Leah nodded, her reflection in the mirror revealing eyes wide with that desperate pick-me energy that always made Chloe's skin crawl with contempt. Leah has a face like a turtle. Chloe can barely stand looking at her.
"Then prove it," she said, capping her lip gloss. "Tell Mia what you really think of her. That she's needy. Desperate. Pathetic. Tell her you've only been pretending. You actually hate her."
"But I don't—" Leah's fingers twisted together, bitten nails digging into her palms.
"But nothing." Chloe turned, allowing her expression to harden enough to make Leah shrink back against the cool tile wall. "You're either in or out. And you don't want to be on the outside. You already know what that's like, and trust me, I can make it so much worse. You can be with us. Isn't that what you want?"
Leah knew too much. She'd overheard conversations she shouldn't have, not to mention her suspicions about the sleeping pills incident at Peyton's pool party. Then Leah had snuck into Chloe's room earlier tonight, walking in on Chloe using the burner phone, the one Chloe had secretly purchased with her generous allowance, using the prepaid SIM number to create the LakeshoreTea profile.
Chloe had made a tactical error, underestimating boring dumb Leah. It wasn't a mistake she would make again. Because of theirmothers' friendship, she had to let Leah hang around, plus she was useful enough to do Chloe's pre-algebra homework and write a few research papers for her. Now, AI could do all that.
Leah was a problem that needed eliminating.
Now, in the silver-drenched darkness, Chloe watches her handiwork unfold with dispassionate interest.
"I thought you were different." Mia steps closer to Leah, her voice rising to match the wind combing through the pines behind them. The whites of her eyes catch the moonlight, giving her the appearance of something wild, something feral. "But you're just like them!"
"It's not like that—I didn't want to—" Leah stammers, her hands twisting in front of her like pale birds. Her frantic gaze darts to Chloe, seeking guidance, approval, rescue, and finding only a blank stare.
Chloe watches it all, keeping her expression deliberately neutral. Inside, she catalogs each detail with meticulous precision. The betrayal on Mia's face. Her ugly thrift store dress, as ugly as she is, as ugly as the bulky camera clutched in her hands, with the ratty yellow strap.
"I'm sorry, Mia," Leah whispers, her words barely audible over the rhythmic lapping of waves against the shoreline far below. "I just... I'm tired of being targeted all the time. I just want it to stop."
"You pretended to be my friend?" Mia's voice cracks. "You laughed at me behind my back with them?"
"No, I mean, only once or twice," Leah confesses. Her gaze drops to the ground. A droplet of red leaks from her nostrils. Another one of her disgusting nosebleeds. "I didn't mean it."
"Tell her, Leah," Chloe prompts, her voice carrying just the right note of sympathetic encouragement. "She deserves to know the truth."
"Tell me what?" Mia asks.
"How Leah tells us all your dirty little secrets. Especially that one about your dad. You know, your little incontinence problem?"
Mia recoils like she's been doused in acid. "You promised. You swore you'd never tell anyone."
Chloe sees her opportunity and pounces. She tilts her head, her tone casual, almost sympathetic. "She told us everything. How you were so scared you literally pissed yourself."
The words land like a slap. Mia's face drains of color.
"We couldn't stop laughing." Chloe pitches her voice low, each word designed to cut deep. "Leah did this whole impression of you standing there with pee running down your legs while your dad was bleeding out. I mean, everyone must've smelled it when the paramedics and cops came, right? I'd just die if I were you."
The lie slips from her lips with effortless grace. Truth is irrelevant. What matters is the reaction, and Mia's transformation from hurt to fury unfolds with glorious predictability.
Chloe found Leah's journal last month, hidden under her mattress, after her mother had made her bring some fancy bread over to Mrs. Cho when Leah was at a painting class. The diary entry had been raw, anguished, pathetic. Leah, processing her own helplessness, was unsure how to support her grieving friend.
Perfect ammunition unleashed at just the right time.
"I would never—!" Leah's voice rises in panic. Blood drips from her nostrils, leaking down her chin. "Mia, I swear, I never said it like that! I didn't?—"
"You told them?" Mia's voice breaks on the words. Her entire body trembles in humiliation. "That's what you said about me? About the worst night of my life?"
"Mia, please?—!"
"You made fun of me." The hurt in Mia's voice shifts, hardens into something colder. "You laughed about my dad dying."
Chloe bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. The raw devastation saturating each word is absolute perfection. This is going even better than planned.
Leah's expression contorts. Her whole face turns beet-red with shame. "It's not like that. I'd never say that, I swear."
