Sara Shepard - Never Have I Ever

Gabby shrugged. “It’s a secret. I don’t want to say anything until I’m sure he’s into me.”

Lili’s mouth became pinched and small. “Well, then, I’m not telling you who my guy is either.”

Emma watched with curiosity. She’d never seen any tension between the two before now.

“Sutton’s going stag, too,” Laurel piped up, clearly trying to smooth over the sudden mood shift.

“ Really? ” Lili’s beady eyes darted to Emma. “How interesting!”

“I guess we’ll be spending a lot of time together if we’re all going alone.” The words oozed from Gabby’s mouth like a threat. “One-on-one Sutton time. How lucky can we be?”

“How lucky,” Emma echoed, hollow dread settling over her.

Lili reached for her phone, her fingers typing furiously. There was a chime, and Gabby glanced at her own phone’s screen. The Twins’ gazes darted to Emma for a split second before looking away.

The few sips of alcohol Emma had drunk burned her stomach. Pulling out Sutton’s phone, she logged on to Gabby’s and Lili’s public Twitter sites. No new messages popped up. But their fingers were still dancing over their tiny keyboards. Occasionally they smiled, as if one had said something particularly funny.

Emma’s fingers started to fly, too, calling up their private accounts. But only an error message appeared . This page does not exist.

Emma retyped her search, thinking she’d misspelled something, but the same error message popped up. She’d seen the page ten minutes ago. . . .

She looked up at two pairs of blue eyes. “Looking for something?” Gabby teased.

“Did you think we wouldn’t notice your snooping?” Lili added.

“What are you freaks talking about?” Madeline murmured as Helene smeared gloss across her lips.

“No-thing,” Lili sing-songed.

But Emma knew exactly what they were talking about. The Twitter Twins had figured out Emma was onto them, meaning something huge was going to happen tonight.

I only hoped she could outsmart the Twitter Twins before they outsmarted her.

Hollier’s parking lot was packed with stretch limos, town cars, SUVs, and even a couple of sports cars borrowed from parents. A banner that said HALLOWEEN HOMECOMING stretched over the front doors, and someone had placed a big lit jack-o’-lantern on the head of the statue of Edmund Hollier, the school’s founder. Couples dressed in elaborate costumes walked arm-in-arm toward the gym. Homecoming had begun.

Emma lagged behind the others and shot off a quick text to Ethan. THE TTS TOOK DOWN THEIR SECRET ACCOUNTS. THEY KNOW.

Her phone buzzed immediately with Ethan’s response. DO NOT GO ANYWHERE ALONE TONIGHT.

“Time to pose!” Charlotte pulled Emma toward a red carpet at the front of the gym. A line of photographers called their names, and the girls turned this way and that, flashing their sexiest smiles. Emma forced her shoulders to relax and pasted a grin on her face. The paparazzi red carpet had been her idea; she’d thought it was something Sutton would suggest. She stood next to Charlotte, who wore a glittering Egyptian headdress, a long silk toga, and gladiator-inspired heels; Madeline, who was dressed as the Queen of Hearts, in a red-and-white dress and a gleaming gold crown; and Laurel, who had donned the blood-spattered wedding dress she’d found at the Halloween store. The Twitter Twins wore costumes that accentuated their Homecoming Court sashes: Lili was the Statue of Liberty, wearing a Grecian-style dress, sandals, and a spiked crown, and carrying a LED torch that glowed red when she hit a button. Gabby was some sort of winged goddess in a similarly draped dress, nymphlike sandals, and a flower headdress. They were both in innocent white, but Emma knew better.

Emma had chosen to be a sexy version of Sherlock Holmes, complete with a checked tweed jacket, a tweed miniskirt, high Manolo heels, a detective’s cap, and an angular pipe. Back at Charlotte’s, the Twins had smirked pointedly and asked why she’d chosen that costume, clearly goading her. But Emma had just held their gaze and said, “Because Holmes always got his man.”

The girls’ dates got into the picture, too. Laurel’s crush, Caleb—who was very cute—wore a 1920s-style pin-striped gangster suit. Noah, the guy Charlotte had asked, wore Wolverine sideburns and kept spewing X-Men quotes. Madeline’s date, Davin, dressed as Freddy Krueger, complete with a mangled face and slasher nails. He somehow managed to look creepier than Freddy Krueger actually had. None of them wanted to go near him.

Gabby declined a paparazzi photo, too busy talking to Kevin Torres, a guy in Emma’s calc class who rolled his eyes whenever anyone got an answer wrong. She draped her arm around his skinny shoulders and giggled at everything that came out of his mouth. Lili stood next to them, looking like she’d swallowed a bitter lemon. She tried several times to get Kevin’s attention, but Kevin didn’t take his eyes off Gabby. Emma watched them carefully, über-alert for any whispers, nudges, or random disappearances. She felt like a clock was counting down on her. Now that the Twitter Twins knew she was onto them, would they want to keep her around to play Sutton? Or was she a liability?

“Okay, people, let’s move,” Madeline said, ushering everyone off the carpet and into the ballroom. Thanks to Charlotte’s decorator extraordinaire, the gym, which typically smelled like old sneakers and floor wax, had been transformed into a mix between a ghoulish haunted house and a tricked-out nightclub.

Emma and the others had helped pile up the gym’s bleachers and replace them with multitiered platforms containing round, black-velvet banquettes; crooked gravestones that served as high tables; burbling witches’ cauldrons full of spiced apple cider and steaming hot chocolate; and wax figures of zombies, mummies, aliens, and werewolves. They’d set flickering, intricately carved pumpkins on each table, fixed gnarled-tree decals to the walls, and hung spiderwebs from the chairs. Waitresses floated past with trays of vials filled with eerie red liquid—which was actually POM Wonderful—marked with labels like DANCING ELIXIR and KISSING CURE-ALL. And at the end of the room was a craggy haunted mansion. Greenish lights flashed through the windows, and a group of girls let out shrill squeals from inside.

Suddenly Madeline clamped down on Emma’s arm. “Oh my God.”

She tried to steer Emma in the other direction, but it was too late. Emma had already seen what was bothering her. Garrett sat in a banquette just a few feet away. He wore a velveteen tunic, a frilly shirt underneath, and a horned Viking helmet. A blunt-tipped sword rested on the table.

And he wasn’t alone.

“Hi, girls!” Nisha trilled, leaping up from the seat next to Garrett and waving happily. Her black hair had been arranged in two braids, she wore a snugly fitted corset dress, and there was a similar horned helmet sitting atop her head. She and Garrett matched .

“What the—” Charlotte said in a low voice. “Tell me he didn’t bring her .”

I wanted to puke. Nisha? That was a pretty big step down after dating me. Or Charlotte, for that matter.

Garrett looked up and saw Emma, too. His face clouded. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Nisha babbled for the both of them, inviting them to sit and complimenting their costumes when they didn’t move. Then she eyed Emma. “Sutton, did you come here all alone ?” she asked in a simpering voice, sounding absolutely delighted.

“Come on,” Madeline urged, tugging on Emma’s arm. They snaked across the dance floor, which was already sticky with spilled soda, past the DJ booth, where a few groupies leaned against the table, and into the girls’ locker room. Harsh fluorescent lights shone overhead. The faint odor of sweaty socks and spilled shampoo lingered in the air.