Vanished (Private 12)

“What’re they going to do, kick me out?” I asked. I pushed back from the table slightly to see the text on the screen. All at once, my lungs filled with relief. The text was from Josh. It read:

Hope we’re still on for tonight. I’ll pick you up at 8! XO

Thank goodness. I wasn’t sure that, on top of everything else, I could handle him dumping me on Valentine’s Day.

“It’s from Josh,” I explained.

Tiffany and Rose nodded knowingly.

I was just about to slide the phone back in my pocket when it vibrated again, startling the breath out of me.

This text was not from Josh.

ONLY ONE ASSIGNMENT LEFT. YOU FAIL, SHE DIES. FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS TONIGHT.

And just like that, the shoulder knots Kristianne had worked so hard to uncoil were back.

“Ow! Lorna! You stepped on my foot!” Amberly whined. “Ow! Owwww! Astrid! Stop! You’re smacking me in the back of the head with your brush.”

“Sorry, love,” Astrid said. She turned around too quickly and elbowed Amberly in the eye.

“Ow! Crap! Crappity crap crap!” Amberly blurted, doubling over.

“Oh my God, Amberly! Are you okay?” I asked, jumping up from my desk chair. Not that it was easy to do, what with the crowd of Billings Girls milling around in my tiny single room. I shoved by Portia, got a mouthful of hair spray as I ducked by Vienna, and cornered Amberly near the door, where she clutched her hand over her right eye, bent at the waist. Normally, Amberly wasn’t my favorite person, but she was one of us now—a true Billings Girl, and I had started to see her as a kind of annoying, precocious little sister. Also, that jab had looked pretty bad.

“No, I’m not okay!” she groused, pushing her blond mane back from her pretty, elfin face. “I miss Billings! Do you remember how big the rooms were? We could have all fit in Noelle’s room with our dates. And taken group pictures! And had champagne!”

Around me, the other Billings girls sighed nostalgically.

“This is pathetic,” Amberly said, throwing up a hand. “And now I have a black eye.”

“Here. Let me see.” I tugged her hand away from her eye and she blinked a few times. “It’s not black. It’s just watery and … slightly pink,” I told her. “Hey. It matches your dress.”

“You think?” Amberly asked, looking down at her dark pink silk frock. There wasn’t much she loved more than matching her accessories to her clothes.

I laughed. “You’re gonna be fine.”

“Knock, knock!” Trey Prescott stuck his head into my room. Just opening the door slightly, he practically flattened me and Amberly against the wall. “Damn. It’s like a sardine can in here. Fine sardines, don’t get me wrong. But still.” He found Astrid in the center of the mayhem and smiled. “You ready, baby?”

“I’m always ready!” Astrid said, grabbing her sequined clutch. She had to raise her arms over her head and turn sideways to get through the bevy of girls and out the door. The multilayered taffeta and netting on the skirt of her black dress snagged on the beads lining Portia’s mini, but she twirled once and broke free. “Ta, ladies!” she sang.

“Hey, Amberly. Hunter’s out here too,” Trey said.

“Yeeee!” Amberly whirled around to double-check her eyes in the full-length mirror.

“Wait. You’re going to the dance with Hunter Braden?” I asked her, a sour taste rising up in the back of my throat. Hunter and I had gone on exactly one seriously awful date last fall, an experience I didn’t exactly relish for Amberly.

“Uh, yeah? The hottest guy in school asks you to the Valentine’s Day dance, you say yes,” Amberly replied.

I rolled my eyes and patted her on the back as I practically shoved her out the door. “Good luck with that one.”

She didn’t even seem to hear me as she joined him in the hallway and he helped her on with her coat. That was Hunter for you. A consummate gentleman. For five minutes. When that space of time had passed, all bets were off. I knew from experience.

“Well, at least there’s more room in here, now,” I said, returning to the makeup mirror on my desk.

“Hey, Reed, is this your brother?” Lorna asked, picking up a framed family portrait from atop my dresser. “He’s hot.”

“Yeah. And unfortunately, he knows it,” I replied, reaching for a red lip gloss that looked like it would match my dress.