task wasn't so simple." She looked at me then. "My task was to break into my grandmother's house with its state-of-the-art security
system and steal a family heirloom. To this day I don't know how they knew about that stupid box, but that was what they wanted."
So it had been a Billings test. That story I'd found had all been the result of hazing. "Were they trying to keep you out?" I heard
myself ask, before I even realized I was going to speak. But I had to know. It was, after all, what Cheyenne had tried to do to Sabine,
Constance, and Lorna earlier this year. "I don't think so," she conceded. "They didn't know about the security. But I knew it was going
to be impossible and I told Cheyenne that. But she wouldn't let me back out. Billings was too important. So we did it. We broke in.
And even though I tried to plan it carefully, we tripped an alarm." She snorted derisively. "That place was like Fort Knox. My father
had insisted on it, since my grandmother had insisted on living alone. I was in my grandmother's room when the alarm went off. Had
that stupid box in my hand and everything when she woke up terrified and keeled over onto the floor, right at my feet."
She had spaced again, looking off into the distance. "All my supposed sisters came in and tried to drag me out of there, but at that
point I was on the floor trying to help my grandmother," she continued. "They were all panicked, so one by one they all fled. Then
suddenly Noelle and Ariana were there, and Ariana was telling me we had to go. The cops were coming. That we were screwed if we
stayed. And Cheyenne was behind them bawling, begging me to go with them. But what was I supposed to do? Leave my grandmoth-
er alone there to die? When it was my fault?" Ivy's eyes shone with unshed tears and she glared at me as if I had been there too. As if I
had been playing Ariana's role, telling her to save her own skin. To save Billings instead of her grandmother. "Noelle kept telling me
that my grandmother would be fine. That the police were already on their way and that they would take care of her. Like she cared,"
Ivy said with a scoff. "But I knew better. I knew she didn't care about anyone but herself. So I told her to go. To get the hell out and
leave me there with my grandma. And you know what? That's exactly what she and the others did. Even Cheyenne."
"She did care," I said flatly, automatically defending Noelle. "She was trying to make sure you didn't get in trouble on top of every-
thing else. It wasn't just about saving herself." "She really has you under her thumb, doesn't she?" Ivy said with an almost sad smirk.
"Did you even hear what I just said? They left me there. Alone. To potentially watch my grandmother die. Cheyenne even grabbed the
silver jewelry box they wanted me to get. It was all about completing the task. All about impressing Billings." I had a sudden flash in
my mind of that box I had found in Cheyenne's room. The silver box with the engraving on the top of the initials V.M.S. That must
have been the box. Ivy's family heirloom. S for Slade. Cheyenne had actually kept it all this time. How had she lived with that thing in
her sight? How had the guilt of what she'd done to her best friend not torn her apart?
"So I was the only one who got arrested that night, though my father had the charges dropped later," Ivy continued, standing up
straight and facing me again. "And last year I went to school in Boston so I could help care for my grandmother, but she was never the
same again. The whole family was relieved when she finally passed on this summer, saying she had gone to a better place, but at the
funeral no one could even look at me. They all blame me, and they should. It's my fault she's gone. Billings's fault." In spite of myself
my heart actually went out to her right then. I couldn't imagine the pain of what she'd been through. How it must have felt to know