Girls That Growl (2 page)

Not that I care. I am who I am. And I don't need three thousand MySpace friends to validate my existence on this planet.

"Ooh, look! It's Freak Girl!"

I do, however, need to be left alone.

I turn around to see which Oakridge Clone is trying to feel better about her own sorry existence by poking fun at mine. My eyes fall on a cluster of cheerleaders staring at me from across the hall. Of course.

Of all the losers at Oakridge High, cheerleaders have to be the worst. With their sickly sweet fake smiles, swishy skirts, and bouncy, sun-kissed (aka highlighted from the muddy brown color they were born with) blond hair, cheerleaders think they're God's gift to high schools. They expect worship from guys, girls, even teachers. And they get it. And if one isn't interested in falling on their knees to kiss their per-fectly sculpted asses, they might as well catch leprosy. The cheerleaders will guarantee them social outcast status for the rest of the year.

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"Hey, Freak Girl!" calls another cheerleader. They all look alike to me. "I thought vampires couldn't walk around during the day."

I roll my eyes. Of course she has no idea I really AM a vampire. She's making a clever assumption based on the fact I'm not wearing a stitch of pink.

"Of course we can," I retort back. "How else can we sink our teeth into succulent virgins such as yourself— Oh wait! I'm sorry, I must have been thinking of someone else. Some-one who
hasn't
banged the whole football team."

The girl's eyes narrow. "You'd better watch yourself, Freak Girl." Yup, that's her oh-so-clever comeback. No denial either, I note.

"Oh yeah?" I grin saucily, sauntering up to their gang with my most confident steps. "How come?"

"Because if you don't, I'll kick your skanky vampire ass."

I let out an overly loud laugh. Gotta let them know I'm not afraid. "You and what army?"

Another cheerleader steps forward. This one I do recog-nize. Mandy Matterson, my former best friend back in the day. Before she realized that I was nothing but a roadblock in her journey to high school stardom. She's gone through an extreme makeover since we used to hang—inside and out. Now she's blond, beautiful, and oh so bitchy. No wonder she's the current captain of the squad. I can't believe we were once friends.

"You think you're so cool," Mandy sneers, narrowing her eyes. She wouldn't admit to our former friendship if she was being tortured and threatened. "But really, you're just another Oakridge High wannabe."

I squeeze my hands into fists, fury burning through every vein. That's it. I don't care if it's the first day of school. Or that I'm supposed to be keeping a low profile, what with my new undead status and all. I start to dive toward her.

"Rayne!" Someone grabs my arm and yanks me back, just in the nick of time to save Cheerleading Barbie's perfect Ashlee Simpsonesque "after" nose.

I turn around, annoyed. If I was a healthy vamp, no mor-tal human would have been able to stop me like that. Stupid blood virus. I should start lifting weights.

I realize it's my current best friend, Spider, who's grabbed me. The only person in school who understands me. Which means she should understand my cheerleader rage and let me go.

"It's not worth it," Spider says, not living up to her potential.

"It is
so
worth it." I growl back, glancing over at the three girls, who are staring at me with haughty expressions. As if they really think they can even lay a scratch on my body. Puh-leeze.

"It's the first day of school. You really want to sit in de-tention the first day of school? I thought we were going to the My Chemical Romance concert tonight."

I sigh. "You're right, I guess. But look at those smug losers," I say, gesturing over to the Barbies. "They
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deserve to die."

"Believe me, I'm not saying they don't. Just not necessar-ily before A period,'-' Spider says rationally.

"Besides, Mr. Teifert is looking for you."

Mr. Teifert is the school drama teacher and—as only I know—also president of Slayer Inc. I wonder why he's looking for me. After all, I'm technically retired from the Slayer biz. The virus made me too weak to perform my duties. But Teifert says once a Slayer, always a Slayer, and you never know when they might need me.

"Great." What fun assignment will he have for me this time? "Okay. I'll see you at lunch."

I watch as Spider turns and walks down the hallway, won-dering why no one picks on her. After all, she's not exactly the most normal kid in school either. When she was born, her par-ents raised her as

"gender neutral"—not treating her as a boy or a girl—just a person. She was only allowed to play with gender neutral toys—no Barbies or trucks for Christmas. And she was never put in dresses or allowed to wear baseball caps. The idea behind these avant-garde parenting techniques was that she could choose which gender she preferred when she was old enough to make the decision. But Spider's always been indecisive. She's now sixteen and she still hasn't made up her mind. Her last boyfriend was a drag queen, so I guess she's getting the best of both worlds.

I sneer one last time at the cheerleaders as I walk by, but they've already moved on to the all-important

"Does my makeup look all right?" part of their day and so they ignore me. Attention spans of gnats, let me tell you. I walk to the school auditorium's side entrance and push open the heavy metal door. It clangs shut behind me, leaving me in darkness. I always think the stage is spooky when there's no one about.

Not that I should be scared of the dark. After all, I'm the most dangerous creature here.

A spotlight illuminates the stage and Teifert, always one for drama—being the drama teacher and all—sits beneath it in a folding chair. Last year the school put on a great produc-tion of
Bye
Bye
Birdie
with Sunny in the starring role. I have to admit, the girl was pretty good.

"What's up, T?" I greet with a casual wave. "How's it hanging?"

He grunts, running a hand through his wild black hair. I don't think he really approves of me, even if last summer I did save the vampire and human races as we know them. I mean, a girl should get some props for that, I think.

"Rayne, we have a problem. And we need your help," he says, without so much as a "Hey, how was your summer?" intro.

Great. And here I thought all I'd have to worry about this semester was calculus.

"Of course you do." I sigh. "What is it this time?"

"Mike Stevens."

"Mike Stevens?" I scowl at the name of my arch nemesis. Lex Luthor to my Superman. Joker to my Batman. Mike Stevens is captain of the football team and officially the biggest dick in the universe. "What about Mike Stevens?"

"He's missing."

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"Uh, okay, T," I say. "Let's get something straight here. Mike Stevens missing doesn't necessarily qualify as a prob-lem. I mean, have you met the guy? Some might say a miss-ing Mike Stevens could be the best thing to happen to Oakridge High in a very long time."

"That's not all," Teifert says. "There's also something suddenly very odd about the cheerleaders."

"Odd about the cheerleaders?" I cock my head. See, I knew I should have kicked their butts when I had my chance. "You mean more odd than usual about a group of girls who want to dance and kick up their legs while wearing short skirts in the middle of a New England November?"

"Yes. And Rayne, this is going to sound strange, but. . ."

Strange. Ha! He's talking to a vampire who's also a vampire slayer who spent her spring exposing an evil vam-pire and keeping him from destroying the world. "Dude, after all I've been through, nothing's going to sound strange. Absolutely nothing in the known universe."

"Very well then. The cheerleaders? They've been heard, uh . . . growling."

Huh. Then again . . . maybe I'm wrong.

"Uh, growling? What do you mean, growling?"

"We're not sure exactly. But we think there's something very odd about their recent behavior. And now with the school's top quarterback missing, well, we feel it's something we need to check into."

"But I'm a vampire slayer, not Ace Venfootball, Jock Detective. What does this have to do with me?"

"Rayne, why is it you feel the need to argue with every single thing I say?"

"Because every single thing you say is usually stupid and ridiculous."

Teifert sighs. "Here's your assignment. And no, until we get our replacement slayer trained, you can't get out of this. We need you to go try out for the cheerleading squad. Infil-trate their ranks. Find out what's going on."

I stare at him aghast, too stunned to answer at first. Then I find my voice. "No effing way."

"Rayne, do I have to remind you of the nanos still in your blood?"

Ugh. Why does he always have to go there? Basically, for those of you just joining us, when they selected me as a potential slayer girl at birth, the nurse—a secret Slayer Inc. operative—injected me with some kind of nanovirus that lives in my bloodstream. And if I refuse a mission, all Slayer Inc. has to do is activate the virus and I'm dead. Nice, huh?

"But wait a second! I'm a vampire. I'm immortal. You can't threaten me with nanodeath anymore." Ha!

Answer that one, T-Man!

"The nanos are encapsulated shards of wood. If activated, they'd head straight for your heart. Basically, you'd be staked from the inside out."

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Um, wow. That's .. . wow.

I swallow hard before speaking. "It's not that I don't want to do this," I argue. Yeah, right. Do I sound convincing? "It's just that there's no way the cheerleaders are going to let me join their ranks. All teens may look alike to you, T, but take a closer look at yours truly. I'm not cheerleader material. I don't dress like a cheerleader, I don't talk like a cheerleader, I can't do splits or back handsprings to save my life.

Oh, and there's the whole 'they are my archenemies and want to kick my ass' thing to contend with.

There's no way in hell they're going to let me on the squad."

"Rayne, you're a smart girl. You'll figure out something," Teifert says. He gets up from his chair, reaches in his pocket, and hands me a hall pass. "Now you'd better get to first pe-riod. Don't want to get a detention the first day."

"But we're not finished talking. This is an impossible as-signment. I mean, infiltrating seedy blood bars and staking evil vampires? That I can handle. Cheerleaders? No effing way."

"Good luck, Rayne," Teifert says, jumping off the stage and heading toward the main exit. "I'll expect a report from you in a week."

I slump into the folding chair, staring at my hall pass. Great. Just great.

3

So then he says I have to join the cheerleading squad!" My boyfriend, Jareth, reaches over to squeeze my and in sympathy. His is squishy with suntan oil. A bit grossed out, I pull my hand away to wipe it on my towel.

Yes, it's after school and we're at the beach. Again. Sigh.

Ever since Jareth found out that the blood virus had bonded with the melanin in his skin and he was, for the first time in like a thousand years, able to go outside during the day, he's become the biggest sun worshipper to ever walk the earth. When we first met we'd go to dark, enchanting goth clubs and dance the night away. These days, all he wants to do is tan and surf. Yup. My perfect, pasty, eyeliner-wearing, Goth vampire boyfriend is now a beach bum.

I've tried to humor him. To be understanding. After all, I imagine it's been rough, sleeping in coffins for a millennium. And to finally get a chance to rejoin the human race? Yeah, that's got to be pretty enticing.

Still, I hate the beach.

"Well, look on the bright side. I bet you'll look pretty sexy in one of those short skirts," he teases.

I swat at him, careful to avoid his grease. Since he has no chance of developing skin cancer, he douses himself with baby oil every time. I, on the other hand, am fully clothed from head to toe and sitting under a black umbrella. The last thing I want to do is ruin my perfectly pale complexion.

"Whatever. I'm so not doing this. One, it'll ruin my rep. Imagine! Me! Rayne McDonald. A cheerleader!

And two, they'd never, ever in a million years let me on the squad."

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"That, I don't believe."

"What? Why not?"

"If you wanted to, you could get on that squad."

God, he can be so naive. "No way. Look, Jareth," I argue, trying to be patient. "I know you were born a billion years ago, but let me tell you a little bit about twenty-first-century high school. There are two requirements to being a cheer-leader: One, you have to be one of the Populars; and two, you have to be able to flip your legs over your head. Neither ofwhich I have any chance of doing. Though I think the flippingthing would probably be easier, now that I think aboutit."

"You underestimate yourself, as always. Give away your power.Rayne ..." Jareth turns to me, looking me straight in theeye. "What color is your parachute? And who moved yourcheese?"

Ugh. Ever since he was forced to retire as General of the BloodCoven Army due to the blood disease's weakening effects,he's decided to learn new replacement skills so he can beknown for his brains rather than his brawn. Problem is, insteadof going back to school, taking night classes, what-ever,he's decided to do this by stocking up on self-help books.And now every time we get into a discussion he starts quotingsome sort of ridiculous psychobabble or other.

"Okay, okay. I'll try out for the squad," I relent. "I don't havemuch of a choice, anyway." Better to give in now, before I'msubjected to a lecture on how to win friends and influence cheerleaders."Rah, rah, rah, and all that!"

"Ijust know you'll be brilliant, darling," Jareth murmurs, leaningover to kiss me softly. I close my eyes, enjoying the sensationof his lips on mine. He is an excellent kisser. And verysexy. And I love him to death