Two days later—a week before Christmas break—we learned what Katia's hacker was for.

Jess and I sat in the boys' room watching our guilty pleasure rerun, 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', while Jackson tried to focus on his laptop on the couch behind us.

"What the he-" he blurted suddenly.

We glanced briefly at him, and decided we didn't care; Buffy was more interesting whatever had his attention. As I laughed at a particularly implausible stunt, Leon rammed through the door, looking out of breath. Well, darn. This looked like it would be more entertaining than the T.V. afterall. His eyes darted around the room quickly and he asked Jackson, "Have you seen... ?"

Catching sight of Kellen through the open door, sprawled across his bed doing homework, Leon stopped talking immediately. He widened eyes at Jackson, mouthing, "We need to do something!"

"No, I haven't seen your laptop, Leon." Jackson replied loudly. Confusion and exasperation flitted across Leon's face and Jess and I tried not to laugh as Jackson flailed his arms in large gestures, telling him to go get Kellen's laptop. The light in Leon's brain finally turned on, and he followed Jackson's charade.

He knocked on Kellen's door and barged in before he got a response. "Hey Kel, lost my laptop, gonna borrow yours for a bit."

Kellen only grunted in response and Leon ran out, wielding the laptop like he'd won a battle. But a hijINKs notification came through on our phones and all color drained from his face. Jackson and Leon lunged into Kellen's room, intent on getting to his phone before he could. I glanced at mine as the three of them wrestled, elbows and hands flying everywhere. 

I also noticed a collective of social media notifications from Kellen himself. But I'd been here for the past half hour and Kellen hadn't touched his phone, or his laptop. I clicked it and giggled; a three year old Kellen in the nude. "Aww."

But Leon and Jackson wouldn't be so upset over just that picture, and there had been several notices. Holding my breath I began scrolling further only to have my phone ripped from my hand.

"Hey!" I yelped as my phone was snatched from me. Looking up, I saw Kellen, a bruise forming on his cheek, chest rising and falling heavily and my protest died. He'd lost the fight for his phone with Leon and Jackson and had clearly decided I'd be an easier target, given that I was no longer paying attention.

He scrolled the screen upward and his face went from awkwardly amused to stony to absolutely livid. Then he handed my phone back to me and calmly returned to his room, quietly clicking the door shut. The ensuing yell, a long drawn out curse made us all jump. As did the sudden sound of things smashing. 

Jess and I scuttled out of the room to Leon's incredulous words. "I can't believe she'd do that!"

Jess and I held it together just long enough to walk back to our room at a normal pace and then beelined for the window seat in our room. The first couple pictures we saw were innocent; naked baby in a bathtub, kid in embarrassing underwear, pants caught on something. After those, the pictures took on a darker air. These were definitely not the kinds of pictures or videos one would willingly share.

Kellen, terribly high or drunk, looking like a poster child for a cry for help. Wearing women's clothing, on a dare it seemed, given his deadpan expression. In bed with some girl, just about covered by sheets and blissfully unaware of the person taking the picture. The same girl, this time laying under whoever was taking the picture, with a timestamp that drove home an awful fact. The first week of school, while Kellen was at Waterbridge and not wherever she was. It occurred to me that the girl was probably Anya, the girlfriend he'd broken up with just after the summer ended. Well, shit. She moved fast. Or preemptively. 

I didn't want to scroll any further—the drugs, the sex and the fact that she'd cheated on him wasn't enough? What more could there be?

Jess squeaked beside me, a strangled little noise that made me look despite not wanting to. Anya, in the throws of passion with none other than P.V.K.! The same P.V.K. that had caused Kellen's colossal melt down in the dining hall over Katia's relationship with him. Time stamp, three days ago. Ouch.

By the next morning all traces of the pictures and Kellen's account were gone. The good thing about the posts being from his account, was he could remove them. First, of course, Eddie, a gifted Thunderbird computer wiz had to crack the new password the hackers had set. The other good thing, Kellen's account was private and most of his followers were Waterbridge students, so there was relatively no fallout outside our bubble.

After four days, in which no one had seen Kellen, we all wondered if his disaster would change the war at all. Or if there would be one anymore. 

-.-

There was an irritatingly nosy side of me that wanted to know if Katia had been the one to orchestrate the hacking. If she had, with the hacker I'd heard her talking about in the boat house, then it served her right for being dragged down into the mess alongside Kellen. 

I wasn't proud of myself, but I caved to satisfy my curiosity and spied on Katia and Hadley in the Hellhounds lounge.

"That snakey, snakey, SNAKE!" Katia screeched and flung her phone down. It landed face up not far from where I was folded behind two towers of stacked pillows. The face on the screen had been seen a few days ago by all of Waterbridge quite energetically boinking another girl.

"Paris?"

"No," Katia dismissed. "Anya! I thought she was my friend! I was even okay with her dating Kellen as long as I didn't have to hear about how awesome he was. She is going to burn, Hads. BURN!"

Kellen was dating his sister's friend? I wished Jess heard it with me; she would never believe this! Things were always very black and white around Kellen and Katia. As in you pick a side and stay there—no crossover of friends. So how had Anya happened? 

"It was bad enough she slept with Paris while we were dating, but she did it again while still dating Kellen? I mean, I always knew she was low, Hads, but this is beyond! So completely beyond!"

Well that explained Kellen's reaction. He must have really liked her if he was, one, willing to put up with her connection to Katia, and, two, distraught enough over her cheating that he destroyed half his property.

Vivienne ventured into the room slowly, gauging Katia's mood and coming very close to blowing my cover. "How about we get our minds off of this, Kia? Why don't we plan our next move?"

"Why?" Katia said flippantly. "Everyone already thinks we did this."

"We didn't?" Vivienne challenged.

"No. We didn't. It was only supposed to be embarrassing pictures. You know, the baby pictures and the dress. I have no idea where the rest of them came from! Why in the world would I do that?!" 

I realized in that moment that Katia kept some of the aces up her sleeve secret from even her best friends. She was soon on her phone, mumbling something I'm sure even Vivienne and Hadley couldn't hear. I was thankful for the noise their phones made when a hijINKs notification vibrated mine in my pocket.

"Really, Katia? No responsibility?"

"Really," she growled with finality. "No one's going to believe we only did part of it! Put that away Vivi, all pranks are back burner! Next move is finding out who the hell is responsible for the Hacksaw Massacre."