The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (17 page)

“Are we infringing on your time or something?” Noelle asked.

“What do you want?” I said coolly.

“Oh, so we’re doing attitude again, then,” Kiran said.

“Kiran,” Taylor said in a warning tone. Everyone looked at her. Interesting. Scolding was usually Ariana’s job. Apparently Taylor was feeling sorry for me after witnessing my breakup and breakdown. Had she not told everyone else about what had happened, or did they just not care?

Noelle stepped forward and looked down her nose at me. “We have another job for you.”

I stared back at her in stoic silence.

“You know that Thermos that Mr. Barber is always carrying?” she said.

“Yeah.”

What did they want me to do? Steal that, too?

“Before class tomorrow, we want you to spike it with this,” Noelle said.

Ariana stepped forward with a bottle of vodka and held it out. I stared at it.

“What? Why?” I said.

“For fun,” Kiran said with a shrug. “He’ll probably spray the room with it.”

“And someone will smell it and report him and there will be an investigation . . .” Noelle said leadingly, tilting her head to the side.

Kiran snickered and Ariana smirked. Taylor looked down at her feet. They had to be kidding me.

“He could get fired,” I said.

“Now
that
would be fun,” Noelle said. And they all laughed.

My fingers curled into fists. I was already entirely on edge, but this was enough to send me over. They couldn’t mess with people’s lives like this. Okay, maybe I had let them mess with mine, but that was my decision. And at least everything I’d done for them in the past had benefited them in some way. Running for food, breaking up with guys, keeping Kiran’s secrets, stealing tests. . . . Well, except for that. But when they had asked me to do it, it had
ostensibly
been for their benefit. But there was no way I was going to help them get a man fired just for fun. No matter how much of an ass he was.

“No thanks,” I said, turning to go.

“What?” Kiran snapped.

“I thought you hated the guy,” Noelle said.

I paused and tipped my head back. “So what?” I asked the sky.

“So . . . why not get him booted?” Taylor said.

“He deserves it,” Ariana put in. “After what he did to you.”

“What he did to me?” I said, turning to face them.

“On the first day of classes,” Ariana said, staring through me.

“
How
do you know about that?” I demanded, letting my voice get dangerously loud. Not one of them seemed to notice or care.

“This is a small school,” Noelle said. “No one keeps secrets from us.”

I begged to differ. There were lots of secrets at this place. It was just that they were all being kept from me. I glanced at Kiran, who struggled not to look away. At least
most
secrets were being kept from me.

“I’m not doing this,” I said, backing away toward Bradwell.

“You sure about that?” Noelle asked.

“You do realize what you’re giving up,” Kiran said, crossing her slim arms over her chest.

I looked up at Billings, my breath making steam clouds in the cool air. I looked at the arched windows through which I had first spied Ariana on that first night. I recalled the longing I had felt. The need. The feeling that these girls could be the ones to save me. Rescue me from a life I never wanted to have.

I wanted it. I wanted it all so much. But a girl had to draw the line somewhere. This was the place.

“I’m not getting a man fired just because you guys feel like it,” I told them, looking each and every one of them in the eye, one by
one. I could see the doubt in their eyes. The absolute belief that I would cave. It only made my conviction stronger. I was sick of them screwing with me. Of the Billings Girls and Thomas and everyone at this damn school thinking it was perfectly fine to mess with the new girl’s head. “There are certain things even I won’t do.”

My legs shook as I turned away from them. Turned away from the new life I was so close to winning. Turned back into the familiar darkness.

Thursday morning in art history class, I stared out the window at the newly fallen leaves that skittered across the grass, as Ms. Treacle droned on. I didn’t even care if the old woman called on me about the reading, which I hadn’t done. I wasn’t even entirely sure where I was.

I had turned the Billings Girls down. I had said no. In the gray light of day, I started to wonder if I was not a little bit insane. What did I think I was going to do here without them? My relationship with Thomas was over. I had ostracized myself from all the girls in my own class. I had thought I was being all moral and admirable. Now I realized that all I had done was effectively demolished my one and only hope.

I would never be a Billings Girl. I would never be anything but poor little Reed Brennan with the blue-collar father and the addict mother. There was no escape.

Suddenly, as if conjured by my thoughts, one of the Billings Girls appeared in my line of sight. Leanne Shore was being led
along one of the brick pathways by Mrs. Naylor. Leanne looked nervous and sick, like she was about to pee in her pants. Something was up, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed. I heard Missy and Lorna behind me, whispering as we followed the duo’s progress.

They turned up the pathway to the administration building and disappeared through the heavy wooden doors. My heart pounded in my ears.

“
Some
body’s in
trou
ble,” Missy sang under her breath.

There would be no concentrating for the rest of the day.

By dinner everyone had heard the news. Leanne had been accused of breaking the honor code. The dirt was she had cheated on an English exam. There was going to be an investigation and if she was found to be guilty, she would be expelled. Leanne didn’t show her face in the cafeteria that night, which was probably a wise idea, considering all anyone was waiting for was her arrival. I was dying to talk to the Billings Girls about it—to find out what they knew—but they hadn’t spoken to me all day. Hadn’t even looked in my direction when I passed them by in the quad. Knowing there was no way I could even attempt to sit with them, I had spent both breakfast and lunch in the infirmary and had planned to spend dinner there too, until my aching, empty stomach convinced me otherwise.

I stepped out of the line with my tray and glanced toward the Billings table, where everyone was huddled together whispering. In fact, everyone at every table was huddled together whispering, sharing the latest tidbits of gossip. I took a deep breath and started for Constance’s table, knowing that Missy and the others would get
on my case for suddenly sitting with them again. It was just another pain I’d have to endure on my elaborate fall from grace.

I was halfway down the aisle when Thomas stood up from the end of a table and blocked my way. My heart flew into my throat. I hadn’t even noticed him there. His skin seemed translucent under the pale lights.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, his gaze intense.

I glanced right. Noelle and Ariana both looked away. They had been watching.

“Don’t look at them. Look at me,” Thomas said. He was being particularly loud.

“Thomas—”

“I called you a hundred times last night. Why are you avoiding me?” he asked, turning suddenly petulant.

“I think you know why,” I told him.

“Please, Reed. Just give me a chance to apologize,” he said. “You owe me at least one chance.”

I looked into his pleading eyes and felt myself start to crumble. Whether from the urge to get out of the spotlight or from an actual wish to hear him out, I was unsure. But I slipped into a chair at an empty table and he sat down across from me.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I should have told you. But I wanted to be with you and I knew that if you knew you’d think I was some huge loser.”

I stared at him.

“You’re not a loser,” I said automatically.

He pushed back and slumped in his chair. “Yes I am. I’m not good enough for you. I know I’m not.”

He looked so sad and small and sorry all of a sudden that, even as angry as I was—as disappointed—I felt the need to make him feel better about himself. I felt the need to protect him.

“Don’t say that.”

“No. It’s true,” he said. “But I can change, Reed. I can change for you.”

A lump welled up in my chest and traveled to my throat. No one had ever made me promises like this before. No one had ever counted me important enough. Not my mother, not anyone. But I was still wary. This person was a drug dealer, after all. A dangerous image was one thing. Actual danger was quite another.

“I want you back,” Thomas said, leaning forward and taking my hand. He held it on top of the table and stared at it like it was some kind of lifeline. “I’ll do anything to get you back.”

“Thomas—”

“You don’t have to answer right now,” he said, cutting me off. “But I want to talk to you some more. Can we at least keep talking?”

Talking wasn’t a promise of anything. It was just talking. And it didn’t even mean tonight or tomorrow or next week. It was all appealingly vague. “Sure,” I said finally.

His smile brightened the room. “Good. Listen, there’s this thing tonight. In the woods. Kind of a way to blow off steam before all the parents get here. Will you come?”

“What kind of thing?”

“Like a party,” he said. “We get together whatever alcohol we can find and we all meet up in this clearing—”

“And you supply the drugs . . .,” I said sarcastically.

“No!” he blurted. “Not tonight. I won’t. Not if you don’t want me to.”

I took a deep breath. What was I doing here? Did I really want to get involved in all this? But then, something he had said had intrigued me.

“Who’s ‘we all’?” I asked.

“Me and the guys and, of course, your little friends over there,” he said, tipping his head toward the Billings table. “Like Dash could go anywhere without Noelle stapled to his side.”

And then I started to salivate. Okay. Let’s think logically about this. An illegal party in the woods with Thomas and the Billings Girls could definitely get me booted right out of this school and back into the cesspool that was my hometown. But then going to this private little party would also give me a chance to corner Noelle and the others, to make them hear me out. And to show them that I wasn’t a total loss. If I could get a senior guy to invite me to an illicit party in the woods, that had to be worth something. Even if that senior boy was Thomas Pearson.

I would just have to use this party to my advantage.

I looked into Thomas’s hopeful, tired eyes and knew how much it would mean to him if I said yes. Even more important, I knew how much it could mean to me.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go.”

That night I lay in bed in flannel pants and a T-shirt, waiting until eleven o’clock, when I was to sneak out and meet Thomas behind Bradwell. I wondered if I was doing the right thing. What would the Billings Girls do when I crashed their party? Would they be angry? Would they turn me around and send me right back? The possibility made my stomach feel weak, but I had no alternatives.

The moment my digital alarm clock clicked over to eleven, I whipped my sheets off and stuffed my feet into my sneakers. I grabbed my denim jacket and the flashlight from the emergency kit my father had insisted I bring to school. Constance, deep sleeper that she was, didn’t even stir as I opened the door and tiptoed out.

Outside, the night air was cool and crisp. There wasn’t a sound on campus except for the thousands of crickets that blanketed the grounds. Thomas was nowhere to be seen.

I took a deep breath, held it, then whispered. “Thomas?”

Instantly a figure stepped out of the shadows. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Especially when I registered the awkward movement, the slightly bulky frame. This was not Thomas.

I reached for the door behind me and was about to run, but then the figure stepped into the light and I choked out a relieved sigh. It wasn’t some insane-asylum escapee. It was just Josh.

“Hey,” he said.

When he smiled, everything relaxed. How could I have thought this person was threatening, with his golden curls and baby face? He wore a long black coat over a hooded gray sweatshirt and jeans.

“You scared the hell out of me,” I said. “Where’s Thomas?”

“Sorry,” Josh said, lifting one shoulder. “Thomas sent me to get you. He wanted to get up to the party early.”

Nice. He sent his errand boy to come get me? What kind of maneuver was that from a person who was looking for forgiveness? Apparently he was so eager to drown his sorrows that he couldn’t even wait for me.

“We should get going,” Josh said. “You ready?”

A lump had formed in my throat.

“Yeah,” I said finally.

“Follow me,” Josh replied. “And stay close.”

Josh whipped up the hood on his gray sweatshirt, crouched low, and took off across the quad. I ducked and did the same, cursing myself for not thinking to wear a hat or hood as well. It made perfect sense. The more one was covered, the less likely one could be picked out of a lineup.

By the time we got to the edge of campus, I was out of breath. Not from the run, but from the certainty that at any second floodlights were going to flick on and the entire faculty and staff would be waiting to arrest us. But nothing happened. The campus was as quiet as a tomb.

“This way,” Josh whispered over his shoulder.

We stuck close to the tree line, walking up the hill and then along the end zone of the football field. Right behind the scoreboard, which loomed up against the star-filled sky, Josh hooked a left and cut into the woods. My heart pounded as I followed, and the practical side of me suddenly realized that I was following a strange guy I didn’t know into the woods in the dark of night. I wanted to say something to break the silence, to ease my tension, but what?

Hey, Josh? I know you look cute and innocent and all, but are you planning on raping me out here and leaving me for dead? Just curious.