The door to the lighting booth flung open, and the Twitter Twins appeared on the landing. They were dressed in skimpy string bikinis and tal silver stilettos. Their tanned skin gleamed. Their legs stretched for miles. But they also looked naked compared to the glamorous court girls in their gowns. Laurel stood behind them, shooting a helpless look to Charlotte, Madeline, and Emma on the ground. “I tried!” she mouthed.
As Gabby and Lili pranced down the stairs with proud, pageant-queen smiles on their faces, Emma was able to pinpoint the exact moment they noticed the other court nominees in their gowns. Their mouths dropped. They halted in their place. Norah nudged Madison. Alicia began to giggle. Everyone was suddenly in on the joke.
“Priceless,” Charlotte murmured excitedly.
“Sweet,” Madeline whispered, arching onto her toes in anticipation of the reveal to the crowd.
Emma tensed, waiting for their reaction. But the scantily clad Twitter Twins simply shared a private look, then Lili marched to a dark alcove at the back of the room. “Fear not, Gabs!”
She unearthed a wrinkled Saks shopping bag from the nook, a bag that had clearly been planted hours—if not days—before. Tissue paper crinkled as she reached her hand inside and pul ed out two slinky black dresses. Charlotte and Madeline gaped at each other, while Laurel looked sheepishly on.
“Where did these Yigal Azrouël wrinkle-free jersey dresses come from?” Gabby said in exaggerated wonder.
“And, wow! They’re even in our size!”
The Twitter Twins slipped the dresses over their heads, whipped around, and glowered at Charlotte, Madeline, Laurel, and Emma. “Nice try,” Lili said icily as one of the makeup artists rushed to her and swiped blue shadow under her eyes. “We could see your lame trick from a mile away.”
Gabby turned to Emma. “We’re not as stupid as we look, Sutton. You of al people should know that.”
Emma pressed a hand to her chest. “I never said you were stupid.”
A sarcastic snort escaped from Gabby’s mouth. “Right.”
Without averting her gaze, she marched up to Emma, reached into the Saks bag, and pul ed out a pil bottle with the same pink top Emma had noticed the other day. The prescription name, written in bold black letters, flashed before Emma’s eyes. TOPAMAX. Emma flinched. She’d been sure Gabby was popping Ritalin or Valium or some other party drug. But Topamax sounded serious.
Gabby removed the top and shook two capsules into her hands. She belted them down without water. After she swal owed, she shook the medicine bottle like a castanet, her eyes on Emma once more. “Don’t you think you should get our sashes and take your place now, Sutton?” she said in a taunting voice. “You’re at stage left, right?”
For a moment, Emma couldn’t move. It was like Gabby had cast a spel on her, paralyzing al her limbs. Charlotte nudged her side. “This blows, but she’s right. It’s time to go. Places, girls!”
“One sec!” Lili shouted, heading for the stairs to the lighting booth once more. “I forgot my iPhone!”
“You don’t need your iPhone!” Madeline growled. “You’re going to be busy onstage!”
But Lili didn’t slow down, her heels clacking on the metal stairs. “It’l just take a second.”
The door to the lighting booth slammed. Emma turned, grabbed sixteen orange silk Homecoming Court sashes, and found the X on the side of the stage where she was supposed to stand, behind a side curtain and completely isolated from the rest of the court and planners. “Pul the curtain!” Charlotte commanded.
The crowd’s murmurings grew louder. The court nominees, save for Lili, who was stil upstairs, did a few last minute hair-fluffs and blush-brush sweeps. But when Emma looked past the blinding floodlights to the stage, Gabby was staring at her with a whisper of a smile on her face. In her corpse makeup, blue circles under her eyes, stitches across her cheeks, bloody gashes on her neck, she looked menacing. Evil.
Emma took a step back. And then she noticed
something else, something she hadn’t seen before: a silver charm bracelet hung from Gabby’s wrist. Tiny objects dangled from the chain—a little iPhone, a tube of lipstick, a mini Scottie dog. They were made out of the same silver as the miniature locomotive engine that rested snugly in Emma’s purse.
A chil came over me and Emma. The Twitter Twins had kil ed me. I could feel it.
“Greetings, Hol ier High!” Madeline boomed into the microphone, so loudly it made Emma jump. “Everyone ready for Homecoming?”
A cheer rose up, and Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” blasted out of the speakers. The noise was so thunderous that Emma barely heard the snaps of cords breaking above her head. By the time she looked up, the heavy light fixture in the rafters was hurtling swiftly toward her. She screamed and jumped away just as it crashed to the ground with an earsplitting crack.
Amber glass spewed everywhere. Someone yel ed—
maybe Emma herself. She felt her body go limp and fal to the ground, the court sashes slipping from her grasp and landing on the hard floor. Just before her eyes fluttered closed, she saw Lili join Gabby in the wings. Emma tried to cal out, to maintain consciousness, but she felt herself slipping away. Gabby shook the pil bottle up and down, up and down. It sounded like chattering teeth.
The noise reminded me of something else entirely. A tiny pinhole opened in my mind, slowly widening. The world began to whirl like I was on an out-of-control carousel. I didn’t hear pil s shaking in a bottle anymore. I heard, distinctly and most definitely, a commuter train clacking noisily over the tracks. . . .