“Levi.”
I snap my head up, his name slicing through the music and bringing me back to life. It came from Lucy, her cerulean eyes trained on him like a predator in the night. Maybe it’s the disarming nature of her gaze, or the fact that my cup is alarmingly empty, or even the contrast of her voice to that of Lucas’s—hers crisp and clean, compared to his disjointed rambling—but I suddenly realize I haven’t seen her take a drink all night.
Her cup is right there, sitting by her side, but she’s barely even touched it.
“Yeah?” Levi looks up at her, his own eyes inflamed from the fluorescent light or the alcohol or a little bit of both. He seems surprised to find her addressing him directly like this, though he’s been eyeing her all night, drawn to her the way everyone is. A feral tension radiating between them that’s come to feel normal for Lucy. I can tell he’s been wanting to talk to her, catch her eye, and I watch as he looks back down, realizing the pin is pointed at him. “Oh.” He lets out a laugh, self-consciously dragging one hand down his face. “Ah, truth, I guess.”
Lucy smiles, her lips curling up into that feline grin like that was the answer she was hoping he would pick. Then she leans forward, dramatic, hands on the floor in front of her like she’s about to let him in on her deepest secret.
“Levi Butler,” she whispers, her body tilting closer, a seduction in her voice that makes my skin pulse. The air around us is suddenly so charged, we’ve practically stopped breathing. “If you knew you could get away with murder, would you do it?”
CHAPTER 19
AFTER
Sloane is right: it was Lucy’s idea.
Right there, sitting in that circle, the seed was planted in all our minds. We didn’t even know it was there in the beginning. It was still a hidden thing, tucked away and biding its time, though over the next few months, its roots would dig deep into our brains, settling in. Spindly little things that would grow thick and strong, tendrils curling. Suffocating us. Holding us tight.
We knew what we were doing, though. We knew the risks. We can’t blame it all on Lucy, because while she was the one who started it, we were the ones who finished it.
My phone buzzes loud against my bedside table, the violent jolt of it startling me back to life, back to the present. Away from my memories of those early days, utopian and distant, and back to the stark reality of now: Levi dead, Lucy missing.
Sloane, Nicole, and me at the beating center of it all.
I glance over to my phone, finally, and roll my eyes when I see who’s calling, pulling myself from my comforter and answering after the fifth ring.
“Hey, Mom,” I say, wishing almost immediately that I let it go to voice mail instead.
“Margot, honey, oh my God,” she says, not bothering with a hello herself. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, rubbing my eyes. Lucy has been gone for a full week and none of us have been getting much sleep. It’s even worse now that it’s officially hit the news, the police asking for the public’s help to find her.
They still have no idea where she is. They’re starting to get desperate.
“Where is Lucy?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “She does this sometimes.”
“What do you mean she does this sometimes?”
“She just does her own thing. It’s not the first time she’s gone somewhere without telling anyone. You remember Christmas.”
My mom is quiet, thinking. They had met once, my mom and Lucy; a whirlwind of a week that was, other than that night at Penny Lanes, the unofficial start of all this.
“I knew I had a bad feeling about her, even then—”
“No, you didn’t. You said you loved her.”
“Did she have something to do with that Butler boy?” she interrupts, the real reason she’s calling. “Margot, honey, this is serious.”
“No,” I say. “God, Mom, are you kidding? You’re really asking me if Lucy killed someone?”
“It’s just strange,” she says. “Another freak accident, especially after what happened to Eliza…”
“This has nothing to do with Eliza,” I snap. “Why are you even bringing her up?”
“Because that boy was the last person to be seen with her alive!” she practically screams into the phone. “Your best friend, Margot! And now he’s dead, and your new best friend is missing after being interrogated about it! It doesn’t make sense!”
“You’re being hysterical,” I say, only because I don’t want to admit she’s right.
“If he hurt her, I would understand,” my mother says after a heavy silence. I hear her exhale, finally, and I can so perfectly picture the way her free hand is probably worrying its way around her pearl necklace, yanking it from her skin like a too-tight turtleneck. “I would understand if she had to, you know, protect herself.”
“It wasn’t like that, Mom.”
“You know as well as anyone what that boy might be capable of.”
“I said it wasn’t like that.”
“I’m just worried about you.”
“You’re worried about how it looks,” I correct.
“Well, yes, of course I am,” she snaps. “People are going to start avoiding you like the plague if everyone you hang out with keeps winding up missing or dead.”
I close my eyes, let her talk. There’s no point in arguing.
“I can’t believe they’re letting you stay in that house after everything that’s happened,” she mutters, and my eyes click open again, relieved at the shift in topic.
“Actually, they’re not,” I say at last, leaning against my bedframe. “They’re giving us a week to move out.”
“That’s good,” she says, her tone softening. “I never liked the idea of you living there, anyway. All those boys just next door.”
“It’s not as bad as it seems.”
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“The college found us an apartment a few blocks away,” I say, glancing around my room, trying not to think about the fact that I still need to pack. I’ve known this was coming for a while, but still, I’ve been avoiding it. We all have.
“What are they going to do with the house?” she asks, and I pinch the bridge of my nose, bottling a scream.
“I think it’ll just be vacant for a while,” I say. “Kappa Nu’s suspended until the investigation wraps, and they own it, so we can’t just live here without landlords.”
“Maybe now is the time to reassess Rutledge,” my mom says, a noticeable pep in her voice like the thought just occurred to her, even though I know she’s been thinking it since the day we put down the deposit. “Distance yourself from all this nonsense. Plenty of students transfer after a year or two, and you do still have the grades for Duke, don’t you?”
“I’m not transferring,” I interrupt. “And I have to go, Mom. I’m really busy right now. Midterms start in two weeks.”
“I don’t know how they expect you to get through exams in the midst of all of this,” she says, sighing. “It’s not right. One student missing and another one dead.”
“Yeah,” I say, chewing over that second sentence: One student missing and another one dead. “Guess they just want to keep us feeling normal.”
“Well, there is nothing normal about this,” she says, her voice dipped into a whisper, muttering to herself like she forgot I’m even here. “Nothing normal at all.”
CHAPTER 20
BEFORE
The room is silent except for the electric piano drifting around us, the floor tilting and spinning like a merry-go-round. It almost feels like we’re swept up in it, unable to escape, moving around and around with the music as it mounts louder in our ears.
I think I might be sick.
“Well?” Lucy asks, and I feel myself blink. I look over at Levi, at his stunned expression, then back at Lucy. Her eyes haven’t left his for even a second.