Platinum (13 page)

By the time I got to applying eyeliner that emphasized the way my blue eyes tilted up just slightly at the corners, giving them a nearly catlike look, I’d almost forgotten how much my life sucked, how much it hurt to think of Brock telling me he loved me for the first time mere seconds after admitting that he’d lip-cheated on me with my best friend. The hurt was still there, lingering in the back of my mind along with the name of my ghost boy and the familiar pressure of memories that weren’t mine, but today, I was in charge. If I was going to do any Sight-related (and therefore Cade-related) investigations, it was going to be on my terms. Not his. Not the dark-haired woman I’d incomprehensibly called Mother. Mine.

Step three: email Katie Blanche. Every school has a Katie Blanche. She’s the girl who devotes her entire life to knowing everything about everybody because knowing it is almost as good as actually being somebody herself. Don’t get me wrong. Katie was Golden, she was just hanging on by her teeth, or, more precisely, by the world’s biggest mouth. I suppose there were Non gossipmongers too, but the thing was, people listened to Katie. She was pretty, she was passably popular, and today she was going to be my very closest friend.

Even as I switched on my computer screen, the wheels in my mind were turning, and by the time I’d opened my Internet server and found my way to my inbox, I was ready.

To: littlemissthang72

From: MidnightSunshine17

Subject: Party!

Heya Kates. We totally missed you at Parker’s party last weekend! You *are* coming to the one at Tate’s house on Saturday, yes?

I knew for a fact that she hadn’t been invited to Jackson’s and that she wouldn’t officially be invited to Tate’s. Katie was Golden, but she wasn’t a VIP, and on any given weekend, chances were that
someone
wasn’t speaking to her. Luckily for her, this weekend that someone wasn’t me.

We can only hope this weekend will be as *interesting* as last week. I mean, Fuchsia table dancing and then ending up giving a more…well, personal dance to Jackson’s cousin…his FEMALE cousin. How hilarious is that? I swear, if I hadn’t pulled her off and brought her home, they totally would have made out. Fuchsia is lucky to have friends like us. Still, if it happens AGAIN this weekend…

I stopped to consider my work. Normally, I would have called instead of emailed, because calling didn’t produce a little electronic paper trail leading all the way back to me, but Fuchsia had pretty much drawn a line in the sand the second her lips had touched Brock’s. If she wanted to play hardball, I’d play.

And I’d win. It felt good to know that again, and it felt good not to feel bad about it. Fuchsia needed to learn a very important lesson about not messing with me, and I was going to enjoy teaching it to her. And if that made me a bad person, so be it.

After typing up a full page of cheery sentences meant to disguise the true purpose of the email, I hit the send button. With any luck, by the time I arrived at school, Fuchsia, completely unbeknownst to herself, would be ready for me. Satisfied that I was well on my way to simultaneously teaching Fuchsia a very valuable lesson about not screwing me over, avenging the tears no one (except for perhaps any lurking ghost boys in the vicinity) had seen me shed, and letting the entire school know just who ran the show around here, I turned my attention to the next order of business.

Lexie. I had to convince her either that I was no longer doing research or that I didn’t want her help, neither one of which would be easy. For starters, I wasn’t dumb enough to believe that having a Truth Seer on my side of things wouldn’t make unraveling the mystery of Cade (was it strange that I liked saying his name so much?) any easier. As tempting as it was to tell her about my dream, hoping to figure out what exactly the guys from my library vision and Brock had to do with shirtless Cade and the blond girl, and who exactly Meara, Sorcha, and Brianna were, I was determined to keep Lexie out of it for her own good. Despite the fact that my memory of the dream was fuzzy at best, I remembered the blood, remembered the dead hands. I also remembered the way Lexie’s body had gone a pale, ashen white the day before.

She had to stay out of it. Case closed. Since I couldn’t exactly lie to her and since she refused to give up on me, even when she should have, my only option was to avoid her. I pictured her eyes wide and disappointed, and it just about killed me, but I knew that, more than anything, I had to keep her safe.

So, of course, I did the most logical thing. I breezed down the steps, into the kitchen, out the back door, across the street, and into my car without saying a word to anyone. Lissy and Lexie could find their own rides to school. I pushed down the feeling of guilt that rose in the back of my mouth. They’d survive.

And so would I.

With one last glance at the house, I pulled out of the driveway, doing my best to ignore the way my vision blurred on the edges and the all-too-familiar words that echoed in my mind.

“Your family. Not mine.”

“Soon to be yours again, child.”

“Whatever,” I murmured under my breath as I cruised down the street. I’d come to terms with my Sight, and I wasn’t going to dwell on Lissy or Caroline or the fact that my mother was getting married. There were things I could control and things that I couldn’t, and right now, I was content to focus all of my negative energy in Fuchsia’s direction.

I thought of the “I Am” poem that I hadn’t written the night before.

I was Lilah Covington.

I was a girl who refused to be a victim.

I was still craving cookies and milk.

I smiled. I was the girl who knew Cade’s name.

Cade and Lilah, Lilah and Cade.

The memory, recent and sweet, lived in the air in front of me. I ignored it, but the edges of my mouth tugged up in a smile as I pulled into my parking spot, front and center. Once upon a time, it had been Fuchsia’s, and everyone else had known better than to take it, but that was before I’d gotten a car.

Things changed.

I stepped out of my car exactly three seconds before Fuchsia pulled up. Tracy bounded out of the passenger seat without giving Fuchsia’s pursed lips so much as a second look.

“Did you get my email?” she asked me. “Are you okay? God, Li, we’ve been so worried!”

“Don’t worry,” I told her as I lifted my eyes to meet Fuchsia’s. “I’m fine.”

Not okay. Fine.

“In fact,” I said, hooking my arm through Tracy’s, “I’m fabulous.”

Without a word to my ex–best friend, I steered Tracy toward the lawn, leaving Fuchsia in our wake and never looking back. If she was half as smart as I gave her credit for, she’d be starting to feel nervous right about then.

Just wait, I promised her silently.

As Tracy and I ambled over to the Golden side of the lawn, all eyes were on us. This wasn’t exactly a new thing, but today, I knew there was more at work than just our magnetic appeal.

“Is it true?” Elle Jacobs asked me. She was a third-tier Golden and not anywhere near my normal inner circle, but today, I made a very special exception.

“Is what true?” I asked.

“Did Fuchsia Reynolds really hook up with Jackson’s girl cousin?” Elle asked.

I glanced at Tracy out of the corner of my eye. She looked back at me. Whatever my lead was, I knew she would follow it. Fuchsia was single, and I was not, and that meant that in Tracy Land, Fuchsia was the competition, and I was the most desired ally.

Still, this whole situation was going to take some finessing. Could I have just let the rumors (not to mention the pictures from the party that I hadn’t yet released to the public) speak for themselves? Sure. By lunchtime, half the people at our school would have been convinced that Fuchsia was a lesbian, and Fuchsia, politically correct soul that she wasn’t, would have been horrified.

But that was so not my style. First of all, it’s totally not fair to lesbians everywhere. I mean, who wants Fuchsia as their poster child? Nobody, and the last thing I wanted to do was accidentally hurt someone else when the only person I wanted to stick it to had a stupid name and skanky lips. I was in control, I was in charge, and I was so over hurting people who didn’t deserve it.

I’d just concentrate on the people who did.

“No,” I said flatly in response to Elle’s question. “Fuchsia isn’t into girls.” I gave Elle a disdainful look, playing the role of the overprotective best friend to perfection. And then I put the last nail in Fuchsia’s coffin. “In fact, she’s like totally the opposite.” I lowered my voice. “Don’t tell anyone I told you, but she’s hooked up with like fifteen guys this month.”

“Really?” Elle asked, perking right back up.

Tracy stared at me, still dismayed that we weren’t substantiating the lesbian rumors. I mentally rolled my eyes. She’d catch on sooner or later. “Well,” I said delicately, “at least she
says
she’s hooked up with a ton of guys. I mean, I know that a bunch of the stories aren’t true, because Jackson only likes dark hair, and Tate isn’t exactly over Tracy yet….”

“Tate?” Tracy hissed. “She told you she hooked up with Tate? That is such a lie. He wouldn’t touch her with a…with a…”

“Ten-foot pole?” I suggested calmly. “I know. Fuchsia just likes the attention. It’s sort of her thing. Pretty soon, she’ll be telling people she hooked up with Brock.” I shook my head, oozing sympathy for poor, delusional Fuchsia.

“That is so entirely pathetic,” Tracy said, and I could tell by the look on her face that she’d known about the whole Brock thing and hadn’t said a word to me. Luckily for her, I didn’t have the stomach to deep-six more than one friend at a time, and my sights (no pun intended) were set entirely on Fuchsia.

“But anyway,” I told Elle seriously, “I know she’s hooked up with at least like five or six guys in the past couple of months for real.”

“Hook up” was a wonderfully ambiguous phrase at Emory High. If you kissed someone, you guys hooked up. If you more than kissed someone, you guys hooked up. If you went all the way, you hooked up. So I wasn’t lying. Fuchsia had kissed or at least, you know, had a moment with a ton of guys in the past month. And if people decided that they’d done more than kiss, that was quite simply not my problem, and I refused to let myself even think about it or about the kind of person this whole thing made me.

“Who has she hooked up with?” Elle asked, fascinated.

On the surface, I looked torn. Should I let people continue thinking that Fuchsia liked girls, or should I disclose her hookup history?

Inside, I was smiling. I don’t have many moments of pure evil, but this was one of them.

“Norman Fitzhugh,” I said finally.

“FUCHSIA HOOKED UP WITH PITS EWWW?!” Elle’s voice had a lovely propensity to carry.

I nodded. “Listen, I only told you so you’d know not to believe the rumors, okay?”

Elle nodded. “Yeah. I mean…”

“So just make sure people know that Fuchsia’s totally into guys,” I ordered.

Translation: tell people that Fuchsia hooked up with Norman “Unique Body Odor” Fitzhugh, or, as he was commonly called, Norman Pits Ewww.

Thirty seconds later, Elle was gone, and my work was done.

“Did Fuchsia really hook up with Pits Ewww?” Tracy asked me curiously.

I nodded. “It was dark, and everybody at the party was supposed to be Golden anyway. It totally wasn’t her fault, and I promised I wouldn’t tell, but…I mean, it’s better than people thinking she’s into girls, right?”

Actually, it was much, much worse. Even though it would have taken more power than I had to completely Non a primo Golden like Fuchsia, she was most definitely going to be in popularity quarantine for at least a month. No guy wanted Pits Ewww’s leftovers, and no girl feared the chick that none of the guys wanted.

Fuchsia was still Golden, but she wasn’t untouchable. She wasn’t me. She wasn’t Tracy. She wasn’t, for lack of a better word, Platinum, which anyone who’s even the least bit fashionable will tell you is the new gold.

I considered the term and what it meant, what it stood for, and who I was. There were Goldens, there were Nons, and there were the very hottest of the hot. Maybe I didn’t always feel like I fell into that last category, and maybe I didn’t deserve to, but after the week I’d had, I needed to.

I hooked my arm again through Tracy’s.
We
were Platinum, and if Fuchsia ever wanted back in, she’d have to come crawling back to me.

14

Scandal

“Scandal” is composed of two Latin words:

Scan, meaning play by the rules,
and dal, meaning no one gets hurt.

I managed to avoid seeing Fuchsia until lunch. Instead, I spent my time doing exactly two things. First, I constructed a plan of attack on the Cade front. As painful as the library visions had been, if I was going to make any sense at all out of my crazy montage dream, I’d have to start somewhere, and the scene of the visiony crime seemed as good a place as any. Long story short, I was library bound in a big way, right after school. I half expected Cade to show up out of nowhere and give me his broody ghost commentary on this plan, but he hadn’t shown up since our interlude the night before.