Invitation Only (Private 2) - Page 76

“Hav­ing fun?” Noelle shout­ed, twirling over and throw­ing her arms around my neck. She moved against me, com­plete­ly sure, com­plete­ly un-?self-?con­scious. I did my best to mim­ic her move­ment, her con­fi­dence.

“Def­inite­ly.”

“Good. You need this,” Noelle said.

“What?” I asked. I had heard her, but had no idea what she meant.

'You need this!“ she re­peat­ed, look­ing me in the eye. ”En­joy it!"

I missed a beat and bumped her hip. She smiled, turned, and shim­mied back to Dash. Was it just me, or did her “en­joy it” have a “while you can” im­plied?

Oh, God. They were an­gry with me for giv­ing in to Natasha's black­mail. They were go­ing to let me fry. Tonight was some kind of

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mer­cy mis­sion. Some kind of last hur­rah. They were let­ting me see in­to the very core of their priv­ileged world, in­to the Lega­cy, just so that it would be that much more painful when they snatched it all away.

I turned around, feel­ing sud­den­ly ill, and looked around for a win­dow, a bal­cony, any place where I might be able to find some air. And that was when I saw him and the en­tire room tilt­ed be­neath me.

Thomas.

226

DOU­BLE MIND­FREAK

“Reed! Reed! Where're you go­ing!?” Tay­lor shout­ed af­ter me.

I didn't re­spond. Couldn't. There was no time. I el­bowed my way through the gy­rat­ing bod­ies on the dance floor, step­ping on toes and earn­ing shoves and curs­es along the way. Strobe lights flashed, arms dis­tort­ed my view, but I kept my eyes trained on him like a sniper on a hos­tile tar­get. He was stand­ing right there, sip­ping a drink, with one hand in his pock­et. If he turned just slight­ly to the left, he would be look­ing right at me.

If he saw me, would he run? Would he ap­proach? Why wouldn't he look my way?

“Thomas!” I screamed.

I was just ar­riv­ing at the edge of the dance floor when he turned, lift­ed one of the dark cur­tains, and dis­ap­peared be­hind it. I grabbed up my skirt and ran, sidestep­ping a cou­ple who was mak­ing out near one of the bars, duck­ing as an ac­ro­bat came dan­ger­ous­ly close to im­pal­ing her­self on one of my bob­by pins. Gasp­ing for breath, I whipped the cur­tain aside and there he was,

227

stand­ing with his back to me. I grabbed his shoul­der and whipped him around.

“Thomas!” I gasped, bare­ly au­di­ble.

It wasn't Thomas at all. The guy turned his star­tled brown eyes on me and quick­ly ducked out of the al­cove as if he'd been caught with his hand in the cook­ie jar. He was too tall, his hair too long. He looked noth­ing like Thomas. How could I have ev­er mis­tak­en him?

My heart pound­ed in my chest. I looked up from the floor--my eyes bleary and con­fused--and in­stant­ly all the air whooshed out of my lungs. For the first time I no­ticed that I was not alone. I no­ticed the rea­son the Thomas look-?alike had bolt­ed so quick­ly in ob­vi­ous guilt.

There, in the cor­ner, with her leg wrapped over an­oth­er girl's lap, her hands en­tan­gled in an­oth­er girl's blond hair, her tongue search­ing an­oth­er girl's mouth, was none oth­er than Natasha Cren­shaw.

“Oh, my God,” I said loud­ly.

Natasha turned around, heav­ing for breath, and for the first time I saw clear­ly the face of the girl be­neath her--the chub­by cheeks, the heavy make­up, the kiss-?bruised lips of Leanne Shore.

228

BLACK­MAIL BOOMERANG

“Oh, this is just per­fect,” Leanne said sourly.

Yep. Just as pleas­ant as I re­mem­bered her.

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