Ruthless (28 page)

She blacked out for a few moments, hearing only faint sobs and the vague sounds of footsteps. When she came to, Hanna was leaning over her. “Emily?
Emily!
Oh my God!”

Emily blinked hard. Kelsey was no longer on top of her. She looked around frantically, afraid Kelsey had thrown herself into the quarry, but the girl was only a few feet away, curled into a ball.

“Are you okay?” Aria appeared above Emily, too.

“I-I don’t know,” Emily said dazedly. And then everything swarmed back to her. The fear. The certainty that she had been about to die. How Kelsey knew
everything.
Tears streamed down her face. Her body heaved and bucked. Her sobs sounded messy and ugly.

Hanna and Aria knelt down and hugged her tight. “It’s okay,” they whispered. “You’re safe now. We promise.”

“Hey,” another voice said a few feet away. Emily opened her eyes and saw a third figure squatting next to Kelsey. “Wake up.”

Emily’s jaw dropped. It was Spencer. She’d doubted Spencer and double-crossed her, and she’d come anyway.

“You guys?” Spencer looked up and pushed her blond hair away from her face. “
Look.
”

She moved out of the way for the girls to see. Kelsey’s back was arched, her head was flung to the side, and her arms and legs danced as though they were being pumped with a million volts of electric power. Bile bubbled out of her mouth. Cords stood out prominently on her neck.

“What’s wrong with her?” Hanna screamed.

“I’m calling 911.” Aria pulled out her phone.

“I think she’s OD’ing.” Spencer kneeled down to Kelsey’s face. “She must have taken something.”

Emily stood up weakly and staggered to Kelsey’s bag, which was still sitting on the driver’s seat of her car. Inside was the vial of pills, half empty. “This.” She showed the others.

Spencer looked at them and nodded. “Easy A.”

An ambulance screamed up the gulch road minutes after Aria’s call. EMTs surrounded Kelsey and immediately started treatment, telling the girls to step back. Emily hugged her chest, feeling cold and numb. Aria watched the EMTs with a hand over her mouth. Hanna kept shaking her head and saying, “Oh my God.” Spencer looked like she was going to be sick.

After a while, the ambulance driver, an athletic woman with shoulder-length brown hair, walked over to the girls. “What happened?”

“I think she was trying to kill herself,” Emily answered, her voice still weak. “I guess she took too many pills . . . and she was going to jump into the gulch.”

The EMTs checked Emily for any injuries, but besides feeling bruised and banged up, she was fine. Then they loaded Kelsey in the ambulance and drove off. Emily silently watched the red lights swirl down the hill. She listened to the sirens until the sound disappeared.

A deafening silence followed. Emily walked over to Spencer, who was staring across the huge ravine. This was the same view she’d looked out upon over a year ago, just when Mona was about to kill her. It didn’t seem like a coincidence that they were back here, fighting A again.

“I’m sorry,” Emily said quietly. “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

“It’s okay,” Spencer answered.

“But I told her everything.” Emily shut her eyes. “I told Kelsey what you did at Penn. How you sent her to juvie.”

Spencer whipped her head up. All kinds of emotions played across her face. “You
did
?”

Emily frowned. “She didn’t mention that when she talked to you tonight?”

Spencer shook her head. “Everything moved so fast. We just screamed at each other.”

Emily placed her head in her hands. “I’m so sorry. I never should have . . .” She trailed off, choking with sobs. Everything felt so wrong. “I’m a terrible friend. I wasn’t there for you.” She meant it in more ways than one.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Spencer touched Emily’s shoulder. “I get it. And it
was
a horrible thing I did. Maybe I deserved it, too, after what I said to you.”

The wind howled. Far off, Emily thought she could still hear the sirens. Hanna and Aria crunched over, quiet and solemn. “Kelsey’s going to tell everyone what we did to Tabitha,” Hanna said.

“No one will believe her,” Spencer said. “She’s on drugs. They’ll think she hallucinated the whole thing.”

“But she has proof,” Hanna argued. “She has that picture of Tabitha dead on the beach.”

“What picture?” Emily shrieked.

Spencer reached for her phone, then shrugged and seemed to change her mind. “It’s a long story. Honestly, I should delete it. Pretend I never got it. But even a picture of Tabitha doesn’t prove
we
did anything. It might even make
her
look guilty. Who takes a picture of a dead body and doesn’t report it? Everyone will think she’s just . . . crazy.”

An airplane flew silently overhead, its red light blinking on and off. A bird let out a long, hollow call somewhere in the ravine. Everyone turned back toward Aria’s car, feeling shaken but slightly relieved. But then, Kelsey’s words whipped through Emily’s mind once more.
You let it happen. You’re a horrible person.

Just because no one believed Kelsey didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. Emily
was
a horrible person. That guilt would never go away.

Chapter 34

FAMILY STICKS TOGETHER

Hanna awoke the next morning to the sound of Dot’s nails scratching against her bedroom door. “I’ll be there in a second, sweetie,” she moaned, sitting up.

The sun streamed through the windows of the Juliet balcony. Birds chirped in the trees. It seemed like a perfectly pleasant morning . . . until Hanna remembered what had happened the night before. Kelsey. Floating Man. The ambulance taking her away. She’d looked so fragile. So helpless. Once again, they’d narrowly escaped A ruining their lives.

But it was over now. She grabbed her iPhone and scrolled through her texts. Strangely, Liam hadn’t written her a note this morning—that was a first. Had he gotten home okay? It was 9:23
A
.
M
.
, a little early, but she could call him, right? She dialed his number, but it went to voice mail.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Hanna cooed after the beep. “I hope I can see you today. I miss you already. Call me back when you get this.”

After changing into a pair of skinny jeans and a Petit Bateau T-shirt, she walked down three flights of stairs to the kitchen carrying Dot in her arms. Her father sat at the breakfast bar, looking over a pile of spreadsheets. Kate hunched over half a grapefruit at the table, staring at the paper. When she saw Hanna enter, she gave her a strange look. Hanna pretended to fix a tag on Dot’s collar. Kate had probably found out that Hanna ditched the play and was pissed, but the last thing Hanna wanted was a petty fight.

Kate wouldn’t stop staring, though, even as Hanna let out Dot, poured herself a cup of coffee, and added a splash of soy milk. “
What?
” Hanna snapped finally. God, it wasn’t like it had been Kate’s Broadway debut.

“Um . . .” Kate looked down at the Style section of the newspaper and pushed it toward Hanna with one finger. Hanna stared at it. When she saw the image on the open page, she spit up a mouthful of coffee all over the floor.

“Are you all right?” Mr. Marin turned and slid off the stool.

“Fine.” Hanna dabbed the coffee with a napkin. “Just fine.”

But she was far from fine. She looked at the image on the newspaper page again, praying she was imagining things. Three pictures of Liam’s handsome, smiling face stared back at her. In the first one, he had his arm around a thin blond girl with a pointy nose. In the second, he was kissing a dark-haired girl in a swingy jersey dress. And in the third, he was walking down a busy Philly street, hand-in-hand with a short-haired girl wearing oversized sunglasses and a Burberry trench.
A Real-Life Romeo, In Love With Love
, said the caption next to the montage.
Liam Wilkinson is one of Philly’s most eligible bachelors . . . and he loves playing the field.

A hard, thick ball lodged in Hanna’s throat. The photo caption named each of the girls Liam was with and when he’d been seen with them. One of the photos was from earlier this week, on a day Hanna and Liam hadn’t seen each other. And the short-haired girl, whose name was Hazel, was described as “Liam’s long-term girlfriend he hopes to marry someday.”

Hanna’s gaze flitted to a quote in the main body of the article.
“He’s definitely a charmer,” said Lucy Richards, one of Liam’s ex-girlfriends from last year. “He made me feel like I was the only girl in the universe. Said that he’d never felt this way before except with me. He kept talking about running away with me, taking me to one of his family’s châteaus in France or Italy. It definitely made me feel special . . . until I realized he did that with every girl he dated.”

Hanna reached to the middle of the table, grabbed a piece of toast from the stack, and shoved it in her mouth. Then she grabbed another piece, and then a slice of bacon, even though she hadn’t eaten bacon in years. Liam had said all those things to her, too. He’d made those same promises. So it was just a . . . line? A ruse? And she’d fallen for him. She’d let him stay overnight at her father’s house. She’d jeopardized her father’s career.

Her legs wobbled beneath her as she stood. The room tilted and swayed as though the whole house was on a rocky ocean. Liam’s adoring face flashed through her mind. All those romantic things he’d said. The passion that had snapped and crackled between them.
Jesus.

She staggered out of the kitchen and into the living room. When she dialed Liam’s number on her phone, the line rang and rang, once again going to voice mail. “Nice article about you in the
Sentinel
,” Hanna sputtered as soon as she heard the
beep
. “Don’t call me back.
Ever
.”

When she hung up, the phone slipped from her fingers to the cushion of the couch. Hanna sank down and hugged a pillow to her chest, biting down hard on her tongue so she wouldn’t cry. Thank God she hadn’t told Liam anything important about her father. Thank God she hadn’t told him about Tabitha.

“
Ahem
.”

Hanna turned. Kate stood in the doorway. There was an uncomfortable look on her face. She walked into the living room, perched on the edge of the patterned slipper chair across from Hanna, and waited. Kate
knew.
She’d pushed the Style section to Hanna’s place so Hanna would see it, after all.

“How did you find out?” Hanna said in a low, hateful voice.

Kate fiddled with a pearl choker at her throat. “I saw you guys together at the flash mob. And then I heard you, the other night, in your room. I knew he was here.”

Hanna winced. “You’re going to tell Dad, aren’t you?” She glanced into the kitchen. Her father was now pacing around the island, his phone to his ear.

Kate turned away. “He doesn’t need to know.”

Hanna blinked at her incredulously. This was a perfect opportunity for Kate to be Daddy’s favorite again. Her father would never forgive Hanna for this.

“I’ve been cheated on, too,” Kate said quietly.

Hanna looked up in surprise. “By Sean?”

Kate shook her head. “Not by
him.
By someone I dated in Annapolis, before I moved here. His name was Jeffrey. I was so into him. But then I found out through Facebook that he had another girlfriend.”

Hanna shifted in her seat. “I’m sorry.” She found it hard to believe perfect Kate could’ve ever been dumped, but she looked so humble. Almost human.

Kate shrugged. She raised her green eyes to Hanna. “I think we should take them down. Not only has that family messed with Tom, but they’ve messed with you, too.”

Then Kate rose and strutted out of the room, her arms swinging, her shoulders back. Hanna slowly counted to ten, waiting for Kate to turn around and say,
Just kidding! I’m totally telling on you, bitch!
But after a moment, Hanna heard the gentle
clunk
of her bedroom door closing. Huh.

“I’ll call you back in a bit,” Mr. Marin said loudly in the kitchen, and Hanna heard the
beep
of the call ending. She stood, the tips of her fingers prickling. Kate was right. Maybe Hanna
should
take Liam’s family down. Hanna might not have told Liam anything vital about her father—besides typical divorce stuff every family suffers from and a lot of embarrassing stories about her weight—but Liam had told Hanna a whopper of a secret about his family. Something that would cut Tucker Wilkinson out of the campaign for good.

“Dad.” Hanna padded into the kitchen. Her father was now standing at the sink, washing his dishes. “There’s something I need to tell you. About Tucker Wilkinson.”

Her father turned, one eyebrow raised. And then everything Liam had told Hanna spilled out of her: his father’s affair, the woman’s unwanted pregnancy, the abortion. Her dad’s eyes bulged with every word. His jaw dropped lower and lower. The words felt like poison spilling from Hanna’s mouth, worse than any piece of gossip she’d ever spread, but then the photos from the paper flashed through her mind once more. They made her think of that line from some random Shakespeare-era play Mr. Fitz had made them read in English class last year:
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Liam totally deserved it.

Chapter 35

WHO CARES ABOUT PERFECT, ANYWAY?

“Mike, cereal is meant to be eaten with a spoon,” Ella said that same morning as she, Aria, and Mike sat down to breakfast in the sun-filled nook. The room smelled like organic coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice, and the slightly wilted wildflowers Thaddeus had sent Ella the other day.

Mike begrudgingly grabbed an antique silver spoon from the drawer and slumped back to his seat. Then Ella turned to Aria. “So what happened to you at the cast party last night? I turned around and you were gone.”

Aria pushed the big Ray-Ban sunglasses higher on her nose. She was wearing them to hide her red, puffy eyes from a whole night of crying over Ezra, Kelsey, A, and everything else. “I had some stuff to take care of,” she mumbled.