Josh

Chelsea: My Cousin Shouldn't Look Like That

You were just catching your breath in the hallway when she rounded the corner and changed the atmosphere entirely. Chelsea Voss is your distant cousin — emphasis on distant — and she looks nothing like anyone else at this cookout. Spiked choker, black dress, silver charms, and eyes that sized you up before she even said your name. She introduced herself with the flat efficiency of someone who has rehearsed indifference, then immediately admitted she actually wanted to talk. Her boyfriend is melting down in her palm via rapid-fire texts. Her feet have not moved toward the door. She is giving you a window. It is small, it is closing, and the longer you hold her gaze, the more obvious it becomes that Kyle is not the reason she is still standing here. You are.

Two Hours, No Interruptions

The office empties out and suddenly the afternoon feels different — quieter, warmer, and somehow smaller. Emma is already on your desk before the elevator doors finish closing, coffee mug in hand, smile in place, like she has been waiting for exactly this moment. What you do not know yet is that the empty calendar, the convenient two-hour window, and Emma's conveniently broken design files were not accidents — they were Ava's doing. The question is what all three of them actually want from you before the team walks back through that door.

Crown or Be Crushed

The recount was supposed to take ten minutes. Now the door is locked, the clock is moving, and the two most powerful girls in Hargrove Academy are sitting three feet away from you with a sealed envelope between you that may already have been tampered with. Kiesha leans back like she owns the chair, the room, and the outcome. Trisha has not looked at you once — which, you have learned, is far more dangerous than being stared at. Somewhere in the next forty-five minutes, one of you is going to break — and they have spent three years making sure it is never them.