Gorgeous Gruesome Faces by Linda Cheng

Author:Linda Cheng
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Chapter 17

NOW

Eugenia stares me down, waiting for my response to her offer.

It takes a few seconds to identify that the lightness in my chest is relief. An irrational urge to hug her strikes me out of nowhere, and I almost laugh out loud at the impulse.

“Have you gone to Ms. Tao about that stuff in your locker?” she asks.

I shake my head. “I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself. I threw it out.”

“You threw out the evidence?” She takes a step in toward me. “Tell me again what you were doing out after curfew last night?”

“I…” The longer I hesitate to answer, the more suspicious her eyes grow. “I have insomnia and night terrors. I just wanted to get some fresh air.”

That admission seems to put an end to her inquisition for now, even though she’s still casting me a distrusting look, as though she could tell I was only telling a half-truth. I start ushering her back out the door. “Come on. There’s still some time before curfew.”

“To do what?” Eugenia asks.

“Somebody must have used the computer lab to print those articles. Maybe we can snoop around the browser histories and find an email or Twitter account or something.”

Out in the hallway, a small group of girls pass by on the way to their rooms, chatting quietly among themselves, and I realize that I haven’t learned most people’s names, and I don’t recognize most of their faces, especially with many of the girls wearing the same trendy style of makeup.

“Have you gotten to know any of the other girls?” I ask.

“There’s not many people worth knowing,” Eugenia says.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, then,” I say, turning down the stairwell.

After looping around through a series of different hallways, we still can’t find the computer lab. I swear I was just there yesterday to send an email to my mother. Or was it the day before? Being in the studio for daylong stretches without a phone has made it entirely too easy to lose track of time.

“God, why don’t any of these rooms have signs on the doors?” Eugenia complains, looking as lost as I feel.

We turn down another hallway and finally find a large room that looks like a hotel business center, full of sleek monitors sitting in orderly rows. I push open the heavy glass door and sit down at the first monitor I reach, jiggling the mouse to shake away the screen saver. Eugenia moves down the row to a different computer and sits down at the keyboard.

After a few long seconds of waiting, the web browser I opened still sits blank. I try typing a couple of websites into the search bar. “Is your internet working?”

“No, nothing’s loading.” Eugenia rapidly clicks her mouse in frustration.

“I heard that the internet’s pretty much been spotty since day one,” a third voice says. “Some girls think they’re throttling us on purpose to keep us offline.”

I look up to see Alexis leaning her head into the doorway.

“Who said that? What else have you heard?” Eugenia questions sharply.

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