by Kate Brian
Something like that, Ariana thought, her thoughts flashing on her cell, the prison yard, the mess hall. Instantly her heart rate started to quicken.
No. Stop. It's over. She breathed in and out slowly, surreptitiously,
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so that Briana Leigh wouldn't notice anything amiss. Within seconds she was back in the present. Focused.
"He's only, like, the hottest DJ on the planet," Briana Leigh said, sucking at her teeth, which made Ariana cringe. "And he's also my boyfriend."
"Really?" Ariana feigned interest because she knew that was what Briana Leigh wanted. "What's he like?"
"Beautiful," Briana Leigh said, as if this were obvious. "Plus he totally adores me. He writes me love letters all the time. Real love letters on parchment paper, sealed with a wax seal he designed himself. Every time I get one I feel like Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility."
"Wow. I thought e-mail killed the love letter," Ariana mused, actually slightly impressed by this Teo. And also slightly impressed that Briana Leigh could reference Jane Austen.
"Not for us," Briana Leigh said. "He wants me to have something tangible as evidence of our love. He's so romantic."
"Very," Ariana agreed. Apparently DJ Teo had a poetic side. She wondered what he saw in Briana "Call-Me-Briana-Leigh-or-Die" Covington.
But of course she bit her tongue. Because her feet were tingling pleasantly, her stomach was full, and she had the prospect of an actual party ahead of her. Briana Leigh might have been a lying, conceited bitch. But she was already coming in handy.
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THE RIGHT THING
"Love the paintings," Ariana gushed, standing in the middle of the amphitheater-size room that was Briana Leigh's bedroom suite. The walls were painted a deep lollipop pink, and all the accessories were black-and-white patterns. A polka-dot love seat, striped pillows, paisley drapes. The bed was done in pink, black, and white silks, and all the wainscoting and molding was painted black. But as offensive as the overdone theme was, none of it was as bad as the artwork. Covering the wall behind her massive bed were four huge original paintings of Briana Leigh herself, each done by a different artist--a different interpretation of the same sexy pose."Oh, yeah," Briana Leigh shouted out from inside her cavernous closet. "I'm thinking about having new ones done. I still had my mother's nose back then."
Ariana leaned toward the paintings and frowned. She actually preferred the old nose. It gave Briana Leigh character. Now her nose was
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just a normal button. Kind of like Ariana's, actually. She had always found her own nose a little boring.
"I'm gonna jump in the shower," Briana Leigh shouted.
Ariana's heart skipped a beat, anticipating a few moments alone.
"Okay!" she called back.
Ariana stood as still as stone, training her ear on the bathroom. As soon as she heard the water running, she started rummaging through the built-in cabinets along the wall. Expecting to find piles of sweaters and T-shirts, Ariana was surprised to discover that the shelves inside were lined with books. All sorts of books, from fiction to essays to poetry to biographies. Ariana glanced over her shoulder toward the bathroom door--Briana Leigh had just turned on the shower--and studied the titles more closely. They were haphazardly arranged, but they had all clearly been read. As she picked up one book after another, she found that each one was worn or dog-eared or stained. Ariana saw a copy of Atonement, the book she had been reading before her escape, and snatched it up. She flipped to the chapter she had ended on and saw that Briana Leigh had made little notes in the margin.
Ariana was intrigued. So Briana Leigh had a deep side. She put the book down and kept looking, attacking the desk next. There were no documents in the deep drawers--nothing but cute, colorful pens and notebooks and all manner of disorganized desk accessories. No bank statements in the top drawer, either. Then her eyes fell on the Palm Treo sitting atop the desk, next to Briana Leigh's computer.
She didn't have time to power up the laptop and do a search, but maybe Briana Leigh kept her account numbers in her PDA.
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Ariana hesitated a moment, glancing toward the bathroom and the door to the bedroom, through which a servant could enter at any moment. But if she was caught with the phone in her hand she could always pretend she was simply making a call. She grabbed the PDA, her fingers shaking.
A rapid scan of the memo pad and task feature revealed nothing, so Ariana quickly searched the calendar for birthdates and memorized those of Briana Leigh, Teo, and both of Briana Leigh's parents. Once she finally did find Briana Leigh's account information, she would need the pin number, and one of these might serve.
Ariana put the phone down and paused to listen. With each passing moment her heart was creeping further and further up her throat, but there was no need to panic yet. The water was still running. She moved to Briana Leigh's dresser and opened one of the top drawers. Hundreds of pairs of mangled, unmatched socks met her. This girl was starting to remind her of Noelle, with her chaotic approach to storage. Digging around in the drawer, she felt her fingers touch something that definitely was not a sock.
Her eyes widened in glee as she pulled out a huge roll of cash, all hundreds. Jackpot. Swiftly, Ariana peeled off three bills and shoved them into her pocket, then carefully replaced the stash exactly where she'd found it--in the back right corner of the drawer. There was no way Briana Leigh would miss a measly three hundred. And now Ariana could breathe a little easier, even buy a round of drinks, without Briana Leigh catching on.
Ariana was just about to slide open the second drawer when she
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saw a brochure sticking out from under a tangled pile of scarves and necklaces atop the dresser. Her pulse quickened at the sight of the redbrick buildings, the word Atherton spelled out in an elaborate font.
This couldn't be what she thought it was.
Ariana slid the brochure out and held it up in both hands. It was a brochure for Atherton-Pryce Hall. Only the most prestigious boarding school in the entire nation. Home to dignitaries' sons and celebrity daughters. Princes and princesses and international oil heiresses and even the president's children. Atherton-Pryce Hall was the school everyone wanted to get into. It was the school that most of her friends from Easton Academy would have killed to attend.
Was Briana Leigh enrolled at this hallowed institution? How could a place with such impeccable standards accept a walking crime-against-fashion like her?
Suddenly the door to the bathroom swung wide and Briana Leigh strode into the room dripping wet, clutching a towel around her body. Ariana froze like a statue, her heart hurtling into her mouth. What would a psycho like Briana Leigh do to a person who was pawing through her things?
"Forgot my new conditioner," Briana Leigh said, snatching a bottle from her vanity table. She was about to stride right back to the bathroom when she paused and glanced at Ariana. "What're you doing?"
Ariana couldn't breathe. Her brain was suddenly blank, anticipating the wrath she had already witnessed in slight snippets that day.
Think, Ariana! Think, think, think!
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"I just saw this sitting on your dresser," Ariana said finally. She held out the brochure. "Are you going to Atherton-Pryce?"
Briana Leigh groaned and her shoulders collapsed. Ariana breathed a sigh of relief. Briana Leigh had bought it.
"You mean the epicenter of boredom?" Briana Leigh said. "Unfortunately."
"Unfortunately?" Ariana repeated, casually flipping through the glossy pages. "Everyone wants to go there."
"Not me," Briana Leigh sniffed. "I want to be with Teo, and Teo is here. In Dallas. Besides, D.C. is, like, one huge slum. I'll probably be shot."
Ariana's teeth cut into her tongue. "The school isn't in the city." Ariana paged through the gorgeous photos of Atherton's campus--the rolling lawns, the bucolic countryside. "This place is incredible."
"Whatever. It doesn't matter. Grandma is, like
, obsessed with me going there. She even threatened to cut me out of her will if I didn't enroll," Briana Leigh continued, adjusting her towel.
Ariana nodded, even though she didn't quite understand. If Briana Leigh cared about Teo so much, why not just blow the grandmother off? She was already independently wealthy thanks to her dad, whom she had murdered to achieve that very end.
"So you're going there in the fall," Ariana clarified.
"I have to. What Grandma says goes." Briana Leigh turned toward one of the many mirrors in her room and checked herself out, lifting her chin to inspect some unseen blemish. "Authority figures. Can't live with 'em..."
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Can't shoot 'em, Ariana finished silently. Then her face turned beet red as she realized that Briana Leigh already had shot an authority figure. Perhaps that was why the girl had suddenly gone pale and hadn't finished the sentence herself.
"Anyway, you should get ready," Briana Leigh said. She grabbed the brochure from Ariana's hands and tossed it onto her bed. "You do have a bathroom in your suite, remember?"
"All right. I'll come back down when I'm ready," Ariana said.
"Good."
Ariana waited until Briana Leigh had closed the bathroom door behind her, then picked up the brochure again. After a moment's hesitation she went back into the cabinet and grabbed the copy of Atonement as well. Never in her life had Ariana left a book unfinished, and she wasn't about to start now. On the way down the hall to her room, she slowly paged through the glossy pages of the Atherton handbook, feeling as if her heart was being tugged from her chest at the sight of the austere buildings and studious-looking coeds. Atherton-Pryce Hall. God, that would be a dream come true. A diploma from this place meant a person could go anywhere, do anything. But of course Briana Leigh couldn't have cared less.
Curling the brochure into a cylinder in her palm, Ariana shoved open the doors to her suite. After being caged like a rat for the past sixteen months, there was one thing Ariana couldn't stand, and that was a person who didn't appreciate what she had. This girl had to be taken down, and fast--before Briana Leigh left for school in August, which was only a month away. Ariana did not like working under a ticking
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clock, didn't like the pressure it created, but she was more determined than ever to see this plan through.
It wasn't just the right thing for her or for Kaitlynn anymore. Clearly, bringing Briana Leigh Covington to her knees was simply the right thing to do.
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* * *
EMBRACING THE NEW
As the car slid up to the curb in front of the historic Majestic Theater in downtown Dallas, Ariana glanced at her reflection in her Chanel compact. She was still surprised every time she saw the auburn hair framing her face, the green eyes staring back at her. A sour feeling of disappointment arose in her chest. Ariana had always been proud of her natural blond hair and her unusually light blue eyes. It was as if she had been stripped of her entire identity.But that was, of course, the point. It was better to have no identity than to have no future. Sooner or later, she was going to have to embrace the new her. And as she looked out the window at the hundreds of would-be partiers lined up behind velvet ropes outside the Majesties beautiful beveled doors, she felt a flutter of excitement. Maybe the embracing would start tonight.
"Let's do this," Briana Leigh said, sliding out onto the street.
Ariana carefully planted one high-heeled shoe on the pavement
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and rose from the car. It had been so long since she had walked in heels that she was afraid she might stumble, but the skill came right back to her. She saw a few guys on line check her out appreciatively and felt almost grateful. How could anyone like the way she looked in the tight, hot pink dress Briana Leigh had practically forced her to wear? At least Ariana had sneaked in a cropped white jacket that hid some of the ridiculous cleavage the dress's cinched bodice created. Wasn't anyone down with modesty anymore?
Briana Leigh strode right past the waiting hordes and sidled up to the larger-than-life bouncer, practically stepping on some poor girl in a white slip dress who had been about to walk through to the party.
"Hey, beyotch! Where do you think you're going?" A belligerent girl leaned over the ropes to shout at Briana Leigh. "We've been on line here for over an hour!"
"And with the look you're rocking, you'll be here for another," Briana Leigh said with a sneer. "We're on the list."
Ariana flinched as anyone within earshot reacted with offended groans and shouts.
"Briana Leigh Covington and guest. We're here with DJ Teo."
Again, Briana Leigh said this loud enough for all to hear. Showing off. Ariana lifted her chin and made sure not to meet anyone's gaze as Briana Leigh talked to the bouncer. Better to be aloof than crass. Aloof told the masses that she deserved to be where she was and that she wasn't about to apologize for it. The bouncer checked Teo's guest list and checked Briana Leigh's name.
"Enjoy, ladies," he said as he held the rope open for them.
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Ariana shoved through the wall-to-wall revelers jamming the lobby area. The conversation was so loud she could barely hear herself think. She clutched her borrowed Coach purse to her chest to protect the precious cash she had stashed inside along with the new disposable cell phone she had bought during a quick trip to the mall on the way to the party. Briana Leigh had insisted that she needed new Christian Louboutin shoes to go with her new dress, so while Briana Leigh abused the salespeople at the very Neiman's Ariana had stolen from, Ariana excused herself to hit a cell phone kiosk in the mall. Any normal person had a cell phone, and for the past twenty-four hours Ariana had felt like a poseur without one.
"There he is!" Briana Leigh shouted the moment they made it through the doors and into the theater.
She was pointing at the stage area, but how she could see anything through the constant rain of bubbles and confetti and ribbons was a mystery. Ariana squinted into the strobe lights and tried to focus as loud dance music assaulted her ears and partiers slammed into her from all sides. There was definitely someone spinning up on stage, but Ariana could make out nothing other than his sideways baseball cap. Her pulse was starting to pound dangerously.
Where was the air-conditioning? And didn't this place have some kind of maximum occupancy guideline?
"Can we move?" Ariana shouted. "We're right in traffic here!"
Briana Leigh nodded and grabbed Ariana's hand. As they slid along the wall in the right aisle, Ariana was appalled at the things she saw. Girls in stiletto heels dancing on velvet chairs. Couples making out
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on the floor between seat rows, letting their drinks spill everywhere. Bubbles popping on chandeliers and wall sconces. How could the historical society have allowed this to happen? Wasn't this place protected?
Money. It was all about money. Enough cash could buy anything, anyone. The realization both disgusted and heartened Ariana. Once she got her hands on Briana Leigh's money, she was going to be banking on this fact. Somehow, she was going to have to buy herself a new identity, so some shady counterfeiter out there was going to make a serious load of cash off her.
"You okay? You look sick," Briana Leigh said, pausing about halfway through the orchestra seating. The music was much louder here, pumping directly into Ariana's skull through huge speakers set up at the corners of the stage.
"M'fine," she mumbled.
"Well, then relax. It's a party," Briana Leigh told her.
"Right."
Ariana turned around to scan the crowd and tried to find something, anything stationary, to focus on. Everywhere she looked, people were in motion. Girls danced in barely there skirts up on platforms dotting the stage. Waiters circulated with trays full of neon-colored drinks held precariously above the revelers' heads. People shouted and hugged and danced and sweated on each other. Ariana was starting to realize that she was not used to this. Even in her former life, she'd always had a little group of friends
to attend parties with. A group that acted as a sort of lifeboat in the choppy waters. She didn't like the fact
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that she didn't know anyone here. That she didn't have a safe zone to retreat to--a place where she was in control.
Maybe this had been a bad idea.
"Come on! Let's get down front where he can see us!" Briana Leigh shouted, grabbing Ariana's other arm.
Ariana's shoulder exploded with pain as Briana Leigh yanked her into the crowd, moving toward the stage. It was her sore shoulder, the one she'd fallen on during her faked suicide attempt, and suddenly it all came back to her in stark flashes. The cold floor, Kaitlynn's screaming, the rough hands of the orderlies, being held down with the tube shoved into her throat. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't--
No. Stop it. You're not there anymore. It's over. Over. Over.As Briana Leigh wound around a group of randomly moshing skater-boy types, Ariana forced herself to breathe.
In, one... two... three...
Out, one... two... three...
It's a party. The first one you've been to in almost two years. Just relax....
That was when Briana Leigh took a sudden turn and Ariana slammed right into a passing waiter. His tray went flying and empty beer bottles scattered everywhere, one shattering against the edge of the stage. Bits of glass ricocheted in all directions and the partiers within range shouted and scattered.
"Oh my--I'm so sorry!" Ariana cried.
Briana Leigh stopped, annoyed, still clutching Ariana's hand.
"No problem." The black-clad waiter gathered up his tray and
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stood. He ran a hand through his longish blond hair and looked around. "Everyone okay? No injuries?"
The partiers shrugged and went about their dancing. The waiter turned to Ariana and smiled. Her breath completely left her, but in a good way this time. His eyes were a gorgeous dark blue, and deep dimples anchored his lightly tanned cheeks. He wore a tight black T-shirt, and his arms were obviously defined. For the first time in forever, Ariana's heart skipped a few delighted beats. He took in her face and obviously liked what he saw. Ariana found that she simply could not help smiling back.
