When people looked her way, she’d give them something to think about. She’d be the one in charge. She’d send them all a message: Back. Off.

Hey, Eve texted Winston, whose number she’d grabbed from the Shieldmaidens chat, Thank you for earlier.

After a moment he responded, pls dont mention it.

How’d you get out of class? she asked.

Ha. Science class. All I’m doing is extra credit stuff, anyway. Not trying to brag. Just really easy for me. So Miss Melvin didn’t mind if I left.

She had something important to ask him, and she got right to it. Hey, so…, she wrote, do you still have that Green Hornet mask? Could I borrow it?

33

NESSA

Lara and Erin are in! Nessa wrote to the group that night.

Nessa had hooked Erin O’Brien so easily at rehearsal. Two words into her sell and Erin had said, “I will do anything to help you take down that nitwit. Just say the word.”

Ugh, fine, Sophie responded to Nessa’s text.

Power in numbers! Nessa wrote back.

But minutes later, Sophie called her. An actual call. On the phone.

Nessa picked up and said, stunned, “Hello?”

“I don’t trust these girls.”

“Hello to you, too.”

“Lara most likely hates me. Remember how people hate me?”

Nessa did remember, because she hadn’t been Sophie’s biggest fan, either.

Right on cue, Sophie added, “You hated me. Maybe you still do.”

“I don’t hate you.”

Sophie didn’t respond. Nessa could hear TV playing loudly in the background and a little girl’s voice chattering away. Way too many seconds of not-talking went by.

“Do you watch Dance House?” Nessa asked.

“Of course I do! Go Teeny, right?”

“No! Teeny’s the worst!” Wow. How could Sophie like hair-puller Teeny?

“Teeny’s doing what she needs to do to win the show!” Sophie argued.

“Teeny’s ruining it for everybody else,” Nessa shot back.

They debated every dancer on the show’s three-year history.

“Hey, wait.” Nessa stopped Sophie in the middle of her rant about unfair judging. “You think I never liked you. But you treated me like I was see-through until, like, two seconds ago.”

No answer from Sophie.

“You didn’t talk to me,” Nessa went on. “What was I supposed to think about you?”

The TV continued to blare in the background.

“Yeah, maybe,” Sophie answered after a beat. “Fair point.”

Nessa hadn’t expected that response. “Hey. I think it’s really awesome that you didn’t kiss Brody, by the way,” Nessa told her. She’d been meaning to say this, at some point. “You shouldn’t have done something you didn’t want to do.”

Another moment of silence passed by on Sophie’s end of the line. Then, abruptly, Sophie said, “Thanks. Anyway, I should go. Talk later.”

When Nessa turned out her light that night, her phone glowed with a text from Sophie to the new Shieldmaidens: Welcome to the team.

34

EVE

The green of the mask surrounding her brown eyes made her think of a forest.

Eve got the mask from Winston in school that Monday morning, and that night she took it out of the front pocket of her backpack where it had lain tucked away all day. She slipped it on her face, and texted him a selfie of her wearing it.