Truth or Dare (22 page)

“Emerson gets to be captain now instead of me,” Jessie went on. “And Caitlin gets the extra spot on the team.” The bell rang, signaling the end of the period, and Tenley quickly slipped on her shoes and belt, which she’d taken off to practice, and followed Jessie into the hall. “Some people have all the luck, right?” Jessie added with a soft laugh.

Tenley stared blindly at the hunter-green lockers. An idea had just occurred to her. All of a sudden she felt light-headed. Some people did have all the luck. But what if Emerson wasn’t one of them? What if she’d somehow orchestrated this whole thing? That would make her… the darer.

“I, uh, have to go this way,” Tenley said hastily, waving bye to Jessie. “Feel better!” As soon as Jessie turned a corner, Tenley collapsed against a locker, her heart beating fast. Emerson had been at the pier with Cait on Sunday night, hadn’t she? And she definitely had motivation to give Jessie that pill. Plus, if there was anyone who could have found out about her implants from Caitlin, it was Emerson. Tenley thought suddenly of all those e-mails she’d written Caitlin, pouring her heart out about Nevada and her mom and her surgery. What if Emerson had found them? She wasn’t sure when Emerson would have stolen the Vegas photo from her room—or why she’d want to torture Cait with it—but Tenley had had a bad feeling about her from the start. Maybe she wasn’t the friend Caitlin thought she was.

Tenley felt queasy. She had to talk to Cait. She pulled her phone out of her backpack as she took off for her physics classroom.
Meet me in 1st fl bathroom in 10 min
, she texted Cait.
I have 2 talk 2 u!!
She had just walked into physics when she felt her phone vibrate with a
response. She waited until her teacher was facing the board to open up the text.
ME TOO
, Cait had written in all caps.

As Mrs. Lincoln handed out worksheets, Tenley shifted anxiously in her seat, wondering what Caitlin needed to talk to her about. An image of Jessie on crutches flashed through Tenley’s mind, but she quickly shoved it away. Caitlin didn’t know about that. No one did. Except, of course, the darer.

Someone dropped a pen on top of Tenley’s worksheet, and she looked up with a start. Tricia was standing over her desk, smiling perkily. She was wearing a tight white shirt that showed off her newly slim figure and dangly blue earrings that accentuated her blue eyes. Her blond hair hung sleek and shiny above her shoulders, and her teeth looked like a commercial for whitening toothpaste. “Want to partner?” she asked.

Tenley glanced around the classroom in confusion. Everyone was pulling their desks into pairs. In her daze, she must have missed the teacher’s instructions. “Uh, yeah,” she said hastily. When Tricia gave her a strange look, she quickly feigned a yawn. “Only the second day of school and already I’m sleeping with my eyes open,” she joked.

Tricia laughed. “I hear physics can do that to you.”

Tenley glanced at the clock at the front of the room. Nine minutes had passed since she’d texted Cait. “I have to run to the bathroom first, though,” she said. “You want to bring your chair over, and I’ll be back in a minute?”

“Sure,” Tricia said.

Caitlin was already in the bathroom when Tenley got there, pacing back and forth in front of the sinks. She was biting her lip the way she always did when she was worried, and gripped tightly in her hands was a small square of white paper.

“Ten—” Caitlin started, but Tenley held up a finger for her to be
quiet. Quickly she crouched down, peering underneath each of the stalls. The coast was clear. Standing back up, she went over to Caitlin, grabbing her arms so she would stop pacing. “Okay,” she said gently. “Tell me what happened.”

Silently, Caitlin handed the square of paper to Tenley. It was another note, typed in the same typewriter font as the others.

Feel like your life is cracking up? Sneak into the nurse’s office and steal the pill bottle from her bottom drawer if you want some answers--and if you want to keep your little habits a secret.

“I found it in my locker between classes,” Caitlin said shakily. “Someone must have slipped it in through the slats.”

Tenley read the note a second time. “Little habits? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” Caitlin glanced down, tracing one of the bathroom tiles with her toe. “Whoever’s writing these is crazy, Ten. And they’re not stopping.” She looked up at Tenley, a glimmer of tears in her eyes. “Did you ever get to talk to Sydney?”

“No, I haven’t seen her yet. But I got another dare last night, too, Cait. After you left.”

“What was it?” Caitlin asked uneasily.

“It was just… another one about my surgery.” Tenley looked away. There weren’t many people she minded telling white lies to, but Cait was one of them. “But I think the darer was in my bedroom, Cait. Which makes me wonder if maybe it’s someone who’s closer to us than Sydney.”
She paused, wanting to choose her words carefully. “Remember those e-mails I used to write you from Nevada? Do you think it’s possible that whoever’s daring us could have found out about them somehow?”

Caitlin looked up sharply. “No way. I never told anyone. And besides, no one knows my password.”

Tenley swallowed hard. “No one?” she pressed. “Not even Emerson?”

“Emerson?” Caitlin exclaimed. “You think my
best friend
is the one doing this to me?”

Tenley blinked. “I thought I was your best friend,” she said quietly.

“Oh, Ten, I’m sorry. Of course you are.” Caitlin came over and gave her a tight hug. “But Emerson is, too.” She pulled back, looking Tenley in the eyes. “And she would never do this to me.”

“Okay.” She knew Caitlin well enough to know not to push anymore, at least not right now. “If you say so, Cait the Great.”

Caitlin gave her a weak smile. “I say so, Perfect Ten. Besides, I’ve been thinking about Sydney.” She paused. “The thing is, her locker is only a few down from mine. I just wonder if maybe it can’t hurt…”

“I’ll talk to her,” Tenley jumped in.

Caitlin nodded, looking comforted. “Thanks, Ten.”

“So what are you going to do about the dare?” Tenley asked as they headed toward the door.

“I’m going to go through with it,” Caitlin said firmly. “As soon as school is over.” She paused by the door, her hand on the handle. “It’s better than some awful truth coming out, right? Or,” she added quickly, “some awful lie.”

Tenley gave her a quick hug, but as she headed back to class, she couldn’t stop thinking about Caitlin’s latest note.

If you want to keep your little habits a secret.

Caitlin had claimed she didn’t know what it meant, but she’d had a shifty look on her face—the same look she used to get whenever she told her mom she was at the library when really she was hanging out with Tenley. Was there something Caitlin wasn’t telling her? She was so caught up in that thought that she almost walked straight into someone as she rounded the bend behind the bathroom.

“Sorr—” she began, but when she saw who it was, she fell silent.

It was Joey Bakersfield. He was leaning against the wall, drawing in a green notebook. He looked up at her, and for a second Tenley thought he might actually say something. But instead, he just stared at her, an unreadable expression in his eyes. Then he went back to drawing, as if she weren’t even there.

She flinched as the missing photo flashed through her mind. She wished she’d just helped Cait into bed herself that night. But it was
Harley Hade
! No girl in her right mind would pass up an opportunity like that. When Tenley had apologized later that night, curled up with Cait in their hotel room bed, Cait had drunkenly shrugged it off. “Joey’s sweet,” she’d insisted, her words slurring together. “Like a puppy dog.”

But as Tenley watched him scribble away in his notebook, it was more rabid dog than puppy dog she saw. And suddenly she wanted to get away from him. She had just turned on her heels when the sound of a toilet flushing suddenly rang out loud and clear from the vent above him. Tenley spun back around, her eyes flying to the vent. It must lead directly to the girls’ bathroom, she realized. Which meant if Joey had been standing here long enough, he could have heard her and Cait’s entire conversation. She stepped closer to him, lowering her voice. “How long have you been standing here?”

Joey looked up sharply, his dark eyes meeting hers.

“How long?” she repeated. She grabbed his arm and for a second they stared at each other. The look in his eyes made her hair stand on end. She waited for him to say something—
anything
—but instead, he shook her off. Without a single word, he took off down the hallway, clutching his notebook to his chest.

Wednesday, 2:30
PM

THE NURSE’S OFFICE WAS IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE
wing of Winslow, along with the principal’s office, the copy and supply room, and the infamous teacher’s lounge, which required a code to get into and was rumored to have everything from a cappuccino machine to skee-ball. Usually Caitlin tried to catch a glimpse through the lounge’s frosted windows whenever she passed, but today she rushed by without even a glance. She wanted to get this dare over with in time for cheer practice. It was her first day on the squad and she didn’t want to be late, not when Emerson had been appointed the new captain.

“Bottom drawer,” she whispered to herself. She’d been repeating it ever since she found that awful note in her locker this morning.
Bottom drawer, bottom drawer, bottom drawer,
as if it were some kind of mantra, as if it could make this whole thing feel a little less real.

When she’d shown the dare to Tenley, Caitlin had pretended she didn’t know what it was referring to. She’d been so careful not to let anyone see her taking the antianxiety pills Dr. Filstone had prescribed.
Her parents knew she had the prescription, but as far as they were concerned, it was for rare emergencies only. They had no idea how often she’d been taking them—how often she’d
needed
them. And she planned on keeping it that way. The last thing she wanted was for everyone to go on high alert again, surveying her every movement as if they were just waiting for her to fall apart.

Caitlin paused outside the principal’s office, pressing her back against the wall. Mrs. Lawrence, the nurse, always booked it home right after the final bell rang, but Caitlin knew Ms. Howard, the principal, often stayed late, poring over paperwork until the last of Winslow’s students had cleared out. Carefully, she inched forward, peeking into her office. It was empty, Ms. Howard’s rolling chair abandoned in the corner of the room. Caitlin blew out a sigh of relief. This was going to be easier than she’d thought.

She hurried over to Mrs. Lawrence’s office, which was the very last room in the admin wing. It had been a long time since Caitlin had been in there. The middle and high schools shared Mrs. Lawrence, and in the months after the kidnapping, her office had become like a second home to Caitlin, the place she escaped to when her headaches got too bad to ignore. It looked exactly the same now: the white cot in the corner, the steel cabinets overflowing with throat swabs and Band-Aids, the big vat of disposable thermometers on the counter. Caitlin went straight to the desk, which still had the same row of photos lined up along the back.

Crouching down, she pulled open the bottom drawer. It was packed with files, but resting on top of them was a single prescription bottle. Caitlin recognized the label immediately. Two fat pink X’s were stamped across the top. It was Xexer, the same antianxiety pills that Caitlin took. She grabbed the bottle out of the drawer. As she did, her
eyes landed on the name printed on the label.
CAITLIN THOMAS
. These weren’t just the same as her pills. These
were
her pills.

“Hello? Is someone back here?” Ms. Howard’s voice rang out from the doorway, making Caitlin’s heart skip a beat in her chest. Quickly, she shoved the bottle into her backpack, kicking the desk drawer shut.

Caitlin could hear Ms. Howard’s footsteps crossing the office. In a few seconds, she’d be at the desk. “Ms. Howard!” Caitlin made her voice as bright as she could as she popped up from behind the desk.

“Caitlin?”
Ms. Howard stared incredulously at Caitlin. Caitlin knew the principal well. Between student government and the service league, she was always in her office getting a signature for one thing or another. Over the years, she’d seen that look on Ms. Howard’s face many times, but never once had it been directed at her. “What are you doing here?”

“I… uh…” Caitlin swallowed hard, searching desperately for some kind of fathomable excuse. “I had a headache!” she burst out. Her hand went automatically to her forehead. “And today’s my first day of cheer practice so I didn’t have time to run out to buy aspirin, but then I remembered that Mrs. Lawrence kept some in her office!”

Ms. Howard’s usually friendly eyes seemed to be boring into her, setting every one of Caitlin’s nerves on edge. “So I thought I’d just come borrow a few,” she continued nervously. “But then I got here and I couldn’t find them and then I dropped my backpack….” Caitlin trailed off as Ms. Howard raised her eyebrows at her.

Walking calmly over to the steel row of medicine cabinets, Ms. Howard picked up a large bottle of aspirin sitting on the edge of the counter. “Is this what you couldn’t find?” she asked dryly.

“I guess I missed it there,” Caitlin said weakly.

Ms. Howard sighed. “I don’t know what this is all about, Caitlin, but I have to ask. Did
you
send me that note?”

Caitlin felt as if she’d swallowed a mothball. “The… what?” she choked out.

Ms. Howard squinted at her. “The note I found on my desk, instructing me to come here.”

“I swear, Ms. Howard. It wasn’t me.” The room suddenly seemed to be spinning around her.
The darer had set her up.

Ms. Howard sighed and rubbed her forehead. “You know, being in the nurse’s office after hours is completely against school rules, Caitlin. Grounds for suspension, technically.”

“Suspension?” Caitlin whispered. This couldn’t be happening. She tried to imagine telling her parents she’d gotten suspended. Her mom would go homicidal.