Chapter 141 – Naomi’s Gambit – Silver Brooks

If I had known the Killing Cat intentions to burn down Perri’s hideout then I would’ve been a little more specific about what I wanted. I never meant for her to burn down the entire place! I just wanted her to cause enough damage to keep them from going back there.

With the amount of damage that she caused no one would be going back there anytime soon. I supposed it was my fault for not clarifying these things to her right from the start. My focus was just on no one getting hurt. I didn’t imagine that she would go beyond my expectations like this.

I failed to reach the outcome I wanted with the fire. My hope was that Perri would come to her senses once her base was gone. That didn’t happen. Instead, she doubled-down on her suspicions and wariness. She felt certain that Casper was the cause of, or somehow involved with creating the fire.

The aftermath had the opposite effect of what I wished for. This was probably a sign for me to stop meddling, and to especially not rely on the Killing Cat for delicate matters like this. In hindsight it was naïve of me to think that I could just force people to get along by pulling the strings from behind.

Of course they weren’t going to suddenly set aside their differences due to a random fire. Things were too far gone and I was slow to realize that. Ms. Sampson and Holly forced Perri’s group to return to the old science wing as a result. This came with unhelpful consequences.

Instead of freely moving between rooms like we used to, there were very clear lines drawn between rooms. Perri’s group chose one area and the ‘Naomi forever’ group led by Casper chose the other. The entries to both rooms were practically barricaded and guarded to disallow uninvited guests.

It was a depressing note to leave on for Christmas break. At least the break had finally arrived. On Friday night I managed to come up with a special arrangement. It required me to step outside my bubble to talk one-on-one with my parents, and with another set of parents about having a friend come over.

Naomi’s parents dropped her off at my house for a one-night sleepover. It took some convincing, but they were willing to hear me out when I claimed that I wasn’t just another delinquent. They didn’t believe me over the phone, but I insisted that they talk to my parents upon dropping Naomi off.

My parent’s cooperation was absolutely vital for this to pay off and it wouldn’t have been possible without their support. Their opinion of me was improving due to my recent visits to the Women’s Institute for Art and Humanities. The fact that part of my tuition was already paid for had a massive effect on them.

Of course they’d vouch for me.

This was perhaps the best relationship I had with my parents since I fell out of the normal school system. They didn’t just tell Naomi’s parents about me when they talked face-to-face, they bragged. They bragged about my come-up story, they bragged about my college prospects, they bragged about my art skills.

It was both highly encouraging and highly embarrassing. By the time Naomi’s parents agreed that she could stay over I got the feeling that they just wanted to get out of the house so that my parents would shut up. Naomi was giving me funny looks all the while, looking just as amazed by all this as her parents were.

This served a purpose. The plan was to convince her parents to let her stay over for the night and it worked smoothly. As Naomi and I ate dinner with my family, my parents began to brag about Addison and her prospects as well. They were glad to have two daughters that they could be proud of.

Naomi tried her best to act as nicely and politely as possible. She watched us all carefully, as if to ensure she was acting naturally. She was unlike the Naomi I knew, but my parents seemed to believe that Naomi was on the path to improvement. Her parents said as much. My parents sympathized with that, considering my history.

That’s why my parents were satisfied to let Naomi and I have some space for the rest of the night. In any other situation my mother might be coming up to check on us randomly. It was why none of my friends liked using the front door to visit me. They always used the window to avoid the prying.

“Ugh!” Naomi huffed as she jumped onto my bed and spread her arms out. “That was a massive pain in the ass!”

I finished closing the door all the way and laughed.

“Look on the bright side, you managed to get out of the house for the night.”

“And thank god for that!” Naomi said, sitting up sharply, “Thank god that you came up with such an amazing plan! My parents haven’t been letting me go anywhere until now! I can’t believe this actually worked! Your parents are seriously enamored with you!”

“A recent state of affairs, brought on by a series of unusual events.” I said. “It took a lot of pomp and circumstance, but we’re finally alone now. We can talk like normal.”

“You said it…” She said.

She reached into her pocket and took out her trademark mask, a heart symbol split down the middle, pierced by a similarly broken arrow. She put it on and leaned back on the bed.

“You still have it.” I noted.

“Of course I still have it!” She said. “What, did you think I’d throw it away?”

“I don’t know.” I admitted. “You’ve been acting so differently that it’s hard to gauge what you would or wouldn’t do. It’s freaky. Like one of my best friends has been replaced by a face-changing monster.”

Naomi laughed hysterically at this.

“Face-changing monster! What the hell? That actually sounds pretty badass! Maybe I should try convincing people that’s what happened to me!”

“I’m serious!” I said as I sat on the ledge of the bed right beside her. “With everything going on between Perri’s faction and Casper’s faction, you suddenly deciding to call it quits has complicated everything. You walked out on us at the worst possible moment.”

Naomi sat up straight again.

“Walked out…?” She asked in an incensed tone. “You make it sound like I wanted to leave the group!”

I gave her a hard stare. She closed her eyes and shook her head. She grabbed hold of me and pulled me into a hug.

“Silver…” She said in a drawn out voice. “Silver! Silver! Silver! Silver…! Do you really think I’d abandon my girlfriends of my own free will? My hands were tied! They still are! I’d never have turned out this way if I felt like there was some sort of alternative. You saw how my parents were downstairs! How am I supposed to deal with that?”

“You could’ve been more upfront with us.” I said defiantly. “You could’ve departed slowly rather than leaving everything in free-fall like you did. Perri and Casper are at each other’s throats.”

“I know that!” She said defensively. “Don’t you think I know that better than anyone else? I’ve been watching this entire situation unfold, painfully wishing I could do something about it. You think it’s been hard on you? It’s been hard on me! I’ve been building this group up since I entered high school, day one! You think I want to see it fall apart like this?”

“Then fight for it!” I urged her. “Tell Perri to step down so that you can reign in all the members from her group! Force them to return to your side and put all this behind them.”

Naomi pulled away from me and gave me a blank look. She stared at me in silence, as if unsure what to say.

“What?” I asked when it felt like she wouldn’t say anything else.

Naomi tilted her head up towards the ceiling in despair.

“My parents have a friend in the school staff.” She said flatly.

“What?” I asked one more time.

She focused back on me.

“Yes, they have a contact on the school payroll. I have no idea who it is and they seem to be working to report my behavior to them.”

“That’s…”

“Unbelievable…?” She offered. “Yeah, it’s pretty freaking unbelievable. My parents aren’t the outgoing type, unlike me. I have no clue which teacher it is or how they even reached out to them. All I know is that they’re getting info on my behavior in school from someone. I have to be careful who I associate with.”

“Damn…” I said as I looked away from her. “I knew you had it bad, but that’s worse than I imagine. It doesn’t make me happy to know that someone’s spying on our group and feeding them information.”

“I wouldn’t be surprise if it was Ms. Sampson herself.” Naomi said. “Or maybe it’s a member of those SCA pricks working for Ms. Sampson. I can think of more than a few members of the SCA who are probably kicking it back with a bowl of popcorn as they watch our group fall to pieces.”

“I have a hunch that you might be right about that.”

“Things wouldn’t be so bad if Perri wasn’t immediately vying to replace me. Perri… I used to love her so dearly once. She really showed her true colors during all this, didn’t she?”

I sighed heavily because this was hitting close to home.

“I always knew that she loved to be the center of everyone’s attention. I didn’t suspect that she’d take that obsession this far.”

“Yeah, I know I’m not one to talk about people having big egos, but she’s been hiding an ego larger than anyone knew.” Naomi said. “I admit that a lot of this is my fault. That day I tried to kiss you at the warehouse party… I’ve come to fully regret it. I shouldn’t have provoked her like that. That helped rally people to her side.”

“You’re both hotheaded.” I said. “At least you’ve learned from that mistake. Perri… I don’t think she sees our current circumstances as a mistake as much as she sees it as a necessary path to becoming leader.”

“I think you’re right about that.” Naomi said. “That’s why we’ve got to throw a wrench into her plans!”

I raised a curious eyebrow at her.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she’s pretty unstoppable by now. There’s nothing we can do at this point…”

“There is!” Naomi said excitedly.

She stood up from where she was sitting and started pacing around my bedroom.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the vote that Ms. Sampson and Holly are forcing on the group. I think it could work out in our favor.”

“You sure about that…?” I asked. “The information I garnered from ChatCat leads me to believe that Perri will blow Casper out of the water.”

Naomi stopped pacing to turn towards me with an evil grin.

“Not necessarily! I think there’s an even better candidate that we’ve been overlooking!” She said. “You!”

“Me?!” I asked in disbelief. “What would I… Why would anyone… How would that even…”

Naomi dropped down to her knees and grabbed me by both hands.

“You’re friends with all the girls from both factions! You’re more popular than you realize! You’re the perfect medium choice for anyone struggling to pick between the two groups!”

“Putting aside rather I believe you or not, do you think that many people are on the fence about who to vote for? You must realize by now that Perri is solidifying plans of her own right now, right? When you were our leader you were the sole queen bee. Things will be more hierarchical with Perri in charge. She’ll promote her closest friends into officer positions.”

“That’s why we have a chance to pull people away from her.”

“No, that’s how she’s going to bait the others into supporting her fully. She’ll put her most loyal followers into higher ranking positions which will incentivize the girls to prove themselves. She’s probably working on such a scheme right now.”

Naomi stared at her hands and thought about it.

“But what if we can split the vote,” Naomi said hopefully, “Maybe you can draw enough people from Perri’s faction so that Casper can win and the group can have some semblance of normalcy.”

I shrugged my shoulders indecisively.

“I don’t know… It seems more likely that I’ll draw more members from Casper side of the vote. She’s already going to struggle as it is. I don’t want to make things harder for her by throwing my hat into the ring.”

“Then what if… What if…”

I put my hands on Naomi’s shoulders.

“It’s nice to hear that you care about this, and I mean this sincerely. It’s just that I’m not sure there’s anything we can do about it at this point. I tried meddling using methods of my own and they backfired on me. I think the time to solve this problem was weeks ago. Now that it’s Christmas break we don’t have many options available to us.”

Naomi reluctantly turned away from me and stared blankly into the distance. This was eating away at her, as much as me.

“Let’s talk to Holly about this soon.” I suggested. “She’s the one organizing the vote.”

“Do you think we could get her to influence the vote?” Naomi asked.

“Holly…? No, probably not. She wouldn’t go for something shady like that. I was thinking that maybe we could ask her for a campaigning period. If she gives both sides a chance to speak in front of the entire group, then maybe we can sway the others to our side.”

“I still won’t be able to participate in something like that.” Naomi reminded me.

“That’s why I’ll be speaking on your behalf. We’ll come up with something together that will communicate your feelings to the group.”

Naomi weighed my words before nodding in agreement.

“I think that’s the best I can ask for.” Naomi said and stood up. “That’s enough serious talk for one night. Let me see some of your new artwork. Your parents spent so much time bragging about it. I’m curious enough to want to see it for myself now.”

I laughed.

“That’s fine by me. I haven’t been sharing much art with the group during all this. Let me show you my sketchbook.” I said.