Revelation (Private 8)

My heart skipped a terrified beat. The very idea of Ariana lurking in the shadows of my life made

my skin crawl. But I brushed the feeling aside. "Not possible. She's locked up in some asylum or

something. "

"Or so they say," Ivy said with a leading smile.

I could tell by the twinkle in her eye that she didn't believe that Ariana was really behind this--that

she was just joking around. But I didn't like it. The girl had tried to toss me off the roof of Billings

last December. That wasn't something I was ready to joke about.

"What if she's on campus somewhere this very second?" Ivy suggested.

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With a rush of fresh fear, I recalled those few times early in the semester when I had felt like I was

being watched. When I could have sworn I had seen a pair of cold blue eyes staring at me from the

stacks in the library, but when I went to investigate, no one was there. Leaving all those things in

my room, sending that e-mail... those were exactly the kinds of insane things that Ariana might do.

But it wasn't possible. She was safely locked away. Far away.

"Stranger things have happened, right?" Ivy said, loving her spooky conspiracy theory.

"Can I ask you a question?" I blurted.

"Sure."

"Why the hell did you have that picture above your bed?" I said, turning sideways in my chair. "I

mean, you hated Noelle and Ariana, looking at Cheyenne's face every day couldn't have been fun,

and it was taken on basically the worst day of your life."

Ivy arched one perfect eyebrow. "You have done your homework." She looked down and picked

an invisible piece of lint from her skirt, flicking it on the floor. "I kept that picture for two reasons.

One, I actually had a good time that day, cleaning up the park. We all did. It's the last good

memory I have of Cheyenne, and even of... the other two." A blush lit her face for a brief moment

and she looked me in the eye. "And two, every time I looked at it, it reminded me that no matter

how much fun you have with people, they can turn on you in a second."

Her comment hit my heart with the force of a gunshot. She was right, after all. The Billings Girls

had turned on me just like that. But

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then, I had done something awful to one of our own. Ivy had never done anything to hurt anyone.