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roommate, Leanne Shore, had been escorted from school grounds after being found guilty of breaking the Easton honor code by cheating, Natasha had accused Noelle of having had something to do with it. I had been there, in the quad, when she had gotten right up in Noelle's face. But I had thought Natasha was basically insane.
“How .. . how do you know?” I asked.
“I just know,” Natasha said. “The problem is, I have no proof. That's where you come in.”
Oh, God, no. No, no, no. Please tell me she isn't going to make me--
“Now that you're our new scrub girl, you have unlimited access to their rooms,” Natasha said. “I want you to find the evidence I need. I want you to go through everything they own. They have to have kept something. They're big on trophies. Find me what I need to nail their asses to the wall.”
I stared up at her, my hair dripping cold as ice down my neck. “I... I can't do that,” I said.
I would lose everything. They would find out and they would kick me out of Billings. They would never speak to me again. Everything I had worked for would be gone in an instant.
Plus Noelle would kill me. There was always that.
“Oh, but you can,” she said with a smirk. “Unless you want that e-?mailed to the dean and the board and every single student and teacher at this school.”
I glanced up at the screen again. Whittaker's tongue was down
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my throat. I tasted bile. I tried to swallow but couldn't. Tears stung my eyes all over again. These pictures represented the end of me. The end of my life, my future. Didn't she see that?
“I thought we were friends,” I said blankly. Maybe guilt would work. I was grasping at straws.
“Aw! That's so sweet!” Natasha trilled. “So, do we have an understanding? ”
I stared at her, hard. There wasn't a trace of regret or uncertainty in her eyes. This was so wrong. Natasha was supposed to be the moral center of Easton. At least, that was what Noelle had once called her, and Natasha had seemed proud of the moniker. Now here she was taking secret soft-?core porn shots of her supposed friends and blackmailing people with them. Where was the morality in that?
Of course, she was also president of the Young Republicans club. From everything I'd read and heard my entire life, this was a maneuver of which any politician would be proud.
“Reed? I asked you a question.”
My hands were trembling. I couldn't do this. Not after everything Noelle had done for me. Not with everything she could take away.
But Natasha could take away more. And I was looking at the proof of that.
The situation was a perfect lose-?lose.
'Yeah. We have an understanding," I said.
“Good. Now get to bed,” Natasha told me, mercifully shutting down the slide show. 'You've got a lot of work ahead of you."
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* * *
The next morning I methodically moved through my chores, my mind on ten million other things. For some reason, everyone was up and out of their rooms early, and I was able to make the beds without having to endure snide comments or detailed direction. The entire time I was in Noelle and Ariana's room, Natasha's voice played like a skipping CD in my mind.
Nail their asses to the wall. . . nail their asses to the wall. . . nail their asses to the wall. . .
I stared at Noelle's dresser. It taunted me, begging me to rifle through its drawers. No one was around. It would only take a few minutes. If Natasha made good on her threats, it would mean a one-?way ticket back to Croton, Pennsylvania, and my prescription-?drug-?addict mother and my depressed father. It would mean the end of everything.
And yeah, if I found the proof she was looking for, not only would Noelle and the others hate me, but they would also get thrown out of school. They would be gone and I would still be here, in Billings. Even without them, I would still have a chance, right?
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