The Lies That Bind (22 page)

Crap.

There are few things more humiliating for a girl than being so distracted by a half-naked boy that she loses track of time and misses her opportunity to infiltrate his secret society’s headquarters. Okay, so maybe this wasn’t exactly the typical embarrassing moment for a fifteen-year-old girl, but I’d essentially caught myself in my own trap, and it sucked. Big time.

“Now, Kate.” Bradley’s eyes flashed in the darkness, and instead of waiting, he gripped my fingers and pulled me to standing. A candle tipped over across the room, and I had the overwhelming urge to blow out each one. The last thing we needed tonight was a real fire. I said a prayer to Grace just in case, although I knew the pool deck was now covered in at least two inches of water. Before I knew what was happening, Bradley grabbed me, pulling me toward the winding staircase that led to the familiar halls of Pemberly Brown.

Moments later, we both stood in front of Bethany’s locker, and I couldn’t help but cast a longing look at my hiding spot by the window. Taylor and Seth were going to kill me when they found out how badly I’d botched our master plan. Worse, my hand still tingled from Bradley’s touch. What was wrong with me?

“Can I trust you?” They were words that were meant to be said with some kind of intense burning glance, but Bradley was too busy looking around the hallway to ensure we were alone.

“Yes.” I wish I could say that the word tasted like a lie, but it rang with an odd sort of truth that was impossible to ignore. The word was barely out of my mouth when he twisted the combination on the locker next to Bethany’s. As it turned out, I hadn’t botched the plan after all. In fact, infiltrating the headquarters
with
Bradley was so much more efficient. I mentally gave myself a pat on the back.

23–54–25

Before I even had time to process exactly what was happening, three lockers swung open like a door, revealing a staircase. Bradley took the stairs two at a time, leaving me gaping at him from the hallway.

The stairs in front of me were not dimly lit or lined with bricks, and there weren’t cobwebs in the corners like on the ones that led to the tunnels. These were wide and constructed of swirled marble. Etched into the marble between each step was a different Latin phrase, similar to the ones carved into the bronze plaques around campus.
Ab
initio
, “From the beginning.”
Labor
omnia
vincit
, “Hard work conquers all.”
Palma
non
sine
pulvere
, “No reward without effort.”

I climbed slowly, letting the ancient words guide me up toward the bright light at the top. It felt like the stairs were talking to me, reminding me that I had to uncover the truth. I wondered what the words meant to Bradley as he bounded up the stairs.

Moonlight spilled into the room at the top of the stairwell, so bright we didn’t even need the lights. The ceiling was domed with a large circular window at the top. I expected to see Bethany bound and gagged in some corner, but the room was completely empty. Was it possible that Bradley was telling the truth? That the Brotherhood had nothing to do with her disappearance? Maybe a serial killer had Bethany. Or Headmaster Sinclair. Something about being here with Bradley made me second-guess everything, and I hated myself for it.

Massive columns lined the perimeter of the room, and I was overcome with a creepy sense of déjà vu, like I’d been here before in a past life or a dream or some sort of out-of-body experience. And then it hit me. The Pantheon. The new Brotherhood headquarters was a mini-version of ancient Rome’s Pantheon.

Large marble statues of various gods were nestled in the boxes that led up to the window at the tip of the dome. Jupiter, Apollo, Hercules—their eyes tracking me. How was this even possible? Three months ago, the Brotherhood had set up shop in the Sisterhood’s underground lair, and now they’d built an empire? They must have hidden the dome between the turrets that lined the roof of the school. I had to admit that it was sort of genius. I thought back to Ben’s explanation—that the headquarters had been constructed in secret after hours, over holidays, and on the weekends. I’d heard of hiding in plain sight, but this was ridiculous.

“Pretty impressive, right?” Bradley’s smile stretched across his face as he leaned casually against the marble wall. It killed me to admit that he looked pretty god-like himself. A lying, powerful, cocky god.

“What is all this?”

“It’s basically a new beginning, a clean slate. When we finally pass Conventus on Tuesday, we’re going to unveil this new headquarters to the girls.” His eyes sparkled as he pushed away from the wall. “You see, the artist who created the gods for us is waiting for word, and he’ll start on whichever goddesses the girls choose, although Naomi has her opinions already, of course.” He pointed to the beautiful statues and couldn’t keep the smile off his face. It was hard not to match his excitement. “And did you notice some of the stairs were missing phrases? Well, that’s up to the girls as well.”

“But what if it doesn’t pass?” I couldn’t help it. He had to know that was a possibility. Especially since, according to Taylor, Conventus was all a front to destroy the Sisterhood. Although the way his face dropped after I asked the question, it was hard to imagine he had anything but good intentions.

“There are only one or two against, so it shouldn’t be an issue.” He gave me a hard look. The well-intentioned Bradley disappeared before my eyes. If Bethany was as against Conventus as Taylor claimed she was, Bradley’s comment was as good as a confession.

And all of a sudden I felt like my arms were being pulled in two very distinct directions. There was Taylor pulling hard on one side, reminding me that the Brotherhood had destroyed my life and was currently destroying her own, and then there was Bradley with his enthusiasm and this idea that he could end the war between the societies forever.

Bradley was wrong. Taylor was right. This was supposed to be easy. Black and white. But nothing was ever easy. Not for me anyway. I always got stuck in the grays.

“Not an issue because you’re removing them from the equation?” I said the words, my eyes fixed on his face, examining all of the intricacies, the twitches, any changes in that split second as my question registered.

His brows pulled together, his forehead wrinkling in response. And the only way I could describe his face was hurt. I might as well have slapped him.

“I don’t know how else to tell you I have nothing to do with Bethany. Or Grace. Or whatever else it is you’re accusing me of. I thought I could prove it to you by bringing you here, but that was clearly a mistake.”

He started to walk toward the stairs, and I should have let him go. I knew how to get in now. Enough was enough. It was time to leave.

And that’s when I saw it. It was just a gray scarf, nothing really remarkable about it. It could have easily belonged to one of the Brothers. Except it didn’t.

It was Bethany’s. The scarf she’d been wearing the night of Obsideo. The same one she’d worn in all the pictures they’d sent us. And right next to it was a black strip of fabric. This must have been the blindfold they’d wrapped around her head. I delicately touched the hairs. Whoever had ripped this off her head hadn’t been gentle. Hot anger snaked its way up my throat.

“Didn’t have anything to do with Bethany, huh?” I waved the blindfold at Bradley before sticking it in my pocket and grabbed the scarf up off the ground. I had everything I needed now.

Just before I reached the stairs, Bradley grabbed my shoulder roughly and turned me around to face him.

Maybe not.

“What the hell are you even talking about?”

“This.” I pulled the blindfold out of my pocket. “As of 7:13 p.m. tonight, this was wrapped around Bethany Giordano’s head. You almost had me, Bradley.” I pulled up the picture of Bethany on my phone and waved it in his face.

His dark complexion went a shade or two lighter, the color draining from his face.

“Who sent you this?”

I shook my head. He was either telling the truth or was a fantastic actor, but at this point I couldn’t have cared less. Someone had had Bethany in this room at some point this evening, and I was going to find out who. I pushed past Bradley and started down the stairs.

“Kate, wait! I have no idea where this stuff came from, but there’s a camera at the base of the stairs. Let’s pull the footage. We’ll find her.”

Something in his voice made me turn around. It almost sounded like he actually wanted to help.

“Fine. Pull it.” I couldn’t get access to the video footage without him.

We walked over to a computer monitor, and Bradley began tapping on the keyboard. Almost instantly a picture of the hallway outside Bethany’s locker popped up on the screen.

“Cool.” I couldn’t stop myself from whispering the word. I mean, it was pretty badass. They had video that monitored the comings and goings at the headquarters, but they’d also caught some other interesting stuff on camera. I noticed that as he zipped through the footage pulling up the images from last night. One of Pemberly Brown’s custodians danced across the screen without his pants on.

“Um, eww.”

“Tell me about it. You should see what he wears to wax the floors.”

Bradley continued to fast-forward through the footage, through streams of students switching classes in a blur, teachers coming and going, and all the other normal Pemberly Brown activity.

“Ooh, stop.” I couldn’t help myself. Bradley backed up a few frames and we watched Porter Reynolds amble down the hallway, his guitar slung across his chest as usual. He walked backward, playing what had to be one of only four songs in his repertoire as a bevy of giggling first-years followed close behind. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, shaking my head.

“You’re really surprised? First-years eat that crap up.”

Bradley continued whizzing through the frames when I caught a flash of a dark-haired girl.

“Wait.”

Bradley pressed Play and sure enough Bethany filled the screen. Someone was guiding her roughly up to the stairs. She turned directly to the camera, blindfold securely in place, but I could feel the panic radiating off her in waves.

“Holy shit.” Bradley breathed the words. “I’m going to freaking kill them.”

“Told you.” I leaned in for a closer look. It was definitely Bethany, but she didn’t look nearly as bad as she had in the picture. I looked at the little clock in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. 6:23. I guess a lot could happen in an hour.

“Who’s she with? Can you zoom in?”

But Bradley was already typing commands furiously into the keyboard, his face set in hard, angry lines.

“I can’t believe they’d do this. It goes against everything…” He let his voice trail off and he shook his head. He really
didn’t
know anything about this. He hadn’t been lying after all, but someone wanted Conventus to happen even more than he did. Someone was willing to kill for it.

The shadowed face behind Bethany slowly came into focus, and I wish I could say I was surprised, but I wasn’t. I guess if I’d ever really taken the time to think about it, I would have known that only one person at school was capable of pulling off something like this, and he just happened to be Bradley Farrow’s best friend.

Alistair Reynolds.

Alistair’s face was dark and blurry and pixilated, but I would recognize his brooding stare anywhere. With all the emoting he was doing, it was almost like he knew he was on
Candid
freaking
Camera
.

He led Bethany up the stairs and slammed the door behind him without even a glance around the hallway. There was no one else with him. It was just Alistair.

Bradley kept zipping through the footage, and panic hit me like a bolt of lightning. If they monitored everything that happened outside the door of the new headquarters…

And just like clockwork Taylor, Seth, and I showed up on the tape at seven o’clock. I jumped up from the chair and tried to make a break for the stairs.

“What the…” Bradley jumped up too, and grabbed me. “What the hell are you playing at, Kate?”

I slipped out of his grip and took the stairs two at a time. Even if I did believe that he hadn’t had anything to do with whatever had happened to Bethany, it didn’t change anything. It couldn’t.

He stopped at the top of the stairs. “I have no idea what Taylor told you, but it’s all a lie. We can fix this. Find Bethany, end the feud. You need to do this for Grace. In her memory. That’s all she ever wanted—to be remembered. She even wrote it in that book.”

I froze at the bottom.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I said the words slowly, enunciating each syllable.

“Her book, the beat-up paperback by…” Bradley’s voice trailed off, and he realized his mistake.

“It was you? You were the person taunting me with Grace’s stuff?” My voice was hysterical, and the tears started to come fast and furious. There was just too much going on. The second I started to trust Bradley, to actually believe that he gave a shit about finding Bethany and ending this pointless war before it hurt anyone else, he revealed himself to be an even bigger jerk than I ever could have imagined.

I stood up and ran down the stairs and into the hallway. I could barely see where I was going through the tears, but it didn’t matter. Well, it didn’t matter until I tripped over a freaking “Caution, Wet Floor” sign outside the girls’ bathroom and face-planted into the marble tile.

“Kate! Are you okay?” Bradley helped me up before I remembered to push him away. “I wasn’t taunting you with her things. I swear. When we moved the headquarters, I found a box of her stuff and I thought you should have it, but I had no way of giving it to you. You look so sad sometimes, and I just thought that maybe if a little piece of Grace showed up on a bad day, it would help. It started at the memorial. I knew her jacket was in the box, so I figured I’d just put it on your chair or whatever.

“And then you gave that speech, and I don’t know, I just had to do something. So I left the book in your room. And then that day in History, you just looked like you needed a piece of her back. So I left the notebook. You can have everything else too. It’s all up there.” He ran his hand across his head and pulled at his neck. “I guess I just thought that if I was missing somebody that much, I’d want to feel like they were still around, like pieces of them were still out there.” He shrugged his shoulders and looked down at his feet. “I’m so sorry.”

The weird thing was that I could actually see how his theory might have worked in his head. I did miss Grace, and I desperately wanted to keep her alive somehow. Wasn’t that why I was constantly writing her those emails?

“You kept me from her that night. I should have been able to save her, but if you hadn’t…and you thought leaving me pieces of her was going to make it all better?” I let my voice trail off. We both knew what he’d done to keep me away from Grace that night. I still remembered how amazing his lips had felt on mine, only to be completely humiliated seconds later when he ditched me. And then to think of everything that had happened while I sat on that bench, how I never had the chance to save her—it was too much. It was still too much.

“I’m sorry, Kate. I had no idea what they were up to, and I never would have agreed to it if I hadn’t thought you were cute.”

Cute?
Seriously. I wanted to punch him, but instead I managed a curt, “I’ve got to go find Alistair.”

“Kate…wait.” But I pulled away, his footsteps trailing my own, my name reverberating off the marble, his hand finally grabbing mine as I came to the end of the hallway.

He jerked me back to his chest and my body tumbled into his. I froze a breath away from his face, our noses almost touching. For a second I couldn’t breathe, let alone move away from him.

“I liked you, Kate. I still like you.”

I took a big breath, prepared to tell him exactly what he could do with all of his ridiculous “like,” but before I could say a word, his lips were crushing mine. His mouth opened just slightly as I felt his hand slip from my shoulder and down the length of my back, nudging me closer, urging me. And then I made a decision that I regretted almost instantly.

I kissed him back.

For just one second I forgot about Bethany. I forgot about Taylor desperately worried about her missing friend. I even forgot about Grace. For a few long seconds, the only things that existed in my world were Bradley Farrow’s lips. And his hands. And his legs.

And then I heard an all-too-familiar voice calling my name. Shock and anger made it sound more like a curse.

Liam.

I pushed Bradley away and turned to explain. But Liam was gone.

Anger boiled up inside me from a place so deep and dark and scary that it felt as though it might explode, taking me with it. I hated Bradley for understanding why I needed to keep Grace alive. I hated Liam for not. I hated both of them for making me feel so completely out of control.

But a bright, blinding light interrupted my fit and I was forced to throw my arm over my burning eyes. Both Bradley and I turned our heads to the side as if we could escape the painful, white light before we realized there was absolutely no way out.

And then we heard the clicks.

At first I thought Headmaster Sinclair’s dress shoes were clicking along the shiny hardwood floors. He’d flipped the lights and broken up our party; he would threaten us and force us out. But by the time my eyes adjusted and I was able to focus, Headmaster Sinclair was nowhere to be found. Instead the president of the Pemberly Brown school board’s high heels were clicking ominously down the hallway toward us, Ms. D. trailing behind her in tennis shoes, a triumphant smile on her face.

The president shoved past me, barely even sparing me a glance, and grabbed Bradley by the elbow.

“Thanks for the invitation, Bradley. You sure know how to throw a party.”

Bradley opened his mouth but no words came out. He must have been just as shocked as I was. “What are you talking about?” he finally managed.

“The invitation you sent out for the pool party, of course. We’ve gone ahead and turned on all the lights, and by now most students are being removed from the premises. But I was disappointed not to find you down there. I wanted to thank you in person for the invite. Thankfully, Taylor Wright told me I might be able to find you up here.”

“But I didn’t send that invitation. I mean, I saw it on Amicus and I came, but I’d never send…My phone. I lost my phone this afternoon. Someone else must have sent the invitation using my name. Taylor. She’s trying to get me in trouble. Kate, you have to tell her!”

“There will be plenty of time for explanations, Mr. Farrow, but in the meantime I think you’d better show me what’s going on up there.” She nodded toward the staircase hidden behind the lockers, and Bradley’s entire face crumpled. It was all over. He knew it. And I knew it.

“Now, if you’ll please do me the honors.” She gestured for Bradley to lead her up the stairs, and I watched them ascend to his headquarters.

The second they disappeared up the stairs, Ms. D. rushed over to put her arms around me.

“You did good, Kate. I’m so proud of you.” She enveloped me in one of her signature hugs.

“But what about Bethany?” My voice cracked and I leaned forward, insistent. “You can see the headquarters later. It’s Alistair Reynolds we really need to talk to.”

Ms. D. pulled away and gave me a long look. “She’s fine, Kate. I’m sure of it. I promise we’ll figure all of that out tomorrow. But tonight, we need to deal with this.” She jerked her arm toward the hidden staircase.

“But she’s hurt! I got another text! We have to go now and get her. What am I going to tell Taylor?” I was frantic now, shocked that the only adult I trusted at Pemberly Brown was turning her back on me.

“Trust me, Kate.” She smiled sadly and started up the stairs.

“Wait, let me show you.” I began digging through my bag, desperately searching for my phone. Finally I just dumped the contents on the floor. Pens rolled, one stopping at the base of Ms. D.’s sneaker. A container of lip gloss lost its cap as it hit the ground, and my wallet spilled open, change clattering to the floor. I didn’t care about any of it. I just needed my phone. But after every last pocket in my bag was emptied and I still hadn’t found it, the vein on the side of my neck began to pulse. My heart pounded.

I stood and shoved my fingers into my pockets, praying that I’d feel the smooth plastic case of my phone. A dull ache began to spread from each temple as Ms. D. lingered at the base of the stairwell, a sympathetic look on her face.

“Kate.” Ms. D’s voice was gentle. “I don’t have time for this now, but I promise we’ll work this all out tomorrow. I’ve got to go. They’re waiting on me up there.” She turned and left me with tears streaming down my face.

The hallways felt empty, like a house after a party or a littered street after a parade. Show’s over. Everyone had moved on. Everyone except me.

“Looking for this?”

At first I thought I must have imagined the voice from the blackened classroom, that I was officially going crazy.

Again.

“I’m late, aren’t I?”

The moonlight shone in perfectly straight lines through the panes of glass along the back wall. It gave the empty classroom a peaceful, serene appearance. I’d always imagined that was what heaven looked like. Only without the desks.

From the bright lights of the hallway, it was difficult to see in. My eyes hadn’t quite adjusted, and my pupils were manic from all the changes. But there was definitely someone there. I could see the shape of a person.

I knew that voice.

The form moved forward, coming closer.

I recognized the outline of that body.

And closer.

There was no mistaking that hair.

Bethany.