Beautiful Chaos(17)

“Oh no.” Lena started to get up, but I pulled her back down.

“You can’t stop it from happening, L.”

“What is she doing?” Lena couldn’t bear to look.

Ridley was talking to Savannah, tightening the low-slung belt with the poisonous insect trapped in it, like a gladiator gearing up for battle. At first I strained to listen, but within seconds they were shouting.

“What’s your problem?” Savannah snapped.

Ridley grinned. “Nothing. Oh, wait… you.”

Savannah dropped her pom-poms on the gym floor. “You’re a skank. If you want to lure some other guy into your skanky trap, be my guest. But Link is one of us.”

“Here’s the thing, Barbie. I’ve already trapped him, and since I’m trying to play nice, this is me giving you fair warning. Back off before you get hurt.”

Savannah crossed her arms over her chest. “Make me.”

It looked like they needed a ref.

Lena covered her eyes. “Are they fighting?”

“Uh—more like cheering, I think.” I pulled Lena’s hand from her eyes. “You have to see this for yourself.”

Ridley had one thumb hooked over her belt, the other shaking a lone, borrowed pom-pom like it was a dead skunk. The squad was next to her, climbing into their standard pyramid formation—Savannah leading the way.

Link stopped running down the court. Everyone did.

L, I don’t know if this is the right time for payback.

Lena didn’t take her eyes off Ridley.

I’m not doing anything. But someone is.

Savannah was smiling from the base. Emily scowled as she climbed to the top. The other girls followed almost mechanically.

Ridley waved a drooping pom-pom over her head.

Link dribbled the ball in place. Waiting, like the rest of us who knew Ridley, for the terrible thing that hadn’t happened yet but would any second now.

L, you think Ridley—?

It’s impossible. She’s not a Caster anymore. She doesn’t have any powers.

“Give me an”—Ridley shook her pom-pom halfheartedly—“R.”

Emily wobbled at the top of the pyramid.

Ridley called out again. “Um, and an I?”

A shudder went through the team, like they were doing the wave in pyramid formation.

“And then, let’s go with a D.” Ridley dropped the pom-pom. Emily’s eyes widened. Link held the ball in one hand. “What does it spell, Cheerlosers?” Ridley winked.

Lena—

I started to move before I saw it happen.

“Rid?” Link shouted at her, but she didn’t look back at him.

Lena was halfway over the bench, on her way down to the court.

Ridley, no!

I was right behind her, but there was no way to stop it.

It was too late.

The pyramid collapsed on top of Savannah.




Everything happened really quickly after that, like Gatlin wanted to fast-forward the whole story from breaking news to ancient history. An ambulance picked up Savannah and took her to the hospital, over in Summerville. People were saying it was a miracle Emily hadn’t been killed, falling all the way from the top. Half the school kept repeating the words spinal injury, which was only a rumor, because Emily seemed about as full of backbone as ever. Apparently Savannah cushioned her fall, as if she had selflessly martyred herself for the greater good of the team. That was the story, anyway.

Link went to the hospital to check on her. I think he felt as guilty as if he’d beaten Savannah up himself. But the official diagnosis, according to Link’s call from the lobby, was “good an’ banged up,” and by the time Savannah sent her mom home for her makeup, everyone involved was feeling better. It probably helped that, the way Link told it, the whole cheer squad was there asking him who he thought had been friends with Savannah the longest.

Link was still relaying the details. “The girls’ll be all right. They’ve sorta been takin’ turns sittin’ on my lap.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, everyone’s pretty upset. So I’m doin’ my part to comfort the squad.”

“How’s that going?”

I had a feeling both Link and Savannah were enjoying the afternoon, in their own ways. Ridley was nowhere to be found, but when she figured out where Link had gone, things would probably get even worse. Maybe it was a good thing Link was familiarizing himself with the county hospital.

By the time Link hung up, Lena and I were back in her room, and Ridley was moping around downstairs. Lena’s bedroom was about as far as you could get from Jackson High, and being there made everything that happened in town seem about a million miles away. Her room had changed since she came back from the Great Barrier. Lena said it was because she needed to see the world through her gold and green eyes. And Ravenwood had changed to mirror her feelings, the way it had always changed for her and Macon.

Her room was now entirely transparent, like some kind of weird tree house made of glass. From the outside it still looked exactly the same, with its weather-beaten shutters covered in vines. I could see remnants of her old room. There were still windows where there had been windows, doors where there had been doors. But the ceiling was open, with sliding panels of glass shoved to one side to let in the night air. In the afternoon, the wind scattered leaves across her bed. Her floor was a mirror that reflected the changing sky. When the sun beat down on us—as it always did now—the light refracted and broke and scattered over so many different surfaces, it was impossible to tell which sun was the real one. They all burned equally, with a blinding glare.