The Lying Game Complete Collection - Sara Shepard Page 0,49

Before she could stop herself, she grabbed an eyeliner pencil from the sink and drew a pig’s nose over Sutton’s face. After a moment, she added devil horns and a tail. There. It made her feel a tiny bit better.

She heard the girls snicker in the bedroom. Emma stood up, glared at her wild-animal expression in the mirror, and splashed cold water on her face. There was only one thing she could do: ruin Sutton’s stupid prank before she could leap out from wherever she was hiding and scream, “Gotcha!” There was no way she was going to let Sutton win.

“Emma . . .” I wished so badly that she could see my flickering body and understand this wasn’t a joke. That I was dead, really and truly. It was one thing when she rolled her eyes at my life and wrinkled her nose at my boyfriend, but I didn’t want her to think I was the kind of person who would use her own long-lost sister that way. I didn’t want to be that kind of person.

And then, all at once, the fluorescent light on the ceiling burnt out.

“Hello?” Emma called. She fumbled for the doorknob but couldn’t find it anywhere. Her foot hit the metal trash can with a clang. Something crashed on the other side of the door. Charlotte screamed.

“Sutton? Was that you?” Laurel called. An alarm sounded from downstairs. There were footsteps . . . and then a siren. Emma trembled.

All of a sudden, the darkness sparked something in my mind. Spots appeared in front of my eyes. I heard a whooshing sound in my ears. And then I was back in that creek bed behind the resort again, calling Laurel’s name, a hand over my eyes, a knife against my neck. Scream and you’re dead. And just like that, I saw what happened next. . . .

Chapter 18

WHO’S LAUGHING NOW?

“Scream and you’re dead,” the voice hisses in my ear, the knife still at my throat. Someone restrains my arms behind my back and ties a scarf so tightly around my eyes that the fabric presses into my eye sockets. Next they pull a gag around my mouth, the cotton digging into my cheeks. Hands shove me forward. Sandy gravel crunches under my feet and brambles scratch my legs. I hear footsteps next to me. Keys jingle.

I am pushed up a small hill. My toe hits a jutting rock, and cold pain streaks up my spine. I cry out, but then someone behind me pinches my arm. “What part of ‘Scream and you’re dead’ don’t you understand?” The blade digs deeper into my skin.

After a minute of walking, we halt abruptly. A sharp beep punctuates the air, a car door unlocking. I hear the hydraulic hiss of a trunk opening wide. “Get in.” Someone shoves me from behind, and I fall forward. My cheek hits what feels like the spare tire at the back. My legs bend awkwardly to fit the space. Thump. The trunk slams shut again, and all is quiet.

I smile to myself in the darkness. Let the next round of the Lying Game begin.

My friends had me going for a couple of minutes, but they can’t fool me for long. I can’t wait until they lift the trunk again, probably hoping to take a picture of me paralyzed with fright. Lame! I’ll scream, scaring them instead. Could you have been any more obvious? “Scream and you’re dead” was my line—I used it on Madeline when I sneaked into her bedroom last spring while pretending to be a burglar. Laurel probably said it, knockoff that she is. They’re going to pay for this though. Maybe in the form of a 150-minute massage at La Paloma tomorrow. I’ll need one to undo all the kinks in my back from squeezing into this tiny space.

Then the engine growls. The car backs up and pivots to the right, shifting me into an even more uncomfortable, Twister-like position. I frown. We’re going somewhere? What’s the point of that? I roll again when the car lurches into drive, banging my knee against the underside of the hood. “Mmmm,” I moan through the gag. Can’t they be a little gentler on me? Keep this up and I’ll be sidelined from tennis this year. I wriggle my hands to see if I can free them to remove the scarf from my eyes, but whoever bound them must have taken an advanced Boy Scout class in knot tying. Probably Laurel again. More