CRAZY PEOPLE

“Every time something like this happens to you, I think there’s no way anything like this can possibly happen to you again, because what are the chances?” Noelle said, leaning against a stone planter at the front of Cheyenne’s house as the evil walking-dead girl herself was loaded into an ambulance. “But then—”

“It always happens again,” I finished for her.

She nodded, narrowing her eyes. “Have you ever thought about getting a gun? You looked pretty badass back there, holding that thing over Cheyenne. And if anyone I knew ever needed one . . .”

I mentally scrolled through all my near-death experiences: Ariana on the Billings roof; Sabine at Kiran’s birthday party; pretty much all of St. Barths; and now this. “I’m anti guns, but you do make an interesting point,” I conceded.

Noelle lifted an arm and laid it around my shoulder, pulling me to her side. “We have met more than our fair share of bat-shit crazy people over the past two years, haven’t we?”

We both watched as a pair of uniformed police officers dragged Graham past us, his hands cuffed behind him, and practically tossed him into a police car. My heart felt sick and heavy and withered, like it was being bathed in battery acid. Graham Hathaway. I never would have thought he had it in him.

“Yes,” I replied, holding my cast against my chest and pushing my other hand into the pocket of my jacket, which had been returned to me by Detective Hauer. He was now standing about thirty yards away, taking statements from Taylor, Kiran, and Ivy. I had already called Josh to thank him for phoning in my backup, but he’d said that when he’d called, the police were already on their way. Apparently, Sawyer had dialed 911 right after texting me to run. I guess his phone call had been more convincing than mine. In any case I was practically itching to get home to Josh for a nice, long hug. “Yes, we have.”

“Do you think it’ll be better at Yale?” Noelle pondered, tipping her face up toward the now clearing sky.

“God, it better be,” I replied.

And somehow, we both managed to laugh.

A familiar figure appeared at the door of the house. Sawyer. He locked eyes with me and I could feel all the sorrow and fear pouring off of him. I stood up straight as he approached, his steps tentative, like if I made any sudden movements he was ready to bolt. I tried to smile. Sawyer, of all people, had nothing to fear from me.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

Noelle looked back and forth between the two of us and tugged out her phone. “I think I’m gonna call Dash.”

Then she moved a few feet away, giving us room to talk.

“I am so, so sorry, Reed,” Sawyer began, reaching toward me, but then letting his hand fall, like he didn’t know what to do with it. “I knew Graham was trying to sabotage Billings, but I had no clue he was going to try to hurt you, I swear.”

“I know,” I said.

“You do?” Sawyer asked, dubious.

“Sawyer, I know you. If you knew he was going to hurt me, you would have told someone,” I said, walking up a couple of steps to sit down on a flat portion of the wide stair wall. The rain had stopped, but the concrete was cold and still wet. I thought about moving, but decided I was too exhausted to care.

“I only just figured it out last night. I walked in on him Skyping with Cheyenne, talking about him stealing my father’s gun,” Sawyer said, sitting next to me, his shoulders hunched. “When I confronted him about it, he said it was all a joke and then he kind of tricked me into coming here. I was able to send you that one text about not going to the banquet tonight before they locked me up and took my phones. I managed to lift mine off of him when he came in to check on me just before you guys got here. That’s how I sent that warning text and called the police. I’m just sorry it took so long.”

I nodded, trying to process everything. “So with the Billings stuff, you were trying to help me, but still protect your brother.”

“Yeah. I’m such an idiot.” He looked over as the sirens whooped to life and the ambulance carrying Cheyenne zoomed off, followed by two police cars. “Like he needed so much protecting.”

His eyes filled with tears and his bottom lip quivered. I put my arm around him and squeezed, my heart filling and swelling and breaking for him. First he’d lost his mother, then his sister, and now Graham. I couldn’t imagine what this was doing to him.

“Sawyer?”

We both flinched, and I let go of him. Mr. Hathaway jogged toward us, his tan trench coat billowing out behind him, a haggard look on his face. I saw his car idling at the curb as he swooped in on Sawyer and wrapped him up in a hug.

“What happened, son?” he asked. “What happened?”

Sawyer just started to bawl. He cried all over his father’s sweater, clutching on to him for dear life. I stood up slowly as his dad whispered into his hair. Now it was my turn to tactfully walk away. A few yards off, Graham stared out from the back window of the police car—staring at the family he’d destroyed. Can’t say I didn’t warn him.

At the bottom of the steps, Ivy, Taylor, Kiran, and Noelle had all gathered. I joined them slowly, feeling more broken and tired with each step.

“So,” Noelle said.

“So,” Ivy echoed.

“Detective Hauer told us they arrested Daniel Ryan at the airport,” Taylor said. “He was the one who tried to kidnap you tonight, and the second he realized Trey might have seen his car, he bolted.”

“Okay, I don’t know who has the more effed-up DNA, the Kane-Martins or the Ryans,” Kiran said, splaying her fingers.

“It’s a toss-up,” I replied.

“Do you think we could maybe get together one time without any cops involved?” Taylor asked.

I snorted a laugh, but it was a short-lived one. “There’s still one thing I don’t get. How did Graham get hooked up with Cheyenne in the first place?”

“My money’s on Paige,” Noelle replied instantly, shaking her still drying hair back from her face. “We already know she was buddy-buddy with the alums who tried to kill you guys on your birthday, so clearly she bought into all that curse crap too. She’s probably known all this time that Cheyenne was alive, and when Cheyenne decided she wanted to come after you, she needed eyes at Easton—”

“And Paige knows all about Josh and Jen’s history, so it wasn’t the biggest leap to make, thinking Graham would help her,” Taylor finished.

“In a disgusting, twisted way, that actually makes sense,” Ivy said, shaking her head.

“Holy crap. Ivy Slade just agreed with me,” Noelle said jokingly. “Does anyone have a pen so we can write this down? I need witnesses.”

Ivy rolled her eyes and shoved her hands into her pockets, drawing her jacket closer against a cool breeze. “Well, we already know Paige tried to kill Reed. I’ll bet when it didn’t work and she got locked up, Cheyenne convinced Daniel to do it, and when that didn’t work out, she moved on to Graham.”

“Notice how she never had a plan that involved getting actual blood on her own hands,” Noelle said flatly.

“Are you kidding?” Kiran blurted. “Blood is far too messy for Cheyenne Martin.”

“Well, she ended up covered in it anyway,” I said, staring off after the ambulance. “It just turned out it was her own.”

We took a collective deep breath and I turned to look up at the castlelike home Cheyenne had apparently spent the past few months locked up inside. I couldn’t help remembering what it had looked like the night of our off-campus Christmas party last year. All the windows aglow with light, happy revelers waving around champagne glasses, a dozen overprivileged and life-clueless kids hanging out in the hot tub. That night I had felt truly included for the first time—like a real Billings Girl. I had thought that Noelle, Kiran, Taylor, and Ariana would be my best friends forever.

Until about an hour after we left, when Ariana tried to kill me.

“It’s so weird,” Taylor mused as if reading my mind. “The last time we were here, we were all together . . . even Ariana. We had no idea how insane things were about to get.”

“Oh, things got weird way before then,” I said, looking down at my feet as I cradled my cast with my other hand. I scuffed my sneaker against the edge of the stone step. “They got weird the second I stepped on the Easton campus.”

Noelle made a disbelieving sound in the back of her throat. “Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe the propaganda,” she said. Suddenly, an overwhelmingly heavy sadness threatening to drag me under. “You are, aren’t you? You think you really are cursed.”

My friends exchanged incredulous looks as my eyes stung and blurred. “I don’t know. Sometimes I just feel really, really unlucky.”

“Unlucky?” Ivy said incredulously. “Do you realize how many times you’ve cheated death this week alone?” She blew out her lips and shook her head. “From where I’m standing, you’re the luckiest bitch on Earth.”

We all just stood there for a moment, until a bubble of laughter escaped from my mouth and we all started to giggle.

“Since when are you a glass-half-full kind of girl?” I asked.

Ivy lifted her shoulders. “Things change.”

“Man, do they ever,” Kiran said, slinging her arm over my shoulder as Mr. Hathaway and Sawyer walked by, huddled together, and approached Detective Hauer. “I used to think Graham was hot.”

I laughed, turned toward Kiran, and hugged her, then felt Noelle’s arms go around my back. Soon Taylor and even Ivy had joined in on the group hug—one big mess of tangled hair, designer perfume, and chilled skin. I ducked my head inside the cocoon my friends had formed for me and smiled.

Maybe I wasn’t so unlucky after all.