Read Online Cutting Up The Competition (Horror High #2) by Carissa Ann Lynch - Free Book Online Page B

wouldn’t even be at school to hear the girls who made the squad, must less try out for it…
    My name would not be on that list.
    I was suspended for two days. And worse…Blakely’s parents were threatening to sue.
    I laid in bed all night, refusing to eat what my mom or grandma brought me, feeling defeated. I let my anger get the best of me and now it had cost me—big time. I wouldn’t be cheering for the Harrow Dragons this year, maybe never again…
    Finally, I drifted off to sleep at seven-thirty, only to wake back up in the middle of the night. My phone was ringing non-stop, someone calling me back to back…
    I looked at the bedside digital clock. It was nearly two in the morning. I’d been asleep for nearly eight hours…
    I rolled on my side, staring at the ringing phone.
    Can’t anyone take a hint? If I didn’t answer earlier, I’m not going to answer now…
    But it kept on, until finally Grandma Mimi knocked on the frame of my bedroom door. The tone of her knock was irritated.
    “Either answer the damn thing or turn it off, Amanda!”
    Sighing, I picked up the phone and pressed talk.
    “Hello?”
    My question was met with heavy breathing. I sat up in bed, anger rising.
    “Listen, asshole! I’m not afraid of you! You’re just some stupid copycat! Why don’t you get a life, and leave all of us the hell alone?” I screamed into the phone.
    Grandma was still at the door, her eyes wide and frightened.
    “Don’t, Amanda,” she mouthed.
    “Well, aren’t you going to say anything, prankster ?” I pushed, clutching the phone so tightly my knuckles turned white.
    Expecting the robotic voice from before, my back stiffened when I heard the sounds of whimpering coming through the phone.
    “Please, someone help me. Please, she’s taken me and she’s going to kill me…”
    It took my brain a few seconds to register the owner of the voice.
    But once I did, there was no denying it—the voice belonged to Sydney.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter
    Twenty-Two
     
     
    I screamed loud enough to wake the neighbors.
    Hours later, I was still hoarse as I sat outside, Dakota huddled next to me while our moms stood out in the yard, speaking in hushed whispers.
    Detective Simms had come and gone. He was out there now, looking for my best friend Sydney…
    “Are you sure it was her?” Dakota asked. It was the seventh or eighth time I’d heard that question.
    Unusually calm, I wrapped my arms around her, rocking her as she cried.
    My eyes were dry, all cried out. Part of me felt almost…numb. Too numb to understand the seriousness of this situation…
    “I’m sure it was her,” I answered drily.
    Dakota looked up at me, studying my eyes as though searching for an answer to this mystery.
    “I feel like we should be doing something…” Dakota whined.
    “Me too, but you heard what Detective Simms said. He’s going to check it out, make sure she’s okay…”
    “But she’s not answering her phone!” Dakota cried, holding up her own phone and pointing at its lack of ringing as evidence that the killer actually kidnapped Sydney.
    It had to be nearly four in the morning, but every house on the block was lit up. News of a missing girl…
    “He’s going to find her. She’ll be all right,” I said.
    But my own words rang hollow; I didn’t believe them myself. Nothing about this felt right.
    We sat side by side, silently wondering what could have happened to Sydney.
    Headlights cast tiny bubbles of light on the slick, shiny asphalt of Blackbird Street. A car was coming. I knew before I could even see the car clearly that it was a police car.
    “He’s back!” Mom eagerly pointed at Detective Simms's cruiser as it slowly pulled up to the driveway.
    “Did you find her? Where is she?” I asked, jumping up to my feet and moving closer to his police car. He stepped out, approaching the group of us with an expression that didn’t ease my troubled mind.
    “She wasn’t home. And we can’t find her