Get Even (Don’t Get Mad)

LOGAN SHIFTED HIS CAR INTO PARK AND KILLED THE ENGINE. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” Margot stared out the passenger window at her mom’s silver Prius sitting alone in the abandoned Coffee Clash parking lot. It was well past midnight, more than two hours after her parents’ arbitrary curfew, and though she’d called to tell them about Coach Creed’s murder and how the police kept everyone in the club until they could secure the scene and ask questions, it hadn’t mattered. She wasn’t sure if they were more upset that she was out past ten o’clock or that she’d somehow gotten mixed up in a murder investigation the first time they’d allowed her to venture out alone. With any luck, she’d only be put on lockdown until she was eighteen.

But the potential parental freak-out was nothing compared to Coach Creed’s death. A teacher—and another DGM victim—had been murdered, and since he’d been Margot’s prime suspect in Ronny’s death, all of her theories were officially blown out of the water. Logan laid his hand on top of hers. “I sure didn’t picture our first date ending like this.”

“You mean you didn’t plan on a murder investigation?”

He laughed. “Yeah, I planned that just for you. Guy’s got to impress a girl.” He leaned in closer. “I was hoping for something a little less police procedural, and a little more romantic.”

Margot’s heart might technically have stopped beating momentarily as he tilted his head, easing his lips close to hers. He was going to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her. No one had ever wanted to kiss her in the history of boys kissing girls.

Logan’s lips brushed against hers, and Margot’s mind fell instantly silent. All she could focus on was the tingling sensation. Logan paused, waiting for the green light. She smiled a fraction.

That was all he needed.

Logan kissed her, and her legs went limp. He nuzzled her upper and lower lips separately, then pulled back and cupped her face with his hand. She gazed into his eyes, desperate to feel his lips on hers again. Instead, he kissed her eyelids, left then right, as if he was afraid she was going to break.

He might be a killer.

No. She’d read Christopher’s emails. She knew his voice, the way he talked, the way he acted, and it was nothing like Logan. Besides, he’d been by her side most of the night, his body pressed against her own. Best alibi ever.

Something stirred deep within her. She didn’t want soft and romantic, she wanted to feel every piece of him. She pushed herself up in the seat, hooking one leg underneath her, and launched herself into his arms.

Logan easily met her ferocious kiss with one of his own. Then his hands were in her hair, pulling the clip out so he could run his fingers through her long, tangled curls. Margot had no idea what she was doing with her hands: they seemed to have developed a mind of their own as they caressed Logan’s chest.

Nothing mattered. Not Coach Creed or Ronny DeStefano or DGM. Certainly not her parents impatiently awaiting her at home. The whole world had disappeared, leaving just Margot and Logan and the interior of his SUV, the only sounds she could hear, blood rushing through her ears and the sharp pounding of her own heart.

Without warning, Logan pulled away.

“What’s wrong?” Margot panted.

“Nothing,” Logan said, panting too. “Just realized that your parents might ban me from ever seeing you again if you’re this late for curfew.”

Margot rested her head on Logan’s shoulder. “They don’t know I’m out with you.”

“They don’t?” Logan sounded hurt.

Margot sighed. Normally she would have been terrified that she’d offended him, but for some reason, she was oddly calm.

“Baby steps,” she said. “They’re not exactly lenient.”

Logan brushed her cheek with his hand. “I don’t scare easily.”

As he kissed her, Margot swore she’d never be scared again.

Bree pulled her dad’s Lexus into the garage and sat in the driver’s seat until the door had fully closed behind her. She was exhausted, so tired the backs of her eyeballs felt like they were made of lead and were threatening to drop out of her skull into her lower intestines if she didn’t get herself into a prone position as soon as possible.

Yet as she sat there in the darkened garage, her hands shook uncontrollably. Coach Creed was dead. The killer was still on the loose. A serial killer, who apparently held all of DGM’s secrets in his or her hands. And the suspect list was a short one: Theo Baranski, Amber and Rex, Christopher Beeman, and John.

John had decided to get a ride home with Shane, and Bree hadn’t fought him on it. Ever since the show ended, things had been super awkward between them. He’d avoided her, easy enough in the chaos that ensued once the police arrived. John had been the first person they’d questioned, since Coach Creed had showed up at the Ledge like Salome screaming for John’s head on a platter. They’d sat together in the dressing room, an uncomfortable and seemingly impenetrable silence between them. Shane and Grizzly talked a mile a minute about the show, what had worked well and what hadn’t, while Devil Dan nervously air drummed so obsessively that after about an hour of nonstop movement she had wanted to rip the drumsticks from his hands and break them over her knee.

John had spent the time doing anything to avoid looking at, talking to, or interacting with Bree in any way. Normally, she would have broken the tension with some well-timed Star Wars, but tonight she’d let it go. She wasn’t interested in having a conversation with him because, shit, what would she say?

Even now, sitting in the car by herself, her stomach dropped as she remembered John leaning in to kiss her. But that wasn’t the worst. The female scream that went up when Shane said, “And, ladies, I hear he’s single.” It had felt as if someone had punched her in the kidneys with a pair of brass knuckles.

Bree forced the memory from her mind. She wasn’t going to deal with it, wasn’t going to think about it. Avoidance was a coping strategy, wasn’t it?

She was about to get out of the car, when her eye caught something in the rearview mirror. A yellow envelope in the backseat.

Kitty wasn’t even remotely tired as she traipsed down the hallway to her bedroom. Coach Creed was dead. Their main suspect. She thought back to the look on his face in the parking lot, the murderous rage in his eyes, then to the list of suspects. Did they have two murderers on their hands, or just one? And how did the anonymous envelopes factor in?

Thoughts of Barbara Ann haunted her. As much as she’d told herself over the years that she’d done the right thing, hadn’t forming DGM been an admission of her guilt? Like she was attempting to make up for her own misdeeds by helping others?

And while Kitty never thought for a second that Barbara Ann would get expelled from Bishop DuMaine, she’d believed—no, worse, she’d hoped—that Barbara Ann’s involvement in the scandal would get her suspended from the team for at least a semester, during which time Kitty would take over as team captain. . . .

Olivia was right. It had been selfish. And she’d ruined Barbara Ann’s chances at the same scholarships Kitty was vying for.

Kitty sighed as she slowly pushed open her bedroom door. Even a hundred DGM revenge missions couldn’t absolve her of that.

She was about to collapse into bed when she saw the envelope propped up against her pillows.

Olivia stared at the envelope. Another one. The sleeping pill she’d taken was already making her brain thick and fuzzy, but she wasn’t hallucinating.

What would it be this time? She wasn’t sure she could handle the contents after everything that had happened that night.

With a trembling hand, Olivia placed the envelope on her nightstand, vowing not to look at it until morning. But as she lay there, desperate for sleep to overtake her, she couldn’t shake the nagging voice in her head. A quick peek. Nothing more.

Fine. Olivia sat up in bed and opened the envelope.

Another photo. It was from a newspaper; the image of four girls seated around a library table was blurry in its grayscale, but the girls’ faces were distinct and recognizable. Margot, Kitty, Bree, and Olivia.

Beneath the photo was a line of text.

Turn yourselves in or else. You have until opening night.

Margot stared at the photo. She felt no panic, no fear. As if she’d known this was coming. She turned off the light and lay back against the pillows.

“And so it ends,” she said out loud.