Private 8 - Revelation (15 page)

Run. Just run. Don't go in there. Nothing good can come of going in there.But where else did I have to go?

Trembling from head to foot, I stepped over to my door. Placed my hand around the cold doorknob. I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer. That I was just imagining things. That my room would be exactly as I had left it. And then I pushed the door open and flipped the light on in one quick motion. One look at what lay before me and I staggered backward. My vision blurred and I had to brace my hands on my knees to keep from buckling over.

"No." The word escaped my lips. "No, no, no."

Somewhere on the floor a door slammed. Startled, I clung to the cold metal of the doorjamb and pressed my hot face against it, my eyes wildly scanning my room. Why was this happening to me? Why?

My bed had been stripped, the comforter balled up on the floor, the pillows uncased and tossed at the foot of the bed. The sheets trailed across the floor. Crushed into the throw rug in the center

155

of the room--the brand-new, cheery throw rug Sabine had given me--were dozens and dozens of blush beads. Pink and brown powder everywhere.

I started to hyperventilate, breathing in the scent of Cheyenne's perfume until it started to poison my brain. Cheyenne. She had done this to me that first day of chores last year. That day I had been woken from my bed in Billings and forced to do whatever the residents asked of me. Cheyenne had told me she liked her pillows fluffed, her sheets tight. And when I had talked back to her, she had crushed an entire pot of blush beads into her white and green flowered rug. She'd demanded I clean it up.

Suddenly, my dinner decided to make a reappearance. I turned away from my room and fled for the bathroom. I dropped my book bag in the hallway and clawed off my coat. My knees hit the hard tile in the first stall just in time. Everything I had eaten in the past five hours came right back up. Tears streamed from my eyes as I retched. Luckily the bathroom was empty. Thank goodness for small favors. Finally, I sat back on my butt and flushed the toilet. I wiped my hand across my mouth and nose and dried my tears, shaking uncontrollably. My temples were pounding, my vision blurred.

My stalker had sunk to a new low. That had been one of the worst mornings of my life, and my first real introduction to Cheyenne. Seeing those blush beads brought her back to me more vividly than any of the other pranks and plants I had endured--even more than the perfume. Whoever was doing this really was trying to drive me crazy.

And maybe they were succeeding. A girl could only take so much.

156

I pressed my palms into the cool tile at my sides and pushed myself up. I cleared my throat as I stepped tentatively from the stall and around the partial wall that separated the toilets from the sinks and showers. There I found out I was not, in fact, alone. Ivy stood at one of the sinks, smiling happily at me.

"Okay, that was disgusting," she said to me, shouldering her bag. "Bulimia is so last century, Reed. Next time you want to toss your cookies, do it in the privacy of your own room. That's what plastic trash cans are for."

Then she turned and sailed out of the room, her nose in the air. I stared at myself in the mirror above the sink, my eyes rimmed in red, my nose all puffed up. And just like that I felt another wave of nausea. Because Ivy could not have pulled off this particular prank. She hadn't even been here last year. There was no way she could have known about my first chore day. No way she could have known what Cheyenne had done to me. I gripped the sides of the sink and stared into my own terrified eyes.

All this time I had been so sure that it was Ivy. But the only people who knew about what had happened that morning were Billings Girls.

157 ***

After scrubbing the rug in the sink, remaking the bed, and cracking open my window to clear the smell (which took all my strength and about twenty minutes of struggling against years of paint buildup), I finally crawled into bed. Then I lay there wide awake, shivering against the cold streaming through the screen, petrified to close my eyes.

If not Ivy, then who? If not Ivy, then who? Who would want to torture me like this? I had plenty of enemies now, sure, but when all of this had started, there'd been no one. No one but Ivy, who hated everyone in Billings. Or Ariana, of course, but she was locked up somewhere. If it wasn't Ivy, then I was at a loss. If it wasn't her, then it could be anyone.

If only I could talk to Noelle. She would know what to do. She would know exactly how to sniff out my stalker, how to catch the person in the act or smoke them out or something. At the very least she could

158

talk me down. Make me feel better about the situation. Make me feel above it all. Make me feel safe.

But that was never going to happen. Noelle was never going to forgive me. I was on my own.

As I stared at the swirls in the crumbly stucco ceiling, a thousand thoughts whirled in my head, but one kept squirming its way to the forefront.

I had to win Noelle back. She was the key to putting an end to all of this. She was the key to winning back my life. I wished I had told her about the stalking from the beginning, but I had been too proud. Too afraid to let her know there was a chink in my armor. And look where that attitude had gotten me. I should have been in my comfy bed in Billings right then, snoozing my cares away. I should have been the one throwing parties with Noelle and shopping for extravagant gifts and planning my Christmas vacation to St. Bart's.

Instead I was lying in my tiny room all alone, with Josh's lame-ass Christmas gift leaning up against the far wall, listening to Ivy as she giggled on the phone, while I was stuck looking forward to yet another gray holiday in dreary Croton, Pennsylvania. And, oh, yeah, I was potentially living next door to a killer. The same girl who was, right now, flirting with the love of my life right on the other side of this crappy wall. The same girl who was potentially plotting my former best friend's murder.

At least as long as she was in there flirting, she wasn't out there killing anybody. I supposed there was always a bright side.

159

I rolled over onto my side and groaned, balling the sheet up in my hand. How could I get Noelle's attention? How could I get her to take me seriously again? How could I make it all up to her? Everything hinged on that. If I could only get back in with Noelle, I could not only have my life back, but I could protect--even save--hers.

I had to do something. But what? How could I show Noelle how much she meant to me? Thanks to me and my seven minutes in heaven with Dash, she had been publicly humiliated. How did a person make up for that?

Suddenly, I sat up straight in bed, so excited I almost choked on my own breath. The answer was so obvious, so blatantly obvious, I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before.

I threw my covers aside and jumped out of bed to power up my computer. I finally had a plan. And this was going to work. It had to.

160 ROSE AND IVY

Thursday morning I was exhausted and foggy and out of it. Even after my Noelle epiphany, I hadn't been able to do anything but obsess all night long. I couldn't even fathom making small talk, so at breakfast I decided to sit alone. I dragged my butt over to one of the smaller tables near the wall of the cafeteria and dropped into a cold chair. Supporting my head on my hand, I poked at my Cheerios, shoving them down into the milk until each one was so soggy I didn't want to eat it at all. My eyes hurt. The skin around my eyes hurt. Even my scalp hurt. I had never been so tired, so frustrated, so scared in my life.All I could do was hope that my plan for Noelle would work. All I could do was hope that the stalker wouldn't attack again before I won her back. Because I wasn't sure how much more of this I could take.

What would I do if it didn't work? Who would I turn to then?

A familiar laugh caught my attention and I looked over at the Billings table. There was Noelle, her head thrown back in laughter,

161

looking fresh-faced and gorgeous and carefree. Didn't she see how miserable I was? Didn't she care at all?

Then Sabine stepped up to my table, blocking my view.

"Hey," she said tentatively. "Do you mind if I sit?"

"You probably shouldn't," I told her flatly. "Noelle will make your life a living hell."

"I don't care." Sabine set her tray down and smoothed her brown tweed pencil skirt underneath her as she sat. She slid her linen napkin out and unfolded it on her lap.

"You're my friend, and if Noelle doesn't like it, c'est la vie," she said.

I was so touched, my eyes filled with tears. Sabine was the only real friend I had left. Even Constance only spoke to me when there was no chance of her being caught. Not that I didn't understand. Constance was, after all, terrified of Noelle. As I had been last year. But that just made Sabine's sacrifice all the more special. Now I needed both hands to hold my head up.

"Reed? What is it? Are you all right?" Sabine asked, concerned.

"No. I'm not," I said, staring down at my cereal bowl. My voice was thick with unshed tears. "It's happening again."

One hot tear escaped the corner of my eye and I let it run right down the side of my nose and plop onto my tray. I was so tired. So, so, so tired.

"What?" Sabine asked, breathless. She leaned into the table. "What's happening again? Reed, you're scaring me."

162

Don't do it. Don't tell. You've kept the secret so long--why tell now?Because I'm exhausted. Because I need help. Because everyone already thinks I'm crazy anyway.

I looked up at Sabine. Her green eyes were wide with worry. She was clearly the only person who cared about me around here. The very thought was so overwhelming, I caved like a paper tent. "Someone's stalking me," I whispered, my face hot with shame.

"What?" Sabine gasped under her breath. She balled her napkin up in her hands and twisted. "What do you mean?"

"For the past couple of months, someone has been leaving things for me to find... things related to Cheyenne," I said in a rush. I couldn't believe I was finally letting this out, but it actually felt kind of good to share it with someone--freeing. "They were in our room. They left black balls in my drawer and Cheyenne's clothes in my closet, and they planted that perfume in my bag the day of the fund-raiser, and they sent me these e-mails as if they were from Cheyenne. Hundreds and hundreds of e-mails. I think they even fished that photo of me and Cheyenne out of my bottom drawer and pinned it to my bulletin board that time... remember?"

Sabine bit her lip. "Which picture?"

I was so frustrated I dropped both hands on the table, which caused a clatter of silverware and dishes. "Forget it. It's not important. But whoever it is has gotten really crazy since I moved into Pemberly." I looked around to make sure no one was in hearing distance, then lowered my voice just to be sure. "They left me those pills. The same ones Cheyenne used to kill herself. Or, well, I mean,

163

the same ones the murderer used to kill her, I guess."

Sabine gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. "What?"

"Yeah. And that photo of me and Cheyenne, well, they pulled it out again, but this time they X'd out the faces. And last night they destroyed my room. Left the bed unmade and did this other stuff that Cheyenne once did to me...." I stopped, gasping for air. Someone at a nearby table laughed, and a glass broke on the other side of the room, drawing a quick round of applause--reminding me of where I was. For a moment I think I'd been so focused on my story, I'd forgotten. "Sabine, I don't even want to go back to my room."

For a long moment Sabine said nothing. She sat back in her chair, rock still, and stared down at the table, clearly trying to process everything I'd said.

"I can't believe this," she said finally. "Why did you not tell me this before? This person sounds dangerous."

"I didn't want you to think I was crazy," I admitted, toying with my water glass. "I thought I could handle it on my own. Or I thought it would go away. But it hasn't. It's only gotten worse."

Sabine pushed her tray forward and folded her arms in front of it. "And you have no idea who it is?"

"No," I said miserably. "I thought I did, but..."

Sabine folded her napkin back over her lap. She pushed a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear and looked straight at me.

"This may sound weird," Sabine said tentatively. "But have you considered Ivy?"

164

I had felt as if I had been spinning and spinning and spinning in place and someone had just held out a hand to stop me. As if the whole world had just snapped back into focus. Finally.

"Why? Do you know something?" I asked. Sabine glanced over her shoulder before leaning in even farther. "I didn't think anything of it at the time, but I saw Ivy inside Billings the morning of the fund-raiser."

All the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. "Inside? How?"

"I think... I think she was visiting Rose. At least, she was coming out of Rose's room," Sabine admitted. "I figured they were old friends so it didn't seem that strange to me, but now... it's kind of a big coincidence, no? She could have left Cheyenne's perfume for you that day."

My mind reeled and a cold shudder passed through me, making me cling to my cardigan sweater. Rose. Could Rose have been letting Ivy into Billings all that time? Could she have been helping Ivy torture me? She was the only other person who had been in the room when Cheyenne had pulled her blush bead act. It all made perfect sense. And I knew she was still friendly with Ivy. She and Portia were the ones who had floated the idea of re- extending Ivy's invite to Billings at the beginning of the year. Maybe she had been trying to bring Ivy and Cheyenne back together. Smooth everything over. That was totally her style.

But then why would sweet little Rose want to stalk me? She had been Cheyenne's best friend. Did she really think I had pushed

165

Cheyenne over the edge? Was she punishing me? Did she blame me for Cheyenne's expulsion?

"Where is she?" I said, glancing over at the Billings table. "I have to talk to her."