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34
KISS THE GIRL
By the time Mr. Mercer dropped Emma off at school, news of the séance prank had already made the rounds. Word traveled fast at Hollier, especially when the topic was the Lying Game girls. Some boys from the football team tried to high-five Emma in the hallway. Kids she recognized from Charlotte’s party hooted about her “insane weekend.”
She didn’t catch sight of Celeste until third period German. Frau Fenstermacher’s classroom was decorated with declension charts and pictures of German and Austrian landmarks. A panorama shot of Neuschwanstein hung next to the chalkboard, a black-and-white shot of the Brandenburg Gate over the radiator. The Frau sat at her desk, grading a stack of papers while the students settled into their seats.
Two girls sat on either side of Celeste. Emma couldn’t think of their real names—the German aliases they’d given themselves were Klara and Gretl. Klara had a tiger-striped Mulberry purse on her desk, and Gretl wore a black motorcycle jacket and skintight leggings. The first girl moaned like a ghost, waggling her fingers at Celeste, while the other giggled shrilly. For her part, Celeste sat silently, staring forward, determined to ignore them. She wore a tie-dyed baby-doll dress and her usual armory of silver jewelry, but her hair had come out of its customary braids. It fell long and somewhat flat around her shoulders, as if she’d been deflated.
Emma slammed her books down on the desk next to Gretl. They all jumped, and Celeste turned quickly away.
“Hey, Sutton. Nice one this weekend,” Gretl congratulated her.
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure Celeste learned her lesson,” Emma snapped. “So why don’t you leave her alone?”
The grin quickly faded. Gretl made a face. “Oh, come off it, Sutton. What’s with the high horse? You’re the one who pranked her.”
“Sure. And now the prank’s over, so let it go. It’s bad enough you’re wearing those knockoff Jimmy Choos. Don’t think you can get away with knocking off my genius pranks, too.” Emma tossed her hair over her shoulder and looked at both girls with maximum Sutton attitude. After a moment, they shrank back into their chairs.
The bell rang. Frau Fenstermacher paced the front of the classroom, occasionally slapping a wooden pointer against her palm for emphasis as she led them through their conjugation exercises. Emma felt Celeste’s eyes dart toward her during class, but she kept her eyes on her own textbook. “Kennen,” she said, when the teacher asked her the verb “to know.” “Ich kenne, du kennst, er kennt, wir kennen, sie kennen.” I know, you know, he knows, we know, they know.
WHERE ARE YOU? Emma texted Ethan under the desk. He was supposed to be in German, and wasn’t one to skip class.
HOME SICK, he answered.
OH NO! MY PARENTS WANTED TO HAVE YOU OVER FOR DINNER ? WE’LL DO IT ANOTHER TIME!
ARE YOU KIDDING? FOR YOU, I’LL DEFINITELY BE BETTER, he answered.
“Sehr gut!” exclaimed Frau Fenstermacher, and Emma quickly slid her phone back into her bag. The frau still watched Emma with suspicion after she answered a question correctly—as if waiting for the teufelkind to reemerge, the demon child everyone knew Sutton Mercer to be. But when she handed back their graded quizzes, Emma’s had a silver star stuck to the top of the page, and an exclamation point scrawled after the “100%!”
When class was finally over, Emma shoved her textbook and her pencil bag into her messenger bag. Celeste was waiting for her near the door.
The girl’s face seemed less luminous than usual, her eyes tired and red. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said, gesturing back toward the seat Gretl had occupied. “But thanks.”
Emma opened her mouth to speak, but Celeste held up her hand. “Listen, I’m sorry if I was being weird about the aura stuff. I promise you I won’t ever say this again. But I just want you to know that I wasn’t pretending.” Her voice wasn’t its usual breathy tenor, but low and intense. “I really do get feelings about these things, and I can’t shake the sense that you’re in real danger. I only hope I’m wrong.”
A chill raced across Emma’s scalp. Of course Celeste was right—but it wasn’t like her weird prescience was telling Emma anything she didn’t already know. She’d been in danger since stepping off the bus in Tucson. Maybe Celeste did have some kind of supernatural instinct, but unless it could lead her to her sister’s killer, it was no good to her.
Just then Garrett appeared in the doorway and threw an arm protectively over Celeste’s shoulder. “I can’t believe what you did, Sutton,” he said. The way he emphasized her twin’s name sent a shiver down Emma’s spine, almost like he knew it didn’t really belong to her. “Watch your back.”
Emma’s phone vibrated in her purse. She glanced at the screen; it was Nisha. She hit IGNORE—but not before Garrett saw the screen, too.
“So you and Nisha are best friends now, huh?” Garrett laughed once, a harsh, angry sort of laugh. “Well, I guess you do have one thing in common—me.”
“Come on, Garrett,” Celeste interrupted, pulling his sleeve and shooting Emma an apologetic glance over her shoulder.
Emma stood there in confusion. Then she shook her head and turned out of the classroom. And walked smack into Thayer Vega.
She grabbed his arm to steady herself. She hadn’t seen him since the party, since the kiss that had lasted too long. Her lips burned at the memory.
Thayer was looking a bit worse for wear. His eye was bruised and shiny, and his lip was split down the middle where Ethan had punched him. “Oh my God,” Emma whispered. She reached up toward his cheek to touch it, but he recoiled from her hand. She winced. She deserved that. “Thayer, I’m so sorry.”
