Sara Shepard - Burned

“Hey, party people!” Jeremy called from the stage. Shabby-looking guys in roadie T-shirts and ripped jeans scuttled behind him, setting up equipment. “I realize we’re still setting up, but to get you in the mood, I have a huge surprise for you. A special guest has joined us to perform a few songs as a pre-show event. Without further ado, put your hands together for … Vegan Sunrise!”

Aria looked at Noel questioningly; she’d never heard of them. Kids clapped halfheartedly, looking just as confused. But when four band members took the stage and started playing a guitar-heavy cover of “When I Come Around,” everyone shrugged and started dancing.

The food line moved, and Aria and Noel filled their plates. She checked her phone a few more times, but still no Emily or Spencer. The crowd got more raucous and excited, and a girl’s elbow flew out of nowhere, knocking Aria’s plate from her hands. She twisted to grab it, but her ankle turned awkwardly, and down she went, too. She felt herself falling but couldn’t do anything about it; in seconds, she was on the floor, vegetarian noodles in her hair. A ping sounded in her ear. At first, she thought it was the fork bouncing off the ground, but when she picked herself up, she realized that it was her locket. Its two halves had sprung open from the fall.

“Are you okay?” Noel asked, extending his arm to help Aria up.

“Sure,” Aria said, picking up her spilled food as best she could and tossing it into a nearby trash can. Then she turned back to the locket. Inside was a picture of two blond, smiling girls, their cheeks pressed together. As she squinted, she slowly realized that she knew the girls. The one on the right had a round face, big blue eyes, and faint burn scars on her neck. Tabitha .

Then she looked at the girl on the left. Her eyes slowly scanned her familiar heart-shaped face, her big blue eyes. She drew back, startled. No . It couldn’t be.

She held the locket away from her face, but the girl’s eyes seemed to follow her. She had a manipulative, winning smile that had entranced Aria for years. A scream froze in Aria’s throat. All of a sudden, she couldn’t breathe.

Ali .

“Aria?”

Aria looked up and blinked. Noel was staring at her from a few feet away. She gave him a tight, nervous smile and shut the locket fast. The catch had broken, though, and the locket sprung right back open. She stared at the picture once more. It couldn’t be. Surely her brain was playing tricks on her. She tried to close it again, then peered carefully at the front of the pendant. In the strong overhead stage lights, the initial inscribed into the silver wasn’t an I or a J . It was a T .

For Tabitha?

Something suddenly clicked in her brain. Heart thudding, she grabbed her phone, pulled up the Tabitha Clark Memorial website, and stared hard at the picture of the girl on the home page. That was where she had seen this necklace before. On Tabitha, before she died.

She held up the necklace. “W-where did you really find this?”

Noel looked confused. “I told you. It was in the sand in St. Martin. Why?”

Aria’s thoughts scattered in a million different directions. “That’s impossible,” she whispered. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Had A planted it for Noel to find? And then there was the picture—Tabitha and Ali had been friends.

She took a step, but her legs felt wobbly. “Aria?” Noel touched her arm. “What is it?”

“I just have to …,” she said faintly. She staggered toward the exit. Her phone beeped. It was Graham. Panicked, Aria hit IGNORE, then dialed Spencer’s number. But the call went to voicemail.

“Where are you?” Aria demanded after the beep. “We need to talk.”

But she was afraid to say anything over the phone, so she hung up and kept running. She called Emily next, but she didn’t answer either. Same with Hanna. She ran up the aisle and sprinted to the elevator, pressing the UP button repeatedly.

“Aria?”

Aria turned. Graham was standing by the window, staring at her. “You walked right past me,” he said, looking annoyed. “Why didn’t you answer my call? I need to talk to you.”

“I …” Aria trailed off, her gaze dropping to the locket in her hands. Graham was looking at it, too. His eyebrows met. His mouth grew very small, and all of a sudden, he reached out and touched her wrist. She gasped and closed her fist around it, but it was too late. Of course Graham recognized his girlfriend’s old necklace. He’d probably recognized it from earlier.

“I-I can explain,” Aria stammered.

Graham blinked hard. “You can ?”

His cheeks were red. His eyes blazed. All at once, another barrel clicked in her brain, and a horrible thought bulldozed all others. He knows what I did .

It made perfect sense. Graham hadn’t wanted to talk to her about his burgeoning crush: He wanted to confront Aria about being a murderer.

She spun around, searching frantically for somewhere to go. The red EXIT sign for the stairs glowed in the distance.

“Aria!” Graham yelled, lurching after her. He grabbed her arm and clamped down hard. His fingers felt like hot irons on Aria’s skin. She screamed and wrenched away from him, pushing through the heavy door and heading down. She’d never gone below the auditorium level and didn’t know what was there. Up ahead was a door marked DO NOT ENTER.

Graham’s footsteps echoed on the landing below. “Aria, come back here!” he roared.

She burst through the door anyway and spilled into a large, empty room full of ship machinery. Boilers chugged. Air-conditioning units hummed. Other utility devices rattled and churned. The space was lit by a few spare overhead lights and split into several long, mazelike corridors. There wasn’t a soul around.

Behind her, the door opened. “Aria!” Graham called out, his voice reverberating.

Aria skidded behind a boiler, but Graham spied her and started running, his face red, his nostrils flaring, his teeth bared.

She wheeled around, desperately searching for someone to help her, but she was alone. Then she scrambled for somewhere to go, somewhere to hide. There was another door past the boilers marked STAFF ONLY. She ran for it and pushed it open. This room was filled with pipes and monitors and more boilers. The grumbling sound was almost deafening, reminding her of a revved motorcycle engine. The doorknob rattled, and Aria rushed to turn the lock, then threw her weight against it. Frightened tears ran down her cheeks.

“Damn it, Aria, you can’t hide forever!” Graham pounded on the door.

“Please,” Aria whimpered. “Just go away. Please .”

“I’m not leaving until—”

An engine sputtered. He tried to scream over the machinery sounds. “I need to—I need …”

“Just leave me alone!” Aria sobbed. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to do it to her! I was just so scared! We all were!”

“You can’t … I … he … and …” Graham’s angry voice rose and fell. Aria could only make out every other word. “… watching you!”

“Please go away!” Aria screamed. “I said I was sorry! Please let me go!”

“… there’s a picture!” Graham continued. “… watching you!”

Aria blood sizzled. He had to be referencing the awful photo of Aria pushing Tabitha off the roof. Maybe he had taken that photo. Maybe that’s what he meant by watching you .

Thoughts cascaded in her mind like a falling line of dominoes. What if Graham was crazy about Tabitha and hadn’t let her go after they broke up? Maybe he’d followed her to Jamaica to rekindle things. Maybe he’d taken pictures of her without her knowing, and had posed on the shore to take pictures of Tabitha on the crow’s-nest deck. Only, instead of documenting Tabitha with some new friends, he had witnessed a murder. Maybe he’d snapped a picture of her lying on the beach, too, after she’d fallen and died. Maybe he’d even torn this necklace from her throat and planted it for Noel to find. It didn’t make sense why Graham didn’t tell someone at the resort right away, but maybe he’d wanted to get revenge his way. And so … he’d become A.