Vanished (Private 12)

“We could even put her in a straitjacket,” Kiki said with a smirk, eyeing Amberly. “That would be awesome.”

Amberly paled. My face screwed up in disgust. “That’s sick!”

“And scaring the shit out of all of us by pretending to be kidnapped is, what? Normal behavior?” Vienna snapped.

“You guys, just no. You can’t do this,” I said, standing up so fast I almost knocked Amberly over. “You don’t know … you don’t understand. …”

“Understand what, Reed?” Astrid asked. “That Noelle thinks she can get away with anything? I thought we were all equals now. If we get her back it’s like—”

“It’s like proving that we are,” Kiki said. “Equals, I mean.”

I paced around the back of the chair, my pulse pounding in my ears, my very hair follicles sizzling with anger and fear and frustration. They had no idea where Noelle really was right now, what she was really going through. This whole thing was so wrong, so petty, such a huge, stupid waste of time. Why was I even here? Why was I even listening to this when I had more important things to do?

Like saving Noelle’s life.

But I couldn’t say any of this. Couldn’t tell them what I was really thinking or feeling. The frustration was such agony, I wanted to punch something.

I glanced over at them and saw that Ivy was watching me very carefully. Almost like she could read my mind, or at least my mood. I grabbed on to that glance, held on to it for dear life, silently begged her to just help me.

“Reed’s right. It’s no good,” Ivy said.

“What?” Vienna blurted, crossing her arms over her chest. “I thought you’d jump on the bandwagon like your pants were on fire.”

“I can see why you’d think that, but I don’t know,” Ivy replied, looking me right in the eye. “Noelle had to go home for a family emergency, right?” she asked.

I nodded mutely, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.

“So isn’t it kind of cruel to attack her right when she gets back?” Ivy asked. “I mean, who knows what she might be dealing with right now? We’re supposed to be her friends.”

I could tell it took some effort for her to mention herself among Noelle’s friends, and I was beyond grateful for it.

“Yeah, but—”

“Besides, I hate to point out the obvious, you guys, but your prank kind of sucks,” Ivy said, standing and gathering her things. “I mean, we all know Amberly’s a delicate flower, but going catatonic in a mental ward because of a prank? Noelle would never believe that, even if you had Dr. Phil come in here and swear to it.”

“It’s not that bad,” Astrid muttered, sitting back in her chair, her cheeks pink. Clearly it was her idea.

“Yeah. It is,” Ivy said bluntly. “You guys give me a couple of days and I promise I’ll come up with something way better. Something we can pull on her later when she least expects it,” she said, giving me a steady look.

Thank you, I said with my eyes.

She gave me a small smile in return. She was doing this for me, not for Noelle. But either way, I didn’t care.

“Agreed?” I asked the crowd, my voice a croak.

“Agreed!” Amberly chirped, jumping to her feet.

The girls all looked at one another. “Agreed,” they said reluctantly.

Relief flooded my veins. I had never loved Ivy more.

“Wow. So, you’ve done this before,” Josh joked as he stuck his head through the basement window of Hull Hall. I had just shimmied through the narrow space and dropped to the floor without hesitation, landing easily and soundlessly on my feet.

“Kind of,” I replied.

I’d done it last fall when Noelle, Ariana Osgood, Kiran Hayes, and Taylor Bell had dared me to as a way to prove myself to Billings. I’d done it again with Dash McCafferty when we’d been trying to figure out who’d killed Thomas Pearson. And I’d done it a few times last month with my friends, when we’d held the first secret meetings leading up to the initiation of the Billings Literary Society.

If the whole Ivy League thing didn’t work out, I was going to have to consider a career as a cat burglar.