Private 8 - Revelation (25 page)

Ariana flinched as Daniel grabbed Sergei's arm. "Just a second, buddy."

With one quick motion, he lifted Sergei's camera over his head, and started scrolling through the stored images. Sergei made a swipe for the camera, but Daniel held it out of reach.

"Oh, here's a picture of Ariana, and another and another. Isabella--you're in here too. And that's a nice one of Natasha. Hmm. No guys in any of these. Interesting. You know, you're lucky I don't call the cops on you, pervert."

Thomas snickered quietly.

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"That's enough," Ariana said firmly, her cheeks flushed and heart racing.

Daniel stared at her for a second, his eyes hard, angry, empty. Then his whole body went slack and he punched Sergei in the shoulder. "Kidding, man. I'm just giving you a hard time." "So can I have my camera back then?" Sergei looked bewildered.

"A little later," Daniel said with a wink. "I think it's best if I keep it for now."

The band switched to a slow song and the air suddenly smelled like hazelnut coffee. Sergei held out his hand. "You can't just take my camera."

Daniel sat back down and cocked his head to the side. "Dude, you can't just take pictures of my girlfriend."

Sergei looked torn for a second as he stared longingly at his Nikon, then turned away. In his haste to leave he nearly knocked over a waitress refilling water glasses at a nearby table. She glared at him and sopped up the spill with a napkin.

"You shouldn't have done that." Ariana took a sip of champagne, hoping Isabella's message hadn't reached too many people. Hoping they hadn't noticed that her boyfriend had just senselessly humiliated the awkward exchange student.

Daniel held his hands up and laughed. "Hey, I was just messing with the guy. Besides, he shouldn't be taking pictures of you. Not without asking, anyway. Guy has to learn a little respect." His voice turned serious, and he put his hand on her knee. It felt cold and heavy. Possessive. "You know I'd do anything for you, Ari. Anything. Don't forget that."

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Ariana smiled tightly. "I won't."

Daniel's words should have sounded sweet and loving. But as Ariana caught a glimpse of Sergei across the room, looking naked and vulnerable without his camera, she couldn't help but hear them as a threat. 267

WHAT IF ARIANA OSGOOD ESCAPED?

WHAT IF SHE RE-ENTERED THE WORLD WHERE SHE BELONGS?

THE WORLD OF WEALTH, SECRETS, AND

PRIVILEGEWOULD ANYONE BE SAFE?

Turn the page for a sneak peek of PRIVILEGE, a new series from the author of the bestselling PRIVATE series, coming December 2008.

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[This Page Is Blank.]

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NEVER

"Its not fair."It wasn't a whine or a complaint, just a statement. A statement of the obvious, as far as Ariana Osgood was concerned. As she stared out the window of the Brenda T. Trumbull Correctional Facility for Women, past the maddening check pattern of translucent lines etched into the glass, it was all she could think to say. Outside, the leaves on the trees swayed lazily in the warm summer breeze--a breeze she would be allowed to feel against her skin for exactly fifty-five minutes during midday recess. Recess. That was what the warden called it. Who ever heard of a seventeen-year-old girl looking forward to recess? "It's just not fair."

Across the wide oak desk, her "therapist" (Ariana added mental air quotes every time she thought of his title) smirked. Shifting in his seat, Dr. Meloni leaned back, forcing his expensive leather chair

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to let out the loud creak that he knew made Ariana's skin crawl. Just outside the fence that encircled the grounds, about a hundred yards from where she now sat, Meloni's precious Doberman Rambo barked nonstop, as always. The inmates of Brenda T. Trumbull listened to that damn dog bark all day long, every day. It was as if Meloni was trying to remind them that he was always there, always watching, even when they weren't in session with him.

"What's not fair?" he asked.

She flicked a glance at "Doctor" Victor Meloni, sitting there in front of his elaborately framed diplomas from schools like Johns Hopkins and Stanford. Her lip curled at the sight of his fake tan. His overly gelled salt-and-pepper hair. His heavily starched blue shirt. His capped teeth.

Two hundred dollars a tooth, but can't spring for a pair of shoes with leather soles. In the sixteen months she had been in residence at Brenda T. Trumbull (nicknamed "the BuTT- hole" by its inmates) just outside Washington, D.C., she had only seen Dr. Meloni wear two different pairs of shoes. The same exact style, one in black, one in brown. Clearly the man thought that everyone he met would be so dazzled by the veneer of his face, they wouldn't take the time to notice his shoes.But Ariana did. And they screamed white trash turned scholarship student turned poseur. He'd probably taken this job because it meant he'd have the chance to torture the daughters of all the deep-pocketed classmates who had never quite accepted his low-income self at his various fancy schools. And torture them he did. He smiled when they cried. Laughed in the face of their desperation.

271 Smirked... all... the... time.

"It's not fair me being here for twenty years," Ariana said slowly, stating the obvious. Stating the point she'd made four thousand times before.

"Twenty years to life," he corrected, his blue eyes taunting.

"I don't think about that," Ariana said, averting her gaze again. Outside the window, the lake glinted in the summer sun. A lone sailboat sliced across the frame of the window and disappeared. Ariana almost craned her neck to keep an eye on it for an extra second.

Almost.

"About what?" he asked. "The life part?"

He sat forward now. Interested.

"Yes," Ariana said. "It's unacceptable."

That was when Dr. Meloni laughed. Not just his usual amused chuckle, but a big, hearty belly laugh. Ariana tried not to cringe. She reached up and casually ran both hands through her soft, chin-length blond hair, securing it to the nape of her neck with an alligator barrette. She waited patiently for him to stop, curling her toes inside her state-issue white sneakers. (The most awful shoes in the world--the first thing she would shed when she finally got out of here.) It used to be that she would grab her own arm when she was tense, letting her fingernails cut into the flesh. Then one day last year Dr. Meloni had noticed this habit and pointed it out to her like he was oh so insightful. She hadn't done it since.

"Unacceptable," he repeated. She looked him in the eye, her gaze unwavering. "Yes."

"You do realize you killed someone," Dr. Meloni said, in the tone

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kids use on the playground when they challenge other kids to stupid dares.

Ariana blinked, just barely betraying her internal flinch.

Thomas's blood. Thomas's blood. Thomas's blood. Just like that she saw it on her hands. Under her fingernails. In her hair. She had made them chop it all off when she was waiting for trial and hadn't let it grow past her chin since. All that blood...

No. She mentally wiped the blood away. Gone. Back to the present.

"Yes. I do realize I killed someone," Ariana said, in a tone she reserved for idiots.

What no one here seemed to understand, or cared to hear, was that she hadn't meant to do it. Thomas Pearson had been the love of her life. He had been the only real thing she had ever possessed. It wasn't her fault that Reed Brennan had swooped in out of nowhere and stolen him away. It wasn't her fault that her best friend, Noelle Lange, had come up with the idea to kidnap him and tie him up in the woods to teach him a lesson after he'd humiliated Reed. And it definitely wasn't her fault that when she had gone back to show him how much she loved him, to show him mercy and untie him and set him free, he had chosen to mock her instead of thank her. Chosen to tear her down and act like her devotion to him was worth no more than the mud under his feet. Chosen to push her and push her and push her until she snapped.

If only he'd stopped when she'd asked him to. "So you took the life of one of your schoolmates, one of your friends, and yet you don't think you deserve to be locked up for life," Dr. Meloni said facetiously.

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"It was one mistake," Ariana replied.

"A mistake," he challenged, ducking his chin.

God, she was sick of this. Sick of him. Sick of his tiny little pea-brained, one-sided take on her and every other woman in this hellhole.

"You see everything in black and white, don't you?" Ariana snapped, her blood rising.

"And what you did was somehow gray?" he retorted.

"I'm not in denial. I know what I did and I'm sorry for it," Ariana said, her words clipped. "But I can't stay here forever. This isn't how its supposed to be...."

She was supposed to go to Princeton. Supposed to take the train up to Yale to visit Noelle on weekends, or into the city to club-hop with Kiran and Taylor. Supposed to join a secret society. Supposed to hobnob with literary geniuses. Supposed to graduate magna cum laude and snag the job as features editor at Vanity Fair. Supposed to live in a loft in Chelsea and meet some gorgeous artsy man who would sweep her off her feet and take her to exotic places like Thailand and India and Sri Lanka. Supposed to be proposed to on a mountaintop as the sun set in the distance. Supposed to have babies and take them home to Georgia to visit her family's estate and sit out on the porch and sip lemonade and watch them play tag under the same peach tree she used to climb when she was little.

This was her life. Her life the way it was supposed to be. It couldn't be over. The very thought made her heart constrict to the point where she actually thought she might stop breathing. Actually thought she might die over the futility of it all. 274

These were her dreams. Her mother's dreams. They couldn't be over. Not because of--

"One mistake," she said again.

Dr. Meloni stared at her. She was gripping the arms of her chair now, her heart pounding. As he stared, Ariana realized that she had just shown emotion for the first time in a year and a half of these daily sessions. She had let the pressure get to her. And Meloni was now smiling.

"One little mistake that ended someone else's life," he said.

I know. I know this. I see him every night. Every night as I start to fall asleep. Every night I jolt awake in an ice-cold sweat. I haven't really slept in almost two years. Isn't that torture enough?

"I just want to start over," Ariana mumbled, sounding desperate to her own ears. She straightened her posture and stated it more firmly. "I just want to be able to start over."

Dr. Meloni leaned back in his chair and let out an amused yet frustrated-sounding groan. He looked up at the ceiling and shook his head, palms to the sky as his arms lay on his armrests.

"It's always the same with you girls," he said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ariana snapped.

She didn't appreciate being likened to anyone else in this loony bin. He glanced at her, then slowly stood up and slipped his hands into the pockets of his white coat. Watching her the whole time, he walked around his desk and stood directly in front of her. For a long moment, he stared down at her, his expression unreadable. Ariana stared back and felt an unexpected jolt of hope.

Oh, just try something, please. Touch me inappropriately. Try to hurt

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me. Whatever you're thinking, do it so that I can get your pathetic, low-rent ass fired.

Dr. Meloni leaned down and braced his hands on the arms of her chair. He brought his face within inches of hers. His breath smelled like soy sauce. Ariana wanted to recoil, but she forced herself to stay completely still.

"I have been working with psychopaths like you for the last twenty-five years," he said quietly. "You are not capable of change. If you ever were to be released from this facility, I am categorically certain that you would kill again. So no, Miss Osgood, you are never getting out of here. Not today, not tomorrow, not five years from now. Or ten. Or twenty. Not as long as I'm the one signing your chart. And believe me when I tell you I plan to stay in this job until they wheel my cold, dead corpse out that door."

He pointed at the solid metal door for effect, and Ariana started to tremble. She felt it coming and curled her toes as hard as she could, but it was too late. Tears stung her eyes. She gripped her arm with her nails and gritted her teeth, but still they came. And when one finally spilled over, Dr. Meloni's grin lit his entire face.

"Guard!" he shouted, his eyes still locked on Ariana's.

The door instantly opened, and Miriam, the bulbous Ward Two guard, appeared, filling the doorway. Miriam had an impressive collection of steel-toed boots. Ariana had never even rolled her eyes at the woman. "You can take this one back to her cell. I'm done with her," Meloni said, disgusted.

"Let's go," Miriam barked.

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It took every ounce of Ariana's strength to get out of her chair without collapsing. One word kept echoing in her mind.

Never. Never, never, never...

"See you tomorrow, Miss Osgood," Dr. Meloni sang in a teasing voice. "And the day after that... and the day after that... and the day after that..."

He was still chuckling when the door slammed between them.

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