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him so badly,” I whispered through the palms now covering my face.
    “Maybe we can do something about that.”
    I lowered my hands. “What? Tie him up and force a kiss on him?”
    Holly rolled her eyes. “No, but that sounds kind of hot.”
    I nudged her with my toes.
    “How about something more inconspicuous,” she ventured. “We could use your talent. Why let it go to waste?”
    “It’s not going to waste.” An unwanted image of Madison’s face flashed in my mind, and the fear I’d banished for a moment came rushing back to me with full force. “So what’s your plan?”
    “You could change into Kate.”
    “Oh no, not that again.”
    She clapped her hand over my mouth. “Don’t interrupt me.”
    I glared at her.
    “And once you’re Kate, you meet with Alec and play sucky-face with him. He won’t ever know it’s you. Unless you want him to. Maybe your kissing skills are so badass that he dumps the real Kate.”
    I opened my mouth and she removed her hand.
    “Yeah, right. I’ve never kissed anyone, so it’s pretty much a given that I’ll suck at it.”
    She leaned closer, her face hovering above me. She was back to her sunny self and for that reason alone, I was willing to consider her insane plan. “So what do you say?”
    “You’re crazy, Holly. We’ve had this talk before. It’s not okay to change into someone and kiss their boyfriend.”
    Holly snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not talking about someone, we’re talking about Kate. She treats us like dirt.”
    Pity that you don’t have any real breasts to speak of
. The words she’d said to me at my first training session started running a loop in my brain. It was true: Kate didn’t mind hurting me. She actually enjoyed it, just like she enjoyed rubbing her relationship with Alec right in my face.
    “But still. What about Alec? It’s not fair to him either.”
    “Nobody gets hurt. They won’t ever find out and you get what you’ve always wanted: Your first kiss from Alec.”
    “But it would be fake.”
    “Why are you being so difficult? I’ve been listening to your gushing for two years. It’s time we do something about it and you get kissed. Besides, maybe he’s a horrible kisser and the kiss will cure you of your crush.”
    “Yeah, right.”
    “Oh come on.” Holly’s whine made me cringe.
    “Kate would kill me with her bare hands if she ever found out.”
    “She won’t find out. You’re too good for her. She’ll never catch you.”
    “Yeah, unless
you’re
not careful and stare into her eyes.” I tried to sound light but the words tasted false.
    “So will you do it?”
    The truth was, I wanted it—wanted Alec to be my first kiss—more than ever. And just as much, I wanted to hold that secret over Kate. I wanted to be able to smile inwardly, knowing something she didn’t, whenever she sneered in my direction.
    I thought of the rules I’d established for myself a few years ago and the new ones that the agency had imposed on me. We were forbidden to use our Variations against each other. But the thought of getting close to Alec, of being in his arms and kissing him just once, was too enticing.
    What could possibly go wrong?

CHAPTER 4
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    T he door burst open, followed by a gust of wind, before it quickly closed again. To a “normal” human it might have appeared as though no one had entered. A giggle revealed Holly’s presence. She’d managed to silently sneak up on me once again.
    Slowly the edges of her form grew blurry. Her body began to take shape, color bleeding into the fuzzy outline of it until, after a few seconds, Holly stood in front of me, clutching clothes against her chest, her cheeks rosy with excitement. Holly had learned to make the objects she held invisible, and Summers thought she had the potential to hide living things too. So far, though, the training with earthworms hadn’t gone well; some of them had disappeared for good.
    “It worked and I didn’t lose concentration!”