AN: okay. I'm so happy sad right now, but I guess I should point it out. There will be one more chapter left after this one (cue hysterical crying - I don't want this to end!!!)
After chapter 45, there will be an epilogue and special bonuses to give you a view on some other characters as it hits milestones. Man, I can't even talk about it anymore. I don't want it to end. Seriously, in a toddler-like tantrum I might not even post the last chapters just so it goes on forever (kidding).
here it is. Love you guys.
Don't forget to vote and comment if you can, it helps me so much.
Ann 💕
Chloe,
At lunch time, be by the courtyard. By the statue of Mathew Arlington.
Consider this a favor. From me to you.
Jack.
"Please, just, I don't know, talk with me," Lola continued, her gaze frantic and her fingers wringing the corner of her untucked blouse. Like she was nervous.
My lips opened and closed, no words escaping as I tried to process exactly what was going on. It was a complete contrast to everything I'd anticipated, and she was so deadly calm that it felt like a trap. A big one. But what could I do? Leave for class and let it all wait for me at lunch time? I cast a glance to the students around us, their gazes already fixed on Lola and I.
I finally nodded, my gut twisting in warning.
"Come on, let's go somewhere private," she said, grabbing my wrist and leading me away.
Oh God, what is she going to do with me?
My heartbeat accelerated. Appearing weak had to be to her advantage. She could be leading me to my death, for all I knew. Maybe Sophie was lying in waiting with a knife or some other murder weapon. I started calculating how quickly I could call for help.
Why couldn't you have been smarter, Chloe? You should have told her no. You should have just done it.
"I don't want people to overhear," Lola muttered, her caramel hair bouncing from her ponytail as she scoured the people around us. Was she making sure nobody was eavesdropping? Or was she making sure nobody else from level one were nearby?
Or making sure there will be no witnesses to your untimely death.
"Overhear what?" I managed to ask, my voice much too feeble. I cleared my throat. I couldn't appear weak.
She sighed, running a hand through the loose golden strands which fell to her face. "We just need to talk, okay?"
I raised an eyebrow as she continued to navigate us through the students. With a small pang of guilt, I realized I'd be skipping my first class. I could already hear my mom's impending lecture.
My mind was so busy turning over my options that I didn't realize Lola had led us up a flight of stairs and was making a beeline for the fire escape door.
Oh god, she was going to throw me off of the roof.
"Are you sure you should be opening that?" I asked as she tugged at the heavy door. I was sure it would set off some kind of alarm and our whole secret meet up would be thrown to the wind.
"Relax," she said, her tone fringed with bitterness as she glanced my way. "We used to come out here to smoke all the time in sophomore year."
Sure enough, there was a little platform of metal railing that we could stand on. It was ironic, really. There we were, literally on level one as we sat above the main courtyard.
Lola lowered to the ground, dangling her feet off of the edge of the platform and looping her arm around the banister. I looked over my shoulder one more time. The door was shut behind us. Warily, I followed suit.
"That girl is still finding ways to haunt me," Lola said once I'd properly joined her, pushing her palms into her eyes before taking a steady breath and clearing her throat. Her eyes fixed on mine. "Monica, I mean."
My throat went dry. I couldn't speak. Hearing her say her name was like falling face first into ice, a freezing slap across my cheek.
"She was your best friend," she said, the statement hanging in the air, crawling over my skin and making me feel ill. The words coming from Lola's lips sounded wrong. Monica was sacred to me, and I felt selfish. I wanted to snatch her from Lola's memory and keep her to myself. To pretend it was just the two of us.
"She was," I said, my tone defensive. I shifted my weight in discomfort.
"I know you want revenge. That's the whole reason you got with Will and wormed your way into our group. You want to end us," she continued.
I lifted my chin, the wind playing lazily with the tips of my hair. I wasn't going to deny it. The only thing I could hope for was that she assumed my mediocre takedown material was much more than it really was.
"You might think you have nothing to lose," she went on, her honey eyes burning into my own as her expression settled into what I could only translate as warning. "But trust me, you do."
My heart beat accelerated. I leveled my shoulders. "I have nothing to lose."
She gave me a doubtful look before casting her gaze over the finely maintained gardens of the school. It was now devoid of students, class now officially started.
"There's a reason I'm doing this right now," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "It's not for you, or even for Monica."
"Who for then?" I asked, humoring her.
"For Will," she said finally, chewing the bottom of her plump lip in thought. An emotion had taken her tone, one of longing.
I frowned, swallowing the ball of what I could only determine as jealousy down my throat. "What about him?"
"You don't understand," she said, letting out a laugh that wasn't filled with mirth or sarcasm. It was more of a sardonic sound, one devoid of care. Like she had already given up. "If any of us wanted to take you down, it wouldn't be you we went for. We know you're as clean as a fucking whistle. Trust me, Soph and I have looked."
I narrowed my eyes. They still never found out about me and Monica, so they mustn't have looked very deeply.
Unless someone was looking out for me too. Had Will helped me cover my tracks? Lola continued, oblivious of my thoughts.
"If you attacked us, and all of us know that's what you want, then we wouldn't take it lightly. We'd destroy him."
Confusion swept through me. "Will?"
"You care about him," she said, her eyes popping with the bridge of humor as she looked to me. "We all see that. Not to mention, he's all you have."
My breath was coming fast now. I could imagine it so easily. Francis clearly hated him, and all of them were ruthless enough to back him up. I was sure Will had enough behind him with all his time on level one as well as his dodgy family business. They could easily ensure his future was destroyed.
And God, it hurt to think about it. She was right. I did care about him, and I knew he was a good person from the way he'd watched out for me at every instant. At the way his lips brushed so carefully against my own. If they ruined his life because of what I did, then I wasn't sure I could live with the guilt. My chest constricted painfully.
"It was fake," I said, my bid to his protection. It was the only thing I could think of, to emotionally detach myself from him. "Our whole relationship was a lie."
Lola's lips lifted a little, the same way one smiled at a cute young child. "That's not true and you know it. I'm sure he told you just how well I know him."
She should be trying to destroy me right now.
She went on. "I know him well enough to know that there's something between you. And the others have seen enough to know that he's an effective route to take if they want you at their mercy. And they'll use it."
I let out a long breath. If what she was saying was true, then I had left a gaping, vulnerable hole in my plan.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked, suspicious.
"Because I care about him too much to let that happen," Lola said, her eyes darting away again. She took a breath. Her lavender perfume clung on the breeze, filling my lungs with a toxic stench.
I'd thought that Lola saw Will as an object, someone she could use to rebel against Francis. Another thing she could play with and control.
"And because of that damn girl," she continued, her teeth gritting and her gaze searching garden below us. "Because she died. And I'm going to live with that guilt until I die. And maybe we deserve whatever you have planned for us. I'm sure it's awful. We're awful."
Her gaze met mine again, and for a second Lola Davenport looked a little human. She didn't look like the unattainable goddess with perfect makeup and a perfect smile. She looked tired. Her smile was fractured with signs of grief.
"I didn't know her before she started coming to our parties," she mused. "I didn't know if she was kind, or gentle, or fair. At first, I thought she was cute. Naïve. But she was never either of those things."
I let my eyelids flutter shut for a second, Monica's face filling my vision. Again, jealousy burned in the pit of my stomach. All of the moments that Lola had shared with my best friend that should have been mine.
"She was playing a game, Chloe," she said "One none of us were clued into until it was too late and she had control. She was strategic. She knew what she wanted, and that was to be queen of whatever power we have here at Arlington."
Monica did want that. She never hid how much she envied their positions at the prime of level one. I just never thought she was that serious about winning it over.
"You know the last thing I told her was not to take that pill. To wait until she was sober," she said, her voice quietening so much that I almost struggled to hear her words as they trickled away with the wind. "And she took it anyway. And then..."
I waited for Lola as her eyelashes fluttered and she blinked away moisture. I couldn't tell if it was an act, and my grip tightened on the cool metal I was leaning on.
"Me and Sophie found her. She wasn't... she wasn't dead when we got there. We didn't know she was dying, Chloe. We thought she was passed out. I thought she needed a doctor. But Soph... she means well. She's my best friend. She was scared, she thought if we drew attention to it I would get in trouble for dealing her the stuff, and all of us would be charged. She talked me out of it. I shouldn't have listened."
My mind was screaming at me to shut her out. To block my ears, or run away. To reassure myself that Monica was still there, on the other side of the ink when I wrote to her. I didn't want to be reminded that she was dead.
But she was.
"I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry, we never thought she'd die from it," she said, her voice sharp, sounding as if it were cloaked with choked back tears. When I looked at her, I realized there were streaks of moisture tracing down her cheeks. "I just wanted to say it before you do whatever you're going to do. I don't care what it is. We deserve the worst. I just wanted to try and protect Will."
It would be so easy for her to say that, to hide the fact that she was protecting herself by using my feelings for him against me.
"Why do you do it?" I asked after a few minutes passed and her tears began to dry. My lips struggled to decide which question to spill first. "Why do you sell drugs? Why do you put up with Francis and his abuse, and why do you manipulate people so you have control?"
Lola let out a humorless laugh as she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. "I sell drugs because my brother makes them. You probably don't even know I have a brother. My parents would do anything to hide him. He has Asperger's, my parents sent him to a school on the East Coast to help with his learning. He didn't make many friends here. He's not good at talking, or anything related to people. But he's great with chemistry."
I frowned. I didn't know of Lola's brother, and that scared me. I thought I'd done my research so heavily that I knew more about level one than they did themselves.
"If you ever let that one out, I'll kill you myself," Lola joked, but her words still made my muscles tense. "And Francis... well I'm sure you know it's more complicated than that. He's controlling. He doesn't know how to handle emotion. And then there's the pressure he's placed under, it's no secret he's cracking. To be honest, I'm waiting for the last crack to surface, so he shatters altogether."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
She shook her head. "He'll break soon. He has to. He doesn't sleep. He doesn't even eat much, he's a ticking time bomb. Monica messed him up too, and then... let's just say he has a lot to blackmail me with. My hands are tied with him, all I can do is wait."
I was quiet, wondering just what secrets Francis had to use on his own girlfriend.
"And Christ, I'm giving you just as much material. Is it weird that I'm not worried anymore? It's like, knowing that you're here for her has taken a weight from my shoulders. You don't scare me because I know we deserve it. And I'm not jealous anymore because I know that Will was too good for me to begin with."
I frowned. I didn't realize even Lola knew just how twisted she was.
"And the last part, about me manipulating to gain control. You know the answer to that one already. Isn't that what you've been doing this whole time?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Maddy adores you, you know. So do the guys, and obviously Will. You have a lot of people wound around your little finger. Well, you did."
To a degree, she was right. My whole plan involved manipulating people. I sighed, tucking my hair behind my ear, my gaze fixated on the flagpole opposite us. The American flag blew in the wind, just like all of the secrets that were finally being aired out.
"Like I said, you have every right to do it. But I don't want you to. I don't want Will to be the one who suffers for her. I can promise you, that despite whatever masks you see on our faces, the guilt that girl implanted in all of us eats us from within every day."
I clenched my jaw, the piece within me so desperate for revenge coiling around in my stomach, begging me to attack. But I felt numb. Lola was exposed, and now I had the weight of Will on my back too. I had to choose between him and my revenge.
I couldn't do it. Not today. I'd have to be more strategic. To somehow protect him, and to protect myself.
Lola flicked her wrist so she could assess the time on her Marc Jacobs watch. "I have to leave. I'm going home. I just wanted to get to you before they did, or before you implemented whatever it is you have."
Wasn't she at least curious as to what exactly it was that I had? It felt unnatural that she was so casual about it. So uncaring.
"Why do I get the sense that you don't care about any of this?" I asked, my tone careful.
Lola unlinked her legs from under the pole and straightened, looking down at me where I still sat with my legs dangling. "Because I don't. I was forced to pretend Monica never happened, but you've brought it all to the surface again. I'm allowed to feel human for a little while, not like the cold-hearted bitch I'm forced to be to keep everything under control."
I blinked, feeling both frustrated and relieved. Frustrated because the fact that Lola didn't care meant that she didn't have anything left to hide, and relieved because somehow, something in my universe had become balanced. No, not balanced. I was more stressed than ever now that I had William to consider in all of this. No, instead I felt like... like some of the accusation I had over Monica's death had dissipated.
I stayed looking over the garden for a little longer, my mind flitting between comical things like how much I was going to suffer when my mom found out I'd skipped, and detrimental things like what lunch time would bring. At least William was back for his suspension now. I'd have him by my side.
My thoughts were derailed when my phone buzzed with a message. My heart thudded heavily when I saw Jack's name identified as the number, and the brief message he'd left telling me to be in the courtyard at twelve.
Was this going to be my execution? Just how closely was he working with them?
I didn't even notice the time slip away, my thoughts were too consumed with Monica. But, before I was ready, twelve ticked by. There was a large tree blocking my view of the statue of Mathew Arlington from my position on the fire escape, and so I couldn't simply spy from afar. Regretfully, I swung my legs back onto the platform and re-entered the building.
As usual, the cafeteria was loud with activity when I passed it. I was thankful I wouldn't have to face the swarms of people, or the dreaded table that level one sat at. Instead, I had someone else to be terrified of. And that was Jack.
The fact that he was so unpredictable had me completely on edge. He was dangerous.
I decided last minute to hide behind one of the columns that framed the courtyard. He had said lunch time, and we were now ten minutes in. A favor from me to you. What did he mean?
My thoughts were disrupted when the wind changed direction, blowing with it the distant sound of voices. Two boy's voices. I moved closer, hiding behind a column adjacent to the one I'd just been at, too scared to look out onto the garden or towards the stone carved face of Mathew Arlington. I didn't want to be spotted.
But then I heard the voices, crystal clear. They were only yards away.
"You never said anything about warning Chloe."
"I didn't need to. Isn't it obvious that warning her would make her prepared? Things needed to happen naturally."
There was a hesitation. My heart was crumbling with each word spoken. I knew precisely who belonged to each of those voices.
"So what are you going to do to me? Use it?"
More hesitation.
"No. I'll keep that up my sleeve. Instead, you can explain to her that you've been helping me keep tabs this whole time."
"You can't tell her, Jack."
My body froze over.
"I know you're nearby, Chloe," Jack said, his voice increasing in volume, edged with a sick amusement. "Want to come and have a chat with the boy who's been betraying you this whole time?"
William.