Squad

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Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Lisa Sterle

Welcome to Piedmont where the death of a rich white boy is treated like 9/11. Thatcher Lang has been dead a week and now the FBI are getting involved. It all seems very impossible to Becca, especially because she was involved and it all started with a tampon.

Becca is in the bathroom when she saves Marley by supplying an emergency tampon. Marley is very grateful and when she comes out of the stall, she showers Becca in thanks and compliments. Becca is new to Piedmont, and they’re both Juniors! Great! Marley invites Becca to sit at her table at lunch. In second period, Becca sits next to Heidi. She’s super friendly and impressed that Becca got an invite to Marley’s table at lunch already. 

Becca has never been popular so it’s strange to have Marley and Heidi seemingly wanting to be friends with her. She desperately wants to be part of the cool crowd and accepts Marley’s lunch invitation. They sit outside and Becca meets Amanda (call her Mandy) and Arianna, and is bombarded by all three - do you play sports, consider highlights, is that white bread, wax your upper lip, are you Korean or something, do you have a boyfriend? - it's super intense and awkward. When Becca mentions her last school was all girls, Marley, Mandy, and Arianna jump on the stereotype that it’s full of lesbians. Becca instantly shuts down after remembering the time she tried asking out a classmate and was ridiculed. 

Thankfully conversation changes and they’re interrupted when Arianna’s boyfriend, Thatcher Lang, comes along and Arianna and Thatcher become the dictionary definition of PDA. Arianna and Thatcher have been together forever and it’s so cute, like those cancer kids on TV but prettier. This gross analogy is brought to you by Marley. Anyway, with no lunch eaten, it’s time for classes again. They all tell Becca she'll get used to it. They never eat.

A few weeks later, Becca is eating dinner with her mom. Her mom very much says one thing but means another, like suggesting macaroni and cheese for dinner if Becca wants to be bad means Becca is her patsy, or not seeing Becca properly since school started means Becca finally has friends and isn't a huge weirdo. Becca, however, is just as bad as her mom. This double meaning conversation ends with a text from Arianna in the group chat. She and the others are picking Becca up in twenty minutes to go shopping. Thank goodness because Becca’s mom is fixated on trying to snag Arianna’s rich dad now that she’s seen the Vandergum name pop up on Becca’s phone. At least she can admit to being a bitter divorcée with work-life balance problems. 

At the mall, everyone watches the foursome, and this always happens. This shopping trip turns into a Becca makeover. She needs to dress the part if she’s going to join the squad. One dressing room montage later, Becca leaves with bags of clothes paid for by Arianna who calls it an act of charity. It feels like a costume and playacting, but it also feels good. 

Becca goes to her first party with drinking! In a cemetery! Heidi is very drunk so Becca and Marley go to help her before she vomits on a grave. As they’re walking along, Thatcher bashes into Becca, hurting her. Heidi spots blood and tries to help with a tissue but Marley steps in. Becca spots a knocked over gravestone on the ground that she thinks Marley pushed out of her way, drunk Heidi loudly agrees, but Marley denies it. The gravestone is totally freakin’ heavy which Becca finds out while lifting it back up. Meanwhile, Arianna is reminding Thatcher he knows the rules and her friends are OFF LIMITS. 

It’s homecoming, the rest of the Squad have picked out Becca’s dress since she’s delightfully clueless and Arianna has arranged her date. Surprising no one, Arianna is crowned Homecoming Queen and Thatcher her King. For Becca, life is good because she has her friends. She’s also getting used to the whole party thing and lying to her mom. One night, they’re at Arianna’s getting ready to go out and are talking about their classmates, criticizing Becca’s outfit and shaming Marley for a makeout two years ago. When they put Becca in a polyester “dress,” Arianna calls her total bait, no wait, BABE. Becca feels like an idiot and changes back. 

The party is on the beach and Arianna is pushing Becca to say hi to a guy, that’s the whole point of coming to the party after all. Becca does and the guy totally picks up on Becca being uncomfortable and not enjoying the party. He invites her to see something, not a dead body or her end at the hands of a serial killer, but once they get away from the party, he obviously starts trying to make out with her. It starts to get aggressive and he doesn’t take no for an answer when the Squad interrupts and Arianna turns into an honest to goodness werewolf. 

Arianna goes after the guy, biting and ripping into him. Mandy and Marley tell Becca she doesn’t have to watch, but is more fun if she does. After Arianna rips out the guy’s heart and eats it, she turns back into her (naked) human form and passes what’s left to Mandy and Marley. What the actual fuck. Arianna explains that they were given a choice: be normal or be powerful. There was a cost, of course. They have to eat every month and it has to be human, nothing else works. They’re very precise on who they eat, what’s left behind and where, but a fourth would ensure all the evidence is taken care of. They only hunt boys and only the worst ones, predators. At the end of the monologue, Arianna gives Becca a necklace and an invitation to join them. 

Becca is stunned, why her?! They see her hunger to be more and better and question the bullshit around them. It’s also a join us or we kill you situation too. Becca thinks a normal person would run and scream. She doesn’t run, she doesn’t want to escape. Arianna turns back into a wolf and bites Becca. 

Later Becca stumbles home, her new body not cooperating. It's going to take a little time to get used to it, and she smashes a glass. Instead of her daughter just having a clumsy moment, her mom wishes she was drunk, she did go to a party after all. She doesn’t even care Becca is past her curfew, she just acts like she’s her BFF and wants all the details. Yuck, no. Becca stomps upstairs and slams her bedroom door off the hinges. Awesome! In other awesome news, Becca looks in the mirror and sees how ripped she is, then she does an Edward Cullen out the window, minus the spider monkey. 

In November, it’s Mandy’s turn to lure dinner. In December, Marley gets a turn. February, Becca is bait and Marley helps. Sitting outside one day in the spring, Becca watches Thatcher and his friends thinking if he went to any other school, he’d have been eaten up already. He’s just cheated on Arianna with a sophomore, again. The previous alpha, Allyson Green, had a rule about not dating after being cheated on but Arianna is alpha now and she’s using Thatcher to win Prom Queen like she won Homecoming so her transcript looks good. 

The next full moon, the target isn’t taking the Marley-shaped bait. When Marley is able to get him alone, he doesn’t go for her, in fact he actually asks to go back. That does not matter to Arianna. At school, Becca asks Heidi about Allyson Green. She was nice enough but dramatic. After she was cheated on, she would have huge crying fits for everyone to see when really she should have gone to the bathroom and cried quietly like a normal person. 

There’s a party at Thatcher’s and Thatcher “plays host” to Becca by making sure her drink is more scotch than soda, but then tries to come on to her. Becca says no, and when he starts being an asshole about it, she pushes him away. Hard. So hard his head cracks against his trophy cabinet and he slumps over dead. Oops?

The Squad hears something, goes upstairs, sees what’s happened, and Arianna goes into problem-solving mode. They grab Thatcher’s body and take him to the woods. Oops he was drunk and slipped and fell into the river. Too bad, so sad. While Arianna seems happy to be rid of her asshole boyfriend, really, Marley seems the most in shock because she’s known him since first grade. As the body floats down the river, a storm starts, and with the wind and the water crashing against the shore, the body sinks under the water. 

A week later, Thatcher is listed as missing, not dead. The student body is whispering and watching the Squad, but when are they not? Soon the news announces that Thatcher's body has been found! To make things worse, the FBI are getting involved because Thatcher’s death matches at least two other open cases. Hopefully a serial killer or gang gets the blame. No one should suspect a group of “delicate little debutants” as violent murderers surely? Time to get their stories straight, stay chill, and act their asses off at school. Arianna’s weepy girlfriend performance is Oscar worthy. 

Since high school boys are off the menu now, the Squad has to go to the seedy parts of town to get their monthly meals. While Arianna has no compunctions about eating a homeless man, Mandy has principles and they get into a fight in their wolf form. They’ll have to try and go a month without feeding. 

Things aren’t going great for Becca. Her mom suggests using the conflicting feelings she's having of her bestie losing her boyfriend and her boyfriend being a cheating jerk for a college entrance essay. Classy. They get into a fight in the street because they are very different people who don’t communicate with each other. Becca texts Marley to come pick her up and storms away from her mom. They head to Becca’s house but Arianna and Mandy decline to join them. Marley is the perfect person to console Becca who, on top of feeling hangry, is feeling guilty for killing Thatcher and putting them in this situation. Thatcher was a rapey, cheating asshole, and he got what was coming to him. As Marley is comforting Becca, Becca kisses her. Marley is stunned and Becca feels guilty for reading the vibes wrong, but then Marley reaches over and they fall to the bed for a good ole fashioned makeout session. 

The squad is getting ready for a college party at Stanford at Mandy’s insistence, though Arianna doesn’t see the attraction because it’s so far away, and Marley and Becca are ambivalent. They’re all cranky, it’s a full moon and their hunger is intense. Last month, they tried eating a businessman but then he started talking to a police officer and they gave up, so they have to do something lest the hangriness intensify even more. The thought of eating someone stirs Marley’s enthusiasm at least so they all head to the college party in the woods. 

Arianna gets drunk and is led away by some guy who doesn’t stop his make out when she passes out. Becca, Marley and Mandy are following behind and when they realize what’s happened, Marley and Mandy start questioning what to do but Becca changes into her wolf, kills the perv and changes back. Arianna has come to and decides she gets first bite as the alpha though Marley and Mandy say Becca should since it was her kill and she saved Arianna. They are also in awe of her changing back to human without having eaten first. Once human again, Arianna thanks Becca before Becca goes for her portion. 

As they’re finishing up, a trio led by Allyson Green approaches. Mandy got in touch with Allyson, their former alpha who made her and Arianna, to clean up Arianna’s mess. She's told Allyson EVERYTHING. Becca accuses Allyson and her squad of being messy too. The FBI are investigating kills that aren’t theirs along with Thatcher’s, lumping them all together and blaming some sort of serial killer. Allyson's henchwomen change into their wolf forms and start stalking Arianna as Allyson changes into hers. 

The fight is brief but brutal with Arianna left dying. Allyson gives Marley and Becca the option of going back to normal - feasting on their maker's heart is the only way to become human again. Since Becca doesn’t see the Squad as a sisterhood anymore, she takes the offer, persuading Marley to do the same. They eat Arianna's heart and become normal, then Allyson and her wolves, Mandy joining them, enjoy the rest of the meat. 

Becca drops Marley off at her house and goes home. Her mom finds her in tears in the dark kitchen at 4 am. Becca tells her Arianna is mean all the time. They have an actual, honest to goodness heart-to-heart and Becca comes out to her mom. Time for ice cream!

It’s prom. Marley wears a big frilly pink dress, Becca a more sedate black a-line. They both look perfect and are going together. As they’re getting pictures taken with Heidi and her date, the news reports Arianna’s disappearance and no persons of interest in Thatcher Lang’s death. Becca and Marley don’t actually go to the prom, their limo drops them off at the beach where they sit snuggled together. Then the skinny dipping starts!