This is W.A.R. (Lisa Roecker) by Lisa Roecker

Author:Lisa Roecker
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Soho Teen
Published: 2013-07-01T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Back to the drawing board. 9 2morrow. Same place.

Sloane read Madge’s text over and over again, the words swimming in front of her eyes. She wondered what a drawing board looked like. Obviously, she knew that Madge was referring to a theoretical drawing board and not an actual, physical board, but the question sort of got stuck in her brain. Like when one of her uncle’s old school records got a scratch and kept playing the same snippet of a song over and over again. Sloane’s brain was like that. Sometimes it just got stuck.

And her stupid, scratched, stuck brain couldn’t stop imagining a drawing board for the War. Would there be pictures of the Gregorys with bull’s eyes printed over their faces? Or maybe pictures of Willa. Her school picture, the snapshot of her and Sloane in Aruba, the sun glinting off Willa’s blonde hair. Or maybe even a picture of her when they pulled her out of the lake that night. Sloane hadn’t wanted to look, hadn’t wanted to see, but she was there when they fished her friend from the dark water. She remembered.

Willa’s body, bloated and blue from her time under the surface, was another mental sink hole. Sloane dug her fingernails into her palms, worked to switch the image, tried to conjure up Aruba, white sand, Willa’s crooked smile, and the sparkling water—but no matter what, she was only ever able to see death. The scratched record in her head played on. As she walked toward the secret entrance to the Club’s attic she thought about songs and how supposedly soldiers used horrible pop songs to torture terrorists in remote island prisons. Sloane imagined playing a manufactured pop song over and over again for the Gregorys, while at the same time forcing them to see the image of Willa, still and cold. That was a revenge she could wrap her head around.

Sloane knew the girls’ original plan was doomed. The doubt had already taken root and grown like a thorny vine, tightening around her so that the key she wore every day felt more like a noose than anything else. These were Gregorys. They couldn’t be damaged by naked pictures and drugs. Nothing could end their reign at Hawthorne. But she never quite found the right moment to tell the girls. Or really, to tell Madge. She saw the determination in her eyes, knew what happened when she set out to win. And she was scared for her. But more than anything, she wished Madge would grieve for Willa like a normal person. The truth was Sloane didn’t really understand how destroying the Gregorys was supposed to make them feel any better about losing Willa. In fact, so far, this whole revenge scenario had only made Sloane feel worse.

But in the end, it didn’t matter what she thought or felt. This was the central reality of her life: Sloane knew she was dumb. She said dumb things all the time, did dumb things. She’d

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