Cruel Love

by Kate Brian

  And also, it would be nice if you could come back to campus and vote for me Wednesday night, she added silently.

  She racked her brain for a way to say this without really saying it, but came up blank.

  “Okay, well. Hope to see you soon!”

  She hung up the phone feeling frustrated and concerned. Of course Soomie was upset. First her best friend Brigit had fallen to her death, and now Lexa. Not everyone could take such awful tragedies in stride. Ariana just hoped that wherever she was, she wasn’t going to do anything stupid.

  The last thing she needed was another death to avenge.

  Suddenly, a dog’s bark split the cold air. Ariana’s pulse completely stopped, then thumped back up to a frightening pace. She whirled around, searching the campus for the source of the noise.

  The bark sounded familiar. Too familiar. Every inch of Ariana’s skin tingled. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Where was it coming from? The sound seemed to echo off every wall, coming at her from all angles. She had to see the dog. She had to make sure it wasn’t—

  And then, suddenly, the barking stopped.

  Ariana narrowed her eyes, scanning the campus, but there were no canines in sight. The fist of fear that gripped Ariana’s heart loosened slightly. She was just hearing things, clearly. All these thoughts of Reed and Briana Leigh and avenging deaths were starting to fool with her mind. That’s all it was.

  Ariana lifted her chin as she turned her steps back toward the dining hall.

  All she had to do was get rid of Reed and all this insanity would stop. Get rid of Reed, and everything would be all right.

  THE WRONG GIRL

  She must die … she must die … she must die …

  Ariana followed twenty paces behind Reed on Tuesday as she made her way back from her second class of the day and toward her dorm. After calling in sick—so early she’d gotten the nurse’s voice mail—she’d snuck out of Privilege House, to her car, and through the gates. She’d arrived at Georgetown within half an hour, at exactly 5:30 a.m., just in time to see Reed walk out the front door of her dorm and take off on an hour-long jog. After that, she’d returned to her dorm and emerged two hours later, traipsing along the path in a camel coat with two of her healthy, fresh-faced friends at her sides. Now it was one o’clock, and Reed hadn’t once glanced over her shoulder, hadn’t looked around suspiciously, hadn’t suspected she was being watched. The girl had no instincts. No intuition. A major defect, as far as Ariana was concerned.

  Reed used her key card and stepped inside the dorm. Ariana leaned back against the trunk of a nearby oak tree and whipped out the small notebook she’d purchased at the campus bookstore that morning while Reed was in class. In it were her meticulous notes.

  5:30–6:32: Jogs around campus. Returns to dorm via dark alleyway (POSS)

  8:30–8:34: Walks to dining hall

  8:34–9:15: Breakfast with friends

  9:15–9:20: Walks to English class, takes public route through quad (NG)

  9:25–10:30: Endures most boring lecture on Shakespeare ever

  10:30–10:37: Walks to gym, cuts through deserted parking lot (POSS)

  10:45–11:30: Lifts weights (EW)

  11:30–11:45: Showers and changes, not many people in gym at this hour (SHOWERS, POSS?)

  11:45–11:55: Walks to biology class, another public route (NG)

  12:00–12:43: Takes biology exam. Fifth student to finish

  12:43–12:52: Walks to dorm, cuts behind the biology building, passing only one other student (POSS?)

  Satisfied that her notes were concise and clear, Ariana tucked the notebook away and checked her phone. There was a text from Tahira.

  STOPPED BY W/BAGEL. WHERE R U? PLAYING HOOKY? WANT CMPNY?

  Ariana thought about texting back, but decided against it. She was planning on spending her entire day here at Georgetown. She had a lot of work to do.

  Tahira texted again.

  WHERE R U?????

  Ariana groaned and tucked her phone away. Maybe she’d tell Tahira she’d sat in movie theaters all day and turned off her phone.

  The front door of the dorm popped open and Reed walked out, chatting on her cell. Instead of turning to the right, as she had done every other time that day, Reed walked up the path directly in front of her. The path that would lead her straight past Ariana’s tree. Heart in her throat, Ariana turned to the side and leaned her shoulder against the rough bark of the tree trunk. She whipped out a worn copy of Catch-22 and held it up to her face, pretending to be engrossed.

  “Are you kidding?” Reed said into the phone with a laugh. “My parents are psyched to spend New Year’s at the Cape. My mom doesn’t have to worry about making plans and my dad is all about skeet shooting with your father. He bought a vest and everything.”

  Ariana bit down hard on her tongue. Bit down until she tasted blood. Reed was passing by just a few feet away. Mere inches. What she wouldn’t give to just reach out and grab her. Cover her mouth and pinch her nose closed. Drag her behind the tree and hold her down and press and press and press until she stopped struggling.

  “Josh! Shut up! No, we are not sharing a room,” Reed screeched, laughing like a hyena.

  A chill raced down the back of Ariana’s neck. Reed was talking to Josh Hollis? It made sense, she supposed. His parents did have a gorgeous, sprawling house at Cape Cod. But really. Those two were still together? How was that even possible? Josh was a good guy. Smart and kind and big-hearted. How had Reed managed not to irritate him to within an inch of his sanity by now?

  “I know, I know,” Reed said. “I love you, too.”

  She hung up the phone and kept walking toward the dining hall. As Ariana slipped away from her tree, she felt an odd pang of sympathy deep within her chest. Poor Josh. He’d be so sad when he found out Reed was dead.

  But then, it was his own fault. There was always a price to pay for getting involved with the wrong girl.

  BLAST FROM THE PAST

  As Ariana walked out of the Privilege House café, she popped the top off her vanilla latte and took a nice, long whiff of the sweet, comforting scent. Slowly, her shoulder muscles started to uncoil. It had been a long, cold day. She’d had a lot of success, of course—nailing down Reed’s schedule, getting some ideas as to where, when, and how the deed could be done—but by the time it was over, she felt frozen from the inside out. Now that she was back home, she deserved a little downtime.

  Halfway across the common room to the lobby, Ariana caught a glimpse of April’s red curls inside the lounge. She was sitting on one of the couches with the TV tuned to the news, which seemed to be covering one of the charitable stories of the season—all fresh-faced kids and lovingly wrapped presents. Ariana smiled, seeing a perfect opportunity to nail down April’s currently iffy Stone and Grave vote. Apparently the downtime would have to be put off a bit.

  But the moment she was through the door of the lounge, she stopped in her tracks. Seated on the couch in front of the second flat-screen TV were Palmer, Christian, Rob, and Landon, playing a raucous game of Call of Duty. The last thing she wanted was to be around Palmer, and she almost backed out again, but then he turned and saw her. His face was covered in day-old stubble and he wore a rumpled V-neck sweater, but was still annoyingly hot. He gave her a cursory, dismissive glance and returned his attention to the game. Ariana’s face burned. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t leave now. She couldn’t let him have the satisfaction.

  “Hi, April,” she said brightly, walking around the side of the couch. She plopped down next to the senior, disturbing the binder she had open across her lap and ruffling some papers. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were studying.”

  “I’m not,” April replied, heaving a sigh. “I’m trying to organize all these submissions for the lit magazine.” She lifted a sheaf of papers in one hand. “Hasn’t anyone at this school ever heard of e-mail?”

  Ariana smirked and took a sip of her latte. “Need help?”


  “Yes, please, thank you,” April said in one breath. She handed a disorganized stack of submissions to Ariana. “I’m starting by sorting them into piles by format. This one’s poetry and that one’s fiction,” she said, pointing to two separate stacks placed on the couch at her sides.

  Ariana put her coffee down on the glass coffee table, and noticed another pile of looseleaf and printer paper there. “What’s that?” she asked, as the guys on the other couch shouted over a huge explosion.

  April rolled her eyes behind her tortoiseshell glasses. “Unknown format.”

  Ariana laughed. “I don’t even want to know.”

  “And now, a breaking news story from our nation’s capital,” the newscaster on the television announced. Ariana and April both looked up, and Palmer glanced over from the opposite couch. “This afternoon, a grizzly discovery was made on the banks of the Potomac River as the body of a young woman washed up on shore.”

  The back of Ariana’s skull went fuzzy and weightless. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.

  “Pause the game,” Palmer ordered.

  Rob did as he was told and Palmer got up, then lowered himself onto the arm of the couch, facing April’s TV. On the screen, a half dozen police loaded a black body bag into the back of the ambulance on the banks of a river.

  “The remains have been identified as those of international fashion model, Kiran Hayes,” the newscaster’s voiceover continued. Ariana’s blood turned to icy slush as suddenly Kiran Hayes’s smiling face grinned out at her.

  “Oh my God,” she uttered, her hand flying to her mouth.

  “What?” April said. “Ana? Are you all right?”

  “M’fine,” Ariana mumbled, even as her life flashed before her eyes. How had they found her body? How? It had been weeks since she’d shoved a very drunk Kiran off a bridge into the raging Potomac on Halloween night. Ariana had thought that with each passing day she was safer and safer from her former friend’s body ever being found. And now, there Kiran was in the flesh and larger than life, strutting down a Fashion Week runway, posing with other models for a makeup ad, getting out of a limo with some half-wasted Hollywood B-lister.

  “Widely acknowledged to be one of high fashion’s rising stars, Miss Hayes has not been seen or heard from since Halloween night, when she called an old friend from her former prep school, Easton Academy.”

  Now the guys were fully interested, murmuring and conjecturing as they realized that Kiran was one of their own ilk.

  “Shhh!” Ariana said, holding out a hand.

  She caught a few confused looks, but everyone quieted down. On the screen flashed a photograph of Kiran and Noelle taken in front of Billings during Kiran’s junior year. The photo had been cropped, but a hand hung around Kiran’s shoulder in the center of the picture. Ariana nearly blacked out at the sight of it. It was her own slim, pale hand. If they’d shown the entire shot …

  If they’d shown the entire shot, everyone in the room would have seen it. Every single one of them would have recognized her.

  “And while this looks like a possible accident, police have yet to rule out foul play,” the newscaster was saying. “For WDCW news, I’m Melinda Chang.”

  Ariana stood up shakily, strewing papers all over the floor at her feet. She turned away from the screen and stumbled back toward the lobby. Foul play. They hadn’t ruled out foul play. Had she left some kind of evidence on Kiran? A fingerprint? A fiber? A hair?

  “Where’re you going?” Palmer demanded.

  Ariana froze. Her spine felt like a long strip of ice. “What?” she said, turning to him.

  “That’s the most emotion I’ve seen from you since your so-called best friend died,” he said belligerently, approaching her. “How is it you’re crying over some dead model when I’ve never seen you shed a tear over Lexa?”

  “Leave me alone,” Ariana said through her teeth. She could not deal with Palmer and his bruised feelings right now. She started to go again, but he grabbed her arm.

  “No. I don’t think so,” Palmer said. “You were the last one to see her alive, you know. What did she say to you? What did you do? Did you upset her or something? What happened in that room?”

  “Palmer,” April said, her voice aghast. “You can’t really think—”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything,” Ariana replied, clenching her teeth as hard as she could to keep from exploding, to keep herself under control. “But just FYI, even if we did have an upsetting conversation, that can’t cause an aneurysm.”

  “How can you joke about this?” Palmer spat. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself. Not even your dead best friend.”

  “Dude,” Landon said.

  Ariana glanced at him over Palmer’s shoulder. Even Palmer flinched. If Landon thought he was out of line, he must have done something really wrong. Before another word could be uttered, Ariana turned on her heel, forcing her chin up, and walked away. But by the time she got to the elevators, she was shaking from head to toe.

  Palmer had come far too close to the truth for her comfort. Did he truly suspect something? And what about this foul play allegation that Chang woman mentioned on the news? Did the police really suspect that Kiran had been murdered? If so, how long did she have before they came banging down her door?

  As the doors slid open, Ariana stepped inside and tried to breathe.

  Kiran’s body had spent five weeks at the bottom of a river. There couldn’t possibly be anything left that could lead them to Briana Leigh Covington or Ariana Osgood.

  Could there?

  CATHARSIS

  Ariana let out a cathartic screech as she smacked the small blue ball with the overly used, seriously abused racquetball racket. The ball slammed against the white wall and thwacked against the gleaming wood floor, ricocheting toward the far side of the two-story-high enclosed court. Ariana sprinted to reach it, her sneakers screeching along the boards, her breath coming quick and heavy. She reached back and executed a perfect return, sending the ball back to the wall. Overhead, one of the fluorescent lights flickered, but she ignored it and returned the ball again. Right now, she was focused, and nothing could distract her.

  Then, the door to the racquetball court squeaked open, and her ball went flying out into the lobby.

  “Whoa!” Maria blurted, jumping out of the projectile’s path. “Sorry.”

  “S’okay,” Ariana said, trying to catch her breath.

  She walked over to her bag, wiped her sweaty face with a towel, and grabbed the tube of balls she’d purchased at the gym store before starting her game. They hadn’t had any women’s rackets left for sale—thus the borrowed, used racket—but at least she’d been able to pop open a fresh sleeve of balls.

  “Mind if I join you?” Maria asked, wielding her own borrowed racket. She was wearing short cotton shorts and a gray tank top and already had a patch of sweat on her stomach and another across her chest. Her hair was back in a messy ponytail, and she clasped an iPod in her other hand. Clearly she’d already been working out for a while when she’d noticed Ariana on the racquetball court.

  “Not at all,” Ariana said, still catching her breath.

  Maria put her iPod down atop Ariana’s bag and jogged in place a bit, her ponytail dancing from shoulder to shoulder.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you inside the gym before,” she commented, eyeing Ariana’s tennis whites—a straight white skirt with one pleat and a long-sleeved white polo shirt over Nike tennis sneakers.

  “That’s because I’ve never been here before,” Ariana said as she bounced the ball atop her racket. “But tonight, I just felt a dire need to hit something, and the lights weren’t on at the tennis courts, so here I am.”

  “Yeah, I guess when it’s thirty degrees outside they figure no one’s going to be up for tennis after dark,” Maria joked, joining Ariana at the service line.

  “They thought wrong,” she replied, without a trace of mirth. Ever since she’d seen Kiran’s face on the news e
arlier that evening, not a positive, light, or happy thought had passed through her mind. It was all panic, conjecture, worry, and fear. Which was why she was here, sweating it out, trying to clear her mind. “Play to fifteen?” she asked Maria.

  “Sure,” Maria said, bending at the waist and shifting her weight from one leg to the other.

  Ariana smirked. Maria was a skinny, frail ballerina. There was no way she played racquetball on a regular basis. This was going to be one easy win.

  She tossed the ball up and served. Maria returned it with a formidable swing. The ball hit the wall, then the floor and whizzed right toward Ariana, but about three feet above her head. She jumped up and lobbed a return, but it felt short.

  “My serve,” Maria said, retrieving the ball.

  “Nice shot,” Ariana said, impressed but also slightly annoyed.

  Maria tilted her head modestly. “Thanks.”

  She bounced the ball a few times at her feet. “I’m worried about Soomie. I don’t think we’ve ever gone this long without talking or e-mailing or texting or something.”

  With a quick toss, she served the ball. Ariana returned it cleanly, so fast Maria had no time to react, and it ricocheted off her thigh.

  “Ow! That’s gonna leave a mark,” Maria said, rubbing the spot with the flat of her hand.

  “Sorry,” Ariana said, jogging to pick up the ball.

  “Hazards of the sport, I guess,” Maria said lightly. “So you still haven’t heard from her?”

  “No. I’m worried too. It’s not like her to just disappear and not even leave a note. She’s too …”

  “OCD?” Maria joked.

  Ariana laughed, surprising herself. “That’s the acronym I was looking for.”

  Maria smiled and Ariana served. They were quiet for a few minutes as they ran around the court after the ball, ducking one another, racing for the walls. Eventually, Ariana caught a perfect angle and won the point.