Perfect Cover (The Squad 1)

“I can’t understand you,” Tiffany said.

I removed her hand from my mouth—and there’s a slight chance that I used more brute force than was entirely necessary, but, hey, I never claimed to be a morning person.

“I asked what time it was,” I said.

Tiffany rubbed her hand. “Sheesh. Touchy much?” she huffed.

I didn’t dignify that comment with a response.

“It’s five-oh-five,” Brittany said, answering my question in a voice that can only be described as chipper. “And if you touch my sister again, I’ll make Lucy lend me one of her Tasers.”

Until that moment, I’d forgotten about Lucy and the Tasers, and though I wasn’t the least bit intimidated by Brittany’s threat, I was (despite all of Zee’s test-score mumbo jumbo) disturbed all over again that either twin had access to anything with more voltage than a hair dryer.

“Here,” Brittany continued, keeping her voice low. “Wear this.”

I didn’t intend to make puking sounds when she shoved the outfit at me, but again—not a morning person.

“You know, for someone as fashion delayed as you are, this room isn’t bad,” Tiffany said. She’d finally gotten over pouting about her hand.

Tiffany meant the comment as a compliment, but I took it as an indication that letting my mom decorate my room because I was too lazy to deal with yet another new room in yet another new house was a big mistake.

“We don’t have all day,” Brittany told me, crossing her arms over her chest. “Put on the outfit. I’ll even let you choose the accessories.”

“Accessories?” I asked darkly. She nodded toward my desk, which now appeared to be housing a very large item which may or may not have been called a Caboodle in some circles. I’m not exactly up to speed on my Caboodle knowledge.

“Toby? Accessories?” Tiffany prodded me on her twin’s behalf, and I wished that I hadn’t woken up. I mean, having Bubbles in my locker wasn’t exactly my idea of a great time, but it beat having to pick out accessories at five in the morning.

“Do any of them have sonar?” I asked. I didn’t mean the question seriously, but Brittany, impervious to sarcasm, daintily handed me a silver necklace with a blue-green butterfly charm.

“Sonar?” I asked. “Really?”

The twins nodded in unison.

I opened my mouth and closed it again, not wanting to admit to Buffy and Muffy, the social scene twins, that I had no idea how to use sonar or what I’d go about using it for.

Five minutes later, I was dressed (a denim miniskirt, a white tank top trimmed with silver rhinestones, and high-heeled boots the color of the butterfly charm) and only feeling slightly homicidal.

“Kate Spade or Louis Vuitton?” Brittany asked Tiffany. Somehow, I got the feeling that they weren’t talking about enemy agents, and my suspicions were confirmed when they handed me another oversized designer purse.

I might have at least registered a complaint, but when Tiff handed me my phone to put in the purse, I thought of the code, and of Tara’s parents, and of my realization that maybe my transformation into Suzy High School was by some freakish twist of fate for the greater good. With that in mind, I walked over to my desk and picked up my notes on the numbers I’d pulled off of the audio track the night before, as well as the papers Chloe had given me on Infotech.

Unfortunately, the whole “greater good” thing didn’t make walking in blue-green high-heeled boots any easier, and on my way back across the room, I fell flat on my face. To their credit, the twins said absolutely nothing. I got back to my feet and threw the few schoolbooks I’d actually brought home back into my bag.

“What are those?” Brittany asked, looking at the books the way that normal people looked at dog feces.

“Books,” I said. “For school.” The twins stared at me blankly. “Homework. Ring any bells?”

“You actually do your homework?” Brittany asked.

Actually, doing my homework wasn’t exactly one of my strong suits, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Yeah, with your GPA, we figured…” Tiffany broke off when Brittany elbowed her in the middle of her exposed midriff.

“Well, I definitely didn’t get any homework done last night,” I said. “I was too busy messing with this code, and—”

“Code shmode.” Britt dismissed it with a wave of one highly manicured hand. “And don’t stress about the homework—we’ll just put in an order with HWA this morning.”

Dare I even ask? I wondered.

“HWA?” I dared.

“Homework Assistance. They keep a database of our assignments, and if we’re too busy doing Squad stuff, we just put in an order, and they print it out for us.”

“‘They’ as in the Big Guys Upstairs?” I asked, marveling at this new development. “And isn’t that cheating?”

“‘They’ as in the Big Guys who give Brooke her orders and the rest of us our supplies,” Tiffany confirmed.

“C’mon,” Brittany said, deftly eluding my “cheating” question. “We’d better get going. Brooke hates it when we’re late.”

I slung my bag over my shoulder and followed her out of the room, my attention divided equally between hoping I didn’t fall and praying that Noah wouldn’t wake up to see the twins leaving my room.

It was 5:17 a.m., and sonar necklace and HWA aside, I was still not a morning person.

CHAPTER 21

Code Word: Warm-up

When we got to the gym, everyone else was stretching, and Brooke was staring at her watch.

“Sorry!” the twins chirped together.

Brooke turned to look at me.

I returned the favor. “I stayed up almost all night working on a code,” I said, “my feet may have to be amputated because of these boots, and quite frankly, I don’t give a flying buttkiss about whether you glare at me or not.”

There was absolute silence, and even though I didn’t show any visible signs of it, I tensed my body, preparing myself in case Brooke should launch some sort of physical attack.

Instead, she flipped her hair. “Whatever,” she said.

I glanced around the room, trying to figure out from the others’ responses whether or not I’d won this battle of wills. I was, in fact, so busy looking around that I didn’t notice when the floor began moving under us, and I wasn’t exactly ready to drop three stories onto the trampoline. I managed to land on my feet, but it wasn’t pretty. Or graceful. And it definitely didn’t involve any flipping whatsoever.