I hurtled myself out of the tree line and into the clearing surrounding the observatory, expecting to be tackled or grabbed or smothered at any moment. But when I turned around again, there was no one there. Nothing but trees and snow.
My mind was messing with me. I’d imagined the whole thing.
Maybe.
Taking as deep of a breath as I could, I faced the white dome of the observatory. All around it, the sky was brightening, the morning blue chasing away the grays and pinks and purples of dawn. For a moment, I nearly sagged with relief over having found it, over having escaped the phantom stalker in the woods. But then I remembered: My mission wasn’t complete. Noelle was somewhere inside. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been terrified. She’d had a huge gash in her cheek. What if they’d done worse to her since then? What if she was inside this place, beaten and bruised and bleeding and crying?
With one last shot of adrenaline, I raced to the nearest door, a big, blue metal one marked
DELIVERIES ONLY
. I yanked at it and it opened with a wail. The warmth of the indoors rushed over me. From scalp to toe I felt nothing but relief, and I gave myself a moment to relish it. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the dark. When they finally did, I found myself in a long, stark hallway. I walked along quietly, unsure of which way to go, unsure of who might be waiting for me when I got there. Finally I came to a set of doors. To my left was a storage room; to
my right, a lab; straight ahead, the observatory dome, which housed the massive telescope.
Well, these kidnappers certainly had a flair for the dramatic, and I had a feeling the dome would be a more dramatic setting than either of my other two choices. I took a deep breath and pulled open the door in front of me.
A rush of cool air hit me in the face. Beneath my feet, thin, dark blue carpeting covered a shallow, circular staircase leading up. Quietly, carefully, I started up the stairs, holding on to the wooden railing along the wall. The place was deathly still, but I knew that I wasn’t alone. And for the first time in all of this, I started to feel real and total fear for my own life.
What was I doing here by myself? What was I going to find when I came around this bend? What if some sadistic serial killer with a fetish for brunette, teenaged soccer players had grabbed Noelle and murdered her and I was next? What did I think I was going to do if I was faced down by the kidnappers? What if I actually had to fight to save Noelle’s life, not to mention my own? Nobody knew where I was right then. Not a soul. The kidnappers had made me keep all of this a secret, so that no one would even be suspicious if I didn’t show up for breakfast. Except, maybe, for Josh. But thanks to task number four, it wasn’t like he was going to be looking for me anyway.
All of these horrifying, unanswerable things flooded my brain as I moved forward, as I continued to climb. But I had come this far. I couldn’t turn back now. Even if I could, where would I go? How would I get there? I was injured and starving and exhausted with no phone
and no idea where the hell I was. It was move forward, or just stop. And stopping was not an option.
Then, finally, breathlessly, I came to the top of the stairs. Looming high above was the most tremendous telescope I had ever seen, its tip pointing out through the massive hole in the dome ceiling high above. And sitting in a chair directly beneath the scope, her hands tied behind her back, her body drooping forward so that her hair hid her face entirely from view, was Noelle.
“Noelle!” I whisper-shouted, my voice hoarse. She didn’t look up. I ran across the cavernous dome and dropped down on my knees in front of her. “Noelle! Are you all right?”
My heart flooded with relief as she lifted her head. She was alive. Thank God!
“Come on! We have to get you out of—”
My words died in my throat. Wait. Noelle looked perfectly fine. She looked gorgeous, in fact. There was no cut on her cheek as there had been in the video I’d been sent. Her dark hair was glossy and freshly blown out. Her makeup had been carefully applied. She wore a dark pink silk top beneath a black cashmere cardigan, and when she removed her hands from behind her back and laid them in her lap, I saw that her fingernails were even manicured.
“Hi, Reed,” she said with a smile.
My empty, panicked stomach contracted so fast I thought I might
implode. I stood up, my still frozen kneecaps creaking, and took a step back. As I did, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. There were entry doors all around the circular room, and a dozen women stepped into view, each wearing a flowing black robe, and carrying a dark purple candle. Instantly, memories of Billings House rituals past flitted through my mind. The sisters in black, the neophytes in white. The candles, the circle, the vows. Bile rose up into the back of my throat. I felt so faint, I had to reach out and touch the protective railing around the telescope. It was ice cold beneath my already chilled fingers.
“This was a setup,” I heard myself say as my eyes fluttered closed. “You did this.” I opened my eyes again and focused on Noelle. On my friend. The girl I had been terrified for—had ruined my life for. The girl who was slowly, gracefully, healthfully rising from her chair. “You did this to me,” I said, ignoring the women who had closed into a tight circle around us. They didn’t matter. Whatever they were doing there, I couldn’t have cared less. This was between me and Noelle. Me and my best friend. Me and the one friend other than Josh whom I trusted more than anyone else on the planet.
Strike that. The friend I
used to
trust more than anyone else on the planet. Noelle had completely screwed with my mind and my heart. Not to mention my boyfriend, my schoolwork, my criminal record, and my entire life. She was responsible for all of it.
“You set me up just like you did sophomore year,” I said, feeling exactly like I had in the moment I’d heard that stealing that test for Ariana was a joke, that all the crap I’d found in Kiran and Taylor’s
room, in Noelle and Ariana’s, had been planted there for me. This is the way I felt upon learning that everything my friendships were based on had been a test.
I felt like an idiot all over again. A naive, dupable dunce. Like Noelle and everyone else in the world was laughing at me.
“You don’t understand, Reed,” Noelle said, taking a step toward me. Her eyes shone with some kind of emotion, though whether it was amusement or pride I couldn’t tell. “We had to do this to be sure. We had to know that you could handle it. We needed you to prove you are who we thought you were.”
“Oh yeah? And who do you think I am?” I spat.
Noelle smiled. “My sister.”
There was a mushy lump of disgust growing exponentially in my throat. I wanted to throw it up on her Gucci boots. Wanted to reach over and tear her hair out. Wanted to somehow make her feel like a giant pile of fetid dog crap—exactly how she was making me feel.
“Your sister? Are you insane?” I shouted. “I am so sick of this shit! This is how you treat people you supposedly love?”
I spotted a red leather bag behind Noelle’s chair, which I recognized as one of hers, and stormed past her. Dropping to my knees, I dug through her stuff and yanked out her phone.
“Reed, what’re you doing?” she asked.
“I’m getting the hell out of here.”
I scrolled through her contacts until I found Sawyer’s number, then hit dial. The phone started ringing in my ear as I stood up and walked toward the circle of middle-aged and elderly women who had
surrounded me—
sisters
. The two ladies in front of me didn’t budge, one older, white-haired, and straight-backed, the other forty-ish, slightly pudgy, and soft-looking. They both stared at me with amused and almost wondrous expressions. So I took one of their candles and threw it on the ground in the center of the circle. Noelle jumped back. The flame hit the carpet mere inches from her feet.
Everyone gasped and the crowd parted, just as Sawyer picked up the phone. I shoved through to the other side, heading for the stairs and the door beyond.
“Hello?” He sounded groggy, like I’d woken him up. “Noelle? Is that you? Is everything okay?”
“It’s not Noelle, Sawyer, it’s Reed,” I said. “I’m so sorry for waking you up.”
“Reed?” He was fully awake now. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”
“No, not really,” I said, gunning for the door. I could hear the commotion behind me as the women attempted to put out the fire. Noelle shouted my name, but I didn’t turn around. “I’m at an observatory somewhere in Soldier Woods. Can you Google map it and come get me?”
“Of course.” I could hear the sounds of rustling sheets, of him grabbing clothes and getting dressed. “But how did you get—”
“It’s a long story. I’ll explain all of it when you get here,” I said, shoving through the door at the bottom of the steps and into the warm hallway. “I’ll find whatever road it’s on and start walking down the hill. Just keep an eye out for me.”
“Okay. I’ll be there as fast as I can,” Sawyer said.
“Thanks, Sawyer. You’re saving my life,” I told him. “Again.”
Then I hung up the phone, just as the door opened and slammed behind me.
“Reed! You can’t go!” Noelle shouted. “You don’t understand what’s going on.” I turned around, the fury inside of me so fierce that it took all of my strength, my control, my energy, to keep from screaming at the top of my lungs.
“I understand one thing, Noelle,” I said, getting right in her face. “Since I’ve met you, you’ve done nothing but preach to me about friendship and sisterhood. But you have no idea what either one of those things means.”
Then I lifted her phone in front of her and flung it at the cement floor as hard as I possibly could. I shoved through the door at the far end of the hall, out into the bright, cold sunshine, leaving her behind—for good.
“I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong,” my mom said as I held the phone between my ear and my shoulder and attempted to zip up my Croton High School duffel bag.
I’d just taken the longest shower of my life, standing under the warm spray until the feeling came back into every one of my toes and the scrape on my cheek stopped stinging. It had been just long enough to charge my phone to the point where I could make this call–the call asking my parents if they could get me excused from school for a few days so I could come home.
“There’s just a lot going on here and I feel like I need to get away to deal with it,” I told her. The zipper finally unsnagged and let out a satisfying
zip
to punctuate my point. “I think I need some time alone to figure out . . . I don’t know . . . why I’m really here, I guess.”
“You’re not thinking of quitting school?” my mother said, alarmed.
I sat down on my bed and sighed, closing my eyes. “Not quitting
school. Just maybe . . . quitting Easton.” It was hard to even get the words out. Quitting was not usually part of my repertoire. I looked down at the maroon and gold duffel bag. “Maybe I should go back to Croton High.”
“Reed, honey. Just think about all the opportunities you’d be passing up,” my mother said.
“I know, Mom,” I said through my teeth. “But just think about all the crazy I’d be passing up too.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. I could hear her quietly breathing, could practically hear her thinking. “I just don’t know—”
“Neither do I,” I said as patiently as I could. “That’s why I’m coming home just to think about it.”
“Reed, there are some things you should probably—”
“Mom, can we please just talk about this when I get there?” I asked, pushing myself up to standing again. “I have to get out of here soon if I’m going to make my flight.”
When I’d returned to my room, my bag—the one the supposed cops had taken from me—and my laptop had been waiting for me on my bed. Those three goons, who must have been hired by Noelle to play their little parts in the charade, had brought my stuff back to my room. After letting another crushing wave of anger pass through me, I’d grabbed my wallet, retrieved my ATM card, and booked a one-way ticket to Pittsburgh. Turned out it was a lot cheaper than the roundtrip airfare to Paris I’d priced early last week. I hadn’t even had to empty out my bank account to buy it.
“Okay, hon. That’s probably better anyway. We can talk it all out face-to-face,” she said.
Yee-haw. I couldn’t wait. Suddenly I found myself hoping the flight was forced to circle the airport a couple dozen times before landing. I could use the extra alone time.
“I’ll call the headmaster, and your dad can fax a signed excuse note from his office,” she added. “And I’ll call your brother and tell him to drive home for dinner tonight.”
Scott. It would be so good to see him. It would be good to even get a noogie from him. At least I knew that he was one person who would never betray me, one person who actually knew what it meant to be a good friend.
“Okay. Thanks, Mom. I’ll see you guys soon.”
We hung up and I took a deep breath, glancing around to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. My laptop would be coming with me, but right now it was still open on my desk. My Easton Academy e-mail account was open on the screen. I glanced at the clock. To get my mom off the phone I’d kind of exaggerated about how little time I had before I had to leave.
I pulled the chair out gingerly, my body still recovering from its night in the woods, and sat down. A few of the e-mails were easy deletes–rehashings of lunchtime conversations from friends, a lengthy discussion about whether Lorna should date a sophomore. Then I saw a message from Portia and my heart lurched. Tiffany, Rose, and Portia had to be wondering what the hell had happened to me last night. I’d left them in the solarium doing my homework for
me, promising I’d be right back, and then never returned. I quickly sent a message to the three of them, apologizing and saying a family emergency had sprung up and I’d be away for a few days. Then I sent a quick note to Mr. Barber, explaining the same and basically begging for leniency—just in case I did decide to come back here.
Back in my inbox, there was a week-old message from Ivy. Another surge of guilt constricted my lungs. I couldn’t believe I’d thought she’d kidnapped Noelle. I closed my eyes for a second and rested my head in my hands as I remembered, in vivid detail, the insane accusations I had spouted at her that night in the bathroom. She probably hated me, and with good cause.