Rumor Central (15 page)

I
inhaled deeply, then opened the classroom door. The last few days had been nothing but stress and I needed a day at home to decompress. That had given me a reprieve from facing Sheridan, but I knew I couldn't keep hiding. I knew that I wouldn't be able to avoid Sheridan any longer. Rumor had it that she'd been looking for me for the past two days. She'd called my phone several times and left all kinds of crazy, threatening messages. She called so much that I had to block her number. Even then, she started using other people's phones. I needed to change my number, but I was too important to be starting from scratch with a new cell phone number. Besides, it wasn't like not being able to reach me by phone had kept her away. She'd even come by the house and screamed outside like some kind of crazy person. I had to send security to get rid of her.

But I knew I couldn't keep hiding out, so I entered the room with my head held high, ignoring the people cutting their eyes at me and looking at me with disgust. They could hate all day. I didn't care. I was back on top and these trolls couldn't take it.

I felt like I was safe because our teacher, Mrs. Eugene, was at the front, writing on the chalkboard. But no sooner had I sat down than Mrs. Eugene stepped outside to stop a passing teacher.

The door had barely closed before Sheridan made her way over to my desk.

“I should beat you down right now,” she said, glaring at me.

I ignored her and opened my history book.

“Do you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you. But we both know you're all talk,” I said, not looking up.

She took a step toward me, but Chenoa jumped up, grabbed her arm, and pulled her back. “Sheridan, chill. You don't need to be getting in trouble for beating down this skank.”

“Yeah, Sheridan, chill. Your flunky has a point. I'd hate for you to miss the homecoming dance because you've been expelled.”

Her hands went to her hips. “Is that what this is about? You want to get revenge and make up lies about my mom because you're mad because I took your man?” she said.

“Please,” I laughed. “If you're into sloppy seconds, more power to you.”

She took a deep breath, like she was going to try a different approach.

“I can't believe you would do something like that.” She sounded really hurt. “I mean, I know we were fighting, but you took it there.”

So now she really wanted to play the I'm-so-betrayed card? Give me a freakin' break. “
I
took it there?” I said, looking at her like she'd lost her last working brain cell. “You're the one that stole Bryce's phone and sent out that picture!”

“So that gives you reason to just make up lies?”

I definitely took note of how she didn't deny it this time.

“Look, don't be mad at me. I just report the news.”

“That's not news,” Sheridan snapped. “That stupid show you do is nothing but gossip and rumors.”

I shrugged. “Then, just like I told your friends, if it's not true, why are you getting all worked up?”

She leaned over my desk, trying to look all tough. I didn't flinch. Unlike Shay, Sheridan didn't scare me. “Oh, you best believe my mom is livid. She's talking with her attorney right now.”

Was that supposed to scare me? “And? The station has attorneys, too.”

“She's just mad because you dropped her as your BFF,” Chenoa said, pulling her arm again.

“Please,” I replied. “Sheridan did me a favor. And you know what I think your problem is?” I said, looking Sheridan dead in the eyes. “You wish you could be me.”

Sheridan glared at me like she wanted to kill me with her bare hands. She had moved closer to my desk just as Mrs. Eugene walked back into the room. “Ladies, I need you to have a seat.”

Sheridan leaned in and whispered. “You messed with the wrong one. Believe that,” she said. “You know firsthand what I'm capable of. I promise you will regret the day you ever uttered my name.”

“Whatever, Sheridan,” I said, as she rolled her eyes and went back to her seat. If I had a dime for everyone who had threatened me lately, I'd be even richer than I was.

Valerie came in, muttered an apology for being late, and slid into a desk in the back. I expected her to take a seat next to me, but she sat at the back of the class without even looking my way.

What's up with that?
I knew she wasn't still mad about me telling her secret. I'd apologized so she needed to get over it. I glanced back at her and she also just glared before lowering her head.

Man, screw her, too. If Valerie wanted to be mad, then so be it. I was sick of everyone at this stupid school. I had a new life and I was counting down the days until I could put this old one behind me.

I
was surprised to look up in the mirror and see Valerie standing in the doorway to my dressing room. Her eyes were puffy like she'd spent days crying. I hadn't expected her to come to work today since she'd been acting funny about me spilling her secret and then her parents had been trippin' with her so much.

“Do you need my help today?” she said. The way she was talking, I could definitely tell she was still a little salty. I just wasn't getting why she was still so freakin' upset.

“Look, I'm sorry,” I said, swiveling around in my chair. We needed to end this pity party right here, right now. “I wasn't trying to violate your trust. I thought you disliked Sheridan as much as me so I didn't think it was that big of a deal.”

“I do dislike her.” Valerie blew out a frustrated breath. “It's just . . . never mind.”

I wasn't going to baby her, so I took that to be an apology and moved on. “I'm glad we cleared that up,” I said, turning back around to the mirror to finish checking out my makeup. “If only you knew what I've been through the past few days. Some stalker is hanging out at my house.”

Valerie didn't look as concerned as I would've liked, but she did say, “Really?”

“Yeah. Then I'm getting crazy texts. They keep saying that I need to stop airing this story. Only I don't know what story they're talking about.” I ran my hands through my hair to fluff out my curls. “It could be anybody. Chenoa and her friends threatened me. Sheridan threatened me. So did Evian and Bali, so I have no clue.”

“Wow. Sounds like you're making a lot of enemies with this show,” she said.

I shrugged. “Yeah, I wasn't trying to become hated, but it is what it is.”

“You're not scared?” she asked.

Even if I was, I sure wasn't about to let her know. “Honey, Maya Morgan doesn't scare easily.”

She softened her tone. “Maybe it is too much. Maybe you should let the show go.”

I spun around and looked at her like she was crazy. Was she starting to hate on me, too? “Um, yeah, that's not going to be an option.”

She looked like she was thinking for a moment, then added, “What about doing just the celebrity entertainment stuff? Leave all the dirt-digging stuff alone.”

“Even if I wanted to do that, the producers want the dirt and so that doesn't leave me any choice.”

Valerie shook her head. “I don't know. If I were you, I'd just let it go. You're going to make the wrong person angry and I would hate to see something happen to you because of that.”

We were interrupted by Tamara's assistant. “Mrs. Collins needs to see you in her office,” the girl said.

“Let me go. About that advice—” I stood. “Yeah, I'm good. But thanks anyway.”

I didn't give her time to reply as I left. I used to think Valerie was in my corner, but she was for real tripping. But then, she probably was just mad about me “betraying her trust,” you know, since we were BFFs and all now. Not.

I shook away thoughts of Valerie. She could get over it or get to steppin'.

Dear Maya, I hope you die in a car crash.

I read the text message for the umpteenth time. It was the third one like that this week. Seriously? These people were going way overboard. I thought about deleting it, but decided against it. For now, I closed out the program on my iPhone.

“Hey, Sandy,” I said.

Sandy rolled her eyes her eyes and kept walking.

Oh, so I guess I was going to get the cold shoulder now from everybody. Whatever. The countdown was on to graduation, so they could come at me crazy all they wanted. I wasn't the least bit fazed. I had an awesome interview set up with Alicia Keys tomorrow and if my classmates were trying to get to me, they needed to come a whole lot stronger than this. Quiet as it's kept, this entire school didn't have to say another word to me the rest of the school year. I was so over them hating on me.

“You know you're foul!”

I took a deep breath, contemplating whether I was even going to turn around.

“Maya!” I recognized Blake's little sister's squeaky voice. “What?” I said, finally turning to face her.

I was surprised she had taken this long to front me. I'd heard that Blake's dad had bailed him out within minutes, so it wasn't like he even had to pay for his crime. “You hear me talking to you?”

“You know you're foul?” she repeated.

“Oh, I'm foul? Your brother is running around breaking into celebrity mansions and I'm the foul one? That's funny.”

“Yeah, I didn't stutter. You're foul.”

“Good-bye, Lisa,” I said, turning to walk away.

“You know there's a pact.” She was smiling like she was revealing some big secret. “High school is going to be very lonely for you.”

“What are you talking about?” I really didn't feel like hearing her yapping, but the way Sandy and everybody else had been ignoring me made me want to know what was going on.

Lisa folded her arms across her chest. “Have you noticed that no one has said a word to you?” she said with a smirk. It was third period and I did notice that the only people who had talked to me in any of the classes were the teachers.

“Okay, and?”

“And that's the way it's going to be from now on.” She seemed like she was taking pleasure in delivering that message.

“And I repeat,
and
?”

“Yeah, you can try to act all big and bad, but we'll see how you feel when nobody has anything to say to you.”

“I'll feel just fine.” I turned to walk away. So now, the whole school was playing juvenile games.

I saw Valerie later, right before I walked into my seventh period. “So, are you in this pact not to talk to me, too?”

“No, of course not,” she said.

I wasn't going to point out how she'd all but avoided me all day long. I didn't know if it was because of the pact or something else had happened.

“You know I really don't care about some stupid pact.”

“That's what I told everybody,” Valerie said.

I stood in silence for a minute, then said, “So they're trying to get you in on it?”

“Yeah, but I'm cool. I didn't have many friends before, so it's no biggie,” she said with a laugh.

Wow, so they hated me that much? “Well, whatever.”

“Look, everyone is just mad at the whole Bling Ring, cheer stuff,” Valerie said.

“How are they mad at me? They need to be mad at those thieves.”

She smiled like she wanted to say something more. Instead, she just said, “I gotta get to my last class.”

I couldn't believe I was bothered by all of this so I pulled out my cell, ducked in the stairwell, and called Tamara.

“So, they're giving you the whole silent treatment?” Tamara said once I'd filled her in. “Boy, I don't miss high school.” She actually sounded like she thought all of this was funny. “Well, the Drake concert is next week. I guarantee you, if anyone is hating on you, they'll quickly get over it the minute Drake takes the stage.”

I heard what she was saying, but for some reason, I felt like things were going to get a whole lot worse before they got better.

T
his was the life! That's all I could think as I took the last of my packages and put them in the trunk of my car. I'd been shopping all day and the great thing was, I hadn't spent a dime. Tamara had actually given me her station credit card and told me to go buy some new clothes. She actually gave me permission to use five thousand dollars. I would've preferred ten, but I took what I could.

My phone rang and the caller ID showed the number from the TV station.

“Hello,” I said, answering.

“Hey, Maya, it's Vicki from the research department.”

“Hey, Vicki,” I said. “How are you?”

“I'm fine. Sorry to bother you on your day off, but I need to verify what month you said that original Bling Ring break-in happened. I'm trying to pull the police report. They might be tied to another break-in at the mansion of the head coach for the Miami Dolphins.”

I wanted to tell her that they didn't need to check a police report. The Bling Ring was definitely responsible for that, according to Bali. But since that one hadn't been caught on tape, I kept my mouth closed.

I gave Vicki the info. That's one thing I loved about the research team. They were on it, so I'd let her do what she did.

I hung up, dropped my phone back into my purse, closed the trunk of my car, and walked back around to the front.

“Well, well, well. Can I go with you?”

I looked up to see two thuggish-looking guys in saggy pants. One of them had long dreadlocks and a tattoo on his neck that said KILLER. The other wore a black hoodie and had eyebrows that seemed to make one long hairy line across his forehead.

“Excuse me,” I said, stepping around them.

“Killer” jumped in front of me to block my path. “Why you gotta act like that?”

“ 'Cause she's one of them uppity chicks,” the unibrow guy said.

“Excuse me, I really need to go.” I pushed him to the side. I guess my adrenaline was up because I pushed him harder than I had expected and he immediately grabbed a fistful of my hair.

I screamed, but he didn't care. “Oh, you the type of chick that likes putting hands on a dude? I guess you like it rough!”

“Killer” slammed me up against the car. My heart raced as visions of me getting raped and beaten and left to die in the parking lot flashed before my eyes.

Where in the world was security when you needed them?

My fear seemed to calm him down. “Ummph, you a fine young thang,” he said, running his bony hand along my thigh and up my skirt.

“Get off me,” I said, finding the strength to push him again. He stumbled back but didn't let go of me.

“Ooh, and a feisty one,” he said.

“Please,” I begged as he tightened his grip on me. “Don't hurt me. I don't have any money.”

The other guy snatched my Louis Vuitton. “Let me see. Shoot, this purse itself gotta be worth a couple of hundred.”

Idiot. That was a custom-made, patent leather Louis Vuitton that had cost my dad six grand. Needless to say, I wasn't trying to boast about that right now.

He reached in and grabbed my wallet, then pulled out two one-hundred-dollar bills. “I thought you said you didn't have any money.”

“I . . . I . . .”

“You're a liar,” Killer said, squeezing my arm tightly. “An uppity liar. And me and my boy here, we like to teach uppity liars a little lesson.”

“Yeah, maybe then they'll learn to keep their mouths closed and stop running around telling people's business,” the other guy said.

My eyes widened in shock.

“Yeah, that's right,” Killer continued.

“I'm gonna keep this money.” He stuffed my two hundred dollars into his pocket. “As a service fee. But let me make this clear. You have diarrhea of the mouth and it's time for you to shut your trap.”

A thousand questions ran through my mind. Were they serious? Or was this a coincidence? I couldn't believe someone would actually hire these guys to rough me up.

Killer loosened his grip, then ran his sloppy tongue up the side of my cheek. “You're lucky I'm in a hurry because I sure would like to get a taste of you.”

I felt like I was going to throw up, but I was so relieved when he released me. I fell back against my car.

“Come on, man, let's go,” Unibrow said.

Killer blew me a kiss as he followed his friend. He pointed a thick, stubby finger at me. “Remember, you've been warned.”

They laughed as they disappeared among a row of cars.

I knew I needed to get up and go find security, but I was too scared to move. And all I could hear were the words, “You've been warned,” and my gut told me that wasn't a threat. It was a promise.