Sara Shepard - Ruthless

Hurry, girls! Before it’s too late! —A

Emily and Kelsey sped past the quaint shops on the main drive, the Hollis clock tower, the covered bridge, the upscale hair salon where Their Ali had taken Emily and her friends to get eyebrow waxes for seventh-grade graduation. Ali had tried to talk Emily into getting a bikini wax, too, but Emily had refused.

Kelsey didn’t say a word, just drove, staring straight ahead. Every so often, her whole body shivered and spasmed, like Emily’s body did when she was waking from a bad dream.

“Is everything okay?” Emily asked tentatively.

“Everything’s fine,” Kelsey answered. “Never better! On top of the world! Why do you ask?”

Whoa. She’d said all that in the span of about two seconds. Emily eased back in her seat, feeling the seat belt cut against her chest. “You confronted Spencer about what happened, right? How did that go? Are you upset?”

Kelsey took her hands off the wheel, leaned over, and started to stroke Emily’s shoulder. “You’re so cute. Do you always get this worried about people, or am I special?”

“Uh, can you watch the road?” Emily warned as the car drifted over the dotted yellow line. A car speeding toward them honked and swerved.

“I hope I’m special to you.” Kelsey faced front again. “Because you’re special to me.”

“Good,” Emily answered, but she still felt a little unnerved. She stared out the window at the dark telephone poles rushing past. Where were they, anyway? This was a part of Rosewood she rarely visited.

Just after an old, ramshackle Quaker church came into view, Kelsey wrenched the wheel, sending the car onto a hidden turnoff. A sign swept past, written in crooked capital letters. FLOATING MAN QUARRY.

“W-why are we going here?” Emily stammered.

“Have you ever been to this place?” Kelsey gunned up the steep hill. “It’s awesome. I haven’t been here in ages. Not since before I went to juvie.”

Emily peeked out the window. She hadn’t been here in a while, either: The last time was when she and the others had discovered Mona Vanderwaal was the original A. Mona had been about to push Spencer over the cliff into the jagged rocks below, but Mona had slipped to her death instead.

“There are cooler places than this, you know,” Emily said shakily. “There’s a spot near the train tracks where you can see the whole Main Line.”

“Nah, I like it here.” Kelsey pulled into the empty parking lot next to a big trash barrel. “Come on!” She ran over to Emily’s side and pulled her out. “You’ve got to see this view!”

“That’s okay.” Emily wriggled her arm from Kelsey’s grasp. Her heels sank in the wet grass. “I’m not really good with heights.”

“But it’s so beautiful, Emily!” Kelsey gestured toward the edge of the ravine. Her eyes were bulging and a little crossed, and she was still twitching and shaking. “This should be on your bucket list! You haven’t lived until you’ve stood on the precipice of a cliff!”

Kelsey punctuated the last line with a faint giggle. The hair on the back of Emily’s neck stood on end. She thought of Spencer’s warnings. The coincidental overlap in Jamaica. The two hands pushing Emily over the hill, Kelsey appearing at the top seconds later. Kelsey’s sudden bizarre behavior.

“Kelsey, what’s going on?” Emily whispered.

Kelsey broke into a broad, off-kilter smile. “Nothing! Why would you say that?”

“You seem so . . . different . Like you’re . . . I don’t know . . . you’re drunk or something.”

“Just drunk on life!” Kelsey spread out her arms. “Ready to do something huge! I thought you were brave, Emily. Don’t you want to stand on the cliff with me?”

Kelsey skipped toward the edge of the gulch, leaving her bag gaping open on the driver’s seat. The lights over the dashboard were still on, and Emily could see the bag’s contents. Sitting right on top was a huge vial of pills. There was no name on the prescription label.

All kinds of alarms were going off inside her. Slowly, without making any sound, she felt around in her pocket for her cell phone. When she found it, she tapped in a quick message to Aria. SOS. At Floating Man. Please come.

She pressed SEND and waited for the confirmation that Aria had received the message. But then Kelsey turned around. “Who are you calling?”

“No one.” Emily dropped her phone back into her pocket.

Kelsey went limp. “You don’t want to be here, do you? You don’t want to hang out with me.”

“Of course I do. But I’m worried about you tonight. You seem . . . upset. Kind of weird. Is it because of what I told you? I should’ve come clean from the start. I’m sorry.”

Kelsey sniffed sharply. “Well, I should’ve come clean, too.”

Emily cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a liar, just like you.” Kelsey giggled, retreating toward Emily. “You know when I told you I didn’t realize you were Spencer’s best friend? Or that you went through all that stuff with Alison? I knew all along, Emily. I was just pretending I didn’t.”

Emily pressed her hand against her temple, trying to take this in. “Why?”

“Because I was trying to be nice.” The wind picked up strands of Kelsey’s hair. “Not gawk at you like you were some freak. What’s your excuse, Emily? Did you want to laugh at me behind my back? Did you and Spencer giggle about what she did to me?”

“Of course not!” Emily cried. “I only found out after we met!”

Kelsey’s eyes flashed. “You have all kinds of secrets up your sleeve, don’t you?” She shook her head in disgust. “I can’t believe you did what you did. You’re a horrible person, Emily. Horrible .”

Emily pressed her hand to her heart and felt it thudding through her dress. Kelsey’s features had transformed. Now she stared at Emily with pure, clean hate, the same self-loathing Emily felt ever since Tabitha’s remains had turned up on the shore. All at once, every theory Spencer had proposed about this girl seemed possible. More than possible—right. She thought about the picture of Tabitha on Kelsey’s phone. And about Tabitha’s face as Aria shoved her off the roof. The soft thud as she hit the ground. The resort had seemed so desolate, as though every guest had vacated the island for the night. But someone had been watching. Kelsey.

How had Emily not seen it before? Was Spencer right? Had Emily been blinded by her crush?

In any case Kelsey was right: Emily was a horrible person. The most horrible person in the world.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Emily whispered. “You don’t understand.”

Kelsey shook her head in disgust. “You let it happen. And you said nothing.”

Emily covered her face in her hands, thinking of the Tabitha memorial pages online, her grieving friends and family. “I know. I should have. It’s awful.”

A faint sound of tires on gravel rang out, and Emily turned. Headlights appeared above the crest, and Aria’s Subaru gunned up the hill. Aria gripped the wheel. Hanna sat next to her, frantically pointing when she saw Emily.

Emily lifted her hands above her head to wave them over, but Kelsey caught her wrist. “You’re coming with me.” She yanked Emily toward the cliff.

“No!” Emily tried to pull away, but Kelsey gripped her hard, dragging her so forcefully Emily’s feet left the ground.

“I want you to see this,” Kelsey said, marching her toward the ravine. Emily’s ankles turned several times in her uncomfortable shoes, and when one of them fell off she left it there and went the rest of the way in one stockinged foot. Tears streamed down her face, and she could barely breathe she was so afraid.