Ruthless

Chapter 33 A FALLEN IDOL

Emily and Kelsey sped past the quaint shops on the main drive, the Hollis clock tower, the covered bridge, the upscale hair salon where Their Ali had taken Emily and her friends to get eyebrow waxes for seventh-grade graduation. Ali had tried to talk Emily into getting a bikini wax, too, but Emily had refused.

Kelsey didn’t say a word, just drove, staring straight ahead. Every so often, her whole body shivered and spasmed, like Emily’s body did when she was waking from a bad dream.

“Is everything okay?” Emily asked tentatively.

“Everything’s fine,” Kelsey answered. “Never better! On top of the world! Why do you ask?”

Whoa. She’d said all that in the span of about two seconds. Emily eased back in her seat, feeling the seat belt cut against her chest. “You confronted Spencer about what happened, right? How did that go? Are you upset?”

Kelsey took her hands off the wheel, leaned over, and started to stroke Emily’s shoulder. “You’re so cute. Do you always get this worried about people, or am I special?”

“Uh, can you watch the road?” Emily warned as the car drifted over the dotted yellow line. A car speeding toward them honked and swerved.

“I hope I’m special to you.” Kelsey faced front again. “Because you’re special to me.”

“Good,” Emily answered, but she still felt a little unnerved. She stared out the window at the dark telephone poles rushing past. Where were they, anyway? This was a part of Rosewood she rarely visited.

Just after an old, ramshackle Quaker church came into view, Kelsey wrenched the wheel, sending the car onto a hidden turnoff. A sign swept past, written in crooked capital letters. FLOATING MAN QUARRY.

“W-why are we going here?” Emily stammered.

“Have you ever been to this place?” Kelsey gunned up the steep hill. “It’s awesome. I haven’t been here in ages. Not since before I went to juvie.”

Emily peeked out the window. She hadn’t been here in a while, either: The last time was when she and the others had discovered Mona Vanderwaal was the original A. Mona had been about to push Spencer over the cliff into the jagged rocks below, but Mona had slipped to her death instead.

“There are cooler places than this, you know,” Emily said shakily. “There’s a spot near the train tracks where you can see the whole Main Line.”

“Nah, I like it here.” Kelsey pulled into the empty parking lot next to a big trash barrel. “Come on!” She ran over to Emily’s side and pulled her out. “You’ve got to see this view!”

“That’s okay.” Emily wriggled her arm from Kelsey’s grasp. Her heels sank in the wet grass. “I’m not really good with heights.”

“But it’s so beautiful, Emily!” Kelsey gestured toward the edge of the ravine. Her eyes were bulging and a little crossed, and she was still twitching and shaking. “This should be on your bucket list! You haven’t lived until you’ve stood on the precipice of a cliff!”

Kelsey punctuated the last line with a faint giggle. The hair on the back of Emily’s neck stood on end. She thought of Spencer’s warnings. The coincidental overlap in Jamaica. The two hands pushing Emily over the hill, Kelsey appearing at the top seconds later. Kelsey’s sudden bizarre behavior.

“Kelsey, what’s going on?” Emily whispered.

Kelsey broke into a broad, off-kilter smile. “Nothing! Why would you say that?”

“You seem so . . . different. Like you’re . . . I don’t know . . . you’re drunk or something.”

“Just drunk on life!” Kelsey spread out her arms. “Ready to do something huge! I thought you were brave, Emily. Don’t you want to stand on the cliff with me?”

Kelsey skipped toward the edge of the gulch, leaving her bag gaping open on the driver’s seat. The lights over the dashboard were still on, and Emily could see the bag’s contents. Sitting right on top was a huge vial of pills. There was no name on the prescription label.

All kinds of alarms were going off inside her. Slowly, without making any sound, she felt around in her pocket for her cell phone. When she found it, she tapped in a quick message to Aria. SOS. At Floating Man. Please come.

She pressed SEND and waited for the confirmation that Aria had received the message. But then Kelsey turned around. “Who are you calling?”

“No one.” Emily dropped her phone back into her pocket.

Kelsey went limp. “You don’t want to be here, do you? You don’t want to hang out with me.”

“Of course I do. But I’m worried about you tonight. You seem . . . upset. Kind of weird. Is it because of what I told you? I should’ve come clean from the start. I’m sorry.”

Kelsey sniffed sharply. “Well, I should’ve come clean, too.”

Emily cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a liar, just like you.” Kelsey giggled, retreating toward Emily. “You know when I told you I didn’t realize you were Spencer’s best friend? Or that you went through all that stuff with Alison? I knew all along, Emily. I was just pretending I didn’t.”

Emily pressed her hand against her temple, trying to take this in. “Why?”

“Because I was trying to be nice.” The wind picked up strands of Kelsey’s hair. “Not gawk at you like you were some freak. What’s your excuse, Emily? Did you want to laugh at me behind my back? Did you and Spencer giggle about what she did to me?”

“Of course not!” Emily cried. “I only found out after we met!”

Kelsey’s eyes flashed. “You have all kinds of secrets up your sleeve, don’t you?” She shook her head in disgust. “I can’t believe you did what you did. You’re a horrible person, Emily. Horrible.”

Emily pressed her hand to her heart and felt it thudding through her dress. Kelsey’s features had transformed. Now she stared at Emily with pure, clean hate, the same self-loathing Emily felt ever since Tabitha’s remains had turned up on the shore. All at once, every theory Spencer had proposed about this girl seemed possible. More than possible—right. She thought about the picture of Tabitha on Kelsey’s phone. And about Tabitha’s face as Aria shoved her off the roof. The soft thud as she hit the ground. The resort had seemed so desolate, as though every guest had vacated the island for the night. But someone had been watching. Kelsey.

How had Emily not seen it before? Was Spencer right? Had Emily been blinded by her crush?

In any case Kelsey was right: Emily was a horrible person. The most horrible person in the world.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Emily whispered. “You don’t understand.”

Kelsey shook her head in disgust. “You let it happen. And you said nothing.”

Emily covered her face in her hands, thinking of the Tabitha memorial pages online, her grieving friends and family. “I know. I should have. It’s awful.”

A faint sound of tires on gravel rang out, and Emily turned. Headlights appeared above the crest, and Aria’s Subaru gunned up the hill. Aria gripped the wheel. Hanna sat next to her, frantically pointing when she saw Emily.

Emily lifted her hands above her head to wave them over, but Kelsey caught her wrist. “You’re coming with me.” She yanked Emily toward the cliff.

“No!” Emily tried to pull away, but Kelsey gripped her hard, dragging her so forcefully Emily’s feet left the ground.

“I want you to see this,” Kelsey said, marching her toward the ravine. Emily’s ankles turned several times in her uncomfortable shoes, and when one of them fell off she left it there and went the rest of the way in one stockinged foot. Tears streamed down her face, and she could barely breathe she was so afraid.

“I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. Her voice was trembling so badly she could hardly get the words out. “I thought we were friends. More than friends.”

“We were.” Kelsey pushed Emily over a series of rocks. “But this is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you.”

They arrived at the edge of the quarry. Gravel spilled down the long rock face. When Emily looked over the side, all she could see was deep, infinite darkness. She glanced over her shoulder then and saw Aria getting out of the car. “Emily!” she cried. “Oh my God!”

Kelsey nudged Emily closer to the edge, and Emily let out a scream. Kelsey was going to do to Emily exactly what Mona had tried to do to Spencer, what Tabitha had tried to do to Hanna, what Ali had tried to do to all of them. Except this time, A would live . . . and A’s victim would die.

“Please,” Emily glanced imploringly at Kelsey. “You don’t want to do this. Maybe we can talk this over. Figure it out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out,” Kelsey said in a deflated voice. “This is the way it has to be.”

“Emily!” Aria screamed, running closer.

But she wasn’t close enough. Kelsey’s fingers curled around Emily’s shoulder. Her breath was hot in her ear. Her whole body seemed to stiffen, as though preparing to push Emily over. Emily shut her eyes, realizing these were her last few seconds of being alive.

“Please,” she whispered one more time.

And then, suddenly, Kelsey released her grip from Emily’s arm. Emily turned in time to see Kelsey walking to the edge of the precipice. She caught Emily’s eye, but the crazy, dangerous look was gone. She seemed exhausted and incredibly sad.

“Good-bye,” Kelsey said in the most pathetic voice Emily had ever heard. There were tears in her eyes. Her hands were shaking so violently they smacked against her waist. A thin trickle of blood dripped from her nose. She looked over the edge and took a deep breath.

“Kelsey!” It took Emily only a second to realize what was happening. “Don’t jump!”

Kelsey ignored her, inching forward until her toes dangled over the edge. More rocks cascaded into the quarry. “It’s too late. I’m so sick of how shitty life is.” She was slurring her words so badly Emily could barely understand her. “I’m so sick of everything.” She shut her eyes and took a step into the darkness.

“No!” Emily wrapped her arms around Kelsey’s waist. Kelsey tried to elbow her away, but Emily mustered up all her strength and ripped Kelsey backward. They both staggered onto the grass. Kelsey grunted, trying to break free. Emily pulled her even tighter. Her ankle turned once more, and all of a sudden, she was on the wet, slick ground with Kelsey on top of her. Pain cracked through her head and her tailbone. Coldness from the rocks seeped straight through her coat and into her skin.

She blacked out for a few moments, hearing only faint sobs and the vague sounds of footsteps. When she came to, Hanna was leaning over her. “Emily? Emily! Oh my God!”

Emily blinked hard. Kelsey was no longer on top of her. She looked around frantically, afraid Kelsey had thrown herself into the quarry, but the girl was only a few feet away, curled into a ball.

“Are you okay?” Aria appeared above Emily, too.

“I-I don’t know,” Emily said dazedly. And then everything swarmed back to her. The fear. The certainty that she had been about to die. How Kelsey knew everything. Tears streamed down her face. Her body heaved and bucked. Her sobs sounded messy and ugly.

Hanna and Aria knelt down and hugged her tight. “It’s okay,” they whispered. “You’re safe now. We promise.”

“Hey,” another voice said a few feet away. Emily opened her eyes and saw a third figure squatting next to Kelsey. “Wake up.”

Emily’s jaw dropped. It was Spencer. She’d doubted Spencer and double-crossed her, and she’d come anyway.

“You guys?” Spencer looked up and pushed her blond hair away from her face. “Look.”

She moved out of the way for the girls to see. Kelsey’s back was arched, her head was flung to the side, and her arms and legs danced as though they were being pumped with a million volts of electric power. Bile bubbled out of her mouth. Cords stood out prominently on her neck.

“What’s wrong with her?” Hanna screamed.

“I’m calling 911.” Aria pulled out her phone.

“I think she’s OD’ing.” Spencer kneeled down to Kelsey’s face. “She must have taken something.”

Emily stood up weakly and staggered to Kelsey’s bag, which was still sitting on the driver’s seat of her car. Inside was the vial of pills, half empty. “This.” She showed the others.

Spencer looked at them and nodded. “Easy A.”

An ambulance screamed up the gulch road minutes after Aria’s call. EMTs surrounded Kelsey and immediately started treatment, telling the girls to step back. Emily hugged her chest, feeling cold and numb. Aria watched the EMTs with a hand over her mouth. Hanna kept shaking her head and saying, “Oh my God.” Spencer looked like she was going to be sick.

After a while, the ambulance driver, an athletic woman with shoulder-length brown hair, walked over to the girls. “What happened?”

“I think she was trying to kill herself,” Emily answered, her voice still weak. “I guess she took too many pills . . . and she was going to jump into the gulch.”

The EMTs checked Emily for any injuries, but besides feeling bruised and banged up, she was fine. Then they loaded Kelsey in the ambulance and drove off. Emily silently watched the red lights swirl down the hill. She listened to the sirens until the sound disappeared.

A deafening silence followed. Emily walked over to Spencer, who was staring across the huge ravine. This was the same view she’d looked out upon over a year ago, just when Mona was about to kill her. It didn’t seem like a coincidence that they were back here, fighting A again.

“I’m sorry,” Emily said quietly. “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

“It’s okay,” Spencer answered.

“But I told her everything.” Emily shut her eyes. “I told Kelsey what you did at Penn. How you sent her to juvie.”

Spencer whipped her head up. All kinds of emotions played across her face. “You did?”

Emily frowned. “She didn’t mention that when she talked to you tonight?”

Spencer shook her head. “Everything moved so fast. We just screamed at each other.”

Emily placed her head in her hands. “I’m so sorry. I never should have . . .” She trailed off, choking with sobs. Everything felt so wrong. “I’m a terrible friend. I wasn’t there for you.” She meant it in more ways than one.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Spencer touched Emily’s shoulder. “I get it. And it was a horrible thing I did. Maybe I deserved it, too, after what I said to you.”

The wind howled. Far off, Emily thought she could still hear the sirens. Hanna and Aria crunched over, quiet and solemn. “Kelsey’s going to tell everyone what we did to Tabitha,” Hanna said.

“No one will believe her,” Spencer said. “She’s on drugs. They’ll think she hallucinated the whole thing.”

“But she has proof,” Hanna argued. “She has that picture of Tabitha dead on the beach.”

“What picture?” Emily shrieked.

Spencer reached for her phone, then shrugged and seemed to change her mind. “It’s a long story. Honestly, I should delete it. Pretend I never got it. But even a picture of Tabitha doesn’t prove we did anything. It might even make her look guilty. Who takes a picture of a dead body and doesn’t report it? Everyone will think she’s just . . . crazy.”

An airplane flew silently overhead, its red light blinking on and off. A bird let out a long, hollow call somewhere in the ravine. Everyone turned back toward Aria’s car, feeling shaken but slightly relieved. But then, Kelsey’s words whipped through Emily’s mind once more. You let it happen. You’re a horrible person.

Just because no one believed Kelsey didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. Emily was a horrible person. That guilt would never go away.