Chapter 2

Bianca learned fast.

Orientation training started.

During the marching drills, Bianca deliberately wiggled her butt from side to side.

Big, sweeping swings, left and right.

The instructor spotted it right away and called her out in front of everyone.

"You! That girl! What are you wiggling for?"

"When you march, you march. Quit shaking your butt around!"

The whole squad was struggling not to laugh.

I held it in too, thinking she really had the wiggle down.

All she was missing was a tail.

Bianca alone wore the look of someone who couldn't care less, and just kept wiggling.

During the break, everyone was dying from the heat.

Fanning themselves with their hands, wiping sweat with tissues.

Everyone except Bianca.

She stuck her tongue out and panted, in and out.

The classmate beside her just stared, dumbfounded.

"Bibi, what are you doing?"

"It's so hot. This cools me down."

She said it without batting an eye.

"Hahaha!"

Everyone assumed she was clowning around on purpose to make them laugh.

They doubled over laughing.

Nobody guessed she had a far more despicable goal.

On the last day of training, the instructor had us play frisbee shooting.

The instructor tossed a frisbee up into the air.

And we shot at it with air rifles.

"Get ready, I'm throwing it!"

His hand flicked up, and the frisbee went shooting out.

Everyone raised their rifles and took aim.

But before any of us could fire.

A figure came bolting out.

It was Bianca!

She sprang forward, jumping incredibly high.

And snapped her mouth shut around the frisbee midair, dead on target!

When she landed, she even shook her head, wearing a smug little grin.

The whole field went dead silent.

Then.

The place exploded with laughter!

Everyone was howling, squatting on the ground and slapping their thighs.

"Hahaha, Bianca, you are too much!"

"I'm dying, are you trying to embarrass yourself or steal the show?"

The instructor's face went green with anger.

"This is ridiculous!"

"You're getting disciplined!"

She got sentenced to an hour of standing at attention, but Bianca didn't care one bit.

That night, back in the dorm, she came over to my bunk on her own.

"Vinnie, today really wasn't me acting up on purpose."

"I don't even know what came over me. I saw that frisbee and I just couldn't help chasing it."

She looked at me, all innocent.

My acting wasn't bad either. I faked being shocked and went wide-eyed.

"Oh my gosh!"

"That's exactly like my little sister when she was small!"

"Bill had the same habit! One look at a frisbee and she went wild!"

Bianca's eyes lit up in an instant.

"Really?"

"Really! It's so alike!"

I kept nodding, my expression dead serious.

Bianca smiled, satisfied.

After that, I pretended to grow closer and closer with her.

While she went on quietly hoarding my hair.

And started laying the groundwork for her backstory.

During our late-night dorm chats, she began playing up the sob story.

Said she was an orphan with no known origins.

Taken in by adoptive parents.

The adoptive parents treated her badly, and she'd grown up starved for love.

She said she really envied me for having a warm family.

"Vinnie, if only I had a sister like you."

She draped herself over the edge of my bunk and gave me a pitiful look.

I comforted her out loud.

But inside I was sneering.

One day she went out to take a call.

I happened to pass by in the hallway and heard her talking.

"Dad, Mom, don't worry, it's all going really smoothly."

"She totally trusts me now, and she even said I look a lot like her sister."

"Hehe, and it's not just her. The whole class believes I'm an adopted orphan now!"

On the other end, her mother's voice came through.

"Move fast on this! Once you claim the family tie and get her parents good and happy."

"The whole fortune will be yours!"

Her father spoke up beside her too.

"Once you've got a firm footing, push out that real daughter."

"Our whole family moves in and lives the good life!"

I stood at the corner, my face blank.

So it turned out she wasn't the only greedy one.

The whole family was scheming against mine.

Bianca hung up, a look on her face like the win was already hers.

Go ahead. Smile.

Your turn to cry is coming.

Later on, she started deliberately copying the way I talked and acted.

The tone I used, she mimicked.

Whatever clothes I wore.

She couldn't afford the real thing, so she bought high-quality knockoffs.

The iced latte flavors I liked, she copied those too.

I acted like I hadn't noticed a thing.

And often gave her the same clothes, the same lipstick as mine.

She thought I'd taken the bait.

What she didn't know.

Was that the cleverest hunter.

Often shows up looking exactly like the prey.