The Cinderella Society (28 page)

I wasn’t an expert on leadership, but here’s the thing I did know: no good leader ever bowed to peer pressure instead of doing the right thing. I might not have been making a splash with my makeover (if I had, wouldn’t Ryan be proud to have me at his side?) or keeping up with my
CMM
assignments or figuring out how to defeat the Wickeds’ recruitment surge. But I was still me: Do-Gooder Volunteer Girl, champion of worthy causes and people who needed help.

I poked my head out to make sure everyone was otherwise occupied in Study Hall, then closed the office door.

The leader office wasn’t glamorous, but it was well equipped. The computer desk, a round table and chairs for spreading out, bookshelves filled with reference materials, and a locked file cabinet.

If we wanted to beat the Wickeds, we needed to stop reacting and take control. Let’s see how the Wickeds liked being in scramble mode.

How do you create a plan of attack when your enemy is everywhere?

Rule #1: Start at the top.

The question was, how did we handle Lexy? If it was up to me, I’d go at her with everything we had and take her out the way she deserved: with as much humiliation as possible. If we could take away Lexy’s power, the Wickeds would battle each other for her place. That would create chaos in their ranks and give us a chance to strike again when they weren’t so well protected.

But even I knew that wasn’t the Cindy way. The Cindy way would be to try to get through to her. If Sarah Jane was right about her having been groomed for Sisterhood, some of that had to exist in her somewhere, right? At least in theory. Like Gaby had said, no Wicked was 100 percent bad. Although I personally thought Lexy was about as close as you could get.

Getting to Lexy meant I needed to understand Lexy the way she understood the Reggies. Or me, for that matter. The only thing I really knew about her personally, other than that she was a Cindy legacy, was that she adored Ryan. If Ryan paying attention to me could throw her off her game enough that she’d start a generic rumor like her lame STD attempt, family definitely played into her psyche. Maybe it was the key to getting through to her.

I only had access to personnel files for our group of Cindys and profiles for the Wickeds and targeted Reggies. What I needed was detailed background intel on the other Cindys in Lexy’s family, and on her as a legacy. What had they seen in her back then, before the accident? Paige and Sarah Jane were both playing mum, so if I wanted answers, I was going to have to find them myself.

I poked around in the desk drawers, looking for anything that caught my attention. The drawer Paige had locked wouldn’t budge, and the others held nothing useful. I trailed a finger over the locked file cabinet.

The legacy files for recent Cindys were in the leader cabinet. The new system upgrade would make those files obsolete, but we still had a few weeks before Sarah Jane got us up and running with the digital archives.

The Steele women had been Cindys for generations, and
now one of their own was a leader of the Wickeds. That had to be significant.

I went back to the desk and scrounged around in the drawers for a key. Lip balm, loose change, a couple of barrettes, a box of paper clips …

Paper clips?

I picked one up and examined it. I knew you could use paper clips to pick locks—I’d seen it on an episode of
Crime Watch, Vegas
—but how did it work? I put it in the file cabinet lock and turned. The paper clip twisted, but nothing happened. I pulled it out and tried to think about the episode. A bend here, straighten that part out, slide it in, and give it a little jiggle. Stop, bend again, more jiggling.

Nothing. I clearly wasn’t a lock picker, and I was running out of time.

Except … wasn’t the little lock part supposed to be pushed in when it was locked? That’s how the file cabinets worked in Mom’s old office. So if it wasn’t pushed in …

I pulled the handle of the top drawer, and it opened like a breeze.
Bingo
. I made a mental note to always push in the lock once the office was mine.

I quickly scanned the contents of the file drawers to get my bearings. Meeting minutes, curriculums for Alpha, Beta, and Gamma levels, files on the current Cindys …

The legacy files.

There weren’t many, so I quickly jumped to the
S
s, hoping to hit the jackpot.
Steele
.

I pulled out the Steele family file. A different color file lay on top, with
Elizabeth (Harrington) Steele
on it. It wasn’t a full file like ours were, but a smaller folder, with only a couple of documents in it. Her full file was probably housed wherever they archived high-level records.

I hesitated, but only for a second. If Mrs. Steele had been half the Cindy I’d heard she was, she would’ve understood that desperate times called for desperate measures.

I opened the cover. Her photo smiled up at me. She was an older version of Cassie, every bit as beautiful, with the same warmth in her eyes. I could see Ryan in her too, and even Lexy, though she lacked Lexy’s harder edges.

I gently set the picture aside and looked beneath. There was a brief list of family connections in the Society: Mrs. Steele, her mom and grandmother, Cassie, and a note about Lexy with a reference to chart 4.7. I flipped through the pages. What was chart 4.7? Was it about Lexy being a legacy? Something that had to do with the Wickeds?

A knock sounded from my private door to the War Room a split second before it opened. I closed the cover and plastered both hands over the top of the file.

Sarah Jane noticed the leader-office door was closed and stopped. “Sorry. I thought you were studying.” She took in the open cabinet drawer, the folder on the table. Her eyes flicked to Mrs. Steele’s picture, a few inches from my hands. “I didn’t know Paige had given you the keys already. You must be making great progress.”

I stared back, understanding in that split second what the term
a deer in the headlights
meant. I’d never been caught doing something bad before. How did people react when they got caught?

Suspicion crept into Sarah Jane’s eyes. She looked more closely at the cabinet this time, and I heard her sharp intake of breath. The paper clip stuck out of the lock like a beacon of shame. “You
broke into
the files?”

“No! Paige left it open.”

She didn’t look convinced.

“I didn’t know that until after I stuck the paper clip in,” I admitted.

Sarah Jane looked appalled. Rightfully so, even I had to admit, but it still put me on the defensive. “I wouldn’t
have
to break in if someone would tell me what I need to know for once.”

“Oh my gosh, J.” Sarah Jane looked as flustered as I’d ever seen her. “You can’t … if Paige finds out … Cassie’s going to flip—”

“Nobody is flipping out, because nobody is going to tell anybody.” I spoke with a defiance I didn’t expect, but enough was enough. “Am I the new leader? Did you specifically choose me as the new leader in a break with tradition?”

“That doesn’t give you the right to
break into the files.”

“If you wanted a figurehead, you should’ve picked someone else. What you got was me, someone who’s willing to do the
right
thing. If that means digging into Lexy’s past to save Heather, so be it.”

“Things are the way they are for a reason. You can’t just do whatever you want without getting approval. That’s not how the Sisterhood works.”

“It’s easy to take the high road when you don’t have anything at stake, isn’t it, Sarah Jane? I don’t see you taking on any missions against Lexy. I don’t see you being told to let somebody get squashed by the Wickeds because ‘we have people working on it.’ All I see is you being silent the only time I’ve ever asked you for backup and then lecturing me about being too impulsive. At least I’m doing
something.”

Sarah Jane blanched. “Just because you don’t see doesn’t mean no one’s doing anything. There’s a lot more at stake than you know.”

“Exactly. My. Point.”

Kyra and Gwen entered the Gamma office at the far end, and I pushed the door between us closed, locking Sarah Jane in with me. I was teetering between freaking out and blowing up, so I pointed to the chair opposite my desk.

Sarah Jane sat down; I stayed standing. Power was all about positioning. I knew that from the Wickeds.

“Here’s how this is going to play out,” I said calmly. “You’re not going to say a word about this to anyone. I’ll explain it to Paige after I’m done, leader to leader. In the meantime, I need to figure out how to get Heather away from Lexy. You’re always telling me to trust you? Well, it’s your turn to trust me now. I know what I’m doing.”

She looked skeptical, so I aimed for the bull’s-eye. “If you stop me and Heather gets hurt, you’ll never forgive yourself. Don’t add that to your conscience, Sarah Jane.”

SJ’s face paled as the arrow hit home. But the hands on the wall clock above her made me uneasy. Paige would be back any minute for our meeting, and I needed to get this cleaned up in a hurry. I nodded toward the private door to the Gamma office. “If you don’t want to get yourself in any deeper, walk back through that door and forget this ever happened.”

Sarah Jane’s face started to heat. Her usual Zen-like nature was waging war with her emotions. Fear, anger, sadness, desperation. So much passed across her face. Silently, she turned away from me.

The door closed behind her with a barely audible click.

I slipped Mrs. Steele’s picture back into the file, rubber-banded everything together, and slipped it back in the cabinet before grabbing the incriminating paper clip and stuffing it in my pocket. Thanks to Sarah Jane’s interruption, I hadn’t found anything I could use with Lexy. I’d either need to find
another time to scout out the office when no one was around or come up with a plan B. Either way, I was on my own. Flying solo on a cloud of righteousness.

A new sheriff had come to town, and she wasn’t taking any prisoners.

Chapter 18

I SAT IN MY ROOM
studying my closet for date-worthy clothes, tapping an aggravated rhythm on my bedspread. Sarah Jane had been hinting for a while that I needed to stop worrying about what I thought I should look like and focus on what made me feel best about myself. She’d even taken me aside after the banner party to let me know that some of the guys had been making comments about me. Nothing horrible, but enough for her to remind me that I didn’t have to dress to get attention.

“You don’t have to push the envelope,” she’d said. “More isn’t always better.”

“Easy for you to say,” I’d snapped. I wouldn’t have had to push the envelope if I looked like Sarah Jane. She could wear a Hefty bag and tutu and still look like a million bucks. But let her walk a mile in my flip-flops and see what she thought then.

The kicker was that the guys had noticed me, but Ryan had barely even looked my way. He noticed Fake Blondie and Boob Girl, so why not me? What good was a signature style if the guys you liked didn’t think you were attractive enough to date in public?

But no, the Cindys had to remind me that I’d chosen my fun-feminine-sporty signature style for a reason. I needed to honor that and stick with what was really me. I’ll admit I’d been gradually amping things up image-wise, but I’d only been trying to blend with Ryan’s crowd. I was tired of feeling like an afterthought. Or worse, an embarrassment. Besides, who were the Cindys to say I’d gotten it right the first time? Who were they to assume they knew the real me?

I wanted to feel like I belonged by Ryan’s side no matter where we were. So I kept tweaking the image to make it a little more hip, a little more sassy, a little more sexy. The last part made me uncomfortable—like the banner-party tank he hadn’t even noticed—but I’d never admit that to SJ. All I wanted was for Ryan to put me in the same class as his other girlfriends. Maybe it was time to be bold instead of clinging to my fresh-faced girl-next-door ways.

So I sat on my bed, stewing about Sarah Jane’s criticism and Tina’s nagging comment about Ryan hiding me in the corner. Not to mention Lexy’s reminder that Ryan deserved better.

I couldn’t make it work no matter what I did. My new look was too much (but not enough—how’s that for irony?), and Ryan saved his laid-back smiles for everyone but me.

I was fed up.

I’d spent my entire life trying to fit in with people who didn’t want me. Parents who cared more about their careers than their own daughter. Cheer teams who hung with me at games but went their merry way after, never realizing I didn’t have anyone to hang with off the field. A next-door neighbor who flirted with me and kissed me all summer long, only to pretend he didn’t even know me when school started because I wasn’t part of the in crowd. Sure, the Cindys wanted me, but
only if I played the game their way and didn’t ask questions. Ryan only wanted me if he could pull me out of sight for a quick make-out session. And even then, only if I kept my mouth shut when he felt suffocated by his hero complex.

The phrase I never thought I’d utter—What Would Fake Blondie Do?—passed my lips as I put together a strategy for the night. I might have more self-control (and self-respect) than she did, but she obviously had something I didn’t. If she wasn’t afraid to go after what she wanted—to come out with guns blazing (even if they were secure in her C cups)—I needed to be ready with weapons of my own.

I started grabbing things off hangers and digging through drawers until I’d put together the most extreme outfit I could dream up. Bold-flirty-sexy. I put on dangly earrings à la Fake Blondie and left my charm bracelet in my jewelry box. I didn’t need that today. My image was my own creation, Cindys be damned.

Dad had swept Mom away for one last romantic hurrah before Mom would have to stick close to home for the babies’ sake. That meant there was nobody home to tone me down. Just me, a micro mini, a midriff-baring shirt, and enough mascara to choke a canary.

Come and get me, baby
.

*   *   *

“Explain to me again why they’re here?” I asked after we’d been seated at a local Italian place. “What happened to wanting to get me alone?”