LITMIR.BIZ

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Sutton.”

      “I do,” Emma insisted. “I was just—”

      “I wish you would stay away from Thayer,” Madeline interrupted. “I love you, Sutton, but you messed him up big time. I can’t have him running off again.”

      “I don’t want to be with Thayer!” Emma protested through her teeth. “I was just wondering where Laurel was.”

      I couldn’t help but glare at Madeline. I hadn’t messed Thayer up. If anything, Thayer had messed me up, running off without telling me where he was going, then sneaking back into town to meet me in secluded places like Sabino Canyon. His limp might have been because of me, but I wasn’t the one who caused it.

      “Okay, this convo is officially boring me.” Charlotte tossed her red hair over her shoulder. “C’mon, guys. I’m dying for coffee. I barely got any sleep last night. My parents kept me up all night with one of their marathon shout-fests.”

      “Lattes on me,” Lili said, adjusting the headband in her hair.

      Charlotte and the Twitter Twins headed toward the school’s coffee kiosk. Emma followed, and Madeline fell in step next to her, which Emma figured was an olive branch. She tried not to take it personally that Madeline had basically barred her from speaking to her brother. She was just being protective of him.

      They pushed onto the front lawn and took a sharp left, dodging kids carrying instrument cases, a girl with her nose stuck in a book, and a couple making out next to the water fountain. The announcement board was plastered with posters for the Harvest Dance, most of them featuring a white-silhouetted couple dancing together. When they reached the front entrance, they noticed a crowd gathered just outside the doors. Emma’s first thought was that Thayer had returned early, but then Charlotte stopped short in front of her so quickly that she almost bumped into her back.

      “Holy shit,” Gabby breathed.

      Madeline pushed her tortoiseshell sunglasses to the top of her head. “What the hell?”

      A row of mesquite trees stood sentinel in front of the school. Silver streamers were twined through the spindly branches and dozens of lacy bras and blown-up condoms hung from the limbs. Penis balloons bobbled around a trunk, which had been spray-painted black. Strung across the trees was a sign that read BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP US, BITCHES. The whole effect was that of a naughty Christmas tree—or a Vegas bachelorette party gone awry.

      “Oh my God,” Clara Hewlitt, a dark-haired sophomore from the tennis team, breathed, her brown eyes wide.

      “It has to be them,” whispered a lanky junior with a ratty blond ponytail.

      All eyes clapped on Emma and Sutton’s friends. Emma looked around the courtyard, seeing a lot of faces she recognized, but a lot she still didn’t. Sutton’s ex, Garrett Austin, was standing next to his younger sister, Louisa, glaring at Emma with disdain. Lori, a girl from her pottery class, was looking at Emma with awe and respect. Nisha’s cherry-colored lips were pursed as she read over the graffiti. Emma caught her eye but Nisha looked away.

      Lili whipped around and looked at Emma, Madeline, and Charlotte. Her face was pinched with hurt. “Did you guys leave us out of a prank?”

      Charlotte shook her head slowly. “This wasn’t us.”

      “Honest,” Madeline added quickly. “Not unless I did this while sleepwalking.”

      “Oh.” Lili brightened. “Well, in that case…” She and Gabby yanked out their iPhones and held it up to the mayhem. “Everyone say Twitpic!”

      Madeline grabbed the phone from Lili’s hand before Lili could snap the photo. “This isn’t cool. It’s just lame vandalism.”

      Lili clapped her mouth closed, looking cowed. “Who do you think did it?”

      Madeline scanned the crowd. Suddenly her eyes widened. “Over there,” she hissed, nodding at something near the lamppost.

      Emma followed her gaze. A group of four girls stood in a huddle, their backs to the defaced trees. They all had on dark skinny jeans and Converse sneakers and sported edgy haircuts. Judging by the tough, bossy look on the face of a blond girl with dip-dyed ends, Emma guessed she was the leader. Emma could detect an air of satisfaction from each and every one of them.

      “No way,” Charlotte whispered.

      “I’m almost positive,” Madeline murmured. “It has to be them.”

      Gabby used her phone to zoom in on the girls’ faces. Dip-dyed Girl looked even meaner and tougher in close-up. “Bitches.”

      “Who are they?” Emma asked, not caring if Sutton was supposed to already know.

      I didn’t, though. They looked young, likely freshmen, meaning I never would have met them. I’d died before the first day of school, and I wouldn’t have been caught dead fraternizing with kids from junior high.

      “Ariane Richards, Coco Tremont, Bethany Ramirez, and Joanna Chen,” Madeline said. “This sophomore in my dance class told me about them. They were the us of Saguaro Middle School. But their pranks were super-lame. Stealing the school mascot, writing nasty things about girls in lipstick across their lockers, replacing the dry-erase markers with Sharpies.”

      “Super-lame,” Charlotte said, stifling a yawn.

      “They will hereby be known as the Devious Four,” Lili intoned in a mock-dramatic voice, tapping away on her touch screen. “And don’t worry, Mads. My tweet will put them in their place.”

      “Yeah, we’ll see who will be bowing down to who soon enough,” Charlotte said grimly, setting her square jaw.

      Devious Four Deflower School Property, Emma headlined silently, running her eyes back over the skanky lingerie. The display was tackier than the shark tattoo her last foster brother, Travis, had come home with after a thirty-six-hour drinking binge.

      “Whoa,” said a familiar voice. Emma turned to see Laurel coming up behind them, her blue cotton dress billowing in the breeze. Her blond hair gleamed in the sunlight, and her mouth was open so wide Emma could see her molars. “That’s insane.”

      At that moment the doors to the school flung open, and Ms. Ambrose, the principal, burst onto the lawn. The students parted for her—she was making a path straight for Emma and the others. Emma watched helplessly as the woman strode closer and closer. The corners of the principal’s lips turned down in a frown. The look in her eyes said, You’ve crossed the line one too many times, girls.

      Emma put on her best Sutton Mercer smile. “Hello, Ms. Ambrose,” she said sweetly. “Can you believe someone did this?”

      The principal ignored her, grabbing Emma’s arm in one hand and Laurel’s in the other. “Wait!” Laurel cried. “We didn’t do this!”

      Her cries were drowned out by the stomping feet of two security guards barreling through the crowd. With swift, deft movements, one of the brawny men grabbed Charlotte and Madeline, and the other took the Twitter Twins.

      “You don’t understand!” Madeline cried weakly.

      “We were set up!” Charlotte protested.

      Ms. Ambrose rolled her eyes. “You say that every time, girls. You’re coming with us.”

      Emma felt her legs move under her as the principal pulled her toward the door. Just before the crowd closed behind her, she glanced over her shoulder and saw the four freshmen staring at them, huge, ecstatic, we-got-away-with-it smiles on their faces. The girls had probably just wanted to make their mark on the school—literally—but the real damage they’d done was to the members of the Lying Game.

      Devious Four indeed, I thought angrily. Those bitches were going down.

      

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