CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | ✓

58: A SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHING

            For the first time in weeks, stares hook onto me. They stopped watching for a while and now their surveillance returns like a bear trap. Pupils nudge their friends as I pass, look up from their phones and interrupt conversations. Even the younger kids.

I keep (two three) my own attention on the ground but it's impossible not to count my steps when I do. And I know I'm not supposed to. I'm not supposed to (one) count. But the spotlight is so hot even in the January frost that my skin might melt off my bones.

My count is dislodged when someone slams into my side. The burst of pink tells me that it's Diwa even before I look. My smirk wavers when I find her horrified expression.

'Did the date go that bad?'

'No. Well, maybe.' She clutches my arm. 'I'm so sorry, Cece. I would've rung you last night but I got home late and my mum were raged and I couldn't tell her I'd been on a date, could I? So obviously she knew I were lying when I said I'd been studying. She took my phone and wouldn't let me use the computer so I couldn't warn you. But I promise, it were an accident. She—Annabella—she asked me why I'd be mates with "someone like you" and I were telling her that you're a good friend and you're clever and you're creative and it just slipped out...'

'What are you talking about?'

For a fraction of a second, hope flickers on her face. Then her dread burrows twice as deep when she realises she's going to have to be the one to tell me.

'I told her about Death to Beewolf. I told her it's you...'

She might continue to apologise but Beewolf and its army are too loud. I close my eyes and watch the red crash into me. It latexes to me, viscose like blood. I just don't know whose yet.

¡THEYKNOWTHEYKNOWTHEYKNOWTHEYKNOWLOCKEDINLOCKEDINLOCKEDINLOCKEDIN!

She has been planning this the whole time. How could you not realise, you–

–pathetic fool? Did you think she would be your friend? Your friend? You're useless and dangerous and evil. No one wants you. No one is ever going to want you. The only thing anyone could ever want you for is to be the one who puts you down.

She has been planning this the whole time–

'You've been planning this the whole time.'

Diwa shakes her head frantically. Her features sharpen and distort. The beetles crawl out of the shadow on the back of her neck but it's too late for warnings now.

'Did you only let me into maths olympiad so you could watch me? So you could get proof it were me?' I ask and her face falls. 'So you'd be the first to know?'

Through the glitches in my vision, I catch flashes of her hair between her teeth. She chews it into split ends. Is she going to spit it out tomorrow like a cat or does the clump grow infinitely in her gut, a tumour of anxiety that never loosens?

'Only at the start... I– I thought, you know, if I knew summat before Saadia and Annabella then I'd, I dunno, get some points. But–'

I nod. I can't be cross with her for that. We're all clawing our way up the food chain. I've never cared about the people I've hurt to do it so how could I be cross with her?

'–that changed after you helped me home from that party. I wouldn't have–'

'No worries.'

I twist myself free of her and enter the school gate.