Catfishing on CatNet, Naomi Kritzer [best e ink reader for manga .txt] 📗

I mean, if you get a bunch of people out into the street, won’t they just slow us down?”

“If I am right, they will be focused on Michael.”

“If you’re wrong, you’ll trap us with him!”

“I have a plan B if it’s needed. You haven’t told Rachel to head toward the university area. Please do that.”

I pull the phone away from my ear. “Rachel, CC wants you to go toward the Marshfield campus. They’re going to try to use the students to keep Michael away from us.”

“How is that even going to work?”

“I don’t know.”

“How is your plan even going to work?” Bryony shrieks.

“Okay, fine,” Rachel says. “I’ll head to the university, but does CC know there are only about six hundred students there? If they’re picturing something like the UW–Madison, well, the whole town is less than twenty thousand people.”

“You probably should have headed toward Eau Claire,” Bryony mutters.

“Back when we first left New Coburg would have been the time to suggest that,” Rachel says.

“Who is this CC person?”

“The hacker,” I say.

“What even is this site where you met all these people? How come you didn’t tell me about it? You never tell me about anything anymore,” Bryony says to Rachel.

“I only just signed up for it,” Rachel says. “And how is it somehow my fault we don’t talk? You’re the one who ditched me for her boyfriend for basically the entire summer.”

I cannot believe that I am in a car chase, listening to Rachel and Bryony fight.

“I think we’re heading to the university,” I tell CheshireCat.

“Who is the third person in the car?” CheshireCat asks.

“It’s Bryony. One of my friends from school. Rachel forgot her car keys and Bryony brought them out, but Michael was already there so we told her to jump in; we didn’t want him doing anything bad to her. Can you send Bryony an invite to CatNet?”

“What is her email address?” CheshireCat asks, and I pull my phone away from my ear to ask for Bryony’s email.

Bryony spells it out for me and then turns back to Rachel and says, “Anyway, you’ve been blowing me off these last few weeks to flirt with your girlfriend.”

“Steph isn’t my girlfriend.”

“You gave her art! You invited her over! You haven’t wanted to use henna on me in almost a year unless it’s my birthday or something, and you haven’t had me over to your house since we were twelve!”

“Yeah. That’s right. I haven’t.”

The car goes dead silent for a minute, and then Bryony says, “Oh. Oh.”

“Yeah,” Rachel says.

I check behind us, but he’s not gaining, just … keeping pace with us. It gives me the bad feeling that he also has a plan.

“Look,” Bryony says. “I was twelve and I was an idiot and I’m sorry.”

“You can’t exactly blame me for being nervous about having you over after that.”

“No. I guess not.” Bryony looks back at the car behind us and adds, “But you know, it was because you told everyone that I only washed my hair once every two weeks.”

“Was that a secret? You didn’t act like that was some sort of secret.”

“Well, I did after you told everyone. Because one of the other girls started claiming my hair smelled bad because I didn’t wash it often enough. My hair did not smell bad, and it’s actually really bad to wash natural black hair too often.”

Rachel shoots her a wide-eyed look. “I had no idea. I don’t remember this! I mean, I remember wanting to know about this in that stupid welcome-to-puberty class when the teacher told us that we should wash our hair every day or every other day, but…”

“Do you remember her answer?” Bryony says.

Rachel shakes her head.

“She said, ‘Good hygiene is the same whether you’re white, black, brown, or purple! And you’ll smell just as much if you don’t wash properly whether you have straight, curly, kinky, or frizzy hair!’”

“Oh my God,” I mutter from the back seat.

“Jesus,” Rachel says. “I’m really sorry.” She pauses. “I was eleven, though. Eleven, and I was an idiot, and I’m sorry.”

“I get it,” Bryony says. “Can I come over sometime, though?”

“Maybe not right this minute?”

“Oh, yeah.” Bryony peers over her shoulder. “He’s not gaining,” she says. “Just following.”

“I’d noticed,” Rachel mutters.

It’s still farmland on one side of the car, but on the other side there are houses. We follow a set of residential streets that curve around to the U.

The university looks more like a nice high school: a single big building surrounded by parking lots. But there are students clustered on the sides of the road—quite a few, actually, and although they let us go by, there’s then a big shout and someone pulls a truck across the road to block Michael from passing, and it looks like someone else is hemming him in from the other end. They don’t look like they think they’re stopping someone terrifying and dangerous; they look … celebratory.

“Okay,” I say to CheshireCat, still on the other end of the line on my phone. “Explain.”

“There is a contest related to a reality show. They think trapping him will get them a whole lot of money.”

“How long do you think they’ll hold on to him?”

“Probably only a few minutes.”

“Well, we can lose him,” Rachel says. “At least temporarily.”

“Should we head back to New Coburg?” Bryony asks.

The problem with heading back to New Coburg is that he will just come back and find me there again. “Maybe I should go to the yurt,” I say.

“The what?” Bryony says.

“My parents have a friend with a yurt on Madeline Island,” Rachel says.

“Can you even get to Madeline Island this time of year?” Bryony asks. “When the ice is too thin to drive on but too thick for the ferry?”

“I think there’s a way,” Rachel starts to say, but then breaks off and shushes Bryony when Bryony starts talking about the Madeline Island ferry. “Is that a siren?”

I turn to look out the back again. “Crap,” I say. It’s a police car, coming up behind us.

“Do you want