Sweet Deceit

  After Lexa’s impromptu soiree the night before, Ariana had gone to bed early, only to spend the entire night wide-awake and tense, her heart pounding with ire as she listened to the steady cadence of Kaitlynn’s quiet snore in the next bed. That Kaitlynn was allowed to remain alive and well and was sleeping peacefully while Brigit was rotting in the ground somewhere was so abysmally wrong, it was all Ariana could do to keep from jumping the girl and slitting her throat as she slept.

  But that, of course, would have been messy.

  The water in their private bathroom stopped running. Ariana quickly fastened her pearl earrings into her ears and reached for Brigit’s red bangle. She had just slipped it onto her wrist when Kaitlynn emerged from the bathroom, wrapping a towel around her slim body. The very sight of her made Ariana’s blood burn.

  “Hey,” Kaitlynn said, glancing over Ariana’s outfit. “Wait up. We can walk over together.”

  Ariana laughed bitterly. “You can’t be serious.”

  Kaitlynn paused in front of her walk-in closet.

  “Kaitlynn, you killed one of my best friends,” Ariana said, grabbing her book bag and slinging it over her shoulder. “The fact that I’m even talking to you right now is making me physically ill.”

  Kaitlynn rubbed a towel over her short blond hair, still wet from the shower. “We were best friends once too, you know.”

  Ariana paused with her hand on the doorknob. Against her better judgment, she looked at her roommate, and for a split second she saw that old vulnerability in Kaitlynn’s wide green eyes—that craving to be accepted and loved, which had sucked Ariana in during their time at the Brenda T.

  But then Kaitlynn blinked, clenched her jaw, and turned away.

  “Not really,” Ariana said, her skin prickling with heat over having almost let her guard down. “You were lying to me the entire time.”

  Kaitlynn yanked a shirt off a hanger, then went to her dresser for a bra and underwear. “Like you never lied to me.”

  Ariana released the doorknob and turned toward Kaitlynn. “I didn’t,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  Kaitlynn dressed quickly, her back to Ariana, shaking her head as she buttoned up her white uniform shirt. “Right. So all that stuff about hating your life and being glad you never had to see any of those people again. How I was a better friend than they ever were. All that was true?” she asked, turning to glare at Ariana.

  Instantly, Ariana’s skin warmed and her eyes stung. Images of her former friends from Easton Academy—Noelle Lange, Kiran Hayes, and Taylor Bell—flitted through her mind. She vividly recalled how her heart used to leap whenever the guards announced that she had a visitor. How she used to stand outside the door to the visiting room while it was being unlocked, nearly giddy with hope, envisioning Noelle sitting at the metal table with her dark sunglasses on, or Kiran perched with a pile of fashion magazines, or Taylor offering a sweet smile. But it was always her lawyer or her father or some reporter hoping for a story. None of the Billings girls had ever come. Their rejection stung, even now.

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought,” Kaitlynn said, stepping into a blue pleated skirt and fastening it around her slim waist. “They couldn’t have cared less. But me? I was always there for you.”

  “You had to be,” Ariana replied. “We were stuck in the same room.” Just like we are now, she added silently. Although back then it had been different. Back then, Ariana had thought that Kaitlynn was sweet, innocent, and wrongfully accused.

  “Well, just so you know, it wasn’t all lies.” Kaitlynn sat down on her bed and jammed her feet into knee-high socks.

  “That doesn’t change the fact that you used me,” Ariana said quietly.

  Kaitlynn sighed. “Maybe,” she said, standing. “But would you have broken out if I told you the truth? Would either of us be here now?”

  Ariana took a deep breath. Kaitlynn never tired of reminding her that she was the one who had led her to Briana Leigh. That without Kaitlynn, Ariana never would have met the girl and never would have had the chance to assume her identity and start a new life. And Ariana, as always, had to admit that it was true.

  “But if neither of us were here now, Brigit would still be alive.”

  She turned, but Kaitlynn stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Wait.”

  Ariana swallowed against a dry throat.

  “I know you’re pissed off that Brigit isn’t here anymore, but I had to do it,” Kaitlynn said. “If anyone should understand that, you should. You got rid of Briana Leigh because she was standing in your way. Well, that’s all I did. Brigit was in the way of me having the life I want. It was simple math. There were four spots in Stone and Grave and five people to fill them. All I did was help us both out.”

  Ariana looked into Kaitlynn’s eyes, so calm and guileless, and her heart thumped. Because she realized that what Kaitlynn was saying made sense. Kaitlynn’s entire life was at stake here. She needed Stone and Grave to survive. And survival was what it was all about.

  “Think of it this way . . . you’re lucky,” Kaitlynn said, withdrawing her hand from Ariana’s shoulder and giving a shrug. “It could have just as easily been you.”

  Ariana blinked, her heart dropping into her toes. A cold icicle of fear drove its way directly into her heart, and her knees started to tremble beneath her.

  It could have just as easily been you.

  Everyone was expendable to Kaitlynn. Everyone.

  Kaitlynn turned away, humming as she slipped her APH blazer on over her white turtleneck. Like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Like she hadn’t just offhandedly threatened Ariana’s life.

  Taking a deep breath, Ariana steadied herself, quelled the bristles of fear prickling along her spine, and kept the hot tears threatening in her eyes at bay.

  “You know what? I can wait a few minutes for you to get ready,” she said, placing her bag on the floor.

  Kaitlynn’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Ariana said. “Go ahead and get dressed. We’ll walk over together.”

  “Okay.” Kaitlynn looked her up and down, surprised, maybe even wary. “I’ll be ready in five.”

  Then she slipped past Ariana into the bathroom and turned on the hair dryer. Ariana gave her weakened knees a rest, dropping down onto her perfectly made bed. She wrapped her fingers around her forearm and squeezed, watching the door of the bathroom and waiting for her roommate, thinking ahead to the mindless chitchat she would make as they crossed the campus together.

  After all, it was all about survival. And now Ariana knew exactly what she had to do to stay alive.

  THE GAME IS AFOOT

  The large, white-washed dining hall was filled with hushed conversation, the sounds of clinking silverware, and the scent of frying bacon. Ariana walked in with Kaitlynn at her side and turned toward her usual table, which she shared with Lexa, Soomie, Maria, Landon, Adam, Conrad, and sometimes Palmer—who would have been a sight for sore eyes right about then.

  Lexa looked up, caught Ariana’s eye, smiled, and waved her over. Ariana waved back. Hanging out with a real friend like Lexa right now would be a relief after a morning chock-full of Kaitlynn.

  “Wait. We should sit with Allison and Tahira,” Kaitlynn said, touching Ariana’s arm.

  Kaitlynn tilted her head toward the two girls, who were sitting at a small table near the door. Ariana hesitated, but she knew Kaitlynn was right. If anyone from Stone and Grave was watching—and Ariana knew that they always were—they would appreciate her and Kaitlynn sitting with the rest of their tap class. Ariana sighed and resigned herself to unpleasant company. Impressing Stone and Grave was worth a painful meal or two.

  “Okay,” she said. As she walked ahead of Kaitlynn, she saw her roommate’s look of bemusement over having been agreed with so easily.

  “Hey,” Ariana said, sliding into the empty seat next to Allison. The girl’s tall frame was slumped in her chair, and her blue-and-gold APH tie was loosely knotted over h
er light blue shirt. Her short blond curls were tucked behind her ears in a careless way, and her fingernails had been bitten down to nubs. Still, she was one of the more stunning girls in the room.

  Allison and Tahira shot each other an intrigued look as Kaitlynn took the chair next to Tahira.

  “Ladies,” Kaitlynn said by way of greeting.

  “How are you?” Tahira asked Ariana with surprisingly genuine interest. Her appearance was also surprisingly understated. Normally the girl managed to make her APH uniform as skimpy as possible, but today her shirt had only two buttons undone and she wore less eye makeup than usual.

  “Okay, I guess. Not great,” Ariana replied, lifting a shoulder. “You?”

  “It’s really weird around here without her,” Tahira said, her dark eyes guarded. “Who am I going to spar with from now on?”

  Even though Tahira and Allison hadn’t liked Brigit much, Ariana knew they had been affected by her tragic death. Everyone had.

  The waiter approached and took their breakfast order, scribbling down Tahira’s very specific dietary instructions and raising an eyebrow when Ariana asked for extra butter and syrup with her pancakes. Now was definitely the time to indulge in comfort food.

  “So,” Ariana said, folding her arms on the table as the waiter scurried off.

  “So,” Tahira replied, taking a breath.

  They all looked at one another as if they didn’t know where or how to start having a normal conversation.

  Across the room, Quinn, a pretty, preppy sophomore, approached, and her two friends, Jessica and Melanie, delivered steaming lattes to Lexa, Soomie, and Maria. At the beginning of the year Ariana had thought the sophomores’ constant errand running was just general cool-senior worship, but now she realized that Quinn and the other girls were probably also gunning for spots in Stone and Grave next year—trying to impress the girls whom they assumed were members.

  “What do we think about Hell Week?” Ariana asked quietly, deciding to go with the one topic they all had in common. She glanced around to make sure no one was listening. At the next table, a pair of boys intensely scribbled out their calculus homework, and behind Ariana a group of freshman girls gabbed about Halloween costumes. “I assumed it was going to start the night of the NoBash, since we were all supposed to have our tasks completed by then, but then . . .”

  “Do you think they’re still going to have it?” Allison shifted in her seat. “I mean, considering?” She cast a brief look toward Ariana’s usual table and Ariana automatically followed suit. Soomie picked at her food while Lexa and Maria watched the taps with interest. Snagged, Maria looked away, but Lexa simply lifted her fingers in a wave, not at all embarrassed about being caught.

  “Of course they are,” Tahira whispered. “This is Stone and Grave. Hundreds of years of tradition can’t just be ignored because of one—”

  She stopped there and blushed as she looked down at her untouched silverware. For a moment, no one spoke. Ariana wondered if the sickened feeling in her heart would ever go away.

  “So, Tahira . . . did you ever complete your task?” Ariana asked. Each pledge had been assigned a task to complete by the NoBash.

  “Why? Are you suddenly concerned I won’t get in?” Tahira asked facetiously. Of course, both Tahira and Ariana knew why Ariana was really asking. Tahira’s task was to humiliate a donor, and she’d threatened to humiliate Ariana. Briana Leigh’s family had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the school to get her in.

  “Just curious,” Ariana said, casually lifting her shoulders as their food arrived. Her plate of pancakes was steaming hot and smelled deliciously buttery. Ariana’s stomach grumbled for the first time in more than a week. Mourning for Brigit had pretty much destroyed her appetite, but now that she had a plan in mind, she was more than ready to make up for lost time. “Did you find a donor to humiliate?”

  Tahira daintily speared a grape with her fork. “Yes, I did.”

  “You told her what your task was?” Allison gasped, leaning forward. “You wouldn’t even tell me!”

  “Calm it, Al,” Tahira said tersely. “I had my reasons.”

  Allison dropped back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest to mope.

  “Well? What’d you do?” Kaitlynn asked, leaning an elbow on the table. She’d ordered a bagel and lox, which so far had gone untouched. “Who’d you humiliate?”

  “Well, you know Malaya was at the NoBash?” Tahira said, placing her fork down. “She was talking to all of these dignitaries and gurus and whatnot, so I went over and started asking her really specific questions about Buddhism, since that’s supposed to be her new big obsession and everything,” she said, waving a hand around dismissively.

  “I thought she was into kabbalah.” Allison took a large bite of her English muffin.

  “Yeah. That was during her last world tour,” Tahira said, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, of course she didn’t actually know anything about Buddhism even though she’s been quoted as saying it changed her life and all that crap,” Tahira said. “She was so embarrassed, she faked a phone call from one of her kids and left the party.”

  Kaitlynn and Allison laughed.

  “Well, good. I’m glad you got it done in time,” Ariana said.

  “Uh, thanks?” Tahira replied dubiously. “I just hope someone from Stone and Grave was paying attention,” she whispered, reaching for her coffee cup. “It all happened right before . . .”

  “Right before they found Brigit?” Kaitlynn said.

  Ariana took a deep breath and reached for the juice. She couldn’t let Kaitlynn see how much just talking about Brigit affected her.

  “I don’t even know if our tasks are going to matter anymore,” Kaitlynn said, slathering cream cheese on her bagel.

  “What? Why wouldn’t they?” Allison asked.

  Kaitlynn shrugged as she chewed and wiped a bit of cheese from her fingers onto her linen napkin.

  “Well, I mean, they said there were four open spots . . . ,” she said, keeping her voice down. She said it as if it had just occurred to her recently—as if she was thinking out loud—when, in fact, she had already killed someone based on her logic.

  Tahira swallowed so hard that Ariana heard the gulp. “And now there are four of us.”

  Allison and Tahira looked at one another, then at Ariana, who found herself liking them for the first time since she’d met them more than a month ago. At least they had the decency to appear scandalized and depressed over what Kaitlynn had just said, while Kaitlynn sipped her orange juice and looked to be about three seconds away from humming a jaunty tune.

  “Well, I for one will be happy if we do all get in,” Ariana said, forcing a chipper tone into her voice.

  “You will?” Kaitlynn said, clearly surprised.

  “Yes,” Ariana replied. “I mean, after everything that’s happened . . . it would be nice if something positive came out of it. Who knows? Maybe Hell Week will bond us somehow. Maybe, by the end of it, we’ll all be friends.”

  Tahira and Allison glanced at each another.

  “I think Brigit would have liked that,” Ariana added, looking at Kaitlynn.

  For the first time in a long time, Kaitlynn seemed to be at a loss, like she had no idea what game Ariana was playing.

  Which was just the way Ariana liked it.

  LIFE IS CRAZY

  Late Monday evening, Ariana held a tennis ball in her right hand. She thought of Brigit and squeezed. She thought of Kaitlynn and squeezed even harder, gritting her teeth, holding her breath, clenching her arm muscles. She thought of Brigit falling, Brigit screaming, Brigit’s neck breaking as she hit the cold, hard floor, and she reached back and hurled the tennis ball at the wall of her dorm room. It smacked into the Monet poster Kaitlynn had hung over her bed, causing a slight tear in one of the center flowers before ricocheting across the room and taking out the perfume bottles atop Ariana’s dresser. As a few more items crashed to the floor, Ariana grabbed another ball from her tenni
s bag and hurled it, widening the tear.

  If only she had walked in on Brigit and Kaitlynn before it had happened. Ariana was sure she could have stopped it.

  She hurled another ball. It missed the poster completely, bounced wide, and came to rest just inside Kaitlynn’s open closet.

  She could have overpowered Kaitlynn and then it would have been Kaitlynn’s body that was found at the foot of the stairs, not Brigit’s.

  Another ball. The tear reached the top of the poster.

  Ariana reached for a fifth, but there were none left. She closed her eyes, leaned back in her desk chair, and breathed.

  She imagined her and Brigit clinging to each other after Kaitlynn’s fall, still scared by the confrontation—the near miss—but grateful to be alive. Imagined telling the Norwegian guard what had happened—that “Lillian” had tried to kill the princess and “Ana” had saved the day.

  But the fantasy stopped there. Ariana blinked and sat up straight. If Kaitlynn had died that night, in such a public way, it would have taken about five seconds for the authorities to find out that she wasn’t a girl named Lillian Oswald at all—that she was in fact Kaitlynn Nottingham, escaped convict. And if they figured that out, it would have taken them about five more seconds to ID Ariana. Okay, maybe ten, but still. Even if Brigit were alive and Kaitlynn were dead, it would have been all over for Ariana.

  Ariana turned toward her desk and slammed her heavy U.S. government book shut, cursing under her breath. It seemed as if she wouldn’t be getting any studying done tonight, which sucked considering Kaitlynn was going to be out at an away soccer game all evening. Ariana hadn’t even known Kaitlynn played soccer until she joined the team as her mandatory APH sport, but apparently the girl was good. She’d already been named a starter. Ariana wondered how many other secrets Kaitlynn was hiding, whether banal or harrowing.

  She clutched her forearm in her fingers and squeezed, holding her breath as a hot wave of fury crashed through her.