The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (52 page)

“So . . . what’s the deal with you and Josh Hollis?” Constance asked.

“There’s no deal with me and Josh,” I lied.

I shoved open the door to the stairwell so hard I almost rearranged April Park’s face. She scowled at me. Her founders’ jacket was obviously lined with bravado. Already she was high on the instant fame.

“Sorry,” I said.

Suddenly her face seemed to register who I was and she ducked past me without a word.
Yeah. Billings Girl and Pearson widow trump first honors and founders’ jacket, freshman. Keep walking.

“Are you sure?” Constance asked. “Because . . . it’s just I thought you guys had kind of a vibe before and I just thought . . . I don’t know. I thought it was weird.”

A hot rush of anger zipped through me, severing my nerves.

“You thought it was weird,” I said, my fingers curling tightly.

“Because, you know, he was Thomas’s roommate and everything,” Constance pointed out as we found ourselves on the second floor.

Like I needed that fact to be pointed out.

“Well, there was no vibe, okay?” I snapped. “Maybe you should re-adjust your radar.”

Constance’s chin drooped, like I’d just snatched away her
lollipop and tossed it in a gutter. I turned on my heel and walked ahead of her. Okay, so maybe I should have bitten my tongue again, but a girl could only take so much. Could I do nothing around here anymore without being questioned? Judged? Here everyone was telling me to get on with my life, but whatever I did, it seemed there were a thousand people watching me and waiting to comment. It was so unfair. I wished everyone would just leave me alone. Didn’t they have better things to think about?

I passed by a couple of whispering junior girls and stared stonily ahead, my fingers clenching ever tighter at my sides. I couldn’t take being under the microscope for much longer. Something was going to have to give, before I snapped.

“Brennan! What the hell are you doing? Pass the ball!
Brennan!
”

I ignored Coach Lisick and streaked down the field, dodging the defenders and faking out one of my teammates so badly she fell on her face. Not my problem.
If you can’t keep up, don’t bother trying.
The ball was mine.

My body was hot with exertion, but the sweat on my neck and under my hair was cold. It tightened my scalp as a stiff wind blew, but it only made me run harder. With each step I was more in control. Out here no one could stare at me or whisper or point. Out here there was no one but me. Me and my anger. And only one of us was going home alive.

I saw Maddy Sullivan coming at me from the corner of my eye, the red mesh vest she wore over her practice jersey a mere streak. At six feet tall and with one hundred seventy-five pounds of muscle, Maddy could have been a linebacker—or even a pro wrestler, with her rep for playing dirty. I knew she was out for blood just then. My blood.

“Bring it on, bitch,” I said through my teeth. I had to take this out on someone. She was as good a candidate as any.

Maddy slammed right into me full force, but I was ready for her. She might as well have hit a brick wall. She stumbled backward, surprised, then came at me again, but this time she did something she had never done before. She went for the ball instead of the body. And she got it. Easily, since I’d been expecting a tackle and had instead gotten a good soccer maneuver.

“Shit,” I said under my breath, turning on my heel to chase the ball back the other way. That was my ball. Mine. No one was taking it away from me.

Maddy passed to Bernadette Baskin, who avoided Noelle by passing upfield to Karyn Morris.

“Do I have to do everything around here?” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “They’re eating us alive!”

I tore across the field. That was my ball. Mine. I was getting it back. No matter what.

Karyn made the mistake of pausing to assess the defense. I raced up behind her at full speed, turning on the sprint the closer I got. She was just reaching her foot back to pass when I slammed into her from behind, shoving her over with both arms. Karyn let out a surprised sound just before her face slammed into the dirt.

“I’ll be taking that,” I said, kicking the ball away.

The whistle blew. It shrieked, actually.

“What the hell was that?” Maddy shouted, coming at me with her unusual abundance of testosterone.

“What? That was a clean play!” I shouted back.

“Like hell it was!” Maddy snapped.

Behind me someone helped Karyn up. She coughed dramatically, trying to catch her breath.

“Wuss,” I said under my breath.

“What’s your problem?” Maddy shouted, bumping my chest. Coach Lisick jogged across the field.

“Maybe you’re my problem!” I raged, getting up in Maddy’s face.

“Hey! Back off, you two!” Noelle demanded.

She stepped in between me and Maddy and held up her hands. I glared triumphantly at Maddy. Everyone on this field knew whose side Noelle was going to take. I even saw a few of them roll their eyes.

Noelle took a deep breath and looked at me. “Reed, hit the showers. You’re done for the day.”

My face prickled. Maddy smirked. I think she even grunted.

“What? Noelle!”

“She’s right, Brennan,” Coach Lisick said. “Go cool off.”

“Coach, I’m fine,” I argued.

“No, you’re not,” she told me flatly. “That was your third questionable hit of the day. If this were a game, you would have been red-carded twenty minutes ago. Now I need you to get your ass to the showers before you injure someone. I do have to field a team this weekend, you know.”

Someone laughed. Everyone else stared me down or avoided
eye contact completely. Like I was supposed to feel chagrined or sorry.

They had no clue. All I really felt was betrayed. I glared at Noelle as fiercely as humanly possible as I shoved by her and headed for the bleachers. Where the hell did she get off, taking Maddy and Karyn’s side? I thought the Billings Girls were supposed to have one another’s backs. No matter what.

“Reed!”

She was jogging to catch up with me. I kept walking.

“Reed!”

Her fingers closed around my arm. I yanked it away so quickly her fingernails scraped me through my long-sleeved undershirt.

“What’s your problem?”

I whirled on her. “I’m really sorry you didn’t get first honors like always, Noelle, but you don’t have to take it out on me.”

Noelle looked as if she’d just been slapped. For a moment. In the next moment her eyes smoldered with barely suppressed rage. “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, glass-licker,” she said. That was the first time she’d used my derogatory nickname in weeks. “I’m going to give you a pass on that one because you’re clearly out of your mind right now.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Thanks for the support out there.”

She stared at me. “We have our last game coming up,” she said. “Coach is right. You were going to hurt someone.”

“Like you care,” I scoffed, and kept walking.

I wasn’t making sense. I knew I wasn’t. But I was pissed off.
And if she wasn’t going to give me something to kick or hit, I didn’t want to be there anymore. But Noelle didn’t give up that easily. She jogged in front of me, forcing me to stop. Her dark eyes searched mine.

“Reed, if this is about Thomas—”

Instantly all the heat in my body rushed to my face. “I don’t want to talk about Thomas anymore!” I shouted.

She didn’t even flinch. “Reed, you need to calm down. You need—”

“All I need is for you and everyone else to stop telling me what I need!” I snapped.

This time when I stepped around her and stormed off, she didn’t even try to stop me.

I awoke with a jolt. My first thought was
earthquake
. Not that there were many of those in rural Connecticut. Then I heard the whispers. Saw the shadows looming against the white walls. Not an earthquake. Just the Billings Girls.

“What the hell?”

“She’s awake. Get the blindfold,” Noelle said.

My heart, already in my throat, started to pound there.

“What—”

Someone slipped a silk scarf around my eyes, blocking out the early morning light. The blindfold caught hair and yanked at my scalp.

“Ow!”

“Sorry. Too tight?” Ariana’s voice. Sugary sweet. She didn’t attempt to loosen the blindfold.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked. My hand flew to the knot at the back of my head. Someone grabbed my wrist and brought it back down.

“Kidnapping you,” Kiran replied. “Let’s go.”

Kidnapping me?
Kidnapping
me? I had thought all the hazing was over. Why couldn’t these people just leave me alone? The covers were yanked down and someone forcibly grabbed my ankles, turning me so that my legs shot out over the floor. I reached for the blindfold again. Someone slapped my hand so hard it stung.

“Don’t make me get out the handcuffs,” Kiran said.

Drawers opened and slammed. I could hear whispers but could make out nothing that was said.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked, my throat tightening.

“Get the blue sweatshirt,” Natasha instructed. “Her socks are in there.”

No one was answering me. Why was no one answering me? With the blindfold keeping me in pitch-black darkness, I wasn’t even sure how many of them were in the room. My palms prickled with heat and it was getting harder to breathe.

Come on, Reed. Play it cool. Don’t let them see you sweat.

“This has all been very amusing, you guys, but I’m going back to sleep,” I said, reaching for the blindfold again. Another slap. I felt my adrenaline start to rush.

“Stop hitting me!” I snapped.

“Stop
making
me,” Kiran shot back.

“Kiran—”

Suddenly my hair was yanked back from my face and I felt hot breath on my ear. I froze. “Shut it, Reed,” Noelle said harshly. My
heart all but stopped. Her lips were practically touching my ear. She meant business. “This is for your own good.”

Someone jammed socks and shoes onto my feet. I tried to suck in some air.

“Now get up.”

Two sets of hands yanked me up and turned me around. Someone shoved me from behind and I tripped forward. I had no control and I was terrified. As if at any second I might trip over the stairs or slam into something. As if the whole world might turn upside down. The girls had fallen silent, but I could feel them close in around me. Somehow, that made my heart pound even harder.

As we walked out of my dorm room, I twisted my head from side to side, trying to make the blindfold ride up. Give me a little something, anything, so that when we got out of the dorm I could keep an eye on where we were going. Where were they taking me? Had I, by snapping at Noelle yesterday, broken some cardinal Billings House rule? Even before I got into Billings and Noelle and the others were messing with me every other day, they had never done anything like this. A hundred gory hazing stories gone bad from a hundred evening news broadcasts fizzled through my brain. My temples started to throb.

They wouldn’t actually
hurt
me, would they?

For a split second I thought I could see light out of the corner of my eye. But then my coat was thrown over my shoulders and the hood was lifted around my face and everything was dark.

From that moment on, I was at the mercy of the Billings Girls.

The cold air on my face gave me hope. From what I could tell, we were walking right across the wide-open quad. Someone had to see us. Put a stop to this thing. What time was it? Where were Detective Hauer and his morning stroll when I needed them?

Not that I wanted to get my friends arrested. At least,
part
of me didn’t. The other part really wanted to avoid getting my head shaved or being left in the middle of the woods somewhere to find my way home in my pajamas.

“This way. Around here,” Noelle whispered.

I was pushed to the right and stumbled slightly, bumping into someone’s side. Someone shorter than me and kind of soft. Taylor? Natasha? If they were both still there maybe this would be fine. Natasha was a semi-decent person, and Taylor was too skittish to do anything
really
awful.

I hoped.

Suddenly I was hit with a strong gust of wind and my hood flew off. Light flooded the blindfold and my heart leapt. But I
still couldn’t see anything. The swirling paisley pattern of blues and greens was just that much brighter. A car engine hummed nearby and I could smell that acrid scent that warming-up engines give off.

A painful knot tied in my stomach. They were taking me off campus.

“You guys, come on,” I said, sounding fairly desperate. “What are you—”

“Just get in,” Noelle said.

A shove at the small of my back tipped me forward. My hands flew out and touched the side of the car. There was frost on the window. My fingers trembled.

“Get her head,” Noelle instructed.

A strong hand pushed my head down and I crawled inside. Vanilla air-freshener choked me. I fell into a seat and immediately reached for the blindfold. Someone sat down beside me, and her hands made it there before mine. My hair was yanked once again as the blindfold was torn free. Tears stung my eyes.

“Surprise!”

There was a pop and a screech and a splatter on my foot. I blinked a dozen times and tried to focus. When I did, I saw that Taylor, Natasha, and Kiran were sitting across from me in the back of a gray limousine, all dressed and fresh-faced and smiling. Natasha handed out champagne glasses while Kiran held a spouting bottle away from her six-hundred-dollar heels.

“What the hell?”

“Reed Brennan, this is your day,” Ariana said, reaching for my hand.

Her fingers were cold as ice, but somehow I found them comforting. Perhaps because they were kindly holding mine instead of forcing me to eat cow dung or something. On my other side, Noelle reached out and took three glasses from Taylor. She handed one to me, then grabbed the still-foaming champagne bottle.

“Christov! Let’s go!” she shouted. “This hunk of metal isn’t going to drive itself!”