Sara Shepard - Twisted

Zach covered his face with his hands. His father turned back to him. “Is what she said true ?”

A gurgling sound emerged from between Zach’s lips. His dad stepped away from him as though he were toxic. Then, abruptly, he reached out his arm and punched the faux-wood wall next to Zach’s head. Spencer jumped back and yelped. Mr. Pennythistle punched the wall again and again. Plaster flew everywhere. When he was finished, he bent over at the waist and placed his bloody fists on his knees. His face twisted with anguish. He looked like he was about to cry.

A small, timid knock sounded on the door. “Nicholas?” Spencer’s mother called. “Is everything okay?”

No one said a word. After a moment, Mr. Pennythistle turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door so hard that the walls shivered. Spencer could hear him talking to her mom in the hall.

She dared to peek at Zach. He looked rattled, but okay. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you tell him that?”

Spencer reached out to him. “I thought he was hurting you!”

Zach’s lips warped into a sneer, and he took a step back from her. He looked at her with utter hatred, a look she thought she’d never see in him. “I asked you to keep it a secret, but I guess that was too much to ask of a Pretty Little Liar,” he snarled. “Rot in hell, bitch.”

Before Spencer could protest, he scooped up his coat, shoved on his shoes, and stormed out of the room, too. The door slammed once more. And then, silence.

Spencer sank to the mattress, knocking one of the pillows on the bed to the floor. It still had an indentation from Zach’s skull. The mattress was still warm from his body.

Another chunk of plaster fell from the wall to the ground. Mr. Pennythistle’s blood dripped onto the carpet from the hole he’d created. It reminded Spencer of the dream she’d had that morning: the line of blood trickling from Ali’s ear. I know what you did.

Beep.

It was Spencer’s BlackBerry, which she’d set on the nightstand before falling asleep last night. Even from across the room, she could tell that the screen said ONE NEW TEXT .

No , Spencer thought. Please. Not now. But she couldn’t ignore it. She had to press READ.

Watch out, Spencer. Eventually, all secrets wash ashore. I think you know exactly what I mean.

–A

The Lenape medical center was nothing but a squat, square building that smelled like antiseptic and cough drops. A TV in the corner silently played an infomercial about a magical potato peeler, the chair Aria was sitting on was making her butt fall asleep, and she was about to lose her mind from the constant drone of the automaton-like National Weather Service voice on the radio. Apparently, this area was due for two more feet of snow tomorrow. Not that they’d stay the extra day to ski. Not after what had happened with Klaudia.

Aria strained to listen for anything coming from the examination room—moans of pain, screams of agony, a heart monitor flat-lining. The room was deadly quiet. Eric and Christopher Kahn lounged on the couches, reading old copies of Sports Illustrated . Noel paced around the small space, on the phone with his mother. “Yeah, Mom . . . she just fell , I don’t know . . . the ski patrol got her . . . we’re at the med center now . . . I hope she’s okay, but I don’t know.”

Just hearing Noel rehash the event made Aria feel shaky and sick. The last few hours had been ugly and surreal. After Klaudia fell off the lift and didn’t move, several skiers stopped around her. A ski guard appeared next, and then a snowmobile with a rescue sled. Someone knelt down and felt Klaudia’s pulse. They screamed in Klaudia’s ear, but Aria couldn’t tell if she answered—that was about the time the lift reached the top of the hill and she’d stumbled off.

Now, everyone was waiting to see what damage had been done. Apparently the ski patrol had been able to wake Klaudia up before they’d loaded her onto the rescue sled and pulled her down the mountain, but she’d been in a lot of pain. An ambulance was waiting for her at the bottom by the time Aria butt-slid down the treacherous hill, and they’d all come here. This didn’t seem like a very decent trauma center, though. It looked more like a DMV.

Noel slumped back down in the plastic chair next to Aria. “My mom’s beside herself. She wanted to come up here and take care of Klaudia, but I said she should wait.”

“She must be so worried,” Aria mumbled, closing the copy of Ladies’ Home Journal in her lap. She’d been reading the same line of an article about how to make prize-winning cheesecake for the last twenty minutes.

Noel leaned closer. “So what happened, exactly? How did Klaudia fall?”

Aria looked at him, feeling a mix of guilt and regret. Noel had arrived on the scene a few minutes after everything happened; he hadn’t seen a thing. They’d been too keyed up to talk on the drive here, but he kept gazing at Aria suspiciously, as if he sensed she’d done something awful.

“I’m not really sure.” It was the truth—she hadn’t meant to push Klaudia off the lift. Shove her away, yeah. But not hurt her.

“Were you guys fighting or something?” Noel searched Aria’s face. “Did she, like, jump?”

Aria shook her head. “She just . . . slipped off. It was really weird.”

Noel crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a long, discerning look that made Aria’s skin prickle. He didn’t believe her. But what was she supposed to do, tell him the real story? That Klaudia said I’m going to fuck your boyfriend in perfect English, without even an accent? That Klaudia had lunged for her, looking crazed and vengeful? Noel would just accuse Aria of being jealous again.

She turned away, fearing that if she stared at him for much longer she’d blurt out everything—and not just what happened on the lift, either. The stuff about A, too. The stuff about Jamaica. The stuff Aria couldn’t block out on the lift today, the horrible thing she’d done. The horrible thing A knew about.

Then again, maybe what she did wasn’t as horrific as she’d thought all these months. If A was Ali—and who else could it be?—then Aria’s push hadn’t killed her.

The door to the treatment rooms opened, and a female doctor in a crisp white coat emerged. “Ms. Huusko is resting,” she said. “You can see her now.”

Everyone rose and followed her to the back. The doctor parted a pink-striped curtain, and there was Klaudia, lying on a cot with a bulky white cast on her ankle. Her blond hair spilled across the pillow. Her plain cotton gown gaped at the bosom. Her lips were pink and glossy as though she’d recently applied a fresh coat of lipstick. She’d managed to look ready for sex even in the hospital.

“Oh my God, Klaudia,” Aria said, feeling a rush of remorse despite Klaudia’s perky appearance. “Are you okay?”

“Does it hurt?” Noel and the other boys asked too, gathering around her bed.

“I fine.” Klaudia simpered at all of them, all traces of her excellent English enunciation gone. “Just a little owie.”

“She has a broken ankle.” A nurse bustled in and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Klaudia’s arm. “That’s pretty minor, considering the accident she had. Luckily, her fall was toward the top of the slope. If it had been in the middle, she would’ve been in real trouble.”

“Yes, is crazy!” Klaudia pretended to wipe sweat off her brow. “I never fall from lift before! Oof!”

“So what happened?” Noel perched on the edge of Klaudia’s bed.

Klaudia licked her lips and eyed Aria. The only sound in the room was the nurse pumping up the blood pressure cuff. Every muscle in Aria’s body tensed, waiting for the blow. Of course Klaudia was going to rat her out. She wanted to sleep with Noel—this would get Aria out of the way.