Rival (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 1) Read online

  The girl startles, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “Um … what?”

  “I heard you,” I say.

  She shakes her head, confused. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You did,” I snarl, then look up at the students watching. “I had nothing to do with Piper!”

  Dead silence meets my words as they echo throughout the hall.

  “Why don’t you all focus on why she did what she did?” When no one answers my question, I cry, “What is it about this school that turns people into Greek tragedies?”

  Someone hooks onto my elbow and starts dragging me through the dining hall.

  Automatically, I struggle against the hold, but his hand clamps down harder. I glance up. My insides shrink at the sight.

  “Chase, let me go.”

  Chase's cold gaze stays straight ahead, but he mutters, “Not a chance.”

  “I said let me go.” My voice gets louder. “You don’t have the authority to control—”

  “Do you see who’s watching?” he asks through one side of his mouth. “Take a look, then you can tell me whether or not I should drag you out of here by your ass.”

  I look where he directs, and my lips thin upon seeing Detective Haskins leaning against the wall, arms folded as he witnesses the spectacle.

  “Why do you care if Haskins sees my meltdown?” I ask Chase, but he ignores my question and walks us faster.

  Chase pushes us through the double doors into the deserted hallway. When they shut behind him, I jerk out of Chase's hold.

  “Why are you trying to save me?” I rub my arm where his grip was, a spot that’s sore from his touch … and pulsing hot. “I thought I was nothing but vermin to you.”

  His stare becomes his surname as he strides past me. “Because you’re no good to me in a holding cell. You’re going back to your room.”

  “I’m not one of your loyal subjects. You can’t tell me what to do.”

  He continues eating up the marble floor, pulling me with him.

  “Someone in this goddamned school needs to answer me!” I scream, then push at his back and drag my feet until he stops.

  And turns.

  And in the space of a second, closes the gap and claims my comfort zone.

  “I’m not saving you, Callie,” he says, and it’s so low, so threatening that it’s seductive in its menace. “I’m keeping you to myself. Because if you have any answers about Piper’s death, I’m going to know about it. You’ll tell me, not some podunk detective who thinks true gumshoeing is pulling kids over for a DUI. Isn’t that what we agreed to at the boathouse?”

  I bark out a laugh, and his spine jerks upright. “Did I just say something funny to you?”

  “No,” I say with a grin, but hold my stomach, nonetheless. “It’s just … you think you have the power of God. That you have the right to information about a suspicious death simply because you demand it. Fuck, maybe you do.” I step back from him and rub my eyes. “What universe have I fallen into where a seventeen-year-old can influence my future?”

  “Eighteen,” he clips out. “And get used to it. Things don’t work the way they do in the big city. My family has connections. I have power over this school and all the professors here. My family gifted the current library. Headmaster Marron? He’s golf buddies with my father, a top criminal defense attorney in this country. That should make your tits shrivel, considering the school’s current opinion of you. And I can use both my father’s and my stronghold over Briarcliff to save you, or I can break you. Understand?”

  I will ruin you!

  Piper’s voice rings in my ears.

  I gather the courage to say, “Tell me about the roses.”

  The muscles in Chase's jaw goes tight. “What?”

  “Tell me,” I repeat. “Because if anyone knows if Piper’s death is suspicious, it’s the people behind those flowers.”

  “Those fucking plants have nothing to do with it.”

  Chase seems so certain, and yet… “So, you admit they exist.”

  Chase's lips peel back from his teeth. His eyes narrow to a glare. “What part of go to your room are you not comprehending?”

  “I’m not forced to follow your rules.”

  “You better follow someone’s, because after what you pulled in there, the cops will look at you harder.”

  “Why would they?” This time, I step up to him. “It was an accident. Or Piper jumped. Isn’t that what you’re so confident these hick cops are concluding? Case closed.”

  One of Chase's eyelids tics. “You said you were willing to get to the bottom of it, anyway.”

  “Yes, but I’m doing that for me, not you. And I’m not listening to the gossip, which you could stop with one use of that flinty glare of yours. Everyone in that dining hall looks to you, their ruler. You told me at the boathouse you don’t think Piper committed suicide, and now people are calling me a killer, a murderer, unhinged from my mother’s death. That all stinks of you Nobles coming together and letting the rumors swirl—”

  Chase's hands clamp down on my shoulders. He rasps, an inch from my face, “What have I said to you about that word?”

  “It has something to do with the roses, doesn’t it? This whole thing, it comes down to the cloaks I saw, gold and black…” As I stare into the murky depths of Chase's eyes, the answers become clear. “They weren’t pranks, were they? Replacing my furniture, then filling my locker with poisoned rats … they’re warnings.”

  Abruptly, Chase releases me, his hot breath leaving my lips. “Shut your mouth, Callie, or I swear to God.”

  My vision turns into two slits. “You want my help? Give me some answers so I look elsewhere. Are you part of it? Of the cloaks and roses? Is that who the Nobles are?”

  “I said, shut up!” he roars.

  I wince, his echoing shout slamming against my ears. His chest rises and falls with his deep breaths, but he’s not moving. He’s not tearing his gaze away from mine.

  I whisper, “Ask your inner circle about Piper. She and I weren’t friends. We were closer to enemies, but I never hated her.”

  The memory of me tearing up the rose and wishing Piper and Chase bad luck floats to the surface, but I shove it back down. Wishes can’t be granted. They’re nothing but envy put into words when people don’t have control over their own lives.

  “Or,” I surmise, “Are your friends thinking Piper killed herself, too?”

  I don’t think Chase will answer me. I’m confident he’ll stomp away like he always does, this infuriating boy who sends me all the wrong signals, but my heart argues is so right.

  Chase’s lips part. “If you’re so smart, you’ll figure out why you’re in the spotlight soon enough.”

  I laugh dully. “Shocking. Chase Stone giving me a cryptic answer instead of the truth.”

  “Just be happy you’re not in there having a screech-fest in front of the fucking noodle bar,” he tosses out.

  “You’re such an asshole.”

  “Thank me later,” Chase says as his parting shot, then shoves his hands in his pockets and leaves.

  Half of me wants to grab him by the shoulder and drag him back here, because I’m not finished. Most of me wants to punch him in the face.

  But part of me knows he’s doing the decent thing, and I’m better off in my room, behind my computer. Students can’t insult me if I’m not there to hear it.

  My chief concern is whether Piper Harrington’s sudden death will fall on deaf ears, too.

  27

  My stomach rumbles as I crouch over my desk and force my eyes to keep reading the document on my computer.

  I lean back, absently rubbing my belly and wishing I’d gotten in a mouthful of fettuccini before being carted away by His Highness, King Chase.

  The dorm room is utterly silent with me as the sole occupant, and I’ve left my bedroom door wide to get some air, because the longer I sat at my desk and worked on the history essay, the stuffier this room became.

  Piper’
s door is open, too, but it’s completely empty, save for her ghost. Her parents and sister stripped her bed, emptied her drawers, and cleaned out the center room and kitchen pantry, leaving nothing behind but empty food packets they’d shoved into our mini trashcan.

  If it weren’t for the scent of gardenia in the air, it’s as if Piper had never set foot here.

  My stomach growls again, with wet, bubble-bursting sounds.

  At this point, I haven’t memorized the campus well enough to search for late night snacks, but perhaps there’s a vending machine in Thorne House’s lobby. I vaguely recall Ivy mentioning a coffee bar set up there.

  Or, if all else fails, I can scour the Wolf’s Den for tossed-aside pastries, but that involves traveling Briarcliff’s paths at night.

  I’m not up for that, cloaks or no cloaks. And there’s also Piper’s fall into watery depths to consider, and whether someone hides in the shadows to do it to someone else.

  Damn you, Chase, for getting into my head.

  In more ways than one.

  Ignoring my stomach for a little longer, I turn back to my research on Rose Briar, this time containing notes unlike the first round I deleted when I was determined to leave Briarcliff. I’m trying to read between the lines, as if an answer to Piper’s demise is linked with Rose’s. But with all I’ve read, the issues surrounding Rose’s death are benign, nineteenth century issues. I click onto Briarcliff’s library website, attempting to look up texts from that era, but keep getting “NO RESULTS FOUND.”

  It’s freaking strange. Wouldn’t Briarcliff Academy’s library, of all places, have original founding documents, or copies of it? Didn’t Piper say she’d found original papers?

  Yet, other than a brief, transcribed obituary, there’s nothing much on Rose, never mind any link to Rose and Piper, save for the same cliff, one hundred and seventy years later.

  The two couldn’t possibly be related. But this was the last assignment Piper was working on. The final subject in her head. Then, she fell off Lover’s Leap—Rose’s leap.

  Piper loved the story and fed off Rose’s heartbreak, but … what am I missing here?

  Brrrrrrrrrrrruuup.

  Ugh. Stupid stomach.

  My chair scrapes against the floor as I push it back and wander out of my bedroom, chancing a search through the kitchenette, even though I know what I’ll find. Again, I curse my lack of groceries and tell myself I’ll carve out some time Friday to grab some snacks, meaning I’ll only have to prowl for food one more day.

  Like the rat they think I am.

  My heart shrivels at the thought. It’s infuriating, how I’m giving proof to Piper’s moniker of me even after her death.

  Sliding on my shoes, I peer into Piper’s room, wishing her parents had left some of her binders behind, or that I’d had the forethought to take her notes or emailed them to myself somehow. She never did send me her findings on Rose Briar. And if any clues existed, it would’ve been in Piper’s own interpretation of Rose’s history.

  Figuring that ship has sailed, I turn for the door and—

  Wait.

  I squint at the tiniest strip of red peeking from out of Piper’s stripped mattress.

  Like the brownnoser I am, I glance around on instinct, as if there’s someone there to scold me for wanting to step into someone else’s room and invade their privacy, but this dorm room is deserted, save for me. Piper’s presence was permanently lifted when her family removed all of her things.

  Technically, this room could be considered my property now, at least until Marron assigns someone else to it, which he has yet to mention.

  Despite my rationalization, I hesitate in my steps. This space shouldn’t be invaded so soon. It’s as if the air itself contains sacred artifacts from Piper’s life that will dissipate as soon as I disturb it.

  “Don’t be silly,” I mutter. I was forced to live in my mom’s space for a while after she died, my stepdad not having the funds to move us until he met Lynda. Her artifacts of life were around me constantly, whether they ripped my soul apart or not.

  I can enter Piper’s room and see what the ribbon is. Now that I’m closer, I confirm it’s red satin and attached to something—not a rose, please—that’s pushed into the mattress.

  The ribbon’s slipped free from a tear in the cushioning, likely from all the jostling when packing up Piper’s life at Briarcliff. But it’s a straight cut … and clean. It’s not a hole that happened by accident.

  I touch the opening, then after a breath, push my fingers through the padding and hit something hard.

  Frowning, I stick the rest of my hand in, grab the object, and pull it out.

  It’s a hardback book, with a cream background and red roses painted across it. The pages are trimmed at the edges with gold foil, and if I didn’t know any better…

  I gasp upon flipping the pages to a random section.

  Pages and pages of handwritten notes greet my vision. In my brief scan, I see words like Chase, and my heart’s broken, and, Callie shouldn’t be here, before I close the book with a snap, splaying my hand across the front.

  Oh my God.

  I haven’t just opened Pandora’s box by finding this notebook.

  I’ve stepped into a viper’s nest.

  This is Piper’s diary.

  28

  Naturally, I go straight to the end of Piper’s journal and read her final entry.

  01.08.05.Ha

  Nobody knows that Mr. S and I are back together, and to keep it that way, I’m not going to use his true name, not even during my private thoughts. Plus, he likes that I call him Mr. S when I’m naked. He wants me to moan it before my mouth goes around his dick and I take all of him in. He wants me to plead it when he buries himself inside me and won’t let me come until I beg with his nickname on my tongue.

  He likes the power. He gets off on it.

  And I’m drunk off desire for him, my Mr. S. I missed him so damn much.

  I wish he’d let me tell the world about our love. I want us to be real, to go out in public, but he says to wait until we’re done with Briarcliff and both of us can leave. But I crave him. I need his arms around me, and the one person that’s preventing us from always being together is Callie. My surprise orphan of a roommate is ruining our plans.

  Holy. Shit.

  My cheeks are hot by the time I finish, my fingers clenched around the notebook.

  Mr. S sounds so much like Chase Stone … but why would he want to keep their hook-ups secret?

  My conscience roars its disapproval. Piper’s death is likely an accident, so would the police even care if I gave this to them?

  Unless there was something in it to indicate she didn’t fall or jump. Like … a secret affair Mr. S didn’t want Piper to reveal.

  My breaths level out, and I shut Piper’s diary. I have to give it to Haskins…

  I don’t want to be implicated because I gave them Piper’s private thoughts. I’m her supposed enemy. They would wonder, why do I have her diary?

  “Argh!” I let out a frustrated growl. What would my mom do in this situation?

  My inner villainess thinks to plant the diary on Falyn or Willow, but I’m way too clumsy to pull it off and my fear of authority and getting caught trumps that idea pretty fast.

  Then, it comes to me.

  I’ll anonymously mail the diary to the Briarcliff precinct. Being caught with her diary would cause way more of an issue than mailing it. I’m innocent, but … sending the notebook to them in an unmarked envelope seems like it’ll keep me that way.

  …There’s nothing to stop me from taking pictures on my phone of each page before handing it over, though.

  “I’m one of the rare few who believe there’s something suspicious to your death,” I whisper to her diary. “Me … and Chase.”

  I was shaking by the time I finished Piper’s final entry, picturing Chase and Piper doing all the things she outlined. And what’s most appalling … I’d wished I were Piper, begging for Cha
se to undress me.

  God, when did I become so twisted with dark desires? He could be Piper’s killer.

  I reopen the book and turn the pages, snapping photos with my phone as I go along, reading snippets. Piper goes into visceral detail about what they did in private. How Mr. S found her during the day, then whispered hot promises in her ear as he thrust into her at night—until I came along.

  My cheeks go hot again. They were doing dirty things in this dorm room, and it’s definitely why Piper wanted to keep the apartment a single. There’s a perverted urge inside me that wants to read more. And picture it.

  Most of all, I have to know.

  I switch to the strange date written at the top of her last entry, the only entry that has this combination of numbers and letters.

  It can’t be an actual date of the year. In 2005, Piper was 2 years old. Even reversing the numbers doesn’t make sense.

  I decide to copy it down on a sticky note as well as take a picture of it, thinking I might as well show the string of numbers to Ivy to see if she might know what it means.

  “Allow me access this one time,” I say, Piper’s fragrance lingering in the paper. “I’ll find out the truth.”

  To my surprise, I get midway through her notebook and find a section of torn-out pages. I run my finger along the remnants. Did Piper do this? It could be the simplest reason—she misspelled words, or her handwriting got messy, or the entry was stupid.

  Or … it could be incredibly important.

  Where are the missing pages?

  I leap out of bed and do a thorough search of her barren room but find nothing. Once back to mine, I finish up the photos, then shove Piper’s diary into the nightstand’s top drawer, but it doesn’t feel safe there. This room has been violated with its gifts of roses and wood. Someone has trespassed with the intent of ownership and a display of power, and if they come back … if they find this book…

  It may never get into the proper hands. I have to get rid of it once I get the chance.