Hide and Seek (5 page)

On Tuesday morning, Emma pulled into the lot of Hollier High, which was set in the hills of Tucson. Hundreds of cacti, some spiny, some flowering, served as the landscape. The mountains rose up behind the school, red and majestic. The lot was bustling with students. A Jeep full of jocks drove past, an old Dave Matthews song blaring over the speakers. A group of pretty girls in matching leather jackets swapped lip glosses next to a vintage convertible. School buses huffed around the corner, the track team did a final loop around the field for their morning practice, and a bunch of kids were huddled near the spiny shrubs, trying to hide that they were smoking.

As Emma got out of the car, two girls in miniskirts walked by, gossiping loudly about Thayer. Today was his first day back at school. Rumors about his absence had been swirling for weeks: that he’d spent time in jail, that he’d been working on a major Hollywood movie, that he’d had a sex change. Only the first was true: He’d been in jail for a couple days the other week for trespassing on the Mercers’ property and resisting arrest.

Emma heard a door slam next to her. Sutton’s two closest friends, Madeline and Charlotte, emerged from a black SUV. Madeline, who had sleek, black hair and a heart-shaped face, was in high-heeled boots, and her slim-cut jeans seemed like they were made specifically for her dancer’s body. The inside of her wrist was tattooed with a single red rose bud, and on the back of her iPhone was a sticker that said
SWAN LAKE MAFIA
. Emma still wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. Charlotte, who was slightly pudgy but had beautiful, creamy skin and thick, red hair, slung an enormous monogrammed Louis Vuitton bag over her shoulder just as a white SUV pulled into the space next to them. The Twitter Twins, Lilianna and Gabriella, whose only matching features were their blond hair and blue eyes, tumbled out.
All of the Lying Game is present and accounted for
, Emma thought, thinking about Sutton’s pranking clique. Well,
almost
all of the Lying Game—Laurel had evaded Emma’s offer
to take her to school today, saying she had “made other arrangements.”

Lili clicked over to Emma on her black stilettos. “The administration should just reserve these parking spots for us permanently,” she trilled, placing a hand on her punkish chain-link necklace. Lili and Gabby had only become official members of the Lying Game a few weeks ago, and they brought up their newfound status as often as possible.

“I can just see it now,” Gabby jumped in. “‘Reserved for Gabby.’ That would look awesome on a sign.” She pushed a lock of straight blond hair behind her ear. She was Lili’s opposite, wearing a pale pink cashmere shrug, a preppy green polo, skinny jeans, and patent-leather flats with bows on the toes. She looked ready to go to a croquet match.

Madeline’s phone beeped in her cavernous suede bag. She smiled when she pulled it out. “My brother is such a dork,” she said, rolling her eyes happily. Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she crafted a response.

“Where
is
Thayer?” Gabby looked around, like he might be hiding behind Madeline’s SUV.

“He’s coming in a bit later,” Madeline said. “The principal didn’t want him to create a stir before school. He just texted me that he’s hanging out in his room, bored out of his mind, playing Mario Kart.” She snickered. “He hasn’t played that since he was about nine.”

The first bell rang in the distance, signaling that they had ten minutes before classes started. “Is Laurel with him?” Emma blurted. She hadn’t meant to say it, but where else could Laurel be? She’d disappeared this morning with no explanation.

Madeline looked up sharply. “I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure?” Emma pressed.

“Why do you care?” Charlotte nudged Emma’s side. “I thought you had a new hottie, Sutton.”

“I do,” Emma insisted. “I was just—”

“I wish you would stay away from Thayer,” Madeline interrupted. “I love you, Sutton, but you messed him up big time. I can’t have him running off again.”

“I don’t want to
be
with Thayer!” Emma protested through her teeth. “I was just wondering where Laurel was.”

I couldn’t help but glare at Madeline. I hadn’t messed Thayer up. If anything, Thayer had messed
me
up, running off without telling me where he was going, then sneaking back into town to meet me in secluded places like Sabino Canyon. His limp might have been because of me, but
I
wasn’t the one who caused it.

“Okay, this convo is officially boring me.” Charlotte tossed her red hair over her shoulder. “C’mon, guys. I’m dying for coffee. I barely got any sleep last night. My parents kept me up all night with one of their marathon shout-fests.”

“Lattes on me,” Lili said, adjusting the headband in her hair.

Charlotte and the Twitter Twins headed toward the school’s coffee kiosk. Emma followed, and Madeline fell in step next to her, which Emma figured was an olive branch. She tried not to take it personally that Madeline had basically barred her from speaking to her brother. She was just being protective of him.

They pushed onto the front lawn and took a sharp left, dodging kids carrying instrument cases, a girl with her nose stuck in a book, and a couple making out next to the water fountain. The announcement board was plastered with posters for the Harvest Dance, most of them featuring a white-silhouetted couple dancing together. When they reached the front entrance, they noticed a crowd gathered just outside the doors. Emma’s first thought was that Thayer had returned early, but then Charlotte stopped short in front of her so quickly that she almost bumped into her back.

“Holy shit,” Gabby breathed.

Madeline pushed her tortoiseshell sunglasses to the top of her head. “What the hell?”

A row of mesquite trees stood sentinel in front of the school. Silver streamers were twined through the spindly branches and dozens of lacy bras and blown-up condoms hung from the limbs. Penis balloons bobbled around a
trunk, which had been spray-painted black. Strung across the trees was a sign that read
BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP US, BITCHES
. The whole effect was that of a naughty Christmas tree—or a Vegas bachelorette party gone awry.

“Oh my God,” Clara Hewlitt, a dark-haired sophomore from the tennis team, breathed, her brown eyes wide.

“It has to be them,” whispered a lanky junior with a ratty blond ponytail.

All eyes clapped on Emma and Sutton’s friends. Emma looked around the courtyard, seeing a lot of faces she recognized, but a lot she still didn’t. Sutton’s ex, Garrett Austin, was standing next to his younger sister, Louisa, glaring at Emma with disdain. Lori, a girl from her pottery class, was looking at Emma with awe and respect. Nisha’s cherry-colored lips were pursed as she read over the graffiti. Emma caught her eye but Nisha looked away.

Lili whipped around and looked at Emma, Madeline, and Charlotte. Her face was pinched with hurt. “Did you guys leave us out of a prank?”

Charlotte shook her head slowly. “This wasn’t us.”

“Honest,” Madeline added quickly. “Not unless I did this while sleepwalking.”

“Oh.” Lili brightened. “Well, in that case…” She and Gabby yanked out their iPhones and held it up to the mayhem. “Everyone say
Twitpic
!”

Madeline grabbed the phone from Lili’s hand before
Lili could snap the photo. “This isn’t
cool
. It’s just lame vandalism.”

Lili clapped her mouth closed, looking cowed. “Who do you think did it?”

Madeline scanned the crowd. Suddenly her eyes widened. “Over there,” she hissed, nodding at something near the lamppost.

Emma followed her gaze. A group of four girls stood in a huddle, their backs to the defaced trees. They all had on dark skinny jeans and Converse sneakers and sported edgy haircuts. Judging by the tough, bossy look on the face of a blond girl with dip-dyed ends, Emma guessed she was the leader. Emma could detect an air of satisfaction from each and every one of them.

“No
way
,” Charlotte whispered.

“I’m almost positive,” Madeline murmured. “It has to be them.”

Gabby used her phone to zoom in on the girls’ faces. Dip-dyed Girl looked even meaner and tougher in close-up. “
Bitches.
”

“Who are they?” Emma asked, not caring if Sutton was supposed to already know.

I didn’t, though. They looked young, likely freshmen, meaning I never would have met them. I’d died before the first day of school, and I wouldn’t have been caught dead fraternizing with kids from junior high.

“Ariane Richards, Coco Tremont, Bethany Ramirez, and Joanna Chen,” Madeline said. “This sophomore in my dance class told me about them. They were the
us
of Saguaro Middle School. But their pranks were super-lame. Stealing the school mascot, writing nasty things about girls in lipstick across their lockers, replacing the dry-erase markers with Sharpies.”

“Super-lame,” Charlotte said, stifling a yawn.

“They will hereby be known as the Devious Four,” Lili intoned in a mock-dramatic voice, tapping away on her touch screen. “And don’t worry, Mads. My tweet will put them in their place.”

“Yeah, we’ll see who will be bowing down to who soon enough,” Charlotte said grimly, setting her square jaw.

Devious Four Deflower School Property
, Emma headlined silently, running her eyes back over the skanky lingerie. The display was tackier than the shark tattoo her last foster brother, Travis, had come home with after a thirty-six-hour drinking binge.

“Whoa,” said a familiar voice. Emma turned to see Laurel coming up behind them, her blue cotton dress billowing in the breeze. Her blond hair gleamed in the sunlight, and her mouth was open so wide Emma could see her molars. “That’s insane.”

At that moment the doors to the school flung open, and Ms. Ambrose, the principal, burst onto the lawn.
The students parted for her—she was making a path straight for Emma and the others. Emma watched helplessly as the woman strode closer and closer. The corners of the principal’s lips turned down in a frown. The look in her eyes said,
You’ve crossed the line one too many times, girls.

Emma put on her best Sutton Mercer smile. “Hello, Ms. Ambrose,” she said sweetly. “Can you believe someone did this?”

The principal ignored her, grabbing Emma’s arm in one hand and Laurel’s in the other. “Wait!” Laurel cried. “We didn’t do this!”

Her cries were drowned out by the stomping feet of two security guards barreling through the crowd. With swift, deft movements, one of the brawny men grabbed Charlotte and Madeline, and the other took the Twitter Twins.

“You don’t understand!” Madeline cried weakly.

“We were set up!” Charlotte protested.

Ms. Ambrose rolled her eyes. “You say that
every time,
girls. You’re coming with us.”

Emma felt her legs move under her as the principal pulled her toward the door. Just before the crowd closed behind her, she glanced over her shoulder and saw the four freshmen staring at them, huge, ecstatic, we-got-away-with-it smiles on their faces. The girls had probably just
wanted to make their mark on the school—literally—but the real damage they’d done was to the members of the Lying Game.

Devious Four indeed
, I thought angrily. Those bitches were going down.