Paradise Lost (Private 9)

For my sister, Erin, who is really going to love me after this

CHAPTER 1 REALITY

Not happening. This was not happening.

I walked down the hall of the ICU at Edward Billings Memorial Hospital, trying to look as if I belonged there. Holding my coat closed tightly over my now ridiculous-seeming gold mini-dress and trying to make the nurses and doctors believe I knew where I was going. But I didn't. I didn't know where I was going, or where I was, or how I'd gotten there. I had never navigated these sterile halls, never had to visit this cold, ominous place with its grim-faced orderlies and somber lighting. The one thing I knew was that this could not be happening.

In my mind's eye, all I could see was the blood. I had woken up on the floor of the solarium in Mitchell Hall, the back of my head throbbing with pain. Noelle had been hosting a preparty there for Kiran Hayes's birthday fete in Boston, and I had gone to confront Sabine DuLac about her relationship with Ariana Osgood. She had pulled a gun on me, I had blacked out, and when I'd come to, I had

2

seen Josh's prone body, his face pressed into the hardwood floor. And blood. Blood everywhere. The scream that had escaped my throat had sounded otherworldly, like something out of a science fiction film. Like nothing that could have come from my own throat. That was when Sabine had realized the bullet had missed me. Even though the gun was gone, even though Trey Prescott and Gage Goolidge were holding her back, she had made one final lunge, intent on strangling me or clawing my hair out--hurting me in whatever way possible. I had thrown myself backward in fear and had bumped into something hard. A second body. Dark hair had been splayed everywhere, arms bent at unnatural angles. Another scream, and after that, everything had become a blur.

The shouting as the police had hauled off Sabine. The Pemberly girl who, splattered with blood, had fainted dead away. The flashing lights of the ambulance. The EMTs shouting for us to stay back as they'd sorted out who was hit and who was unconscious and who might be . .. dead.

Now an orderly shoved a meal cart out of a room and right into my path. I was so startled that my hand flew to my heart. My knees felt like they could collapse at any second. I pressed my other palm against the wall to steady myself, my fingers landing just above a gold plate with a room number printed on it: 4005. Which meant that the next room was 4007. The room I was looking for. The room I dreaded.

Deep breath, Reed. You can do this. You have to do this.

I closed my eyes for a moment. This wasn't about me. Yes, Sabine had tried to kill me. Yes, the person who, all semester long, I had

3

thought was my best friend had turned out to be a raving homicidal lunatic stalker. Yes, I had spent months living in the same room with a girl who had then tortured me and drugged me and sent out a lewd video of me to the entire Easton Academy community. That was all about me. And I could deal with all of that later.

But right now. This. This was not about me.

I took that deep breath and stepped tentatively into room 4007.

Josh's eyes instantly met mine, whisking the breath right out of me. I was aware of the machines--the beeping of the heart monitor, the strange twitching lines on the screen, the dripping IV. But for a moment, just one moment, all I could see were those eyes. The relief, the anguish, the longing, the fear. Everything I felt was right there in his eyes. He knew. He understood. But then he broke eye contact, and I dropped back to reality.

Reality, where Ivy Slade lay on a hospital bed, unconscious and pale, her eyelids appearing purple under the fluorescent lights. Tubes and wires and sensors were stuck to her temples and wrists, and her black hair was shoved back from her face in a haphazard, un-parted way that she would have loathed if she could have seen it. The white hospital sheets were tightly tucked in all around her, giving her the look of a half-wrapped mummy. Only her arms were free, and Josh was holding her hand. Her delicate, seemingly lifeless hand. My throat went completely dry.

Why hadn't she stayed outside like the police had told her to do? Why had she run back into the solarium? In all the panic, I hadn't even realized that she had come up behind me. She didn't have to be

4

there. Didn't have to come with me to confront Sabine. I had even told her not to come along, but she obviously was worried about me in my one-track state of mind. That track being the express train to confrontation with a homicidal maniac.

It was my fault that she was here. All my fault.

"Is she going to be okay?" I whispered.

Please say yes. Please, please say yes. I wasn't sure I could handle another death. Another funeral. Another good-bye. I wasn't sure if any of us could handle it.

"They think so," Josh replied. He looked hopefully over at her. "The bullet went through her upper shoulder and just missed her lung. If it had been half an inch lower . . . She lost a lot of blood, though, which is why she's unconscious right now. But yeah, they expect her to make a full recovery."

My eyes misted over as a crushing weight was lifted from my shoulders. She was going to be okay. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Ivy and I had just started to become friends. If it weren't for her, I may have never figured out that it was Sabine who was after me. That Sabine was the person who had killed Cheyenne Martin and had tried to make me believe it was my fault.

If it weren't for Ivy, I might have gone to Kiran's party with Sabine and ended up shot dead in an alley in Boston somewhere. Who knew what the details of the girl's plan had been? It seemed that, as long as it had ended with me dead, Sabine would have deemed it a success.

Josh placed Ivy's hand on the bed next to her hip and slowly got up to usher me out the door. As we left the room, I turned to him,

5