Heroine Complex (11 page)

I was so lost in my swirl of thoughts that I teetered around the corner and almost smacked into someone.

“Oh! Sorry!” I exclaimed. Then I actually did giggle.

The person grunted and lurched away from me, continuing their quest down the hall.

“Wait! Sir . . . Ma'am!” I squinted at the person's retreating form. I couldn't make out gender, they just looked like a multicolored blob. Was I
that
tipsy?

“Wait!” I called again. But they continued lurching away. Shit. I didn't want some kind of “Drunk-ass Aveda Jupiter mowed me down at a charity event!” tweet going viral. I shuffled after them as fast as my binding skirt and wobbly shoes would allow. As I shuffled, I squinted at the person's back again. There was something odd about the way they moved. Something familiar.

I squinted harder. Black hair. Tight red outfit that
wasn't exactly a dress, but definitely wasn't a suit. It looked more like a spandex body covering. My sense of déjà vu intensified.

Where have I seen that before?

The realization hit me like a splash of cold water, sobering me up.

The Aveda statue demons. That . . . person looks and moves like an Aveda statue demon. That . . . person
is
an Aveda statue demon! But I got all of them, I'm sure of it. I saw them all burn. So how is that possible? How is it
here
?!

My heart sped up and I gathered the bottom of my skirt in one arm and kicked off my shoes.

“Stop!” I yelled at the figure. “Stop or I'll . . .”

Or I'll what? Club them to death with my stupid shoes?

I brushed that thought aside and took off after the figure. The figure's lurching sped up and it heaved itself through a doorway and out of sight.

“Dammit,” I muttered, increasing my speed. I propelled myself down the hall and through the same door. I looked right, looked left. I was in a bathroom, surrounded by gleaming whiter-than-white surfaces.

So I had successfully arrived at my original destination, but where was that thing? “I know you're in here!” I yelled. “Show yourself!” My voice echoed off the shiny white walls. Otherwise there was silence.

What the hell?

I stomped over to a stall, lifted my skirt higher, and kicked the door open. Nothing. I frowned, moved to the next stall, and kicked that door open, too. Also nothing. Inspection of the third, fourth, and fifth stalls all produced the same result. I was alone.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. Had I imagined the whole thing? Had my body responded to an unusual-for-me amount of alcohol and rich food by hallucinating a lurchy blob ducking into the bathroom?

Had being Aveda Jupiter already driven me completely fucking crazy?

I looked down at my bedraggled form.
Well, shit.
I couldn't go back out there like this. My skirt was bunched up and there was something that looked suspiciously like a rip near the hem. Plus I had no shoes.

I heard the bathroom door creak open and hastily flung myself into the stall just as two sets of high-heeled footsteps clicked through.

“—so slut-tastic,” one of the high-heeled interlopers was in the midst of saying. “‘Local designer' my ass. That sparkle-motion bullshit was clearly mass-produced in, like,
Asia
.”

As my heartbeat began to slow and I forced myself to breathe evenly, I realized I recognized those nasal tones: Shasta. Giving me a bad review. With vaguely racist undertones. She was probably jealous 'cause me and Maisy were planning on going to the movies together. She seemed like the possessive friend type.

“Sweatshop material, fo' sho',” snarked her companion, whose voice I couldn't quite place. “And did you see how many dates she stuffed into that huge mouth of hers? I thought superheroes had to be fit.”

“If she lets out a few seams in that dress, maybe she'll be able to avoid all the nip slips,” said Shasta. “Not that you can't see everything already in that little number, it's practically transparent. I don't know if you noticed—”

“I sure gosh-dang did. I even snuck a picture.”

Oh. Now I recognized that girlish lilt. Maisy.

“You are so bad,” shrieked Shasta. “My God, she looks naked. You have to blog that shit. Your hits are gonna be off-the-chain insane!”

“I am so blogging it,” Maisy assured her. “But do you think I actually have to go to that movie with her? The Heroic Whatever? I mean, I suppose it's an opportunity to cozy up to San Francisco's beloved daughter. Writing about her all the time is fine, but it's still not quite enough to further my association with her and therefore
my celebrity status.” I could practically see her preening in front of the mirror.

“And you want to transcend her status, even—yes?” Shasta cooed adoringly. “You want to be celebrity royalty. Who cares about San Francisco's beloved daughter, when you could be, like, San Francisco's beloved princess? I mean, you already have the style and grace for it.”

Ugh, seriously? Shasta had the whole ass-kissing thing down to a science. I imagined Maisy ruling over her own blog monarchy and almost gagged, then remembered I was trying to stay silent and clapped a hand over my mouth.

“All right, all right, I'll suffer through the movie,” Maisy groaned. “Getting close to her is the first step in transcending her or whatever. But really, who knew Aveda Jupiter had such juvenile taste?”

“Anyone who saw her in that dress!” crowed Shasta.

Their cackles bounced off the walls of the bathroom, echoing in my ears, forming a wall of banshee-like noise that threatened to smother me. My face flushed and the tulle of my ruined dress was itchy and abrasive next to my skin. My sweaty fingers grappled at those teeny pearl buttons, trying to loosen them, but I still couldn't reach.

And as their laughter spiraled into hysterics, I felt something even more foreign than the sweet fizz of enjoyment that had overtaken me earlier.

The beginnings of tears. Pricking at my eyes, threatening to escape.

“Stop it,” I muttered to myself, blinking hard. Seriously? I was going to start crying? Over these two-faced bitches who apparently derived all their pleasure from ripping other women apart? And, okay, it might also have something to do with the fact that I'd just hallucinated a demon and chased after it and ruined my damn dress in the process. But still.

My phone chose that moment to buzz from its sequined clutch prison.

Shasta and Maisy were clacking their way out the door, but I took extra care to keep my voice down as I answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Eviiiiiiiiiiiiie. Evvvvvvvvvie. Evelyn.”

“Aveda?” I whispered, my near-tears and demon hallucination momentarily forgotten. “Are you drunk?”

“What? No.
No
. Of course not.” She let out a laugh that went on too long. “We have a little sitcher—
situation
back at HQ.”

“Which is . . . ?”

“It's Beatrice. She is . . . hmm. How do I put this? Completely effing wasted.”

“What?! How is that possible? You're supposed to be watching the Barden Bellas take nationals. And other wholesome activities.”

“I know. I know. IknowIknowIknow. I thought it would be fun for us to brew some fruit punch—”

“Punch?! Aveda, Bea's not ten—”

“Hush, youse! I'm a little behind on what the kidsh—
kids
like these days. Anyway, she told me she was adding a special ingredient.”

“Which she no doubt obtained from our unlocked liquor cabinet yesterday,” I muttered. “Aveda, you're supposed to be the adult, here. You couldn't supervise her?”

“Meeeeeeeeeeeeh,” she whined. “Now you're all mad at me. I knew I shouldn't have called.”

“I'm not mad,” I lied. “Sit tight. I'll send help.”

I hung up before she could respond and punched in Scott's number.

“Evie?” He sounded confused. “Is everything okay? I haven't made much progress with the spell yet—”

“Not why I'm calling,” I cut in. Now that I had An Important Task, I latched on to it fiercely, determined to put the craziness of two-faced Maisy and the imaginary Aveda statue demon aside. “I need you to go over to HQ and handle an Aveda disaster.”

“A disaster,” he repeated slowly. “Evie, just because I agreed to do this spell, it doesn't make me one of Aveda's flunkies. I can't be around her.”

“You were around her this morning. In fact, you guys teamed up on this whole plan thing.”

“That's for you,” he interjected, his tone sharp. “I'm trying to save you from your fucked-up relationship with her. Maybe if I take away your fire power, you'll finally have the guts to leave. Find another job. Find another
life
.” He took a deep breath, as if trying to calm himself. “But me showing up for that doesn't mean you can pull me into whatever craziness she's managed to stir up.”

“It's Bea, too!” I yelped. “Aveda's supposed to be babysitting and Bea somehow managed to get both of them drunk and I'm stuck at this stupid party in this stupid dress and I'm worried they're going to hurt themselves or, like, destroy San Francisco or—”

“All right, all right.” His voice turned weary, but the sharpness was still there. “I'll go. But don't call me next time. Not if it's about Aveda. I mean it.”

“I—” I spluttered. But he'd already hung up. My hand clutched the phone in frustration and I had a sudden vision of squeezing hard enough to make it shatter.
Evie smash.

“Goddammit,” I growled, stuffing the phone back into my clutch.

My dress constricted further against my skin, tighter and itchier than ever, and every crazy-making thing of the last fifteen minutes—my demon hallucination, Maisy's cackling laugh, Aveda's drunken slurs, Scott's harsh tones—played back through my brain, each individual track fighting for attention, louder and louder until there was nothing but noise. The flush that had overtaken my face burned its way through my body like wildfire and my breathing started to come in panicked gasps and I couldn't stop sweating.

I stumbled out of the stall, trying to slow my breathing. The tears came roaring back, flooding my eyes, determined to escape.

No. No crying. Invisible Girl would
not
approve.

I staggered over to one of the sinks and grabbed the edge, gripping hard, blinking the tears back.

At least Shasta and Maisy cleared out. At least there's that,
I thought.
No one here to see my barely controlled freak-out. Which isn't even a freak-out yet. Definitely not a freak-out. It's . . . it's . . .

I caught a glimpse of myself in one of the tiny circular mirrors above the sink. It was so tiny I could only see a small swatch of my face. One panicked eyeball. Half a gasping mouth. A few tendrils of hair escaping from my sophisticated updo, curling around my . . . wait!
Curling?!

I'd forgotten to refresh my glamour.

I gripped the sink harder, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to think of nice things, calming things.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.

And suddenly I was holding nothing but air.

My eyes flew open to see the sink hanging precariously from the wall by a single bolt. It creaked ominously and the bolt detached, sending the whole contraption crashing to the floor with a resounding
crash
.

Before I could process this, water exploded from the now-bared pipes, splattering aggressively onto the floor.

I tried to leap out of the way, but the last pipe burst just in time to spew in my direction, drenching me. I heaved myself out of the water's path, frantically clawing at the heavy ropes of wet hair plastering themselves over my eyes.

“What on Earth is taking so long in here?”

My head jerked up and I saw Nate bursting through the door, glower firmly in place. He stopped abruptly, his expression morphing into total confusion as he took in
the water sluicing out of the wall, the sink on the floor, and my bedraggled self. The tulle of my dress now hugged my body in a way that crossed the decency line and landed me in near-pornographic territory.

“I . . . came to get you. So you can, uh . . . announce the winners of the silent auction,” he said. His eyes couldn't help but wander. Forget the “slips” Maisy and Shasta were so scandalized by. Now there were just straight-up nipples all over the place.

“Don't look at that,” I gasped, crossing my arms over my chest. “Get out of here. I'll fix this and get cleaned up and meet you back in the ballroom and . . . and . . .”

My words petered out in a pathetic little whine. He kept standing there, staring at me.

I felt exposed, exhausted. The tears I'd managed to keep at bay for the entire disastrous bathroom stint took advantage of my moment of weakness and spilled over.

And I'm cold,
I realized.
Really, really cold
. My teeth started to chatter.

“I fucked it all up,” I blurted out. My voice caught on something that sounded dangerously like a sob. “I can't even do a simple Aveda night out. I thought I'd girl-bonded with Maisy, but she thinks I'm a carb-crazy loser in a slutty dress. And I actually like this dress, so what does that say about my, what do you call it, taste level? And Bea managed to terrorize what I thought was a non-terrorizable space and Aveda let it happen. And Scott . . . I don't . . . I don't know why he had to get so mad at me. And then . . . then . . .”

I hiccupped and gestured helplessly at the ruined sink.

“You melted the sink off the wall?” His voice was a low rumble, a gentle version of his usual harsh tones.

I looked at the sink. The water had stopped pouring out of the pipes and the sink's shape was different than before: blobby and deformed, like an abstract painting come to life. I brought one of my palms close to my face,
examining it. Even though the rest of my body was freezing, my hand felt as if I'd just touched a stove.