The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky (ebook reader for manga TXT) 📕

Mary Shelley Club—including Freddie—were huddled together behind the general store, which stood as quiet and empty as an old shoebox.

“What took you so long?” Thayer asked, bouncing on his feet, trying to shake off the cold.

“Rachel was slowing me down,” Felicity said.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” Bram said. “We’re going to Pinsky’s cabin.”

“A cabin-in-the-woods trope?” Thayer said. “Gotta say, I expected more from you, Bram.”

“Not a cabin in the woods,” Bram said. “More of a home invasion.”

Flashes of Funny Games came back to me. I should’ve known he’d do something like this.

“Your tasks are simple,” he continued. “Create chaos.”

“Who’s the target?” Felicity asked.

Bram looked straight at me when he said it. “Saundra Clairmont.”

I froze, and it wasn’t from the cold. Bram knew what he was doing but still acted like it was nothing. I guess to him it was.

“No way,” I protested. “She’s my friend.”

“That didn’t seem to matter when you guys targeted my best friend and my girlfriend.”

“Revenge Fear Tests,” Thayer said. “A fun new twist.”

Bram reached inside a large backpack and tossed something soft and bulky to me and Felicity. “Put this on.”

The Black hoodies. I hadn’t noticed before, but the guys were already wearing theirs, all dressed identically. “And this.” The next thing he handed out was white with a rubbery texture. I dropped the mask as soon as I realized what it was.

The mask. From Sim’s and Lux’s tests, from my own home invasion. “Why?”

“Because masks are all the rage. And this is my Fear Test.” Bram slipped his mask over his face, and I couldn’t look at him anymore.

Felicity slipped her mask over her face like she was slipping on the perfect prom dress. Thayer seemed to examine his for a minute, but ultimately put it on. Then it was just Freddie left. He seemed to catch my eye for the millionth time that night, but he didn’t say anything to me. Instead, he said something to Bram.“What are you doing, man?”

“I don’t have to explain anything to you,” Bram said, his tone a warning.

“I’m not putting it on,” I said.

“Rule number two,” Felicity said, the mask barely muffling her glee. “You must perform the task assigned.”

Freddie, a stickler for the rules, finally succumbed. “The faster we do it, the faster it’s over,” he whispered.

“No,” I shot back. “I’m not playing anymore. I quit.”

“The game isn’t over until everyone plays,” Thayer said, echoing almost exactly what he’d said at the movie theater.

“Bram, how can you play?” I said, desperate to drill some sense into him, into someone. “Your girlfriend got hurt and we still don’t even know why.”

“You can’t quit,” Felicity said simply.

“Watch me,” I said.

“You can’t quit,” she said again. “Because if you do, we’ll tell the whole school that you killed a boy in your own house last year.”

My breath caught in my throat. I felt like I was choking. Worse, choking in front of an audience of pale-faced monsters. “What?”

But Felicity didn’t repeat herself. She knew I’d heard her perfectly. I looked around, trying to appeal to at least one of them. Freddie looked up at the sky, like he couldn’t bear to face me, even from behind the mask.

I turned to Thayer. Thayer couldn’t actually buy into this.

“We have to stick together,” he said in a voice so low it came out borderline meek. “This ensures that we stick together. That we’re a team, through the good and the bad.”

“Are you serious?” My own voice sounded foreign to me, thick with unshed tears.

Bram stepped toward me but I stepped back, wincing. He slipped his mask up so it rested over his forehead. He whispered so only I could hear.

“You heard Felicity,” he said. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do. But we all had initiations, Rachel. Not just you. We all have secrets that could destroy us.”

He bent down and picked up the mask that I’d discarded. He pressed it into my hands and all I felt was the cold pressure of his gloved knuckles mingling with the horrid rubber.

“Did you choose Saundra because I chose Lux?” I asked him. “Because I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what happened to her.” I meant every word, but Bram acted like he didn’t hear any of it.

He slipped the mask back over his face. “If you want this to be over, just make sure she screams.”

 38

SAUNDRA CLAIRMONT

SAUNDRA SPIT BLACK sludge into the sink. The gunk made an angry, crumbly splash on the pristine porcelain as it oozed its way toward the drain. Bits of it dribbled down her chin, spilling over her blackened lips. The slits between her teeth were stained with the stuff. When she looked into the mirror she found the picture of death smiling back at her. Not just death, but hundred-year-old-, marinating-in-death-juice-beneath-the-earth kind of death. But it was worth it. She’d been using this charcoal toothpaste every day for the past month and it’d been making her pearlies the whitest ever.

She did one more round with the toothbrush, then rinsed until the black goo was gone. She shut off the bathroom light and headed back toward her room. She wanted to look her extra best because tonight was special.

Saundra hadn’t expected the night to go like this. The most she’d hoped to get out of this ski trip was some good intel on all the random hookups that were bound to go down. But to her surprise, she—for once!—was going to have a random hookup of her own.

Rachel had been acting super sus lately, which at first kind of bothered Saundra because, hello, they were friends and they were supposed to tell each other everything. But tonight Rachel had snuck off somewhere and it turned out to be for the best because Saundra needed her privacy right now.

When Rachel had started at Manchester, she’d been like a bird with a broken wing. A tiny, little, clueless hummingbird, totally lost and shivering because her heart was beating a million times a