Sweet Deceit

by Kate Brian

  Ariana blinked. April said those awful words so sweetly—the same words Ariana had heard in Kaitlynn’s veiled threat—it somehow made the threat that much more real.

  “You are dismissed,” Conrad said.

  Ariana turned on shaky knees and fell into step with Kaitlynn. “Well. That was harsh.”

  Kaitlynn said nothing. She tucked her package under her folded arms and quickened her steps.

  “So, want to stay up together and study this?” Ariana said, lifting her own package. “We can quiz each other.”

  “I can’t believe they just did that,” Kaitlynn muttered, staring straight ahead. “I can’t believe they just booted Adam like that. They didn’t even give him a chance.”

  “Right. Which is all the more reason for us to study together,” Ariana said, struggling to keep pace with her roommate. “Two heads are better than one and all that.”

  “Whatever,” Kaitlynn said under her breath. “Right now I’m thinking it’s every man for himself.”

  Ariana stopped in her tracks, stunned. Did Kaitlynn not realize that she wouldn’t have finished three-quarters of her scavenger hunt list if not for Ariana’s help? Where was her thank-you? Where was the acknowledgment of her friendship? Kaitlynn speed-walked ahead so that soon the chasm between them was too wide to cross. It was all Ariana could do to keep from hurling her handbook at the girl’s retreating head.

  “She’s an interesting one.”

  Ariana looked up to find Jasper pausing next to her. He narrowed his blue eyes at her and offered his hand. “Jasper Montgomery,” he said. “Of the Louisiana Montgomerys.”

  “Ana Covington,” she replied, briefly grasping his hand. “Of the Texas Covingtons,” she added in a slightly mocking tone.

  He held her gaze for a long moment—so long that Ariana felt a blush rise to her cheeks. She started walking again.

  “I’ll stay up and study with you, if you like,” Jasper said, matching her pace.

  “Thanks, but I’m good,” Ariana replied.

  “I’ve no doubt you are,” Jasper said in a teasing way. “But the offer remains just the same.”

  Ariana pursed her lips. There was nothing that disgusted her more than a double entendre from a boy she barely knew. But when she looked up at Jasper to tell him off, there was no leer in his eyes, just a joking spark.

  “Maybe another time,” she said. “Right now I’d like to get some sleep. I’ll wake up early and study then.”

  “Suit yourself. Me?” he said with a smirk as they reached the door to Privilege House. “I’ll have this thing memorized by first light.”

  Jasper waved his electronic key in front of the lock and held the door open for her. Ariana paused. There were a thousand comebacks on her lips, but for some reason she didn’t feel like dropping them. Maybe she was just exhausted from the scavenger hunt. Or still thrown from Adam’s unceremonious fall. Or frustrated by Kaitlynn’s refusal to trust her. Whatever the case, she felt thrown and off her game. And suddenly all she wanted to do was get away from Jasper as quickly as possible and put this whole exasperating night behind her.

  “Thanks,” she said as she slipped past him into the dorm.

  “Pleasure’s mine,” he replied with a grin.

  COWS

  Something was after her. Something lurking in the woods. Ariana heard a crack, a creak, a moan, and then something reached for her in the dark, its cold and slimy fingers trailing over her bare shoulder. Stifling a scream, she ran. She ran as hard and as fast as she could, feeling the thing gaining on her in the pitch-black night. Breathing down her neck. Panting hot and wet and evil. She tried to run, but her legs wouldn’t move. They were too heavy. Impossibly heavy. She looked down at her feet and they were mired in muck. Ankle-deep in muddy, rocky sludge.

  And the thing kept gaining. Fear gripped Ariana’s heart. She held her breath and struggled forward. Pushing and pulling and grasping and straining until finally she pried her feet free. With one glance back over her shoulder, Ariana flew forward and slammed right into the side of . . .

  A cow?

  The huge brown animal looked back at her, sniffed in a bored, indignant way, and let out a loud moo.

  Ariana sat up with a start, her hand on her chest. Her heart was pounding a mile a minute, but she was safe. Safe in her bed in Privilege House. There was nothing coming for her. At least not right now. It had all been a dream.

  Then Ariana heard another moo. She glanced over at Kaitlynn, who was lifting her head out from under her pillow.

  “What the hell was that?” Kaitlynn asked, blinking rapidly. Her blond hair stuck up straight from her head with static.

  “It sounded . . . like a cow,” Ariana replied, wiping the last vestiges of sleep from her eyes with her fingertips.

  She flung her sheets and blanket off her legs. As she tiptoed over to the door, there was another moo, this time unmistakable, followed by a crash. Then Tahira screamed and Kaitlynn was out of bed like a shot, gripping Ariana’s arm.

  So much for every man for himself.

  The door across the way slammed. Ariana put her hand on the doorknob.

  “What’re you doing?” Kaitlynn whispered.

  “We have to see what’s going on, don’t we?” Ariana whispered back.

  “No,” Kaitlynn replied. “I say we just get back into bed and let someone else handle it.”

  Ariana looked at her roommate over her shoulder, raising one eyebrow. “Oh, so suddenly you’re no longer up for taking matters into your own hands?”

  Kaitlynn rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. But I’m staying behind you.”

  Typical.

  Ariana took a deep breath, held it, and yanked the door open. The flank of a spotted cow stared her right in the face.

  “Omigod!” Kaitlynn shouted, springing backward.

  Ariana heard a tearing sound and leaned out the door. The cow had a big square of the maize-colored carpet rolling around in its maw. “It’s eating the rug!”

  “What is all the noise about?” Lexa said, cinching her red robe around her waist as she came around the corner. She stopped in her tracks and her eyes widened. Her brown hair was all knotted on one side, and there was mascara smudged beneath her eyes. “Um, Ana? Why is there a cow outside your room?”

  Before Ariana could answer, there was another scream on the other side of the floor. Soomie came running into view, her dark hair all knotted on one side.

  “Omigod! There’s another one!” she shouted, backing away from Ariana’s cow.

  “Where’s the other one?” Ariana asked.

  “In the common area,” Soomie said, her jaw quivering as she pointed. “It’s chewing on the couch!”

  “Okay. It’s okay,” Ariana said in a soothing voice. “We’ll take care of this. Just . . . go back to your room.”

  Soomie didn’t have to be asked twice. She disappeared and two seconds later, her door slammed.

  “We’re going to take care of this?” Kaitlynn said, letting her hands slap down at her sides. “How, exactly?”

  Ariana screwed her lips up. “I’m not really sure.” She took a deep breath and smacked the cow hard on the flank. “All right, lady. Get in there and join your friend. Hiya! Come on now!”

  The cow looked back at her and snorted, but moved along. Just as it was ambling its way into the common room, the elevator pinged and Palmer and Landon raced out, both wearing boxer shorts and T-shirts.

  “You have cows too!” Palmer shouted, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. The guys lived in A tower—nicknamed Alpha—on the opposite side of Privilege House. To access the B tower—or Bella—they had to go all the way to the lobby in the A elevator, switch to the B elevator, and come back up.

  “Why? How many do you have?” Ariana asked, crossing her arms over her nightgown, hoping she didn’t look as disheveled and unattractive as Lexa did.

  “Two! They completely destroyed the plasma in the common room.” Palmer pressed himself flat against the wall
of the hallway and peeked around the corner into the common area, as if one of the cows might be wielding a handgun.

  “And they ate all the PSP games,” Landon added.

  Palmer turned again and looked past Ariana at Lexa, who was slowly approaching. “Tsang,” he said. “It has to be.”

  “But you only pulled the coconut prank in retaliation for the nail and hair thing,” Lexa said, lifting a palm toward Palmer. “I thought that was more than fair as far as a reprisal goes.”

  Martin Tsang was a member of one of the other two secret societies on campus, the Fellows. Lexa had pegged him and his secret society for a series of midnight attacks that had taken place inside Privilege House, and Palmer had retaliated by filling Tsang’s room with coconuts. Only Ariana and Kaitlynn knew that Kaitlynn was the one responsible for the attacks, so as far as the Fellows were concerned, Stone and Grave had fired the first shot of a prank war. This, clearly, was their idea of a reprisal.

  Ariana noticed that both Palmer and Lexa were careful not to mention the Fellows out loud in mixed company, even though they knew that she, Kaitlynn, and Landon were all taps.

  The four of them inched over to the open corner of the common area, sticking close together, and watched as the cows went to town on the velvet couch. Kaitlynn, meanwhile, hung back in the doorway of her and Ariana’s room, listening, but clearly too freaked to come out.

  “How did they even get these things up here?” Lexa asked.

  “Very quietly,” Landon said, scratching at the back of his neck, beneath his long, shaggy hair.

  “Well . . . how are we supposed to get them out?” Lexa asked.

  “Call Animal Control,” Ariana replied, lifting her shoulders.

  “I’ll bet this’ll be a first for them,” Palmer said with a short laugh.

  Just then, the spotted cow lifted its tail and relieved itself all over the common room floor. The stench was instant, and so vile that it stung Ariana’s eyes. She dry-heaved and slapped a hand over her mouth.

  “What the hell did they feed that thing?” Ariana asked through her fingers.

  “Omigod,” Lexa said, covering her face and turning away.

  “That is just wrong,” Landon added, covering his mouth and nose as well.

  “Call Animal Control and then burn this place down!” Palmer said, his face screwed up in disgust.

  “I am going to kill Martin Tsang!” Lexa shouted, running back to her room and slamming the door.

  Palmer looked at Landon and Ariana, breathed through his mouth, and placed his hands on his hips. “This. Is. War.”

  BRILLIANT PLAN

  “What a day,” Maria said as she settled onto a settee at the Hill that night. It was a gorgeous fall evening, slightly warm with the sun still glowing off the brightly colored leaves outside. Most of the glass doors and windows of the junior/senior lounge were thrown open to let the fresh air in. Maria sucked down half of her espresso, a breeze teasing the wisps of brown hair around her face.

  “Please. You never even saw the cows,” Ariana said as she and Kaitlynn sat down across from her at the marble coffee table.

  “That’s because a smart girl knows when to stay inside,” Maria replied with a smirk.

  “Well, we have to do something and we have to do it fast,” Lexa said, dropping down in a high-backed chair. “I know Martin Tsang is behind this. He’s been walking around with that stupid grin on his face all day.”

  She glanced over her left shoulder to where, a few tables away, Martin and some of his friends were noshing on cookies and laughing it up. Martin noticed them looking and laughed even harder.

  “We can’t let him think he’s won,” Lexa said with a shudder, facing forward again. “You can’t just walk into Privilege House and defile the place.”

  “Exactly,” Palmer said, coming up behind Lexa with Landon, Jasper, Conrad, and Tahira’s boyfriend, Rob, in tow. “Which is why we’re going to retaliate. Tonight.”

  Ariana and Palmer exchanged a glance, and Palmer gave her a private smile as the guys squeezed in around the table. Jasper took a seat next to Ariana on the couch, forcing her closer to Kaitlynn’s side. Ariana wished that Palmer could have sat there instead—that they could have just come out and told everyone they were together already—but now hardly seemed like the moment. Landon dropped down on the end of Maria’s settee and she gave him a brief, private smile. It made Ariana feel better to be reminded that she wasn’t the only one engaged in a secret relationship around here. Ariana wondered what Maria would have done if Landon had been two seconds behind Adam during the scavenger hunt, rather than the other way around. She was sure that her friend was in Stone and Grave, and that she wanted her boyfriend to get in too. Would she have had enough—or any—pull to save him?

  Ariana watched Palmer as he pulled over another chair and sat next to Lexa. She had a hunch that Palmer wasn’t just a member but was the president of the Atherton-Pryce Hall chapter of Stone and Grave. It made sense, considering he was president of the student body, captain of the gold team during welcome week, and the person everyone looked up to around here. Would he have been able to save her if she had been the last to complete her task?

  “So do you guys have a plan?” Lexa asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

  Palmer bit his lip. “Uh . . . no. You?”

  There were blank stares all around. A pair of senior girls walked by on their way up to the coffee counter, fresh from a workout and wearing their APH Track hoodies. Ariana smiled at their retreating forms, recalling one of her own greatest all-time pranks—one she’d pulled on a bitchy classmate back when she was a freshman at Easton.

  Before she could announce the idea, Kaitlynn leaned forward and looked around at the group. “Come on. Someone here must have pulled a good prank back in grade school,” she said. “Something we can use as inspiration.”

  “Lily, what about that story you told me last week?” Ariana said, looking Kaitlynn in the eye. “That prank you pulled at your old school?”

  Kaitlynn went wide-eyed, like a deer in headlights. “Which prank was that?” she asked Ariana. “I’ve pulled off so many, it’s hard to remember which ones I’ve bragged about,” she joked casually, looking around at the others.

  “The one with the gum?” Ariana replied. “It’d be perfect!”

  “Oh, right! The gum prank!” Kaitlynn said, faking a laugh.

  Lexa raised one eyebrow. “Come on girls, spill.”

  “You tell it,” Kaitlynn said, nudging Ariana’s knee.

  “God, Lily. You’re so modest.” Ariana sat forward, giddy as all eyes turned on her. This was already working like a charm. “Back at Lily’s old school, there was this girl who always wore hoodies. Every day, it was the same hoodie in a different color, and whenever she stepped outside, she would lift the hood over her hair.”

  Maria drained the rest of her espresso and leaned in with interest.

  “It was totally ridiculous,” Kaitlynn chimed in, playing along now as if the story truly was hers. “That silhouette did nothing for her.”

  Maria smirked.

  “So one day in English class, Lily sat behind her, chewed up a nice, big wad of gum, and placed it in her hood,” Ariana said.

  “No!” Lexa cried.

  “Yes!” Ariana replied.

  “My friends and I nearly died laughing when she walked outside and put the hood on,” Kaitlynn added smoothly.

  “And? What happened?” Rob asked, hovering behind Palmer’s chair.

  “Well, the next day the girl had a crew cut and the hoodies were gone. For good,” Ariana said with a conspiratorial smile. She would never forget how hard Noelle had laughed when she spied the girl’s new coif. It was the beginning of their friendship.

  “Anyway, from what I’ve heard, Martin Tsang is a member of some kind of . . . secret society?” Ariana said with a sly smile. Her fellow taps tensed up, realizing she was trying to talk about the societies without actually avowing knowledge of them. After all, A
riana still didn’t know for sure who at the table was a member, and who was not.

  “Right. He’s in the Fellows,” Palmer said, clearing his throat. “He’s not the best at keeping it a secret.”

  “So, if the Fellows have robes . . . ,” Kaitlynn said in a leading way.

  “And what self-respecting secret society doesn’t?” Jasper added.

  “Then we could get not only Martin, but all of his friends, too,” Ariana finished.

  “They’d all have to get their hair cut,” Palmer said, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Do you realize what that means?” he said, looking at Lexa.

  “That not only would we get them back, but we would find out who their members are. Every last one of them,” Lexa said, giving Ariana and Kaitlynn an impressed look. “Not bad, girls,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee.

  Ariana hadn’t even thought of that last angle, but she was glad Lexa had. This plan really was perfect.

  “Lily, you’re a genius,” Maria said.

  “Agreed,” Conrad said with a smile. Kaitlynn beamed so brightly that Ariana was nearly blinded.

  “And I just happen to know where the Fellows keep their supplies,” Palmer whispered, leaning his forearms on his knees. “Last year at a crew party, Jeff Dorian got drunk and blabbed about it. They’re in the back of the supply closets just off the Grand Hall.”

  “So let’s do this!” Rob said loudly, clapping his meaty palms together.

  “Now?” Lexa whispered, glancing over her shoulder at Martin and his pals.

  “You’re the one who said it has to be fast,” Palmer said, getting up and grabbing his coat. “Let’s go, you two.”

  Once again, everyone looked at Ariana and Kaitlynn.

  “Us? Really?” Kaitlynn said, glancing at Conrad uncertainly.

  Ariana was surprised as well. She would have thought the taps would be excluded from actual Stone and Grave business.

  “Your brilliant idea. You’re in,” Palmer said, motioning for them to join him.

  Ariana and Kaitlynn exchanged a giddy look. Ariana had just won major Stone and Grave points for both of them.