuffing my coat inside. Callum came running up to me, almost crashing into me as he did so. I laughed a bit, not giving Callum a glance. "Woah, Sonic. What’s got you going so fast?"

"Did you know?"

I gave Callum a confused glance. "Did I know what?"

"Did you know that Keisha’s father was Gigabyte?"

I froze. "I thought that you would have known that already."

"Well, I didn’t." Callum said angrily. "How long have you known?"

"Just since last week on Friday. Why are you freaking out so much?"

"Because somebody leaked that last night on the school’s rumor Instagram page, along with… Other things."

"Other things?" I asked, turning towards Callum hesitantly. "What other things?"

"Oh, you know, the usual. Trayvon’s older sister being in a gang. My parents kicking me out of the house for not liking girls. Becky’s dad walking out on her when she was a little girl. Erika’s birth parents being a part of the Venus Flytraps. Your mother and father are having a messy divorce because she was cheating on him with someone at her work. Edward or Braylen or whatever the fuck his name is being the cause that the King and Queen of England are dead."

"What do you mean about my parents’ divorce?" I asked, feeling my body go still.

"You mean you-"

"No, I didn’t!"

"Emergency meeting." Callum said, dragging me into the band room. "I already texted for everyone else to meet in here. We need to talk with everyone right now."

"What are you kids doing?" Mr. Alvarez asked. He took one look at me, his eyes widening with concern. "Is Anneliese okay?"

"Mr. Alvarez, could you leave the room for a while? Someone spilled a bunch of our personal stuff out to that Instagram profile last night and we’re both kinda freaking out about it."

"What personal stuff?"

"We don’t want to get into it right now. They also spilled info about the rest of our friend group, but Anna is... Obviously distressed because of it. We just needed a place to get away from the people before they started whispering."

Mr. Alvarez shook his head angrily. "I am going to go have a word with the principal because this can be known as a version of cyberbullying."

"Do you need-"

"No, I already have the section of the handbook that talks about bullying memorized." Mr. Alvarez said angrily, roll stepping out of his band room and down the hall.

Once he was gone, I pulled out my phone and dialed Mom’s number. Callum gave me a concerned look. "Anna, what are you doing?"

"What do you think I’m doing?" I asked, visibly shaking. "I need to ask my mother for the real reason that they’re getting divorced."

"Anna, are you sure-"

"I deserve to know." I said, putting the phone up to my ear as Mom answered on the other end.

"Hey sweetie. What’s up?"

"Why are you and Dad getting a divorce?"

Mom seemed to hesitate. "You mean your father just now told you?"

"No. I’ve known about it since I got shot trying to protect my friend."

"You’ve been-"

"That hardly matters right now, Mother. I want you to tell me the truth. Were you cheating on Dad with one of your coworkers?"

"Anneliese, I hardly see-"

"Answer the damn question Mom!"

"Yes, okay?"

I closed my eyes, trying to maintain my anger. "Are you telling me that all those weeks Dad and I were suffering through headaches due to your stress, all of those late nights where you didn’t come home until one in the morning, you were cheating on Dad with your boss!"

"We got drunk one night, one thing led to another, and she and I-"

"I'm sorry, she?" I asked, Callum giving me a concerned look. "Are you telling me that Jodee is a woman?"

"So... Your father didn't tell you that either?" Mom asked, seeming to take my silence for an answer. "Listen, if this has now turned into the fact that Jodee is a woman-"

"This is not about who you decided to cheat on Dad with. This is about you lying about the extra shifts at work because lots of people at your job have supposedly been getting fired and the fact that I now find out that you’ve been lying about your sexuality to my face for the seventeen years that I have been walking this Earth." I stated angrily. "I would have understood if you had just told us about it and wanted to get a divorce ages ago, but instead you went behind our backs and cheated on Dad. What the fuck is wrong with you!"

"Now Anneliese, I-"

"How could you do this to us, Mom? Did Dad and I not make you happy?"

"Of course you two made me happy, bu-"

"Then why did you do this?"

"Why are you asking about this now? I thought that your father-"

"It is not his responsibility to tell me that stuff and I’m calling because I didn’t find out from either of you, like I should have, but I found out from a fucking Instagram post." I said angrily, feeling hot tears running down my face. "I don’t want to hear from you for a while."

"But you’re the one-"

"I know, but I don’t want you calling me back or even texting me, okay? I need to process this by myself without having you there to talk to me about it, okay?"

Mom took a deep breath on the other end. "Fine."

"Thank you."

"I love you."

"Sure doesn’t feel like it right now." I said, removing my phone from my ear and hanging up.

"Anna, is everything okay?" Erika asked gently. I turned around and saw everyone but Braylen gathered in the small band room.

"Everything is fan-fucking-tastic." I said sarcastically. I then took a deep breath, shaking my head. "Sorry. This all just came out of nowhere for me and I am currently freaking out."

"We could tell." Trayvon said awkwardly. "On our walk down here, the lights were flickering like crazy. It was like everything was responding to your anger."

"Some of the electricity from the sockets was actually flowing towards you like you were absorbing it or something." Callum said cautiously. "It was really freaky."

"That’s been happening a lot recently, ironically enough." I said, rolling my eyes as Braylen ran into the room. He paused for a second, then ran towards me and hugged me tightly.

"I ran here as soon as I found out the reason." Braylen whispered into my ear before he pulled away, looking me in the eyes. "Are you okay?"

"I don’t know." I admitted, going back in and hugging Braylen tightly as I sobbed into his blazer.

"Now that everyone is here," Callum said, motioning to the chairs. "Everyone sit down."

Everyone sat down in the first row. Braylen and I separated long enough to sit down, then scooted our chairs closer together as I leaned into his shoulder, Braylen protectively putting an arm around me as Callum continued talking. "Okay, so things came out about us that we maybe didn’t tell each other. I think, so that we can defend each other today, we all just tell everyone the full story. We tell each other everything."

"Well, Anna doesn’t have to go. We kinda already heard it..." Trayvon said nervously.

"Speaking of telling each other everything," Becky said, motioning to me and Braylen. "When did this happen exactly?"

"Huh?" I asked exhaustedly.

"Us… Well, it hasn’t been going on for long." Braylen said cautiously.

"My dad doesn’t know, so please don’t tell him this afternoon." I begged. "I don’t want to freak him out."

"What do you mean by not long?" Keisha asked cautiously.

"Couple days after I got shot. Maybe three days." I said, shrugging. "It’s a new thing."

"Yeah, a new thing that’s been going on for two weeks." Trayvon said, rolling his eyes.

"We didn’t want to freak anyone out since things have gotten a little crazy." Braylen said cautiously.

"A little? We’ve just gotten our biggest secrets exposed to the entire school." Erika said, eyes widening.

"Okay, so maybe that was an understatement-"

"Maybe?"

"But the point still stands that we wanted to keep things to ourselves for a while." I said, motioning to me and Braylen. "Figure out what this is exactly."

"You mean you aren’t officially dating?" Becky asked cautiously.

"We’re trying to figure that out right now. We didn’t want to rush into things." Braylen said cautiously.

"Okay, so Anna and… I don’t even know what to call you right now-" Callum said, sighing heavily.

Braylen gave me a shocked look. "You told him?"

"No, she didn’t." Callum said quickly. "Anna tried to steer me in the wrong direction, but I figured it out myself."

"Why don’t you know what to call him?" Trayvon said, giving Braylen a confused look. "His name is Edward. It’s not like he has an alter ego that he has to hide or anything."

I gave Trayvon a deadpan look. "You do realize what you just said, right?"

"Yeah, I know, and I know that it sounded dumb right when it came out of my mouth."

"Point being," Callum said, getting us back on track. "We should probably explain this stuff so that we can properly defend our friends today. We already know Anna’s stuff since she had to deal with her mom this morning, so who wants to go?"

"Not much to say about me." Erika said, shrugging. "I’ve always known that I was thrown off of a bridge after I was born. I don’t know who my birth parents were or who they are or anything like that. Even my moms don’t know who my birth parents are. For all we know, whoever told this stuff to that Instagram page lied."

"Not much to say about me either." Becky said, fiddling with her fingers. "My dad took out one too many loans from this loan shark in our neighborhood to help pay for my mother’s salon, the debt kept piling up, and he eventually left us because of it. Mom eventually paid it off, but we haven’t exactly forgiven him."

"Wait..." I said, looking over at Becky curiously. "You said that you got your powers when one of your crazy aunts broke into your apartment. You specifically mentioned that your father was bleeding out from a knife wound. When exactly did you-"

"I was seven, okay?" Becky said, snapping at me. "I got my powers when I was seven years old, and I’ve been hiding them since then."

"That’s even longer than I’ve had mine." Braylen said sadly. "And that’s the whole reason why my parents are dead."

"You mean your parents are actually dead?" Trayvon asked sadly.

"Yes, they are."

"But it’s not his fault." I said quickly. "His older brother Alexander was jealous because Ed over here was the first child in their family to be born with powers, so his college friends convinced Alexander to kill Edward and the rest of his family. Edward got shot in the torso and got here alive. Alexander is keeping his younger sister captive."

Becky gave Braylen a knowing look. "Your real name isn’t Edward Potter, is it?"

"No, it’s not. It’s Braylen Winchester."

Keisha’s eyes widened. "As in, Braylen Winchester, Crown Prince of England?"

"That exact one."

"Gotta say, I did not see that coming." Erika said, laughing a bit.

"Well, at least now your comment about how all the evil people are named Alexander makes sense now." Becky said, rolling her eyes a bit.

"Well, at least you don’t have an evil sister who deals guns to your oldest friend’s father." Trayvon said, shrugging.

"Yeah… We got history together." Keisha said awkwardly.

We all sat in silence for a minute, looking over at Keisha and Trayvon as they avoided our gaze. Eventually, Becky spoke. "That’s it?"

"Huh?" Keisha asked cautiously.

"You two aren’t going to talk about this?"

Keisha shrugged. "Nothing much to say about it. We’ve both come to terms with the criminals in our families."

"Yeah. I don’t like that people shared my personal business without my consent, but at this point, I don’t really care that I care about what people think about me." Trayvon agreed.

"Well, I’m not okay with it." Callum moped.

"Why did your parents kick you out of the house?" Braylen asked cautiously.

"Because I’m dating your best friend, if you and Damian even knew each other before this."

Braylen sighed exhaustedly. "Damian and I have known each other since we were little. Mr. Hellsing got divorced from his wife, who was on our staff as a General in the Royal Army since their family lived in England for a while, and he’d come home over the summer and we’d play together. During the school year, we’d constantly call each other. Trust me, we’ve known each other for a super long time."

"They kicked you out because you’re dating a guy?" Keisha asked angrily.

"Yeah. They also punched me in the eye, cut my arm, threatened to call the police on me, and took my phone."

"I don’t remember you having a black eye."

"That’s because I covered it up with makeup." I admitted. "Callum didn’t want any attention on him the next day at school, so I covered up the black eye and let him borrow my concealer until it healed."

"I still need to give that back to you."

"Yes. Yes you do."

"In all honesty, you guys, I think that we need to figure out who posted everything on that Instagram page." Erika said quickly.

"I think it was Anna." Becky said just as quickly, not being able to look me in the eyes. "No offense, but you knew mostly everyone’s secrets."

"None taken, but why would I spill everyone’s secrets and one of my own when I didn’t even know the reason for my parent’s divorce until Callum and my mother told me this morning?"

"Oh yeah. Good point." Becky said, shrugging helplessly. "Well, I tried to give an answer."

Braylen looked over at me quizzically. "What if it was that guy in the archives?"

"What do you mean?" Becky asked. "Are you talking about the one that Anna shocked down?"

"You guys were followed into the archives!" Erika asked in a panicked voice.

"Anna took care of him though."

"What if she was too late?" Braylen asked. "What if, and hear me out on this, that guy was a member of F.E.R.R.E.T. and was sent down there to spy on us, see what we discover? That would explain how they got the info on Trayvon and Keisha since we very audibly talked about it after I read the file on your father."

"And since we don’t know how many members are in F.E.R.R.E.T., it’s believable that there could be members just about anywhere in this school. People that we hang around with. Spies."

"Only people I’ve ever told about my father are the girls on the cheer squad." Becky said sadly.

"I told the rest of the drum majors about my parents kicking me out." Callum said cautiously.

"And, sadly, Zelena does know my family rather well. If anyone could figure out why my parents are getting a divorce, it would be her." I admitted.

"Question: why are you instantly suspecting Zacharias?" Callum asked.

"She was the one who invited Erika to the party. That party was a set up to get her killed. If anyone was going to be in cahoots with an organization trying to kill Erika, Zelena is a prime suspect."

"She does raise a fair point." Braylen admitted.

"And speaking of me, nobody knows that I’m in Y.A.K.S. with you guys except for, well, you guys and Damian. How did somebody figure out that I had gotten my powers and have joined you guys to post that thing about my birth parents on Instagram." Erika asked, looking at all of us cryptically, as if she was suspecting each and every one of us.

"I don’t think that this was because you’re in Y.A.K.S.." I said, standing up and pacing the room.

"What do you mean?"

"Erika, think about it. Zelena invited you to that party because Herbstreit declared that you were a target because of your adopted parents. If anyone would know about who your birth parents are, it would be another villain. You didn’t die at that party like you were supposed to because of my interference. Because you didn’t die, you are still a target. This could be a whole scheme just to get our other classmates to get you alone to make it easier to kill you."

"Sadly, Anneliese is right." Braylen said cautiously, standing up and walking to the center of the room. "Except this time, everyone is involved."

"What do you mean?" Keisha asked anxiously.

"We’ve all been publicly hanging around Erika as her self designated protection squad. Since F.E.R.R.E.T wants to kill Erika and hasn’t gotten a chance, the easiest way is to section off who she hangs around with other targets. Obstacles. We made ourselves targets by being friends with Erika. And Erika, this is not me blaming you, this is just me stating the facts."

"I don’t mind, actually."

"So… We’re targeted by association. Great." Becky said, slumping into her chair.

"You two are clearly the brains of this operation." Trayvon said, crossing his arms. "What do we do?"

"I think that the best thing we can do is just ignore what’s on that Instagram page. We need to stand firm. Safety in numbers and all that. If even one of us crumbles, that’s it. We’re dead." Braylen said confidently.

"And what are we gonna do about F.E.R.R.E.T." Erika asked. "I don’t want anyone in danger because of me, so what are we gonna do?"

"If we’re gonna try to beat F.E.R.R.E.T. and Herbstreit, we need to beat them at their own game." I said confidently.

Callum hesitated. "Are you talking about-"

"Espionage? Yes." I said, crossing my arms as I looked at the people in front of me. "You know that saying to beat fire with fire? Well, we’re beating espionage with more espionage."

"And who are we gonna spy on?" Trayvon asked cautiously.

"We already have one confirmed member." I said, smirking a bit.

"Okay… But how are we gonna spy on Zelena?" Erika asked.

Keisha’s eyes narrowed on my sleeve. "Anna, have you washed that blazer since last Thursday?"

My eyes narrowed. "No… And how do you know that this was the same blazer I wore on Thursday?"

"Right arm. Check the inside of the sleeve."

I took off my blazer, turning the right sleeve inside out as I saw a faint shiny circle on the inside. I picked it up, looking at the small almost see through pieces inside. "What-"

"It’s a hightech bug. I felt it’s presence when Herbstreit put it inside your sleeve on Thursday. Don’t worry, he hasn’t been able to access it. I managed to change the frequency to a different one and to turn on the privacy setting. I’m the only one who can access it now." Keisha explained. "Maybe we can use it to spy on Zelena."

"But how are we gonna get that on her without her noticing?" Trayvon asked.

"I’ll take care of it." I said as Mr. Alvarez walked back into the bandroom.

"Is this everyone that was targeted?" He asked.

"Yes sir." I said quickly.

"The principal wants to talk to all of you. He just wants to know about your mental wellbeing and all of that."

Callum smiled. "Okay sir. Come on guys."

We all walked out of the band room and down the hallway. I saw Zelena walking towards us as I stepped out of line, purposefully running into her as we both fell onto the ground. I had the small bug in my hand. Zelena scowled at me. "What do you think you’re doing?"

"Oh, I’m sorry Zelena." I said, smiling as I grabbed Zelena’s boot since it was by my leg, slipping the small bug into the lining between the inside of the boot and the outside, standing back up. "I didn’t see you there."

"What are you doing out in the hallway? I thought that you and your friends would be in the library."

"We needed to have a group meeting in private." I said, smiling. "Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to catch up to the rest of my group. We’re talking with the principal because someone posted our personal business on the school’s rumor Instagram page. You don’t know anything about that, do you?"

"Are you insinuating something?"

"I’m not insinuating anything. I am just asking a simple question. Now, if you’ll excuse me." I said, smiling kindly at Zelena as I met the rest of the group at the principal’s office.

"Where were you?" Callum asked.

"I got lost."

"How? You’ve been here for two months!" Becky asked, surprised.

"Oh, you know us blondes. We don’t know much."

Braylen raised an eyebrow. "You’re planning something."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"You are a lot of things, Anneliese, but a dumb bubble headed blonde is not one of them."

"We’ll talk about this later." I said, smirking as we walked into the office, gathering around the desk.

"So… You kids are the ones that were targeted?"

"Yeah." Callum said awkwardly.

"Blake gave me an earful, so here’s the deal. With the content of what was in these posts, we both think that it would be a good idea for you all to go home for the day. We’ll be sending an email out to the parents about this page tonight and we’ve already reported the page to Instagram to get it taken down. Just so that no kids question you, you’ll all have excused absences today. Go home and rest."

"Thank you, sir." Callum said happily, looking over at us. "Come on guys. Let’s all get our stuff."

We all nodded, leaving the office as we gathered our stuff and met back outside the building. Keisha was the first one out after me. I quickly walked over to her. "Can you access that bug?"

"Gimme a second." Keisha said, staring off into the distance as her eyes glowed green. "I’m hearing a class… How did you get it on her?"

"I ran into her and stuffed it into her boot lining. Those are her favorite boots. I got them for her on her sixteenth birthday. She’s always wearing them. We should be able to hear a lot from that."

Keisha smirked. "You clever girl."

"Thank you."

As soon as everyone was outside, Becky crossed her arms. "Okay, what’s the plan?"

"We could all head over to my house. Get in some early training." I suggested.

"Everyone cool with heading to Anna’s?" Callum asked.

Everyone nodded as we attempted to pile into Becky’s car, happy that we didn’t have to go to school and deal with anybody.

Next chapter