Page 36 of The Pawn

I watch, half in disbelief and half in awe, as Holly whips out a tiny sewing machine, sets it on her desk, and goes to work on the giant T-shirt. Within what seems like a mere minute, she's somehow turned it from a tent of a thing into a stylish, cropped tank top. It's still wide when I pull it over my head, but she fixes that by tying a little knot on the front using two extra pieces of fabric.

"There!" She stares at me, chewing on her lower lip. "Would you mind if I...?"

The way she gestures vaguely atallof me doesn't make it super clear what she means, but I get the gist. "Do whatever you need to do to make me look better than this."

So she has me flip my head upside down, and she combs my hair into a tight, high ponytail like her own. Then, once she's smoothed every single flyaway on my head, she grabs her makeup bag and tells me to sit down on her desk chair, in front of the mirror above her desk.

"I don't know..."

"C'mon. It's just a little eyeliner, some highlighter, maybe a bit of gloss. They don't let us wear the bright stuff, but you can play your features up." She's peering at my face so closely that I feel heat spread across my cheeks. "Those eyes of yours should shine. And you've got great lips."

I can tell that I'm not going to win this one, no matter what I say. "Lay it on me."

I close my eyes as she kneels in front of me. Her makeup brushes whisper across my skin, softly patting powders into my cheeks and forehead. Gloss is applied to the curve of my lower lip and the points of my cupid's bow. A fan brush hits the tops of my cheekbones, not that it'll do any good, considering how round my cheeks are. Holly then has me open my eyes and look up so she can line them with the sharp point of a black brush eyeliner.

"You can do the mascara yourself," she says, handing me a large, round applicator wand. "I don't want you to lose an eye."

Leaning forward, I open my eyes wide and push the brush against the base of my lashes, then wiggle it out. Her mascara, unlike mine, glides on without clumping.

When I'm done, I don't look like another person. But I look likeme, exceptmore.This must be what rich girls feel like all the time.

"See? It's nice." Holly smiles at me in the mirror. "You should get some makeup like this while we're off campus. They always give us a little time to shop after the events."

Thinking of the black card burning a hole in the deep lining of my purse, I smile right back at her. "Yeah, definitely. Now I know what to buy."

Chapter 19

As I get onto the bus with the rest of the Rosalinds, my backpack feels extra heavy. It's not just the stolen credit card stuffed into the side pocket—that feels weightless every time Georgia Johnson glares at me, blonde Piper Lyons at her side, both of them laughing behind their hands. I have a secret stowed away in my backpack: revenge.

I'm going to have to wait to take it out, though. None of the four other Rosalinds can see it before I put my plan into action.

The fifth Rosalind, who I'm just meeting now, is Sasha Wong, daughter of Singaporean multi-millionaires.

"You must be Brenna." She eyes me up and down from beneath blunt-cut, fashionable bangs, her pink non-regulation lipstick sticking out against ice pale skin. "We haven't met yet—I was busy at auditions and rehearsals for the theater program. I'm Sasha."

"Nice to meet you." She has a firm handshake, her nails filed into soft curves. I have to look up a little into her bang-shadowed eyes; she's almost as tall as Holly, her hair twice as shiny. "I've heard you're an experienced rock climber."

She nods, a confident smirk on her lips. "I am, and then some. So if you need any guidance just let me know. I'll be giving everyone a crash course."

Since Holly is sitting at the front of the bus, Georgia hates me, and Piper seems to have joined in on that hate, I take a seat next to Sasha on the row opposite them. I can hear them whispering among themselves, giggling and laughing, no doubt making fun of me—my promise to seduce Tanner away from Georgia hasn't exactly paid off yet, after all, and she's probably gloating.

She won't be gloating for long.

* * *

The rock climbing site is an old, abandoned quarry an hour away from campus. During the trip, I get to know Sasha well, learning that she prefers decaf drinks, listens to J-pop—Japanese pop music—hates her stepfather, spends her summers in Singapore, and speaks five languages.

Sasha, meanwhile, learns next to nothing about me. Not that she doesn't try—unlike a lot of the selfish rich girls around here, she asks one question for every tidbit of info she tells me about herself. But I keep my answers vague and short, turning the conversation back to her, letting her talk endlessly about herself.

I'm not here to make friends or be well-known, after all. The less I say about who I am, the less I risk someone else figuring out what Cole figured out about me. Although staying vague about myself gets exhausting eventually, I feel obligated to at leasttryto talk to Sasha—she seems nice, and I won't last long in the Rosalinds if Holly is the only one of the group who doesn't actively loathe me.

It's a relief when we arrive at McKindale Quarry. Perched at the bottom of a section of earth that's been mined until nothing is left anymore, the rock climbing site's headquarters is a sprawled-out warehouse-style building. There's a climbing wall inside for newbies to practice on, but from what I've been told, the main event is climbing up the harshly carved walls of the quarry.

"This is it." Sasha nudges me in the side, practically bouncing in her seat as we pull up in front of the building. "Are you excited?"

Staring up at a head of short blond hair at the front of the bus, I answer, "Yeah, super excited," though not for the same reason as Sasha.

We get our stuff out of the overhead compartments, air conditioning blowing in our faces as we wait for the kids in the front of the bus to file out first. Double-checking the hidden package in the bottom of my backpack, I let Sasha go in front of me down the aisle, hanging back for a moment.

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