Revelation (Private 8)

"The evidence is right here!" I said, thrusting the picture at her. "You can't even try to deny it. Tell

me the truth, Sabine. What are you doing with Ariana Osgood?"

Sabine was still smiling, looking at me like I had lost it. My blood was boiling so hot my skin was

going to sear right off.

"Reed, I-"

"The girl tried to kill me!" I blurted, my hand quaking. "Tell me how you know the psycho bitch!"

Just like that, something inside Sabine seemed to snap. The innocent, cornered puppy dog mask

fell away and was replaced by something dark. Something evil. Something smoldering.

"Don't call her that," she said, her voice hard.

I had to laugh. "Call her what? Psycho bitch? That's exactly what she is."

Sabine got right in my face so fast I almost lost my balance. Her green eyes bored into mine. "She's

not a psycho bitch," she hissed through her teeth. "She's my sister."

242

The world around me was sucked into a vacuum, leaving nothing but me and Sabine behind. The

lights, the music, the voices, the laughter, the whirl of color all around me. Gone in a flash. All I

could see was the rabid look in Sabine's eyes. So very much like Ariana's ferocity. So very familiar.

So very obvious.

Ariana was Sabine's sister. The one she always talked about like she was some kind of goddess, the

one she had visited off campus, the one who had been "out of the country" for our fund-raiser. All

that time she had been talking about Ariana. Of course the girl was out of the country. She was out

of her freaking mind. Suddenly, I remembered a couple of weeks ago when Sabine had tried to get

me to confide in her about my breakup with Josh. She had mentioned helping her sister through a

bad breakup. Had she been talking about Ariana and Thomas then? My God, I was such a total

fool.

"Your what?''' Constance blurted, bringing me back into the here and now. The world rushed back

in on me so fast I thought I was going to faint. And on top of that, the realization. The complete

realization of the truth.

"It was you," I said quietly, my hand and the photo finally dropping. Sabine had killed Cheyenne.

Sabine had been the one haunting me. She had done it all for Ariana.

"It was all you."