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The Lying Game members paused, looking a little caught off guard. Gabriella and Lilianna obviously refrained, but Laurel grabbed her drink, glanced nervously at Emma, and took a guilty sip. And then at the same moment, Charlotte and Madeline did, too. Charlotte nudged her chin toward Emma’s glass. “I think you should be drinking too, sweetie.”
Emma swallowed the rest of the vodka, the liquid searing the lining of her stomach. If she swallowed a match right now, she’d probably explode.
“Honestly, I thought you were going to pull the first prank of the year.” Charlotte poured more Absolut into everyone’s glasses. “What happened to that great thing you bragged about all summer? The ultimate Gotcha?”
“Yeah!” Madeline raised her glass into the air. Some of the liquid sloshed over the sides. “You said it was going to be huge. I’ve been on edge for weeks.”
A bitter taste filled Emma’s mouth. So the Lying Game wasn’t just about tricking other people around school . . . it was about pranking people within the group, too. All of a sudden, the snuff film crackled in her mind. She thought of how Sutton had gone limp after the necklace had cut off her breathing. How she’d remained motionless until someone pulled the blindfold off her head and checked on her. What if she hadn’t been as hurt as she seemed? How far would she go for a good joke?
Suddenly, like a row of dominos, the synapses of Emma’s brain began making connections one after another. She thought of the note Laurel had found on her windshield. She pictured Sutton’s phone and wallet sitting on her desk; there was practically an X-marks-the-spot over them for Emma to find. Then there was the matter of Emma’s own ID going missing so that she had no way of proving who she was.
Her heart started to race. Oh my God, she thought. What if the ultimate prank was happening right now? What if Emma was the main attraction?
The alcohol burned in her stomach. She leapt to her feet, ran toward the nearest doorway, and flung it open. Inside was a whole wall of shoes and bags. She slammed the door again and fumbled in the opposite direction.
Charlotte stood and ratcheted Emma’s shoulders to the left. “Bathroom’s that way, sweetie.” She gave Emma a gentle nudge toward a white door on the other side of the room. “Don’t vomit in the tub like last time!”
“I’m totally tweeting this,” Gabriella giggled.
“No, I am,” Lilianna whined.
Emma staggered into the bathroom and slammed the door. She leaned over the enormous marble sink, the full weight of what was happening taking hold of her and squeezing hard. Sutton wasn’t dead at all. She’d orchestrated the whole thing. She’d found out about Emma somehow and posted that snuff film online so her long-lost twin would find her. She summoned Emma to Sabino Canyon knowing full well that Madeline would see her on their way to Nisha’s. Sutton had tricked all of them into thinking Emma was her . . . and she’d tricked Emma, too.
Emma’s suspicions crashed into my own. Did I know about her before I died? Had I somehow lured her here, and then fallen victim to my own prank? The girl I’d learned about tonight, the Sutton everyone here knew so well, definitely seemed capable of it. But as I searched my faint memories and watched Emma, unable to help her at all, it didn’t feel true. I didn’t want it to be true.
Emma grabbed a spare toilet paper roll from the shelf and threw it across the room. It bounced off the tiled wall and fell into the tub. Then she sank to the woolly mat on the bathroom floor. The room was enormous, with a mini sauna and a vanity containing enough cosmetics to outfit Sephora. Photographs of Charlotte and the rest of the crowd were plastered all over the walls, some of them in frames, some of them pinned up with tacks, others crammed into the corners of the mirrors. Madeline stood in fifth position over the toilet. A shirtless Garrett grinned at her from next to the shower stall.
Most of the pictures were of Sutton. She stared, smiled, smirked, and blew kisses from every angle. She curtsied and cackled, spun with her arms outstretched, and Vogue-posed in fancy dresses, the missing silver locket dangling around her neck. Emma suddenly despised the sight of her sister. She glowered at the photo closest to her, a candid of Sutton, Charlotte, and Madeline standing in front of In-N-Out burger, shoving Double Doubles into their open mouths. Before she could stop herself, she grabbed an eyeliner pencil from the sink and drew a pig’s nose over Sutton’s face. After a moment, she added devil horns and a tail. There. It made her feel a tiny bit better.
She heard the girls snicker in the bedroom. Emma stood up, glared at her wild-animal expression in the mirror, and splashed cold water on her face. There was only one thing she could do: ruin Sutton’s stupid prank before she could leap out from wherever she was hiding and scream, “Gotcha!” There was no way she was going to let Sutton win.
“Emma . . .” I wished so badly that she could see my flickering body and understand this wasn’t a joke. That I was dead, really and truly. It was one thing when she rolled her eyes at my life and wrinkled her nose at my boyfriend, but I didn’t want her to think I was the kind of person who would use her own long-lost sister that way. I didn’t want to be that kind of person.
And then, all at once, the fluorescent light on the ceiling burnt out.
“Hello?” Emma called. She fumbled for the doorknob but couldn’t find it anywhere. Her foot hit the metal trash can with a clang. Something crashed on the other side of the door. Charlotte screamed.
“Sutton? Was that you?” Laurel called. An alarm sounded from downstairs. There were footsteps . . . and then a siren. Emma trembled.
