Never Have I Ever tlg-2, page 17
part #2 of The Lying Game Series
Ethan lowered himself to the pavement until his face was level with hers. His eyes were soft and round. The setting sun cast sharp shadows on his cheekbones. Emma could smell his signature Ethan-ish scent, a mix of deodorant, freshly laundered clothes, and spearmint. She tried hard to keep her face impassive. She didn’t want him to know what she was feeling.
“I thought that was what I wanted,” Emma finally said, taking a deep breath. “It just seemed . . . easier. Safer. But now I’m not sure about anything.”
Ethan stared at the back of his hands.
Say something, anything, Emma silently pleaded, closing her eyes.
“There you are.”
Emma’s eyes flew open. The double doors had swung wide, and a girl in a long, dark wig stood on the sidewalk. Ethan shot away from Emma like a bullet fired from a gun. “Sam,” he said.
“I was looking for you.” Samantha’s gray eyes were cold. Her boobs looked weirdly squished in her corset. When she saw Emma, her scowl turned her pretty features into an ugly mask.
“We were just talking,” Ethan blurted, moving to Samantha and taking her arm. “I was about to come in and look for you.”
Samantha pivoted toward the door. “C’mon. Let’s dance.” She gave Emma an icy wave and pulled Ethan back into the gym. Ethan looked over his shoulder and met Emma’s gaze.
A small squeak escaped Emma’s mouth, but when she tried to say more, nothing came out. When they were gone, she pulled the detective hat off her head and mashed it between her hands.
Bing. Sutton’s phone chimed inside Emma’s bag. If it was a text from Ethan, Emma was going to throw the phone into the fountain in the middle of the courtyard. But instead, the text was from Madeline. WHERE ARE YOU, BITCH? WE MISS YOU! YOU DIDN’T MAKE A SECRET GETAWAY WITHOUT US, DID YOU?
Another clap of thunder sounded from the gym. Emma stood up, resolute. Ethan’s non-answer wasn’t going to ruin her night.
She hit REPLY. ON MY WAY BACK INSIDE. After adding a tongue-wagging smiley, she hit SEND. Forget Ethan. Forget love. She had two twins to watch.
Chapter 26
One Down, One to Go
The next forty-five minutes passed quickly, filled with a tour of the haunted house, snarky costume-rating from one of the corner banquettes, and keeping tabs on Gabby and Lili, who made the rounds in their court sashes and spent most of the time on the dance floor as though nothing were amiss. Countless students approached Emma and the others to compliment them on a dance well done, though a notable few steered clear: Garrett, whom Emma hadn’t seen since the closet incident, and Ethan, whom she unfortunately couldn’t help but see chatting with Samantha—Sam—at one of the coffin tables. Every time Ethan glanced her way, Emma pretended she was having a fantastic time.
Finally, Emma, Charlotte, and Madeline tumbled out into the night, linking arms and laughing at the best and worst costumes of the night—dorky Amanda Donovan, who’d dressed as Mr. Peanut; John Pierce, a fabulous gay boy who always had everyone laughing, who’d come as Lady Gaga; and, of course, Davin-as-Freddy-Krueger, who’d tortured Madeline by extending and retracting his freaky knife-nails in her face all night. “I should’ve gone stag like you, Sutton,” Madeline moaned.
Laurel appeared next, loosely holding hands with Caleb. They gazed at each other and giggled softly. When Caleb bent down to kiss Laurel lightly on the lips, Madeline whooped. “Yeah!”
“Sex goddess!” Charlotte seconded.
Laurel broke away from Caleb and shot the girls a mock glare. Emma grinned at her as she skipped toward the group, glad that she had found someone she really liked.
Madeline had parked her car in the school’s lot earlier in the day in preparation for the camping expedition. As the girls headed toward the car, Gabby burst through the door, riding piggyback on Kevin Torres. Her goddess wings drooped, her floral crown was squished and tilted, but her Homecoming Court sash was still proudly in place. Kevin put her down gently on the bench, and they made disgusting cooing noises to each other.
Lili followed, also still wearing her sash. As soon as she saw Gabby and Kevin, her face stiffened, her lips puckered, and she curled her fists hard, accidentally lighting up her Lady Liberty torch. She swung a wide arc around them.
Madeline unlocked her SUV with two short bleeps. Emma climbed into the front seat next to her, while Charlotte and Laurel squeezed into the middle row. Sleeping bags, pillows, backpacks, flashlights, and an illicit bottle of vodka had been packed in the cargo space earlier that day. Very quickly, the cabin filled with the mingling odors of perfume, costume makeup, and cinnamon Altoids, which Laurel had passed around as soon as Madeline started the engine.
Just as Madeline adjusted the driving mirrors, there was a knock on the window. “Hey!” Gabby waved.
“Shit,” Emma whispered. “Let’s get out of here before they ask to come along again.”
Madeline looked at her. “Sutton, we already invited them.”
Emma’s jaw dropped. “You did? When?”
Madeline shrugged. “It seemed only fair after the court prank.”
“Inviting them to get ready with us was only fair,” Emma said, the pitch of her voice rising higher and higher. “I don’t want them camping with us!”
“Calm down.” Charlotte sounded bored. “It’s just one night.”
Laurel looked back and forth between everyone, her cheeks still flushed from her night with Caleb. “We can’t exactly uninvite them,” she said. “Besides, they know where the springs are. None of us have ever been before, and apparently they’re hard to find.”
“The springs are hard to find?” Emma echoed weakly. Suddenly, the seat belt across her torso felt like a vise. She had to get out of here. She racked her brain for an excuse, but before she could come up with anything, Gabby wrenched open the door.
“Hey, girls!” She climbed past Charlotte and Laurel to the very back seat. Lili begrudgingly followed. When it was clear that the only available seat left was next to her sister, Lili let out a groan and plopped down, too, putting as much distance between them as she could. She gripped her Liberty torch as though it were a weapon.
Emma’s skin felt hot and prickly at the nearness of the Twins. Her brain spun. Would Lili and Gabby do anything to her with the other girls around? Maybe if she played it cool—and stuck with Laurel all night—nothing would happen.
No no no, I thought desperately, willing Emma to get out of the car.
“Okay, bitches.” Madeline revved the engine. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Everyone whooped. “Hot springs, here we come.” Charlotte draped her arms across the back of the seats.
Laurel swiveled around and looked at Lili and Gabby. “You remember how to get there, right?”
“Yeah. We just went camping there with our dad.” Gabby’s voice was languid and happy, as though she’d just spent hours at the spa. “He didn’t want us to swim in them, but we did when he went to sleep.”
“That’s not true,” Lili said sharply. “Dad didn’t care if we swam in it.”
“Yeah, he did,” Gabby said. “He thought we’d drown.”
“You’ve got it all wrong.” Lili sounded really worked up. “You always get everything wrong.”
Everyone fell silent at the razor-sharp tone of Lili’s voice. “Rrow,” Madeline whispered.
The car rolled over a speed bump and out the school exit. Someone had draped spiderwebs over the gates and affixed devil horns to the large, many-armed cacti lining the path. Madeline turned up the winding roads that led toward the mountain. A sports car with round, xenon-bright headlights passed them going the other direction.
The girls began to chatter about the dance—Madeline and the disastrous Freddy Krueger, Laurel’s burgeoning crush on Caleb. “And how about you?” Madeline nudged Emma. “You disappeared for a while. Did you find someone fun?”
“Definitely not,” Emma said quickly. She wanted to forget the whole Ethan thing ever happened.
“What did you think about the dance, ladies?” Charlotte asked, swiveling around and looking at the Twitter Twins. “Was being on the court everything you hoped for and more?”
“Of course,” Gabby said automatically, lifting her sash from her chest and admiring it lovingly. “All eyes were on me. I felt like a princess.”
Lili let out an irate squeak. “There were eight court girls, Gabriella. Not just you!”
Gabby shrugged. “You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t think I do.”
“What’s wrong with you tonight?” Gabby wrinkled her nose. “You sound like Mom when you call me Gabriella.”
A small, frustrated noise came from the back of Lili’s throat. “As if you don’t know?”
Everyone laughed awkwardly. Madeline cleared her throat. “Um, girls?” But the Twins ignored her.
“If you’re going to be a mega bitch, maybe you shouldn’t come tonight,” Gabby said primly.
“You know what? Maybe I don’t want to come. Maybe I don’t want to spend another minute with you,” Lili growled. She pointed at a Super Stop gas station at the next intersection. “Pull into there.”
Madeline gripped the wheel, but she didn’t put on her turn signal.
“I’m serious!” Lili screeched. “Pull frickin’ over!”
Emma stiffened. Lili was more unhinged than ever.
“Whoa.” Madeline set her jaw, veered into the next lane of traffic, and wheeled into the gas station. Several cars waited at the pumps. Two teenage boys in death-metal T-shirts loitered near the entrance, smoking cigarettes. Inside, Emma could see brightly colored soda bottles, racks and racks of candy, and grayish hot dogs spinning slowly on a grill.
As soon as the car slowed, Lili pushed Gabby out the back door. Then she climbed out herself, giving Gabby another shove. Gabby wheeled backward into a green trash barrel. “What the—?” she screamed.
Lili’s eyes were wild. Her Lady Liberty toga was slipping, showing the scalloped, lacy edges of her bra. A bearded, greasy-haired truck driver filling his truck with diesel stared. So did the smokers by the door. “You know I like Kevin! I told you a million times!”
Gabby blinked her large blue eyes. “You never told me that.”
“Yes, I did!” Lili stamped her foot. “You always do this to me! You knew full well I liked him. I saw you looking at me every time you guys danced. You were rubbing it in, and you know it!”
Gabby placed her hands on her hips. “Well, I like him, too . . . and he likes me back. Get over it.”
“You insensitive little . . .” Lili lunged at Gabby. Madeline shot out of the car and grabbed Lili around the waist. Laurel climbed out, too, and restrained Gabby, pulling her toward a fledgling mesquite tree on the little walkway that led to the mini-mart. Emma stayed glued to her seat, unsure what to do.
The smokers by the door nudged one another and grinned. One of them called, “Cat fight!”
Lili panted hard. “I’m so sick of you,” she hissed at Gabby.
“Yeah? Well, I’m sick of you, too,” Gabby shot back.
Lili broke free from Madeline and pulled her iPhone from the tiny beaded clutch she held under one arm. After pressing several buttons, she put the phone to her ear.
“Who are you calling?” Gabby asked.
Lili tossed her head. “A cab to take me home. Go camping without me. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Lili . . .” Gabby looked repentant. “I’m sorry, okay?”
“Yeah, Lili,” Charlotte said, pushing a reddish curl over her shoulder. “You should come. You guys can work this out.”
“Not anytime soon,” Lili said stiffly. Then she perked up. “Hello? Yes, I need a cab, please. I’m at the Super Stop on Tanque Verde and Catalina . . .”
A stiff, dusty wind kicked up, fluttering the ends of the girls’ dresses and wafting the acrid scent of gasoline into their nostrils. After Lili hung up, she walked to the front of the mini-mart and perched on the large square ice chest. The pimply smoking boys approached her almost immediately, but she gave them a death glare that sent them scurrying away.
Slowly, the girls piled back into the car. “Should we really go?” Charlotte asked.
“I hate leaving her alone like this,” Laurel said.
“She’ll be fine,” Gabby said in a tight voice. “We’re like a mile from our house—she could walk home if she wanted. She’s just being a stubborn sore loser. We’ll have a better time without her.”
As Madeline maneuvered the car onto the highway, Emma twisted around to look at Lili one last time. She was staring at the car with unmasked fury, her crown now crumpled in her hand. A chill crawled down Emma’s spine, and she said a silent thank-you that Lili wasn’t coming on the camping trip. She could handle just one Twitter Twin. Right?
Wrong, I thought. Emma was going into the desert at night with one of my killers, and I had no idea if she’d be coming back out again.
Chapter 27
A Shove in the Dark
As the car climbed higher up Mount Lemmon, the cacti gave way to deciduous pine trees, and the air thinned. The road curved up the rocky slope, offering stunning views of sparkling Tucson below.
“How much higher are we going?” Charlotte asked as they passed yet another camping spot. Several campers were parked in the lot, and a family was cooking burgers on one of the public barbecue grills.
“A little higher still,” Gabby said, leaning forward between the seats.
Finally, after they passed three more scenic lookouts and made two wrong turns that forced them to reverse back down the mountain, Gabby screeched, “There it is!”
Madeline pulled the car into a flat gravel lot. A tiny wooden sign read CAMPING. Another was marked TRAILS, and a third warned WATCH FOR RATTLESNAKES.
The girls got out and unloaded the gear from the backseat. They’d climbed several thousand feet in elevation, and the air was sharp and cold. Goose bumps rose on Emma’s skin. Gabby slipped out of her toga and changed into jeans and a hoodie, and the other girls did the same.
“We should probably put on sneakers, too,” Gabby instructed, pulling a pair of Nikes from her bag. “The springs are about a mile hike from here.”
“We’re going to hike in the dark?” Emma blurted. She could barely see the scrubby trail that wound into the desert. A whistling, lonely wind blew tumbleweeds across the parking lot.
“That’s what flashlights are for.” Gabby pulled out a long, silver Maglite, heavy enough to bash someone’s head in. When she switched the knob to the on position, nothing happened. “Huh.”
Madeline and Charlotte had flashlights, too, but only one of them worked, spewing a weak, pale yellow beam onto the trail before them. “This seems like a bad idea,” Emma said, her heart beating furiously. “Maybe we should come back another time.”
Gabby hefted her backpack onto her shoulders. “Is Sutton Mercer . . . afraid?”
Emma gritted her teeth. Laurel looped her arm through Emma’s. “It’ll be fine,” she said. “Promise.”
“Let’s go.” Gabby’s shoes made a crunching sound on the gravel as she marched toward the trailhead. Madeline pulled something out of her backpack. A flash of chrome glinted in the moonlight, and there was a sloshing sound of liquid hitting the sides of a bottle. “Here,” she whispered, handing the flask to Emma. “Liquid courage.”
Emma closed her fingers around the bottle and undid the top, but she only pretended to drink; she had to stay alert. The girls started down the trail, one after the other, dark shadows against a blue-black sky. Gabby’s white hoodie gave off a soft glow, making it easier to keep sight of her, but the trail was narrow, and prickly cacti jutted out from all angles. Behind Emma, Laurel stumbled on a root, and Madeline’s sleeve tangled in a tree branch. Gabby zigzagged the flashlight back and forth along the trail, but about five minutes after they’d started, the light died out, leaving them in complete darkness.
Everyone stopped. “Uh-oh,” Charlotte said.
Emma turned around and squinted at where they’d come from, but the trail snaked over rolling hills, and she could no longer see the parking lot. She pulled out Sutton’s iPhone and put it on flashlight mode, but it shed very little light. She also noticed she had no service. Her palms began to sweat. “What do we do?”
“Let’s keep going,” Gabby insisted. “It’s not much farther. I promise.”
Each of them pressed close to the girl in front of her, not wanting to get lost from the pack. “This is freaking me out,” Madeline said. “Someone tell a story or something. I need a distraction.”
“Two Truths and a Lie!” Laurel suggested with a nervous giggle. “We haven’t played in forever.”
“Fun!” Gabby said, pushing a tree branch out of the way. It snapped back and smacked Emma’s jaw.
Madeline snickered. “Do you even know how to play, Gabs?”
“Uh, yeah.” Gabby skirted around a boulder. “Just because I’m not a member of the Lying Game doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Charlotte muttered, and everyone giggled. Emma saw Gabby’s shoulders tense as she plunged forward on the trail.
Luckily, Emma knew the rules of Two Truths and a Lie; she and Alex and a couple of other girls had played it at a sleepover. Everyone took turns making three statements: one false, two true. Everyone else had to guess which was the lie. If they guessed correctly, the statement-teller had to drink. If they guessed incorrectly, they had to drink.
“I’ll go first,” Madeline volunteered, sounding out of breath as they climbed a slope. “One: When my family went to Miami last year, I crashed a party and met JLO. Two: I had a consultation for a boob job at Pima Plastic Surgery last year. And three: I think I know exactly why Thayer left. I think I know where he is, too, but I’m not telling.”
The words chilled Emma. When she swiveled around and looked at Madeline’s face, she couldn’t tell if she was smiling or frowning.
