Psycho Killer (4 page)

She opened her eyes and looked up at Nate.

But Nate was already turning to go, striding back down the hall to see if it could possibly be true. Had Serena van der Woodsen
really
come back?

Blair clutched her stomach, ravenous again. She should have gone for that hot dog after all, or a whole string of hot dogs with which to strangle the entire guest list, including Nate and Serena. She’d save them for last and do it slowly, with a flourish.

And a little mustard?

“Hello, hello, hello!” Blair’s mother crowed, kissing the smooth, hollow cheeks of each van der Woodsen. If there were such a thing as sexy skeletons, they were it.

Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss,
kiss!

“I know you weren’t expecting Serena, dear,” Mrs. van der Woodsen whispered in a concerned, confidential tone. “I hope it’s all right.”

“Of course. Yes, it’s fine,” Mrs. Waldorf said. “Did you come home for the weekend, Serena?”

Serena shook her head and handed her plastic Burberry trench coat to Esther. She pushed a stray blond hair behind her ear and smiled at her hostess.

When Serena smiled, she used her eyes—those dark, almost navy blue eyes. It was the kind of smile you might try to imitate, posing in the bathroom mirror, the magnetic “you can’t stop looking at me, can you?” smile of a supermodel or a sociopath. Well, Serena smiled that way without even trying.

“No, I’m here to—” Serena started to say.

Kill everyone?

Serena’s mother interrupted hastily. “Serena has decided that boarding school is not for her,” she announced, patting her hair casually, as if it were no big deal.

Serena’s mother was the middle-aged version of utter coolness. In fact, the whole van der Woodsen clan was like that. They were all tall, blond, thin, and super-poised, and they never did anything—play tennis, hail a cab, eat spaghetti, maim an innocent schoolteacher—without maintaining their cool. Serena especially. She was gifted with the kind of coolness that you can’t acquire by buying the right handbag or the right pair of jeans. She was the girl every boy wants and every girl wants to be.

Or wants to kill.

“Serena will be back at Constance tomorrow,” Mr. van der Woodsen said, glancing at his daughter with steely blue eyes and an owl-like mixture of pride and disapproval that made him look scarier than he really was. There was an old rumor that he had killed a man once. But then again, who hasn’t?

“Well, Serena. You look lovely, dear. Blair will be thrilled to see you,” Blair’s mother trilled.

“You’re one to talk,” Serena said, hugging her. “Look how skinny you are! And the house looks so fantastic. Wow. You’ve got some awesome new stuff!”

Mrs. Waldorf smiled, obviously pleased, and wrapped her arm around Serena’s long, slender waist. “Darling, I’d like you to meet my special friend, Cyrus Rose,” she said. “Cyrus, this is Serena.”

“Stunning,” Cyrus Rose boomed. He kissed Serena on both cheeks and hugged her a little too tightly. “She’s a good hugger, too,” Cyrus added, patting Serena on the hip.

Serena giggled, but she didn’t flinch. She’d spent a lot of time
in Europe, and she was used to being hugged by horny European gropers who found her completely irresistible—and who’d died happily groping her. She was a full-on groper magnet. Lucky for Cyrus, she’d come to the party unarmed.

“Serena and Blair are best, best,
best
friends,” Eleanor Waldorf explained to Cyrus. “But Serena went away to Hanover Academy in eleventh grade and spent this summer traveling. It was so hard for poor Blair with you gone this past year, Serena,” Eleanor said, growing misty-eyed. “Especially with the divorce. But you’re back now. Blair will be so
pleased
.”

“Where is she?” Serena asked eagerly, her perfect, bruised peach cheeks glowing with the prospect of seeing her old friend again. She stood on tiptoe and craned her head to look for Blair, but she soon found herself surrounded by parents—the Archibalds, the Coateses, the Basses, and Mr. Farkas—who each took turns kissing her and welcoming her back with the same mixture of rapture and loathing everyone battled in Serena’s presence.

Serena hugged them happily. These people were home to her, and she’d been gone a long time. She could hardly wait for life to return to the way it used to be. She and Blair would walk to school together, spend Double Photography in Sheep Meadow in Central Park, smoking and drinking Coke, pulling the legs off ants and splicing earthworms, feeling like hardcore artistes. They’d have cocktails at the Star Lounge in the Tribeca Star Hotel again, which always turned into sleepover parties because they’d get too drunk to go home, so they’d spend the night in the suite Chuck Bass’s family kept there, at the risk of being attacked by Chuck. They’d sprawl on Blair’s four-poster bed and watch all of Blair’s favorite twisted old movies, like
Rosemary’s Baby
and
The Shining
, wearing vintage lingerie and drinking vodka and
cranberry juice, pretending it was blood. They’d cheat on their Latin tests like they always did:
Pereo
,
peres
,
peret
—“I die, you die, s/he dies”—was still tattooed on the inside of her elbow in permanent marker (thank God for three-quarter length sleeves!). They’d drive around Serena’s parents’ estate in Ridgefield, Connecticut, in the caretaker’s old Buick station wagon singing the hymns they sang in school at the top of their lungs and running over already dead roadkill. They’d pee in the downstairs entrances to their classmates’ townhouses and then ring the doorbells and run away, barking like wild dogs. They’d take Blair’s little brother, Tyler, to the Lower East Side and leave him there to see how long it took him to get abducted or find his way home. They’d make teeny cuts on their hands and rub them together to renew their blood sister pact even though blood was “more dangerous than feces these days,” according to the Human Health teacher they’d had in sixth grade who’d been fired for bringing her own fecal matter into school for the class to examine.

Blood sisters once more, they’d go back to being their same old fabulous selves, just like always. And with Nate gone, their friendship would be even stronger. Serena couldn’t wait.

“Got you a drink,” Chuck Bass said, elbowing the clusters of parents out of the way and handing Serena a tumbler of whiskey. “Welcome back,” he added, ducking down to kiss Serena’s cheek and missing it intentionally, so that his probing lips landed on her mouth.

“You haven’t changed,” Serena remarked, accepting the drink. She took a long sip. “So, did you miss me?”

“Miss you? The question is, did you miss
me
?” Chuck said. “Come on, babe, spill. What are you doing back here? What happened? Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Oh, come on, Chuck,” Serena said, squeezing his hand with cold, bony fingers. “You know I came back because I want you so badly. I’ve always wanted you.”

Chuck took a step back and cleared his throat, his face flushed. She’d caught him off guard, a rare feat. Serena was like the apple in
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
—shiny on the outside but poisonous to the touch.

“Well, I’m all booked up for this month, but I can put you on the waiting list,” Chuck said huffily, trying to regain his composure.

But Serena was barely listening to him anymore. Her dark blue eyes scanned the room, looking for the two people she wanted to see most, Blair and Nate.

Finally she found them. Nate was standing by the doorway to the hall, and Blair was just behind him, her head bowed, fiddling with the buttons on her black cardigan. Nate was looking directly at Serena, and when her gaze met his, he bit his bottom lip the way he always did when he was embarrassed. And then he smiled.

That smile. Those eyes. That face. She was so glad he wasn’t dead yet.

“Come here,” Serena mouthed at him, waving her hand. Her heart sped up as Nate began walking toward her. He looked better than she remembered,
much
better. Oh, how could she even think of exploding those gorgeous emerald green eyes?

Nate’s heart was beating even faster than hers.

“Hey, you,” Serena breathed when Nate hugged her. He smelled just like he always smelled. Like the cleanest, most delicious boy alive. Tears came to Serena’s eyes and she pressed her face into his chest. Now she was really home.

Nate’s cheeks turned pink.
Calm down
, he told himself. But he
couldn’t calm down. He felt like picking her up and twirling her around and kissing her face over and over.
I love you!
he wanted to shout, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Nate was the only son of a navy captain and a French society hostess. His father was a master sailor and marksman, but a little lacking in the hugs department. His mother was the complete opposite, always fawning over Nate, and prone to emotional fits during which she would lock herself in her bedroom with a bottle of pills and threaten to hang herself until someone bought her a new boat or a new house or a new fur coat. Poor Nate was always on the verge of saying how he really felt, but he didn’t want to make a scene or say something he might regret later. Instead, he kept quiet and let other people steer the boat, while he lay back and enjoyed the steady rocking of the waves. Most people would have ended up with a touch of mental illness after all that repression—raving psychotic episodes, sleepwalking, a bit of burning Mom and Dad in their bed. But not our Natie. He was solidly sane.

At least for now.

“So, what have you been up to?” Nate asked Serena, trying to breathe normally. “We missed you.”

Notice that he wasn’t even brave enough to say, “
I
missed you”?

“What have I been up to?” Serena repeated. She giggled. “If you only knew, Nate. I’ve been so, so
evil
!”

Nate clenched his fists involuntarily. Man, oh man, had he missed her.

Ignored as usual, Chuck slunk away from Serena and Nate and crossed the room to Blair, who was once again standing with Kati and Isabel.

“A thousand bucks says she got kicked out,” Chuck told them. “And doesn’t she look fucked? I heard she had a one-girl prostitution ring up there. The Merry Madam of Hanover Academy,” he added with a snigger. “She does it with you, then bludgeons you to death with a hairdryer, and then eats you with chopsticks while you’re still warm, like some kind of voodoo sushi.”

Getting a little carried away with his own childhood fantasies, is he?

“I think she looks kind of spaced out, too,” Kati said. “Maybe she’s on heroin.”

“Or some prescription drug,” Isabel said. “You know, like Valium or Prozac. Or maybe she’s been abducted by an alien force and they’re like, controlling her brain from outer space.”

“She could be making her own drugs,” Kati quipped. “She was always good at science.”

“What is that on her dress? Campari? Wine?”

“No, blood. Have you seen her fingernails? Disgusting. I heard she really did join some kind of cult,” Chuck offered. “Like, she’s been brainwashed and now all she thinks about is sex and she like, has to do it all the time. And then she tortures and kills the guys she does it with. Naked.”

How convenient. That sounds exactly like his favorite bad dream.

When is dinner going to be ready?
Blair wondered, tuning out her friends’ ridiculous speculations. Serena was too beautiful and sweet to ever join a cult or torture or maim or kill anyone. Blair even had to do all the dissecting in seventh-grade Biology because Serena didn’t want to hurt the poor froggie.

Won’t she be pleasantly surprised.

She had forgotten how pretty Serena’s hair was. How perfect her skin was. How long and thin her legs were. What Nate’s eyes looked like when he looked at her—like he never wanted to blink. He never looked at Blair that way, the fucker. She could kill him for looking at Serena like that. Rip the heart right out of his sleeve and ram it down his throat. If only she didn’t love him so.

“Hey Blair, Serena must have told you she was coming back,” Chuck said. “Come on, tell us. What’s the deal?”

Blair stared back at him blankly, her small, foxlike face turning red. The truth was, she hadn’t really spoken to Serena in over a year. For all she knew, Serena really had turned into a cannibalistic brainwashed prostitute slash drug manufacturer.

Not really, but she’s getting warmer.

At first, when Serena had gone to boarding school after sophomore year, Blair had really missed her. But it soon became apparent how much easier it was to shine without Serena around. Suddenly
Blair
was the prettiest, the smartest, the hippest, most happening girl in the room. She became the one everyone looked to. So Blair stopped missing Serena so much. She’d felt a little guilty for not staying in touch, but even that had worn off when she’d received Serena’s flip and impersonal text messages describing all the fun she was having at boarding school.

Hitchhiked to Vermont to snowboard. Spent nite with hottest guy. Danced his head off!

Bad girl weekend. Head hurts. Boys clothes & shoes on my floor but no boy. Whered he go?

The last news Blair had received was a postcard this summer:

Turned seventeen on Bastille Day. Vive la France!—the most awesome place to live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse! Miss you!! xoxo, S
.

Blair had tucked the postcard into her old Fendi shoebox with all the other mementos from their friendship. A friendship she would cherish forever, but which she’d thought of as over… until now.

Serena was back. The lid was off the shoebox, and everything would go back to the way it was before she left. As always, it would be Serena and Blair, Blair and Serena, with Blair playing the smaller, fatter, mousier, less witty best friend of the blond übergirl, Serena van der Woodsen.

Or not. Not if Blair could help it.

“You must be so excited Serena’s here!” Isabel chirped. But when she saw the murderous look on Blair’s face, she changed her tune. “Of
course
Constance took her back. It’s so typical. They’re too desperate to lose any of us.” Isabel lowered her voice. “I heard last spring Serena was fooling around with some townie up in New Hampshire. She had an abortion,” she added. “And then she started killing guys if they even looked at her.”