So Many Boys (The Naughty List #2)(55)

Chris exhaled, leaning closer to me as he scratched at his head. “Um…Johnny Rake, Giselle…somebody, Chloe Ferril—”

“Wait,” I said, holding up my hand. “Chloe Ferril was here?” I spun around the room, my Kitten senses tingling, as I looked for the other members of my squad.

“Yeah…” Chris said. “She was here, all gothed out. Why? You two still don’t like each other?”

“I have to go,” I answered, turning back to him suddenly. The disappointment on his face was plain and I felt awful. But…if Leona’s original thoughts were correct, Chloe could be the copy-Kitten. And she might still be here!

With a quick apologetic smile, I turned to move away. A moment later, one of the defensive linemen ran in from the hallway. He swung his thick neck around until he found Chris and then grinned.

“Dude,” he called. “Check your e-mail!”

“Why?” Chris asked, stepping forward and touching my arm casually. My back tensed.

“Cheaters, man! Everyone’s getting a video of cheaters!”

Just then, my phone vibrated in my pocket, tickling my leg. A second later, I heard Chris’s phone go off next to me—the ring tone of Washington High’s fight song. I would have been impressed, but at the same moment, several other phones began ringing. A mix of buzzing, dinging, and top-forty hits.

I gasped, my fingers trembling.

“What the hell?” Chris asked, taking out his phone and looking at it. I was too scared to look at mine. “Someone’s streaming a video.”

I stepped over and put my hand on Chris’s arm as I leaned in to look at his screen. There was an hourglass turning, loading a video. Glancing around the living room, I saw that everyone who had a phone was looking at it, and those who didn’t were sharing.

I held my breath, grasping Chris’s warm skin, not caring that I wasn’t into him. Not caring that not being into him might mean I couldn’t be a Smitten Kitten. Because whatever I was about to see, it would be bad. I could feel it in my pom-poms.

The hourglass faded, the screen showing a still from outside a window, looking into a classroom. Wait. Was that the music room? The image focused in on someone dashing into the room. It zoomed in.

I reached out to pull Chris’s phone closer to us. Riley Richards? Oh, frack! This couldn’t be good.

“Shit, Riley!” Chris called out teasingly, glancing into the party. “It’s you!” He pointed.

I looked up, seeing Riley standing in the middle of the room with his girlfriend, Jenn, his eyes widening at the mention of his name. Obviously he hadn’t gotten the call.

Jenn’s eyes darted around the room. “What?” she asked, laughing nervously.

I bit down hard on my lip and turned back to the phone. Riley was still in the music room, and I hoped that possibly, this was just a joke. But it wasn’t.

Megan Wright walked into the music room, going immediately to Riley, pausing uncomfortably close. I peeked at Jenn as she looked from person to person, wanting to know what we were seeing. Finally she ran over to Fredrick Henry and snatched his iPhone out of his hand.

“Hey!” he yelled, but Jenn was already staring at the screen, her lip curling. It reminded me of how freaked out Megan was when I saw her in the hallway that day. Wait. Was that when this was shot?

“Is Megan here?” I whispered to Chris, tilting my head toward his.

He furrowed his brow as if thinking and then shook his head. “Don’t think so.”

“Good.”

The music had stopped and the party was quiet, other than a few expletives and snickers. My throat was dry with anxiety. This copy-Kitten had seriously crossed the line. This was a heinous violation of privacy! No one—not even a cheater—should be exposed like this.

“Nice, Riley!” someone called from across the room. “Megan’s hot.” Riley didn’t look up; he kept his eyes trained on the ground, his face colorless.

I blinked quickly, my heart thudding. On the screen Riley and Megan were whispering to each other, and then, they got closer.

“Make out! Make out!” a football player started yelling, soon getting the entire room to chant.

“Slippery eel,” I murmured, looking around the room. The copy-Kitten had no idea the damage she was inflicting, both for the victims and for SOS. Jenn lowered the phone, holding it away from her like it was poisonous.

“Megan!” she screamed loud enough to make me jump. “My best f**king friend?”

Riley didn’t look up at her. He was still, like a statue, taking slow breaths.

The screen on the phone went black, and I thought it was over when another video began. “Oh, no,” I whispered, wondering how much worse it would get.

At first, I couldn’t understand the picture. The camera was shaking, moving amid blue and red flashes. Then I saw some people gathered below. “Is that—”

“The mall fair,” Chris said, turning to me. “I was going to see if you wanted to go the other night.”

Sigh. It was nice of him to think of me. I was about to smile when it occurred to me. Would I be on the next tape? My word, I was about to get exposed to the entire school even though I hadn’t actually done anything wrong!

“We’ve got another one!” someone yelled.

My body immediately tensed, and I looked over at Chris’s phone. On the video the camera zoomed in, focusing on a steel cart of what looked like a Ferris wheel. Definitely the fair. Rock, paper, scissors! This was it.