Burned (Pretty Little Liars #12)
Page 4Emily fiddled with the University of North Carolina ball cap in her lap. Her parents didn’t have money to send their kids on frivolous class trips, but she’d won a scholarship through her botany class. After her parents had found out about the baby, Mr. Fields had gone to Father Fleming, their priest, to ask if they should still let her attend. Father Fleming had said they should—it would give them time to process what had happened and figure out their feelings.
There was nothing left for Emily to do but open the door, grab her bags, and start toward the check-in tent. She hadn’t walked but three steps when her dad gunned the engine and took off down the road, not even staying to see the boat off as most parents were. She blinked back tears, trying hard not to cry.
As she joined the line, a twentysomething guy wearing a pair of red, star-shaped sunglasses bounded up to her. “I’m on to you!” he said, wagging a finger.
Tabitha’s face flashed in Emily’s mind. “W-what?” she croaked.
“You’re totally a secret Cirque du Soleil fan!” The guy stuck out his hand. “The name’s Jeremy. I’m your cruise director this week. How would you like to be a guest in tonight’s kickoff Cirque du Soleil performance in the theater? The show’s theme is Mother Earth, in honor of this being an Eco Cruise and all.”
Several kids nearby stopped and smirked. “I think I’ll pass,” Emily mumbled, scurrying forward.
She flashed her passport to the check-in girl and was given a key to her cabin, a meal card and daily menu, and a map of the boat. Last but not least, she received a pamphlet that listed the various classes, activities, seminars, group meetings, and volunteer opportunities for the week—students were required to participate in one for-credit class and volunteer in the ship’s “community,” helping to clean, cook, plan events, or take care of the ship’s enormous endangered-fish aquarium, and so on. The volunteer spots were on a first-come, first-serve basis; Emily had already signed up for lifeguard duty at the main pool. She still didn’t know which class she’d take, though, so she scanned the list quickly. There was Exploring the Reefs Responsibly, Hunt for Sunken (Eco)Treasure, Clean Up the Tide Pools in a Kayak. She decided on a course called Caribbean Bird-Watching.
She boarded an elevator that would take her to her room. A calypso band played loudly on an upper deck, the bass thudding through the walls. A few girls were talking about a great bar in St. Martin they’d heard about. Two guys chattered about kiteboarding in Puerto Rico. Everyone was dressed in shorts and flip-flops, even though it was forty-five degrees outside.
Emily envied their carefree excitement—she couldn’t even coax the corners of her lips to bend into a smile. All she could think about was her mother’s vacant eyes, her dad’s punishing scowl, the hatred in their hearts. The FBI agent on the news this morning. Gayle’s dead body. Tabitha’s face just as she realized she was falling. A lurking in the darkness, laughing, ready to hurt her for real.
She thought about Ali, too—Real Ali and Their Ali. All this time, Emily had been hiding a secret: In the Poconos, the girls had escaped the house just before it blew up, with Real Ali still inside. What the others didn’t know, however, was that Emily had left the cabin door open so that Real Ali could escape, too. She’d told everyone she’d closed it tight. And when the cops didn’t find her body, Emily was positive Real Ali had gotten out and was still alive.
For many, many months, Emily had hoped that Real Ali would come to her senses and apologize to all of them for being A. Emily would be the first one to forgive her, of course. After all, she’d loved Ali—both Alis. She’d kissed both of them, Their Ali in her tree house in seventh grade, and Real Ali last year.
But that was before Real Ali messed with her daughter. Some of the notes from A threatened Violet’s life. It was then that she realized Real Ali was beyond the pale. Real Ali didn’t care for Emily at all, and she certainly had no intention of trying to make things right. She was just … evil. Almost immediately, the hope and love Emily had felt withered away, leaving a huge hole in her heart.
Gulls called overhead. Traffic swished in the distance. The waves had foamy white tops, and a lifeboat bobbed seven decks below. Then Emily heard a cough and jumped. A girl with olive skin and long, chestnut-colored hair stood at the far end of the balcony. She wore dark sunglasses, a white eyelet dress, and ballet flats with pink-and-white grosgrain ribbon trim.
Emily didn’t speak at first. The girl was so ethereal and quiet that she thought she might be a ghost.
But then the girl turned and smiled. “Hey.”
“Oh!” Emily said, stepping back. “Y-you scared me. I wasn’t sure you were real.”
The corners of the girl’s mouth turned up. “Do you often see people that aren’t real?”
“Never anyone like you,” Emily blurted, and then clamped her mouth shut. Why had she just said that?
The girl raised her eyebrows, taking her sunglasses off. And then she strolled over. Up close, Emily could see the dimples on her cheeks. Her arresting green eyes sparkled, and she smelled so fragrantly of jasmine perfume that Emily felt a little light-headed.
“Maybe I am a ghost,” the girl whispered. “Or a mermaid. We are at sea, after all.”
Then she touched the tip of Emily’s nose, turned around, and disappeared through the sliding door. Emily remained in a cloud of jasmine, her mouth hanging open, the tip of her nose tingling. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she definitely liked it. For one fleeting second, the ghost—or mermaid, or whatever she was—had made her forget absolutely everything wrong with her life.
3
THE BEST COUPLES ALWAYS COMPROMISE
“Uh, sure,” Noel said, looking at the guy warily.
“Awesome!” the guy said. Aria was almost positive she’d owned an identical version of the star-shaped sunglasses he was wearing when she was six. He stood uncomfortably close to her when he talked.
“The name’s Jeremy. I’m your cruise director for the week,” he went on. “And we’re going to have fun, fun, fun! We have the best shows on the sea—and the funniest comedian in Lou the Earth Crusader. You’ll laugh—and learn how to save the planet!” He ushered them inside. “Walk around! Make new friends! And don’t forget to choose an activity and a volunteer task!”
Aria looked around. Humming slot machines, green-felt poker and blackjack tables, and a curved, marble-topped bar stretched as far as the eye could see. But there were no liquor bottles behind the bar, no cards sitting on the tables, and when Noel pressed a button on the slot machine, a message came up that said TRY AGAIN LATER.
Noel glanced at another cruise worker, a glossy-lipped woman in a white suit. “Can we gamble?”
“Oh, yes, on casino night!” The woman had a glazed-over, Barbie-doll expression on her face. “You don’t win real money, though—you get these cute little dolphin coins you can take home as souvenirs! They’re made by tribal women in South Africa from 100 percent recycled wool!”
Noel wrinkled his nose. Aria nudged him in the ribs. “It’s probably a good thing we can’t play for money, you know. Remember that time we played blackjack and you tried to count cards? I whipped your butt.”
“You did not,” Noel said gruffly.
“Did too!”
“Well, I demand a rematch. Even if it’s for recycled dolphin tokens.” One corner of Noel’s mouth rose.
Aria smiled happily. It felt so good to be getting along with Noel again. They’d been fighting a lot recently, first because Aria was sure that Noel had a crush on his family’s exchange student, Klaudia, who luckily was having visa issues and couldn’t come on the cruise. Then Aria had discovered a secret about Noel’s father, which had led to more trouble between them. But they’d reconciled about everything, and now they were great.
“Are you sure it was okay that I took that lesson this morning?” he asked.
“Of course,” Aria answered in a mature voice. The ship had disembarked a few hours earlier, and Noel had almost immediately abandoned Aria to surf with an ex-pro in the wave pool. Now he smelled overpoweringly like chlorine, and his eyes were a little droopy, the way they always got when he’d had a hard workout.
“Come on,” Noel urged. “Tell the truth.”
Aria sighed. “Okay, maybe I’m a little disappointed we didn’t spend the first few hours together. Especially when the boat sailed out of the harbor. They played ‘Over the Rainbow!’ It was really cute and romantic. But we’ll have lots of time to spend together, right?”
“Of course.” Noel took Aria’s face in his hands. “You know, I really like this new let’s-always-be-honest policy.”
“Me too,” Aria said, but then fiddled with the ties on her sailboat-printed blouse. She and Noel were really trying to stick to an honesty-is-the-best-policy rule, telling each other the truth about everything. When Aria didn’t want to watch Game of Thrones on HBO again, she said so. When Noel really, really wanted McDonald’s drive-thru instead of another dinner at Aria’s favorite vegan restaurant, he made it clear.
It was liberating, but Aria also felt like a fraud because she still hadn’t told him her big secrets, like what had happened in Iceland last summer—only one person knew about that. He didn’t know that there was a new A in town, either, or that she and her friends had done something terrible in Jamaica.
Worse, now that Tabitha’s death had been deemed a murder, Noel was suddenly interested in the story. While the two of them were hanging out at his house a few days earlier, a CNN report about Tabitha had popped on the screen. Noel had paused and squinted at Tabitha’s picture. “She looks really familiar,” he’d murmured.
Aria had quickly changed the channel, but she could feel Noel’s mind working. He’d taken note of Tabitha while in Jamaica. When would he make the connection? Once he did, he’d likely tell the police everything he remembered about her from the trip. He’d tell them that Aria had been with him in Jamaica, too, and then the police would ask her questions.
On the phone with the girls, she’d mentioned an idea that had been brewing in her mind all week: turning herself in. On one hand, it would be a huge relief—she wouldn’t have to hide anymore. On the other, her life would be over. Did she really want that?