“Idiot!” Klaudia spat, moving as far to one side of the lift as she could. “What you doing?”
“I need to talk to you,” Aria insisted. “It’s important.”
“Aria?” Noel cried worriedly behind her. “Uh, you forgot your poles!” He waved two long, thin sticks in the air. “And that lift is for a double-black diamond!”
Aria hesitated. They were already twenty feet off the ground. Empty gondolas swayed back and forth behind them. Skiers zigzagged below, suddenly looking like minuscule ants.
“It’s okay!” she called bravely. Hopefully she could just stay on the gondola and ride it back down.
Then Aria looked at Klaudia, who was pointedly faced the opposite direction, staring at the pines. “I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have embarrassed you last night. I didn’t realize what Finland’s cultural practices were. I’m sorry.” Aria didn’t really believe that everyone in Finland hot-tubbed naked, but it was easier just to let Klaudia believe she did for now and move on.
Klaudia didn’t move a muscle. Even her skis remained motionless.
Aria sighed and continued. “I have a jealousy problem. I loved Noel when I was in sixth and seventh grades, when there was no chance of us ever hooking up. So when he was interested in me last year, I didn’t exactly believe it was real. Sometimes I just let that jealousy get the best of me, and that’s what I was doing with you. I . . . well, I accidentally read one of your texts to your friend Tanja. You said I was a peikko. A troll.”
Klaudia whipped around. That got her attention. “You spy on me?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Aria said quickly. “It was just lying there, and . . . well, I’m sorry. For a while, I was really mad at you—it sounded like you wanted Noel, and it hurt that you thought I was a troll when I thought we were becoming friends. But I’m over it. Sometimes people talk behind friends’ backs. That’s life. But we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, so I want us to be friends again. Can we have a truce?”
A swirl of wind blew Klaudia’s icy-blond hair over her face. On the slope below, someone wiped out in a cloud of white. The top of the mountain appeared over the crest. A big sign in the snow said LIFT BAR TO DISEMBARK.
Silently, Klaudia pushed the bar up, gripped her ski poles hard, and met Aria’s eyes. There was a forgiving look on her face, and for a moment, Aria thought she was going to apologize and everything would go back to normal.
But then Klaudia’s lips curled into a conniving smile. “Actually, Aria, I’m going to fuck your boyfriend. Tonight.”
Aria stared at her. It felt like Klaudia had just punched her in the throat. “Excuse me?”
Klaudia scooted closer to Aria. “I’m going to fuck your boyfriend,” she said again—in textbook-perfect English. “Tonight. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
It was like they were in a horror movie where a character suddenly became possessed by a demon. Who was this well-spoken, nerves-of-steel girl? Klaudia’s face had transformed from helpless sex kitten to ruthless boyfriend stealer. And even more than that, the look in her eyes was almost dangerous, as though she meant Aria harm. Aria remembered the last time she’d seen that look: on Tabitha’s—Ali’s—face when she threatened Hanna on the roof deck in Jamaica.
The memory rushed in hard and fast, as though it had been patiently waiting for nearly a year to rear its ugly head. Aria hadn’t believed Tabitha was Ali until Tabitha started threatening Hanna on the crow’s nest. Then, suddenly, it seemed so . . . real. Tabitha’s every gesture, her every aggressive movement was exactly like how Ali had behaved the night she’d tried to kill them in the Poconos.
All of a sudden, Aria saw what the others already knew. Ali was here. She’d tried to sneak back into their lives in disguise. And Aria had almost let her.
“Please!” Hanna had wailed as Ali pinned her to the wall that surrounded the balcony. “Leave me alone!”
Every protective instinct in Aria’s body kicked in. She inserted herself between the two of them. “Don’t touch her!”
Ali turned to Aria, looking at her like she was crazy. “What do you think I’m going to do? I just want to show her the view.”
But Aria wasn’t falling for that. “I know what you’re going to do!”
Ali moved away from Hanna and lunged for Aria instead. Now it was Aria’s turn to lose her balance and get a terrifying view of the crashing whitecaps below.
“Aria!” someone shrieked behind them. Glass shattered. Aria’s knee banged against the low wall, scraping off skin. Ali barreled for Aria again, her arms stretched out in front of her. Aria stared into her wide, crazed eyes, clearly seeing Ali inside. She had come to kill them, just like she’d killed Courtney, Ian, and Jenna. She was going to throw them over the roof one by one.
It was unclear what had happened next. The only thing Aria remembered was feeling a burst of strength, grabbing Ali’s arms, spinning her around, and pushing her hard. Ali’s feet left the ground. An unnatural sound came out of her mouth. Her arms flailed desperately around her, but suddenly she seemed boneless and feather-light. Before anyone could do anything, she tipped into the black, empty space.
Someone screamed. Someone else gasped. Ali’s body spilled over the low wall, first her head and shoulders disappearing, then her torso, then her butt and legs, and then her feet. She tumbled into the darkness, not even making a sound as she plunged down the face of the resort.
And then . . . thud. The solid slap of a body hitting sand.
The memory whizzed through Aria’s brain in a split second. When her vision focused again, she saw Klaudia’s body pressed against hers. Her hands groped for her, pushing her to the side of the ski lift. She grabbed Aria’s shoulders and started to shake her hard. Her face was mere inches from Aria’s. The same self-preserving impulse coursed through Aria’s veins once more. “Get off me!” she screamed, jerking up. She pushed Klaudia once, lightly, but Klaudia just let out an ugly laugh and covered Aria’s mouth with her mittened hand. Fear and fury raged through Aria’s veins. “I said, get off me!” she hollered, shoving Klaudia’s chest.
Klaudia wheeled backward, letting out a yelp. At that exact moment, the gondola tilted down to let the skiers off the lift. Klaudia’s body tilted with it. Without the bar to protect her, she slid right off the lip of the chair.
“Oh my God!” Aria grabbed for Klaudia’s hand, but it was too late. Klaudia hurtled toward the ground, her hat flying off her head, her arms wheeling wildly, her skis kicking, her face a twisted mask of terror and fury. Three devastating seconds later, her body landed facedown in a pile of fresh, powdery snow.
And, just like it had been with Ali, all was silent after the fall.
Chapter 29
Don’t ask, don’t tell
Spencer opened her eyes. She was lying on top of silky sheets in a very, very small room in the Hudson Hotel. Soothing ocean waves from a sound machine played in her ear. Funny, she didn’t remember a sound machine from last night—but then, she had been pretty wasted when she fell asleep.
When she looked over, Zach was lying next to her. He looked so different this morning. His short, brown hair was long and blond. And there were scars on his neck and arms, and a trickle of something red seeping out of his left ear. Was that . . . blood?
She shot up and looked around. This wasn’t the Hudson. She was lying on a long stretch of unspoiled white sand. The sun blazed high in the sky, and there wasn’t a person around for miles. The smell of salt and fish tickled her nostrils. Waves crashed on the shore. Gulls circled overhead. Behind her was a pink stucco resort with a crow’s nest deck peeking out over the beach. A very familiar crow’s nest.