“And that's it?” she asked. “I mean, I'm just curious.”
“Well, they also asked if I'd heard from him, of course,” I said, wanting to flinch even now.
“Right. ..,” she said.
“And I told them I haven't,” I said. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, like, Yeah, right. “Well, I haven't!” I said. “Why is that so hard for everyone to believe?”
Are you all psychic?
104
“Probably because if he'd gotten in touch with anyone, it would have been you,” Kiran said flatly. “Thomas is notorious for making his girlfriends the primary relationships in his life. He's a totally whipped boy. Like, with anyone and everyone he decides to date.”
“Girlfriends?”
Kiran tucked her chin and looked at me over the top of her sunglasses. “Please. You thought you were the first? What Greyhound bus did you fall off of?”
Wha--who? Had I met them? Were they here at Easton? Who were they? “No,” I said, and scoffed. “It's just... he didn't have that problem with me, that's all.”
“So you think,” Kiran said.
We arrived at the library door. Kiran paused and took off her sunglasses. She looked at me with those stunning eyes and I actually felt honored that she deigned to train them on me.
“Listen, don't worry about the police,” she said. “At least it's over. You told them everything you know and now you don't have to worry about it anymore.”
I felt comforted for a split second, probably because Kiran was bothering to try to comfort me. That gesture in and of itself made me feel better. Maybe we were actually becoming friends. But what she didn't know was that I hadn't told the police everything. Not remotely.
“I mean, it's not like you did anything,” she added.
“Thanks,” I said. “Really. Thanks for coming to meet me.”
105
Kiran clucked her tongue. “Don't do that. I don't do sappy.”
I smirked. “Got it.”
Kiran slipped her sunglasses back on, whipped open the library door, and slipped into the comforting, musty silence ahead of me.
“Love the library,” she said sarcastically.
'Yeah," I replied with a scoff.
Personally, I was looking forward to the next hour of peace and quiet more than I'd looked forward to anything else all year.
106
THE PERFECT WEAPON
After Kiran's surprising gesture, I realized there was no way I could spy on her and the other girls. No way in hell. These were my friends we were talking about here. Natasha had to understand that. She just had to.
After another round of chores, I trudged back to my room, determined to put an end to the insanity. I paused in front of my dorm-?room door and took a deep breath. I could hear Natasha moving around inside. This was it. I was just going to have to tell her to forget it. I'd just have to appeal to her conscience. She had to have one in there somewhere, or she wouldn't care so much about Leanne--about bringing wrongdoers to justice. I had to make her see that what she was doing to me was just as wrong as what she thought Noelle and her friends had done to Leanne.
It had to work.
'You have to open the door in order to go through it, new girl,“ Cheyenne said, startling me as she came around the corner. ”Unless you've got some superpowers you haven't made us all aware of."
I shot her a scathing look and walked into my room. Natasha's