This Lie Will Kill You

by Chelsea Pitcher

  “Huh,” Gavin said, turning the marker over in his hands. That didn’t sound so bad. Barely a middle school prank, really. And Shane had done much worse. Still, as Parker opened the door and ushered him outside, he had the feeling that something was being kept from him.

  Something big.

  + + +

  Juniper was drunk. Yes, she could admit it. But Shane was freaking wasted. She’d never seen anyone get drunk so fast. And even though he was entertaining her with animated stories about his childhood, she felt an undercurrent of nervousness every time someone at the party looked their way. It was like everyone was waiting for her to step away for one second, so they could descend on Shane. Tear him to shreds. She’d come to this party to prove he wasn’t who Ruby thought he was, but she found herself growing protective of him.

  She wished Gavin would make an appearance. As soon as he saw her sitting with Shane, she’d be able to read the innocence on his face, and then she could go home. She had no business being at this party. She certainly had no business enjoying herself.

  But she couldn’t help it. Shane was in the middle of a story about the time he and his sister spray-painted Ferricks’ Traveling Circus across their trailer and spent the day performing acrobatic tricks before their father came home and shut the organization down. All his stories were like that: the time Shane and Brianna conned a local priest into feeding their family for a week, the time they dressed in white wigs and white clothing and walked around the town wailing like ghosts. Beneath the stories of gaiety, Juniper could see the common thread of a couple of scared, starving kids doing everything they could to keep their family afloat. Maybe Ruby had been right about Shane. Juniper thought about texting her, but when she pulled out her phone, it started to buzz.

  Ruby was texting her! No, wait, she was texting Shane through her phone. Juniper got pissed all over again. Meanwhile, Shane saw the message on her screen (Are you at the party? Can I talk to him?) and made a desperate grab for the phone.

  “Hey!” She jerked the phone away from him.

  “Please,” he said, fingers swiping at the air. “Please let me talk to her.”

  “Tell me what to write. If it’s appropriate, I’ll send it.”

  His lips twitched at the word “appropriate.” But he didn’t smile, because he was too close to getting what he wanted. “Tell her the winds are still blowing,” he said quickly. “Tell her . . . tell her the grain of sand is eroding the pyramids.”

  Juniper typed out the message. Stared at it a second, waiting for the words to stop blurring, then hit send. Ruby’s reply chimed almost instantly: The goddess is tipping the hourglass. When time runs out, doubt will creep in. Come now.

  Shane shot up from the couch. Swayed a little, then bolted for the door. If somebody had asked Juniper later what took her so long to get up, she would’ve blamed the booze, but the truth was, she was sick of being their go-between. Ruby had only texted her to get to Shane, and Shane had only been nice to her to get to Ruby. Now that they had each other, they didn’t need her anymore.

  Juniper shook herself. Shane was wasted, and it wasn’t safe to leave him alone. There were six beer bottles on his edge of the table, and she didn’t even remember him getting half of them. They’d just appeared, like magic. Pushing off the couch, she caught him at the front door.

  “Wait. Shane, wait! You drove here, right?”

  He yanked the door open. He looked possessed, paler than usual. “I had to park on the other side of the forest,” he said, thundering down the steps. “In case Parker decided to—”

  “Mess with your car. Right.” Again, Juniper felt protective of him. She followed him across the lawn.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” He lumbered toward the tree line. “I wasn’t supposed to go inside.”

  “Hey, it’s fine. I can call my mom, and she can drive us both—”

  “I wanted you to like me. I thought if you liked me . . .”

  “Why would it matter?” Juniper asked, pulling out her phone. It didn’t take long to find the name Mom, even in the darkness.

  “Because she cares what you think. She likes you, Juniper Junebug. She—”

  “Hello?” Juniper cut him off when a familiar voice picked up. “Mom? I need a ride. Now.”

  Shane turned, trudging through the underbrush as she ended the call. “There isn’t time. I have to go.”

  “You can’t go. You’re totally blitzed.” She hurried after him, almost falling in the process. “But my mom’s on the way—”

  “This whole thing is a setup. Why didn’t I see it? I shouldn’t have come in with you. You—” He spun around, peering at her in the darkness. His eyes were narrowed, like two of her were dancing before him. “You were a part of it! I never should’ve trusted you.”

  “No. Shane, I—” But maybe she had been a part of it without realizing it. Everyone at the party had been out to get Shane, and she’d gone and delivered him on a drunken platter. Now he was bolting through the forest, and she was chasing after him, her shin banging into a fallen log. But Shane had to one-up her: he tripped over a root and went flying. As he tumbled, his keys fell out of his pocket.

  Juniper snatched them up. “I’m really sorry, Shane, but you aren’t driving tonight.”

  He stared at her, his sapphire eyes stretched wide in the moonlight, and the look on his face was pure anguish. Juniper considered trying to drive his car. But she could barely see straight as she trudged back to the party, the keys curled into her fist. She could hear Shane chasing after her, and she half hoped he’d fall down in the bushes and take a short nap.

  There, in the darkness, he would be safe.

  Shane didn’t fall. Instead he raced after her more deftly than she would’ve thought possible. He’d almost caught up to her when she reached the front steps. Rather than pushing through the swell of bodies, she turned right, slipping through the gate to the side yard and heading toward the pool.

  There it sat, sparkling and beautiful. There, like an oasis in the desert. Juniper chucked the keys into the deep end as Shane passed through the gate. He screamed. Then, to the surprise of everyone cluttering the deck, Shane kicked off his shoes, pulled off his jacket, and jumped into the pool.

  Even the spray was ice cold. Juniper had assumed the pool would be heated this time of year, but one glance to the right showed the folly of her thinking. Dahlia’s hot tub was packed to the brim, filled with horny, drunken students now taking bets on how long Shane would stay under the water. When someone yelled, “Forever!” the group erupted in raucous laughter. Juniper felt ill, and she stepped up to the lighted pool.

  Shane hadn’t come up for air. But she could see his body moving under the water, could see his hands searching for the keys. No, no, no. She hadn’t thought he’d actually go after them. But love made people desperate. She could see that now as he surfaced once, took a big gulp of air, and went down again. Three more tries, and he still hadn’t reached the keys. Juniper thought he was going to drown himself. She started looking around for a net, a pool toy—anything she could use to retrieve the keys or offer to Shane as a flotation device.

  She came away empty-handed.

  Frantic, she started to kick off her own shoes as he surfaced again. He sputtered and coughed, then went under the water. Down, down, to the bottom of the pool. Nine feet. Juniper was poised to jump when Shane’s hand circled the keys. Soon he was racing toward the surface, his face practically purple as he sucked in a breath. All around him, people were laughing, snapping photos, and taking more bets on whether he’d pass out.

  Juniper knelt down, reaching for him.

  Shane pushed her hand away, going under again. This time, when he came up for air, he scrabbled for the pool’s ladder. He barely made it to the concrete before losing control of his limbs. For a second, Juniper thought he’d passed out. But as she knelt beside him, brushing the hair from his face, he blinked up at her, water slipping from his lips.

  “Are you
trying to kill me?”

  “I . . . I didn’t think you’d . . .” Her phone started to ring. Juniper’s first instinct was to silence it and keep talking, but then she saw the name flashing across the screen. “Oh, crap. My mom’s here. I forgot we called her.”

  Shane huffed, as if to say, We didn’t do anything together. Then he erupted in a coughing fit.

  “I’ll be right out,” Juniper said into the phone. “I’m bringing a friend, too.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he snarled, his chest heaving. “Just stay away from me.”

  “We can give you a ride. We’ll go by Ruby’s and—”

  “Get away from me,” he screamed, and Juniper stumbled back. Here was the boy she’d been afraid of, the kind of boy who always ended up with Ruby.

  She blinked, trying to separate fear from rationality. But Shane was glaring up at her, and his hand was bleeding where he clutched the keys too tightly. “I have to go now,” she said as her phone rang again. “We can still drive you.”

  Shane lowered his head to his arm. He looked, for a moment, like he was sleeping. As Juniper’s phone rang for the third time, Gavin stepped onto the patio, a concerned look on his face.

  Parker was nowhere to be seen.

  Holding her hand in front of Shane’s mouth, to make sure he was breathing, Juniper answered her phone with her free hand. “I’m coming. It’s just going to be me.” She pushed off the ground. And she backed away from him as Gavin stepped closer, his eyes widened in shock.

  “I have to go,” Juniper told him. “My mother’s here. Can I trust you to—”

  “I’ll take care of him,” Gavin promised, and Juniper smiled, barely registering the sight of the bright red marker in his hand. A car honked in the distance, her phone started to vibrate, and she disappeared into the darkness.

  + + +

  After that, the night revealed itself in flashes. Gavin remembered the sound of Juniper getting into a car. He remembered Parker throwing ice cubes into the hot tub, while yelling, “You’ve been pranked, suckas!” and then everyone scattered.

  The patio was theirs.

  The night was theirs, and Parker was huddling in the bushes, giggling like a ten-year-old, as Gavin wrote shithead on Shane Ferrick’s arm. Then a chunk of time went missing. When Gavin looked down, he thought Shane was covered in slashes, and he had to blink several times before the world came into focus.

  “Write ‘douchebag deviant,’ ” Parker hissed from the darkness. “Write ‘white trash piece of shit.’ ”

  Gavin’s stomach turned. He wasn’t sure if Parker’s instructions were causing it, or the fact that he’d ingested more beer in the past two hours than in all his previous hours on earth. There’d been a tequila shot in there too. He had the vaguest recollection of noshing on chips and artichoke dip, but that had been forever ago. A lifetime had come and gone since then.

  No matter, he thought, stumbling away from the body. He’d remember his last meal soon enough. It was about to come up, and if Gavin wasn’t careful, both Parker and Shane would bear witness to it.

  No, not Shane, Gavin realized, pushing past Parker into the darker part of the bushes. Shane was passed out, and someone else was trudging across the lawn. Then Parker was picking up the marker, writing white trash in the crook of Shane’s arm, and the boy with the bald head was stepping into the moonlight. The last thing Gavin remembered was mumbling the words, “We exposed him,” to Brett Carmichael, before opening the patio doors and slipping inside.

  24.

  WILD HAIR

  Ruby’s breath was ragged, like she’d raced through the forest with a beast on her heels. That was how she felt in this moment. Like she’d been running from something horrible all night, and now she had to face it. But when the monster turned to her, she found its face was sweet. One of its faces was.

  “You weren’t trying to kill him,” she breathed.

  “Of course I wasn’t,” Juniper said, knowing immediately that Ruby was talking to her. They couldn’t exactly make eye contact through a camera lens. But here, in this dark passageway, Ruby had no choice but to address the camera on the wall. Below it, a screen revealed her classmates lounging in the beautiful, spacious living room. A room with sofas to sprawl out on.

  Ruby cringed. She hated being confined, hated being lashed to a chair with a rope. Still, that was nothing compared to the sight of her childhood friend slamming into the patio stones as Brianna Ferrick stood over her, grinning.

  “Juniper doesn’t belong here,” Ruby said. “You should let her go.”

  “Juniper lured my brother into that house,” Brianna drawled, and Ruby thrashed against her bindings. “Juniper lured my brother into that pool and left him, half-conscious, at a party where everyone hated him.”

  “She was trying to keep him from driving! It’s wrong to punish her for that.”

  “Wrong?” Brianna smiled, slow and eerie, and it was so much worse than the doll’s smile had been. Her lips were a blurry red. “All of this is wrong. My brother is dead. First drowned. Then branded. Then bludgeoned, if what I suspect is true. But until I know for certain, I need everyone present. Do you understand?” Her gaze narrowed, settling on the boy with hazel eyes. “Brett,” she said, clucking her tongue. “You know you’re next.”

  Brett shuddered, shaking his head. “You know what I did,” he murmured, just loud enough for the camera to pick up his words. “I thought nobody could see me from the house, but some of them did. Some of them saw me through the windows.”

  “I’ve heard rumors,” Brianna agreed. “But if that’s all you’re hiding, why the blush in your cheeks? The fidgeting? I’ve got a wild hair to prove that you’re protecting somebody, and you don’t love yourself enough for it to be you. Is it Juniper? Gavin? Our darling Ruby?”

  “He won’t tell you,” Ruby said calmly. “Not without Parker’s permission.”

  Brett glowered, now that Ruby was taunting him. Pulling at the threads that barely kept him together, like a sweater that had been unraveling for a very long time.

  “Parker’s the only one who loves him,” Ruby explained. “His father’s given up on him. His mother disappeared long before I lost my dad. Then Parker came along and scooped you up, didn’t he, Brett? Made you into a monster. Can you even look at yourself, after what he’s done?”

  Brett was gritting his teeth. Ruby could see it, even from a distance. And, because she was getting to him, she gave him one more push. “But you know what’s funny, Brett? Parker doesn’t love you. He only loves me.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brett said, glaring into the camera.

  And Ruby, lashed to a chair with rope, simply shrugged. “What if we could prove it? What if we could prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Parker Addison is a self-serving liar who’s thrown every one of you under the bus? You already know he funded Brianna’s party to get me back.”

  “He wanted to keep you safe,” Brett said, softly enough that Ruby had to lean in to hear him. “He didn’t want you tied up like a prisoner.”

  “Yet, here I am. Tied up, like a present to be delivered, and none of it would’ve happened without Parker’s help. He designed these punishments with her, first Gavin’s and Juniper’s, then—”

  “No.” Brett leaned against the wall, and Ruby could tell he was holding himself up. “They were supposed to be pranks.”

  “Maybe the first two. The writing on Gavin’s skin and Juniper’s tumble into the pool. Oops, you’re all wet! Let’s have a laugh about it.” Ruby’s lips twisted. “But your punishment, Brett? The boy who pulverized Shane Ferrick with a flurry of fists? How does one fashion a prank after that?”

  “He wouldn’t have agreed to it if he thought I’d get hurt.”

  “He knew you’d get hurt!” That was Brianna, and it was obvious she was feeling left out of the fun. Ruby needed to be careful. She didn’t want to step on any toes. But rope be damned, the girls made a pretty good team wh
en it came to exposing Parker. Still, the best was yet to come, wasn’t it?

  Brianna was gearing up for something. “In a proper courtroom, each side presents arguments, along with exhibits. What do you say?” she asked, the joy returning to her voice. “Should we put Parker on trial?”

  “All rise!” Ruby agreed.

  Brianna fussed with the TV, pulling up a split screen. On the left, Ruby saw the live feed of the living room, just as she’d seen before. On the right, she saw Parker’s lavish bedroom. The four-poster bed. The gilded mirror. But the video must’ve been taken earlier in the night, because someone familiar was entering the room: Ruby herself. Parker pulled her through the door, and then he was locking it, blocking Juniper out. As Ruby sat on the black satin sheets, he told her he’d been asked to bring a rope to the party.

  “And you didn’t do it?” Ruby heard herself ask in a ridiculously breathy voice. And Parker, his pretty eyes wide, said, “I left it in my car.”

  Brianna pushed another button, rewinding the scene. This time, she pushed play a couple of minutes before Ruby entered the room, when Parker pulled a rope out of his bag and hid it in a drawer.

  “Any questions?” Brianna asked with a smirk.

  Ruby’s gaze zeroed in on Parker, the blood rushing through her ears. “You looked me in the eye and told me you hadn’t brought the rope. How could you do that? How could you leave it for Brianna to find?”

  “That isn’t what happened!” Parker exclaimed. “Yes, I brought the rope into the house, but I didn’t hide it for her. I hid it in case we needed to defend ourselves.”

  “I could pull up the emails,” Brianna replied, and that shut Parker up. “I could pull up the part where we discussed hiding the rope from Ruby. But I won’t, because there are more important things to discuss. The reason we’re all here. My brother, with his rope. My brother, making a video of our fair Ruby, and sharing it all over school. Or so it seemed. After all, Shane had that ebony hair. We both did, actually.”