Page 15 of Wicked Games

I blinked slowly, wondering what the hell was going on. A second later, a text from April came through.Don’t look!

Carey

I was wide awake now, adrenaline coursing through my veins and goosebumps peppering my arms. April’s plea had the opposite effect than she intended—by telling me not to look, I instantlyhadto look just to see what was so terrible.

Another message came through from her just before I could click on Insta.I know you’re probably looking anyway, but seriously, ignore it! These dumbasses literally have nothing better to do with their lives. Why else would they all be up at six commenting on this bullshit?

Now I was even more curious. I clicked on the first notification, which took me to Kiara Swift’s account.

Kiara was the only person I already knew of before I started at Babylon, due to her social media fame. She boasted over five million followers on TikTok and Instagram, and she also had multiple brand deals and sponsorships. It all began when she posted some dancing videos a couple of years ago. After they went viral, she spun the newfound renown into a full-on influencing career.

She was also Jasmine Briarwood’s best friend.

Upon closer inspection, I realized I wasn’t looking at her main account, but a second private one she’d made just for friends, otherwise known as a finsta. I could tell because she only had four hundred followers on this one… including me. I couldn’t remember following it, but somehow, I was on the list anyway.

Maverick.

He must’ve taken my phone one night while I was sleeping and followed the account for me. It wouldn’t be hard for him. I usually slept like a log—last night was an outlier—and my phone had biometric ID set up, so he could’ve used my thumbprint to open it.

With a sigh, I clicked play on the video post I’d been tagged in. The thumbnail image for the video was just a black screen, so I had no idea what was coming.

The plain black image persisted for a couple of seconds. Then some puke emojis appeared, followed by laughing emojis and bold white text saying, ‘EWWWWWW, no surprise though, right guys?????’.

This was followed by a voice recording of me, clearly made yesterday afternoon during my angry rant at Jasmine and Maverick. However, they’d edited the recording by adding new things to it in their own voices and moving my statements around to make it seem like I was saying something completely different than what I’d actually said.

Maverick:So, Carey, what do you think you’ll be doing in five years?

Me:Working at a porn shoot.

Jasmine:Oh my god, really? You want to do porn?

Me:Sure.

Jasmine:*Giggling* Wow, that’s really sex-positive of you. You obviously love sex.

Me:Yeah. You caught me!

Jasmine: *More giggling* What’s your favorite thing about it? I mean, what would you most like to be doing right now, bedroom-wise?

Me:Bouncing on Maverick’s dick.

Maverick:You want me that bad, huh?

Me:Yes. That’s literally all I want right now.

Those childish fucking pricks.

Fuming, I opened the comments section, predicting that it was going to be filled with even more childish pricks. I was right, for the most part. It seemed like half the school had commented, and only a few people were coming to my defense.

Biancababy:Omg she just said that out loud? What a dumb whore

Johann_atwood:Hahahaha OMG is this real?

Louvera2004That’s def her! I sit behind her in bio so I know her voice!

BrookeSanford04:This is pathetic. Obviously fake. Take it down, Kiara. I thought you would know better than most people how horrible it is to have people shit-talking you and trolling you online.

Louvera2004:It isn’t fake! It’s literally her voice, idiot

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