Ruthless (27 page)

Mike shifted awkwardly. “I’ve been kind of . . . stupid.” He glanced at her imploringly, then touched his hand to her wrist. “I miss you.”

Hanna stared at his long, thin fingers, suddenly annoyed. Why couldn’t Mike have come to this conclusion a week ago when Hanna was leaving him those messages? Was Mike only interested in Hanna again because her messages had stopped? That was
so
like guys.

She pulled her hand away. “Actually, Mike, I’m with someone.”

The light drained from Mike’s eyes. “Oh. Well. Good for you. I have a girlfriend, too.”

Hanna flinched. He
did
? “Good for you, too,” she said stiffly.

They eyed each other cagily. Then someone tugged Hanna’s arm. Hanna turned and saw Aria and Spencer standing next to her. Both of them looked frazzled and pale.

“We need to talk to you,” Aria said. They whisked her back into the parking lot once more. Hanna glanced over her shoulder at Mike, but he’d already turned toward Mason Byers and James Freed.

“You need to see this,” Spencer said when they got to a secluded spot at the corner of the lot. She pulled out her iPhone and waved it in Hanna’s face.

Hanna’s vision took a while to adjust. On the screen was a picture of a girl’s body lying in the sand. Blood pooled around her head. “Is this . . . ?” Hanna gasped, too afraid to even say Tabitha’s name.

“Yes. It’s from A. From
Kelsey.
”

Spencer told Hanna how Kelsey had marched up to her and asked if she’d received her text—
this
text. “She knows what we did,” she said. “She knows everything. She came after me, and I tried to protect myself, but people pulled me off her saying
I
attacked
her
. And then, when it was all over, Kelsey looked at me one more time and mouthed
You’re dead
.”

Hanna gasped. “Are you sure?”

Spencer nodded. “We have to find her and stop her before she does something terrible. But I have no idea where she’s gone. I can’t find her anywhere.”

An engine sputtered on the road, reminding Hanna of the car that had almost sideswiped her moments before. Suddenly, synapses connected in her brain. She gasped. “I think I just saw Kelsey. But I didn’t realize it was her.”

“Where?” Aria shrieked.

Hanna swallowed hard and gestured to the restaurant’s exit. “In her car. Leaving. And, guys, she wasn’t alone.”

Spencer widened her eyes. “She was with Emily, wasn’t she?”

Aria reached into her bag for her car keys. “We have to find them.
Now
.”

She started across the parking lot, and Hanna followed. But after a few paces, Hanna turned and noticed that Spencer had remained on the sidewalk, shifting from one foot to the other. “What is it?” Hanna asked.

Spencer chewed on her bottom lip. “I . . . I had a fight with Emily in the restaurant. I said some pretty horrible stuff to her. She might not want to see me.”

“Yes, she will.” Hanna grabbed Spencer’s arm. “It’s
Emily
—and she’s in danger. We’re all in this together, right?”

Spencer nodded, zipped up her coat, and stepped off the curb toward Aria’s car. Aria hit the
UNLOCK
button on her keychain, and they all climbed in. Just as Aria was revving the engine, Hanna pointed to a piece of paper skewered through the antenna on the hood. “What’s
that
?”

Spencer jumped out of the car and ripped the paper free. She climbed back inside and spread it out on her lap. Everyone gathered around to look. Collectively, they let out a long, nervous gasp.

Hurry, girls! Before it’s too late! —A

Chapter 33

A FALLEN IDOL

Emily and Kelsey sped past the quaint shops on the main drive, the Hollis clock tower, the covered bridge, the upscale hair salon where Their Ali had taken Emily and her friends to get eyebrow waxes for seventh-grade graduation. Ali had tried to talk Emily into getting a bikini wax, too, but Emily had refused.

Kelsey didn’t say a word, just drove, staring straight ahead. Every so often, her whole body shivered and spasmed, like Emily’s body did when she was waking from a bad dream.

“Is everything okay?” Emily asked tentatively.

“Everything’s fine,” Kelsey answered. “Never better! On top of the world! Why do you ask?”

Whoa.
She’d said all that in the span of about two seconds. Emily eased back in her seat, feeling the seat belt cut against her chest. “You confronted Spencer about what happened, right? How did that go? Are you upset?”

Kelsey took her hands off the wheel, leaned over, and started to stroke Emily’s shoulder. “You’re so cute. Do you always get this worried about people, or am I special?”

“Uh, can you watch the road?” Emily warned as the car drifted over the dotted yellow line. A car speeding toward them honked and swerved.

“I
hope
I’m special to you.” Kelsey faced front again. “Because you’re special to me.”

“Good,” Emily answered, but she still felt a little unnerved. She stared out the window at the dark telephone poles rushing past. Where were they, anyway? This was a part of Rosewood she rarely visited.

Just after an old, ramshackle Quaker church came into view, Kelsey wrenched the wheel, sending the car onto a hidden turnoff. A sign swept past, written in crooked capital letters.
FLOATING
MAN
QUARRY
.

“W-why are we going here?” Emily stammered.

“Have you ever been to this place?” Kelsey gunned up the steep hill. “It’s awesome. I haven’t been here in ages. Not since before I went to juvie.”

Emily peeked out the window. She hadn’t been here in a while, either: The last time was when she and the others had discovered Mona Vanderwaal was the original A. Mona had been about to push Spencer over the cliff into the jagged rocks below, but Mona had slipped to her death instead.

“There are cooler places than this, you know,” Emily said shakily. “There’s a spot near the train tracks where you can see the whole Main Line.”

“Nah, I like it here.” Kelsey pulled into the empty parking lot next to a big trash barrel. “Come on!” She ran over to Emily’s side and pulled her out. “You’ve got to see this view!”

“That’s okay.” Emily wriggled her arm from Kelsey’s grasp. Her heels sank in the wet grass. “I’m not really good with heights.”

“But it’s so beautiful, Emily!” Kelsey gestured toward the edge of the ravine. Her eyes were bulging and a little crossed, and she was still twitching and shaking. “This should be on your bucket list! You haven’t lived until you’ve stood on the precipice of a cliff!”

Kelsey punctuated the last line with a faint giggle. The hair on the back of Emily’s neck stood on end. She thought of Spencer’s warnings. The coincidental overlap in Jamaica. The two hands pushing Emily over the hill, Kelsey appearing at the top seconds later. Kelsey’s sudden bizarre behavior.

“Kelsey, what’s going on?” Emily whispered.

Kelsey broke into a broad, off-kilter smile. “Nothing! Why would you say that?”

“You seem so . . .
different
. Like you’re . . . I don’t know . . . you’re drunk or something.”

“Just drunk on life!” Kelsey spread out her arms. “Ready to do something huge! I thought you were brave, Emily. Don’t you want to stand on the cliff with me?”

Kelsey skipped toward the edge of the gulch, leaving her bag gaping open on the driver’s seat. The lights over the dashboard were still on, and Emily could see the bag’s contents. Sitting right on top was a huge vial of pills. There was no name on the prescription label.

All kinds of alarms were going off inside her. Slowly, without making any sound, she felt around in her pocket for her cell phone. When she found it, she tapped in a quick message to Aria.
SOS. At Floating Man. Please come.

She pressed
SEND
and waited for the confirmation that Aria had received the message. But then Kelsey turned around. “Who are you calling?”

“No one.” Emily dropped her phone back into her pocket.

Kelsey went limp. “You don’t want to be here, do you? You don’t want to hang out with me.”

“Of course I do. But I’m worried about you tonight. You seem . . . upset. Kind of weird. Is it because of what I told you? I should’ve come clean from the start. I’m sorry.”

Kelsey sniffed sharply. “Well, I should’ve come clean, too.”

Emily cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a liar, just like you.” Kelsey giggled, retreating toward Emily. “You know when I told you I didn’t realize you were Spencer’s best friend? Or that you went through all that stuff with Alison? I knew all along, Emily. I was just pretending I didn’t.”

Emily pressed her hand against her temple, trying to take this in. “Why?”

“Because I was trying to be nice.” The wind picked up strands of Kelsey’s hair. “Not gawk at you like you were some freak. What’s
your
excuse, Emily? Did you want to laugh at me behind my back? Did you and Spencer giggle about what she did to me?”

“Of course not!” Emily cried. “I only found out after we met!”

Kelsey’s eyes flashed. “You have all kinds of secrets up your sleeve, don’t you?” She shook her head in disgust. “I can’t believe you did what you did. You’re a horrible person, Emily.
Horrible
.”

Emily pressed her hand to her heart and felt it thudding through her dress. Kelsey’s features had transformed. Now she stared at Emily with pure, clean hate, the same self-loathing Emily felt ever since Tabitha’s remains had turned up on the shore. All at once, every theory Spencer had proposed about this girl seemed possible. More than possible—right. She thought about the picture of Tabitha on Kelsey’s phone. And about Tabitha’s face as Aria shoved her off the roof. The soft
thud
as she hit the ground. The resort had seemed so desolate, as though every guest had vacated the island for the night. But someone had been watching. Kelsey.

How had Emily not seen it before? Was Spencer right? Had Emily been blinded by her crush?

In any case Kelsey was right: Emily was a horrible person. The most horrible person in the world.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Emily whispered. “You don’t understand.”

Kelsey shook her head in disgust. “You
let
it happen. And you said nothing.”

Emily covered her face in her hands, thinking of the Tabitha memorial pages online, her grieving friends and family. “I know. I should have. It’s awful.”

A faint sound of tires on gravel rang out, and Emily turned. Headlights appeared above the crest, and Aria’s Subaru gunned up the hill. Aria gripped the wheel. Hanna sat next to her, frantically pointing when she saw Emily.

Emily lifted her hands above her head to wave them over, but Kelsey caught her wrist. “You’re coming with me.” She yanked Emily toward the cliff.

“No!” Emily tried to pull away, but Kelsey gripped her hard, dragging her so forcefully Emily’s feet left the ground.

“I want you to see this,” Kelsey said, marching her toward the ravine. Emily’s ankles turned several times in her uncomfortable shoes, and when one of them fell off she left it there and went the rest of the way in one stockinged foot. Tears streamed down her face, and she could barely breathe she was so afraid.

“I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. Her voice was trembling so badly she could hardly get the words out. “I thought we were friends.
More
than friends.”

“We
were.
” Kelsey pushed Emily over a series of rocks. “But this is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you.”

They arrived at the edge of the quarry. Gravel spilled down the long rock face. When Emily looked over the side, all she could see was deep, infinite darkness. She glanced over her shoulder then and saw Aria getting out of the car. “Emily!” she cried. “Oh my God!”

Kelsey nudged Emily closer to the edge, and Emily let out a scream. Kelsey was going to do to Emily exactly what Mona had tried to do to Spencer, what Tabitha had tried to do to Hanna, what Ali had tried to do to all of them. Except this time, A would live . . . and A’s victim would die.

“Please,” Emily glanced imploringly at Kelsey. “You don’t want to do this. Maybe we can talk this over. Figure it out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out,” Kelsey said in a deflated voice. “This is the way it has to be.”

“Emily!” Aria screamed, running closer.

But she wasn’t close enough. Kelsey’s fingers curled around Emily’s shoulder. Her breath was hot in her ear. Her whole body seemed to stiffen, as though preparing to push Emily over. Emily shut her eyes, realizing these were her last few seconds of being alive.

“Please,” she whispered one more time.

And then, suddenly, Kelsey released her grip from Emily’s arm. Emily turned in time to see Kelsey walking to the edge of the precipice. She caught Emily’s eye, but the crazy, dangerous look was gone. She seemed exhausted and incredibly sad.

“Good-bye,” Kelsey said in the most pathetic voice Emily had ever heard. There were tears in her eyes. Her hands were shaking so violently they smacked against her waist. A thin trickle of blood dripped from her nose. She looked over the edge and took a deep breath.

“Kelsey!” It took Emily only a second to realize what was happening. “Don’t jump!”

Kelsey ignored her, inching forward until her toes dangled over the edge. More rocks cascaded into the quarry. “It’s too late. I’m so sick of how shitty life is.” She was slurring her words so badly Emily could barely understand her. “I’m so sick of
everything
.” She shut her eyes and took a step into the darkness.

“No!” Emily wrapped her arms around Kelsey’s waist. Kelsey tried to elbow her away, but Emily mustered up all her strength and ripped Kelsey backward. They both staggered onto the grass. Kelsey grunted, trying to break free. Emily pulled her even tighter. Her ankle turned once more, and all of a sudden, she was on the wet, slick ground with Kelsey on top of her. Pain cracked through her head and her tailbone. Coldness from the rocks seeped straight through her coat and into her skin.