Prank Wars (17 page)

Now he had done it. My mind went into overload just thinking about what kind of damage it could do. “Cell phone companies can find anyone with a cell phone,” I thought aloud. “Just dial a number and the military tracks us. Increase the signal power and they’ll kill us.” Byron looked surprised. The class started to murmur. There were quite a few laughs. A few diehard students left angrily, the door clicking solidly behind them.

The professor gawked at me. He cleared his throat. “If you want to get paranoid, sure, bad guys can get you…if your cell phone is on. Maybe you all should get the hint and turn your cell phones off.” It seemed the professor finally had one over on me. He looked quite smug about it.

The look on Byron’s face almost made me stop talking. For once he wasn’t laughing. No, he had turned quite serious. I tried to ignore that. “What about the towers next to my apartment?” They were tall ugly things made of white brick marring the sky west of our apartments. Signals could be sent from there. “Are those cell phone towers?”

The professor looked confused for a moment. “Are you talking about the utility towers? Yes, cell phone companies pay them to put their satellite dishes up there.”

“What does
provocity
mean?” a girl asked directly behind me. Her voice was high-pitched and nervous. Professor Green looked even blanker than when I had asked him a question. “You know,” she desperately tried to clarify before she looked as stupid as me, “that word that’s written on those towers?”

The class shifted to look at me, but for once I was innocent. Cameron’s eyes were especially condescending. Before I could point out the true identity of our latest scholar, Professor Green answered the question in a long suffering voice. “That would be Provo City, not
provocity
. Any other questions, class, or can we go on?” The girl’s seat squeaked as she slunk down into it. It didn’t matter if she hid. Everyone was looking at me.

Byron elbowed me. “It’s the city we live in, haven’t you heard of it, Mad?” he asked way too loud.
He
knew very well that I hadn’t asked that. “Hey, but keep bugging the teacher about it,” he teased more softly this time. “I’m sure he’ll admit it’s
provocity
just to get you off his back.” He pronounced provocity the same way the girl behind us said it, completely wrong…and with a touch of that accent again.

“Well, it sounds more off with your weird accent,” I said. He looked confused, but I wouldn’t let him throw me off this time. “Where does it come from? You’re not with the KGB, are you?”

He ignored the taunt. “What sort of accent is it? Southern?”

I don’t know. It sounded really hot…like he belonged to the
Flight of the Conchords
or something. Yeah, that’s how I recognized it. “Did you serve a mission in New Zealand?”

“Nope.” He watched the TA. The small girl had left her spot at the computer to pass out our assignments. She wore brightly colored pumps with a Prada buckle. Her long black hair swung behind her. It was just like Byron to check out another girl while sitting next to me. It made me recall the existence of Holly.

“Hey, what were you doing outside my apartment last night?” I asked.

He chuckled, most likely remembering how much I stunk. “Why were you running out of your neighbor’s so fast?”

“We found out someone lived there.”

He shifted like he wanted to say something, but stayed quiet.

“What?”

His playful nature took over. “Yeah,
someone
does live there. She’s—” He hesitated, watching me.

“—hot,” I finished for him. I glared and turned away. Forget the ward directory, we should’ve asked the lady’s man who the mystery girl was instead. “So, who is she?”

The TA leaned over the girl next to me, counting out the papers for our row. My head tilted when she got closer. Wait. She looked vaguely familiar. Before I could figure it out, Byron leaned heavily over me, cutting off my line of vision and reaching past my startled neighbor. He grabbed the papers from the TA, his broad shoulder knocking into my face. The brunette next to me could have reached it much easier. Why was he bothering being such gentleman? It was completely unnecessary. The papers flicked me across my hair, messing it up even more. I hit Byron back and he smiled mockingly in my face. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to touch you.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll wash my hands.”

Byron supplied me and the girl next to me our papers, keeping one for himself. My little brunette neighbor didn’t mind that her personal space had been trespassed at all. She beamed brightly at him. A faint dimple appeared on Byron’s cheek in response as he passed the rest of the papers down the row. I finally guessed his motives. “It’s always about the ladies, isn’t it, Byron. How can you live with yourself? You player!”

“Thanks?”

No way would I sit with him in physics again. The papers ran out at the end of the row and the hands started to rise. Professor Green turned to his TA, giving her a nod. “Thanh.” My head shot up as he indicated the rest of the papers on his desk. “I have more copies over here.”

Thanh? I twisted in my seat. Could that be our beautiful Asian neighbor, minus the lollipop? Yes, the TA was definitely her, well, the clearer version of her than the perfume clouded portrait of her from the night before. “Byron.” I dug my fingers into his arm and he flinched. “That’s her. That’s my neighbor!”

He was watching me warily and I considered elbowing him in the ribs to take me seriously, but I resisted. What did he think I was going to do, attack her for having the audacity to live next door to me? I wasn’t
that
much of a threat—until I realized what his problem was. “Hey! Was she one of the TAs in our chem 111 class too?”

Byron looked resigned. “No.”

He was lying. She was the same girl Byron had been flirting with on April Fool’s Day. I bet she had an amazing brain
and
she was beautiful, probably really demure too. I tried not to be jealous. “Did you ask her out?”

This time his smile seemed more genuine. “Nope.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him. Now I knew he was lying.

Day 107

0854 hours

“
Just when you think you know the enemy…he shows you just how much you don’t.”

—Madeleine’s War Journal Entry (Wednesday, May 30th).

I escaped out the back door of the Benson building. It had rained while we were in class. A thick fog settled over everything. The streetlights above me were on. It was a surreal thing for a spring morning. The bell tower tolled nine o’clock just as my cell phone went off.

“Mad Dog.” It was Tory.

“Yeah?”

“Are you coming home?”

“Yeah, why?” She hung up on me and I stared at my cell, trying to figure her out.

“Are you crazy?” Byron jerked my pink camo cell from me. His muscular forearm brushed against mine. “That thing is lethal.”

“Yeah, and you’ve got your own. Go fry your brain with it.”

“Don’t worry. I have it safely stored away from my heart and organs. Contrary to popular belief, I do want to live a long and healthy life…with kids and stuff.”

I wrestled my phone back from him. “People like you shouldn’t have kids.”

“With people like you?” he asked.

I stopped wrestling with him. “What?”

He grinned. “What?”

I flattened my lips into a firm line. Single life was the only culture where you were making up excuses to part ways before you could say hello. That’s how I normally kept things with Lord Byron, but ever since that nursery job, we couldn’t stop crossing paths. The bishop had a lot to answer for.

I jerked my phone away from him and we both headed down the lane. The fence was covered in creepers, pyro, and stalkers—a pretty lane of vines with disturbing names. We were very secluded with the fog. My only fear was that Byron would think I walked home with him because I liked him, but I knew better than to fall for him. The rule was to not want anything, especially something like this. Crushes made you act stupid, desperate, and eventually broke your heart. I didn’t want any of it. I looked everywhere but at Byron. He broke the silence. “Are you satisfied now that you found your phantom?”

“You knew who she was,” I accused.

His gaze shot to mine. Before he could respond, some guy came out of the fog and strode past us. He looked like he was talking to himself, except he was on a Bluetooth. It was the only thing keeping him from looking like a raving lunatic, and he was speaking in a different language. Everyone did here. BYU would be a veritable recruiting bonanza for the CIA, except we were all crazy. I turned back to Byron. “So why don’t we ever see Thanh at home?” I asked.

He shrugged. “She’s probably a grad student.”

“In physics. And stop pretending you don’t know. What project is she working on?” He didn’t answer and I tried to work it out in my mind. “She’s leading a double life of intrigue, working on top secret inventions.”

“Yeah, ’cause grad students do that all the time.”

I glanced over at him, deciding to make it even more dramatic for his benefit. “And that note you wanted? It...was meant for her.”

By now his calm exterior seemed a little strained. He downed some tic tacs, his black hair flying back. “Hey, uh…” We had reached a fork in the pathway. He studied my face. “I’ve got a study group I’ve got to go to.”

So, why was he asking my permission? “You may go then,” I waved him away with a casual hand and left him behind in the trail. “I’m sure all the girls in your group will thank me.”

“Really?” he called after me, “Did you really just say that?” I stiffened at the familiar incredulous note. “Sometimes I have better things to do than play the field and hang with
hotties
. Sometimes I actually care about school. It’s funny, I know.”

I stopped short. His attempt at another guilt trip wasn’t fooling me. “Is it Holly? Has she changed you then?”

The muscle on his jaw worked overtime. “Yeah, about that? Where did you get Holl…?” he trailed off, remembering. “You were there in my apartment. You heard everything?”

“Of course, and I was thinking—what about that poor flight attendant we all thought you were dating?”

His face got red and he snapped. I actually physically saw him snap, and I jumped back in surprise. “Well, I have two hands,” he said sarcastically. “What better use for them. I’ll just put a woman on each arm.”

“Ooh, I hate…”

He cut me off. “So do I. Players muck up the field.” He closed the gap between us, his lips parting to reveal a dangerous smile. I could smell the tic tacs on his breath. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

“Yeah, I want to date a flight attendant.”

“You should. It’s great. And that’s the other thing. You should get out more. Do something more than getting your revenge on men. Maybe you could work on your social
provocity
a little.”

I gasped, not sure whether to laugh or cry. I loved that he was making
provocity
into a word, but was Lord Byron actually giving me dating advice? “You’re right.” I walked backwards, trying to put more distance between us. It was my favorite thing to do lately. I tried to match his sarcasm. “You know what the worst thing is? When I get off the phone with my mom and she’s always crying. It sometimes makes me think I’m doing something wrong with my life. Poor little ol’ me. I think I’ll drown my sorrows in ice cream and chocolate!”

He choked on his tic tacs. “Great. Your life
is
a chick flick in the making.”

“I don’t believe in those, but thanks for the thought. You got me right here.” I laid a hand on my heart.

“Impossible. There’s nothing there.” He was moving away, but it didn’t stop us from shouting back and forth between the fog. I could barely see him anymore.

“Wow, you’re brilliant,” I called. “You’ve got me all figured out. Forget geology. You should go into psychiatry, Byron. You’ve missed your calling.”

“Get a life.”

“Okay, psychiatry is out. Have you tried diplomacy?” I gave him a slow sarcastic clap. “You’re truly amazing. No? Okay, espionage. It suits you better. You can’t ever give me a straight answer.” I was sure he was way out of earshot and I found myself smiling. Fighting with Byron always put me in a good mood. Nothing was funnier than imagining Byron fuming on his way to his study group. Maybe, just maybe he would forget the girls and concentrate on his studies just to spite me. Probably not. The moment I stepped away, I knew he forgot me.

I crossed under a streetlight and it turned off menacingly. Why did those things always have motion detectors that worked against me? The soft pad of sneakers slapped against the cement behind me, and my head perked up at the noise. Whoever it was, they were heading my way. I hoped it wasn’t an enraged Byron. The thought made me giggle. Wait, hadn’t Tory called to see if I was on my way home? I was due for another scare, and this was just the place for it, dark and forbidding. A twig snapped in front of me and I stopped, staring into the blank fog. I was surrounded by it. Where was she? Behind me or in front of me? Every sense tingled with the danger. There was no way of knowing really. The running feet behind me became more pronounced and I braced myself for the inevitable. But why did I have to wait for her to get me? No! Not this time. If she wanted to scare me, she’d have to fight for it. This time, I’d outrun her.