Check Mate

Chapter 6

For the rest of the school day after lunch, Marinette had the weird feeling of eyes on her. It was unnerving. Every time she looked around to see if anyone was watching her however, there was nothing. So she had come to the conclusion that she was either extremely paranoid, or she was loosing it.

Claude had outted her connection with Jagged, and now every one of her dorm mates knew she worked with him. The tickets she offered to the concert next week had been given to her by Jagged, but those tickets had been before he knew about the situation with her class. He'd given them to her thinking she would be able to bring the girls and herself so she'd had seven tickets including the one for herself. When she, Chloe and Sabrina had become friends she'd invited them to come with her, and while Chloe wasn't the biggest Jagged Stone fan, she had still agreed. She was going to sell the other four tickets, because Jagged refused to take them back, but then four people had been given to her as dorm mates and three of them were apparently Jagged Junkies. So when she'd asked Jagged for an autograph for one of her new dorm mates he said to bring them all to the concert with the tickets. She knew what he was trying to do, and he knew she knew what he was doing.

It left a sick feeling in her gut. On one hand she was grateful that Jagged was trying to help her bond with her dorm mates and make friends, but it felt so wrong. She felt like she was using her connections to gain something. It reminded her too much of Lila. Sure Lila had lied about those connections to manipulate her classmates, but it still drove her crazy.

So once she got back into her room, she called Chloe. Because of anyone could help her make sense of her thoughts, it would be Chloe. She loved Tikki, but at times her advice was too cryptic. Chloe on the other hand, was blunt and straightforward.

She picked up her phone and dialed Chloe's number, and wasn't all that surprised when Chloe picked up by the third ring.

"How was it?" Was the first thing Chloe said. Straight to the point then.

Marinette have a derisive snort, "Where do I even start?"

There was the sound of rustling on the other end of the line and she assumed Chloe was getting herself comfortable for this conversation, "Was it really that bad?"

"If bad means spacing out, getting knocked over, causing an argument between my dorm mates, and having my connection to Jagged Stone outted to the rest of my dorm mates is bad, just you wait till you hear what else happened." Marinette snarked as she flopped backwards onto her bed, limbs splayed everywhere.

"What the- Who knocked you over?" Chloe's voice was harsh and Marinette rolled her eyes.

"Really? That's what you're stuck on? I don't really remember exactly what happened Chlo. But it was one of my dorm mates, who apparently know you. And they're coming to the concert with us next week per Jagged's request."  She informed her with a sigh.

"Really? That's great!"

Marinette frowned and got off her bed, ignoring the kwamis looks of concern as she headed outside on her balcony, shutting the door behind her as a sign to the kwamis what she wanted to be alone and leaned against the railing, rubbing the outer edge of her left eye, "No it's not Chloe. It's not great. They know I work with Jagged and they asked for an autograph and now they're coming to next weeks concert with us! It feels so wrong, it's just like something she would do if she actually had the connections! I feel like I'm turning into her with every passing day and I absolutely hate it!"