Last Christmas

 

  Last Christmas (The Private Prequel)

  Kate Brian

  For Lanie, who brought it all together

  PROLOGUE OCTOBER OF SENIOR YEAR

  ***White headlights severed the darkness as Ariana Osgood veered from the two-lane highway onto an

  overgrown road near the outskirts of Easton, Connecticut. She gripped the steering wheel with one hand and

  adjusted the rearview mirror with the other, glancing nervously into it. Calm down, Ariana. Just calm down.

  She hadn't been followed; she knew that. No one had seen her slip away from Billings House in Josh Hollis's

  Range Rover. No one knew that she was retracing the route she'd taken just an hour ago with Noelle Lange,

  Kiran Hayes, and Taylor Bell. That she was coming back for Thomas. And no one knew why she needed to

  find him. Her secrets-their secrets-were safe. Rocks and chunks of hardened earth popped underneath the

  Range Rover's tires as she jerked the car off the road, cutting through the grassy field. She leaned forward and

  squinted into the blackness.

  He was somewhere out there. She just had to find him, talk to him. And once she did, he would understand

  everything. Understand that he was wasting his time with Reed Brennan, that she was nothing but a novelty.

  A terrible mistake. Understand that he was meant to be with Ariana. Suddenly her headlights caught

  something. Someone. Someone slumping limply from a pole. Thomas. "No!" She slammed on the brake pedal

  and swerved violently, barely missing him. Hands shaking, Ariana fumbled with the lock and opened the

  door, leaving the car's headlights on. "Thomas!" Her voice sounded small in the open, deserted expanse

  around them. Thomas's head lolled forward, his chin grazing his chest. He groaned and mumbled something

  Ariana couldn't understand. Panic bubbled in her throat as she stared in disbelief at the figure in front of her,

  as if she was seeing him like this for the first time. Had they really left him in this condition? His arms and

  legs were tied to the pole with thick rope, and a black mesh bag was draped over his head. His chest and torso

  were covered with scratches from where her friends had jabbed him with tree branches. Dried blood encrusted

  a cut on his shoulder. The shirt he'd been wearing was on the ground, next to the baseball bat Noelle had

  forgotten to take with her when they'd left not even an hour ago.

  Ariana's heart twisted painfully in her chest. How could she have let this happen? She'd never meant to hurt

  him, had only gone along with Noelle's plan so she wouldn't suspect anything. "Thomas." The second her

  fingers grazed his clammy skin, he flinched, recoiling from the contact. From her. "Thomas, it's me," she

  choked, ripping the bag off his head. She had to cover her mouth to keep from vomiting. Thomas looked

  almost... dead. His wet curls were matted against his gray, sweaty face. "I'm here. It's all right," she

  whispered, as much to herself as to him, and started to work on the knot binding his wrists. It didn't budge.

  "You're safe. I'm here to take care of you," she grunted, pulling futilely at the knot. She could have killed

  herself for not thinking to bring a knife or scissors. His eyelids fluttered. "Take care of me?" he croaked.

  "Of course." He would be so grateful to her for saving his life-for keeping their secret through all that-that

  he would never leave her again. Everything would go back to normal, and they could be together. Just like

  they'd planned. Just like he'd promised. "Go to hell," he moaned. The venom in his voice stung like a slap

  across the face. Thomas had never spoken to her like that. Digging her nails into her palms, she reminded

  herself that he was probably still drunk, or high. He didn't know what he was saying. He loved her, wanted to

  be with her. She knew he did. She just had to make him remember. "Thomas, I just want to help." She

  sounded weak. She hated sounding weak. She reached for the rope coiled around his wrists and tugged at the

  knots. "I-" "Don't touch me," he said, his voice stronger this time. His blue eyes bore into hers, full of

  disgust. "You think I don't know it was you who tied me up like this? You think I didn't recognize your

  voice?" "It wasn't me! It was Noelle! I couldn't stop her!" His image blurred in front of her as tears filled her

  eyes. This couldn't be happening. After everything they'd been through together, it couldn't end like this. "I

  would never hurt you. I love you," she said, her voice a barely audible whisper. "You love me too. You have

  to." A salty tear slipped down her cheek.

  "Or what?" he spat. His stare sliced through her like a steel blade. "What are you gonna do, Ariana? Kill me?"

  A strange laugh slipped from his lips. "Like you killed-" "Stop it. You're drunk. You don't know what

  you're saying. You're not thinking clearly." He shook his head, his desperate laugh still hanging in the air

  between them. "The thing is," he croaked, "for once in my life, I actually am. Everything is clear now that I

  have Reed in my-" "Don't you dare say that name," Ariana snapped, digging her nails into her arms. Hot

  rage rose inside her. "She's not like us, and you know it. She's a nobody, Thomas. A nothing." "She's

  everything!" Thomas yelled. He lunged forward, his chest heaving. "Don't you get it? She's everything

  you're not, Ariana. I love her." "No, you love me!" Ariana screamed. "Everything I did, I did for you. For

  us." "There is no us," Thomas spat. "No us?" she repeated dumbly, taking a step back and wincing at her

  vulnerability. She fought to keep her voice steady. "Do you not love me?"

  "Not anymore. Not after the things you did. The things we did." He was silent for a while. When he spoke

  again, his voice was calm. "But I'm going to fix it," he said quietly. "Make it right. I have to." "What are you

  saying?" Her throat felt tight, like she couldn't get enough air. How could he not love her anymore? He had

  to. Had to. He was the reason she'd done those things. The reason why those things were okay. Worth it. How

  was she supposed to live without him? How was she supposed to continue to watch him with Reed? Her

  stomach heaved at the thought and she gasped for air. In... two ... three... Out... two... three... "I'm going to the

  police. I'm going to tell them everything. I'm coming clean-about you, about me. And maybe while I'm

  there I'll tell them what you and your little Billings friends did to me tonight, too."

  "No. No, no, no." Ariana doubled over. This couldn't be happening. Couldn't. What had gone wrong? Why

  was he doing this? How could he not want her anymore? Not want to protect her? "You'll ruin everything.

  My life will be over. Please," she begged, stumbling toward him. She tripped over a rock and fell at his feet,

  heaving sobs emanating from her shaking body. "Please don't do this to me."

  "I have to," he repeated slowly. The cut from his shoulder had started bleeding again. "For Reed. She

  deserves the truth."

  "Thomas," Ariana moaned, collapsing into the cracked earth. Tears streamed down her dirty face. Everything

  she had worked so hard for was slipping away. Soon, she would be left with nothing. No one. The blurred

  image of a baseball bat wavered in front of her, just inches away. She watched as her fingers closed around its

  wooden neck. Watched as
she drew the bat closer and brought herself slowly to her feet. It was as if she was

  watching someone else. "I can't let you do this to me. I can't let you ruin me, leave me," she said quietly. It

  was someone else's voice. It wasn't hers. It couldn't be. She was Ariana Osgood. Easton Academy's Good

  Girl. "I'm sorry, but I just can't."

  Fear and resignation seeped slowly into Thomas's face, his voice. "You're fucking insane," he said quietly. "I

  should have known."

  "Shut up, Thomas." She raised the bat over her head.

  "Just like your mother." He looked her directly in the eye and spat at her.

  "Stop it!" she shrieked. The tears were coming harder now. "I'm nothing like her! Nothing!"

  "You were never good enough for me. For anyone."

  You never know what people are capable of until they're pushed to their edge, Ariana.

  "You're crazy. You're insa-"

  The sickening crack of the bat against Thomas's ribs startled her. A primitive, guttural scream escaped from

  her soul as she felt his body give way under her hands. His cries intertwined with her own, until she couldn't

  tell them apart. The begging, the pleading, the hollow thud of the bat swelled around her. She needed silence.

  A single moment of peace. She raised the bat over her head once more and closed her eyes.

  And everything went black.

  THE GOOD GIRL DECEMBER OF JUNIOR YEAR

  ***Ariana Osgood just wanted to go home.

  She knew it was insane. She was, after all, standing at the edge of the ballroom at the Driscoll Hotel, playing

  witness to the most decadent party of the year. The party she had circled in red on her social calendar three

  months ago and had been looking forward to every day since. But now that she was at the Winter Ball,

  watching all of Easton Academy mingle and chat and dance, all she wanted to do was go back to Billings

  House and be with her friends. Her sisters. Inside Billings it was simple. Inside Billings she could just be.

  Ariana reached up and touched her light blond hair, making sure for the fiftieth time that the chignon she'd

  worked so hard to achieve had held. How could she have forgotten how these events always put her on edge?

  Always made her feel hot and clenched and breathless. She was going to say something stupid. Or do

  something wrong. And everyone would see. Everyone would know.

  Which was why she had spent the past fifteen minutes leaning against a grooved marble column on the

  outskirts of the room, just out of view of the table where her friends and boyfriend, Daniel Ryan, were sitting.

  Sooner or later they were going to notice her marathon bathroom trips and the current column-hugging, and

  she was going to have to rejoin their reveling. Better make these last few minutes of invisibility count.

  Taking a deep breath, Ariana let the sounds of laughter and clinking silverware fade into the recesses of her

  mind and watched the scene around her unfold like a movie on mute. She committed every detail of the black

  and white marble room to memory as if her life depended on it. Noting details, cataloging a scene, always

  made her feel calm, in control.

  There were her classmates, stiff and formal in their suits and dresses. The twelve-piece band singing pop

  versions of Christmas carols on the stage up front. The light December snow falling outside, the large flakes

  kissing the leaded windowpanes. The waxy mistletoe and the candlelit wreaths that-if she squinted her eyes

  just so-looked like explosions of gold.

  But the curtains ...well, those she had to remember down to the last filigreed stitch so she could report back to

  her mother about them. They were exquisite, all burgundy velvet with shimmering gold-thread fleurs-de-lis.

  Her mother, a New Orleans native, loved fleurs-de-lis. When Ariana was nine, her mother had given her a

  gorgeous gold fleur-de-lis necklace for Christmas. That had been Ariana's favorite Christmas. The last happy

  one she could remember.

  The last one before her father started taking those extended business trips. Before her mother started to fade

  away. Ariana had never taken the antique necklace off, as if it could somehow tie her to those happier times.

  "Whoops, sorry!" A drunk junior in a rumpled Betsey Johnson dress knocked into Ariana on the way to the

  bathroom, giggling and slurring and groping with her acne-scarred date.

  With a blink, Ariana returned to her body, and the sounds of the ballroom rushed her ears at full volume. The

  band was playing "All I Want for Christmas," and a girl let out a shrill shriek as her boyfriend lifted her off

  her feet and spun her around. Ariana sighed and pushed away from the cool comfort of the column, giving her

  teeth a quick flick with her tongue to clear away any wayward lip gloss as she wove her way through the

  crowd.

  As she slowly approached her table, Ariana took a mental picture of her friends. The Billings Girls. She loved

  to watch them from afar, study their mannerisms, note their tics and gestures and habits. More than anything,

  she loved when she caught them doing something gross or stupid when they thought no one was watching.

  Like picking their teeth, or adjusting their boobs in their dresses, or checking out cute-but-dorky Drake boys

  from across the room. She liked to make mental lists of their imperfections. It made her feel less imperfect

  herself.

  Of course, finding imperfections among the Billings Girls was never easy. It took a practiced eye. They were,

  after all, Easton royalty. Which meant that Ariana was Easton royalty. She had been ever since September,

  when she'd taken her place as a junior member of Easton's most elite dorm. Now the Billings Girls, the ones

  her mother had always talked about as if they were characters in a fairy tale, were her dorm mates. Her

  friends. Her sisters.

  When Ariana was just a few feet away, she noticed that Isobel Bautista, a senior who had taken Ariana under

  her wing at the beginning of the year, was playing with her violet DG heels under the table, letting them

  swing from her toes as she gazed around the ballroom. Suddenly the right one fell off and landed a few inches

  away from her foot. Ariana watched as Isobel scooched down in her chair as casually as possible to retrieve it.

  As she was fishing around with her toes, she brushed Noelle Lange's ankle, and Noelle whacked her

  boyfriend Dash McCafferty's arm.

  'You're playing footsie with me? What are we, twelve?" Noelle joked.

  "Wasn't me," Dash replied, flashing a killer smile. "But I'll play anytime you want."

  Isobel finally shoved her foot into her shoe and sat up again, admitting to nothing, but the snapshot of

  normality soothed Ariana. She smiled and finally joined them.

  "There you are," Noelle said, flipping her thick, dark mane of hair over her shoulder as Ariana slipped into

  her chair. Noelle was, as always, wearing her signature black-a sleek satin Adam Eve dress that showed off

  all her curves. "I was beginning to think you'd nicked a bottle of Dash's contraband Gristal and gone

  streaking through the streets of Easton."

  Noelle took a sip of champagne from her crystal flute-the

  champagne Dash had paid off the waiters to serve their table in lieu of sparkling cider, since alcohol was

  prohibited at school functions-and then took a bite of a chocolate-covered strawberry. Noelle was Ariana's

  best friend at Easton. They balanced each other well. Noelle was more brazen and confident, where Ariana

  was more r
eserved and cautious. During their hazing period at Billings, Noelle had helped Ariana through

  more than one crisis of confidence, while Ariana had helped Noelle refrain from telling off the older sisters on

  more than one occasion. She was sure that neither of them would have made it through initiation without the

  other.

  "Noelle, streaking is so gauche," Ariana admonished as she took a seat beside Daniel. She smoothed her

  white, layered Alberta Ferretti dress over her knees and wrapped her hands around the seat of her raw silk-

  covered chair. "I was just taking it all in. The social committee did an incredible job."

  "I swear, if you start rhapsodizing about the engraving on the silverware, I will kill you." Noelle groaned and

  slipped a silver monogrammed flask from her beaded Marc Jacobs clutch.

  "I think it's cute when you go all poetic," Daniel said, draping his arm across the back of Ariana's chair.

  Ariana looked up at his chiseled profile, his auburn hair, his ridiculously long lashes, and felt for the millionth

  time the triumph of having a boyfriend like him. They'd been a couple for more than a year, and she still

  marveled that he had chosen her over all the other girls at Easton. "And Noelle ..." He tipped his champagne

  flute toward her. "If you kill my girlfriend, you can kiss Dash good-bye."

  "It's Christmas. There will be no killing on my watch," Ariana said.

  "Buzzkill." Noelle offered the flask to Dash, but he waved it off.

  "I have an early day tomorrow," he said, checking his thick silver watch. He ran his hands through his wavy

  blond hair and blew out a sigh. "I have to be in Boston at six a.m. to meet my father."

  "Six a.m.? You are a saint, Dash McCafferty," Paige Ryan said as Noelle handed her the flask instead.

  Dash blushed, even with Noelle watching. Paige just had that kind of power over people. Her great-great-

  grandmother Jessica Billings had founded Billings House more than eighty years ago. Paige, with her auburn

  curls and glass green eyes, was Billings. The true leader. The girl who made even Noelle pause with

  uncertainty. She was also Daniel's twin sister.

  "So what did I miss?" Ariana asked.

  "About ten minutes of your boyfriend talking about your Christmas vacation plans. It was lethally boring-

  even worse than when you get into your Emily Dickinson moods." Noelle rolled her dark eyes. A black-

  vested waiter silently reached over her shoulder, clearing plates and neatly laying dessert forks over fresh

  napkins.

  Daniel gave Ariana a quick kiss. "Vermont is going to rock," he said with a wink.

  Ariana gave Daniel a tight smile, her heart suddenly leaden in her chest. She knew what that wink meant. She

  and Daniel had long ago decided that they would lose their virginity to each other on their one-year

  anniversary. But when said anniversary had rolled around back in November, Ariana had chickened out. Of

  course, she hadn't let Daniel know she was scared. She had simply insisted that she was not about to lose her

  virginity in a dorm room. Daniel had been disappointed but understanding. The very next day he had invited

  her to spend the holidays with him and his family at some gorgeous ski lodge in Vermont, promising some

  serious alone time.

  Ariana knew what that meant. It meant no more excuses.

  The question was, why wasn't she excited about it? After all, Daniel was perfect. He won Firsts every

  semester, was captain of the lacrosse team and model-cute, and had already been accepted to Harvard early

  decision. But the thought of having sex with him made her feel as if she'd swallowed a herd of elephants.

  That couldn't be normal. Any girl would kill to be in her position, to have a boyfriend like Daniel. What was