The worker stared after her, shaking his head and muttering under his breath about how every kid was on drugs these days. As Emma walked out of the lot, figuring she’d call a cab to take her back to the Mercers’, a flash to the right caught her eye. A figure ducked behind an abandoned old Burger King on the other side of the chain-link fence. Even though Emma had only seen a glimpse, she was almost positive the figure had dirty-blonde hair like the Twitter Twins.

They were watching my sister for sure. The only thing I didn’t know was what they were planning next.

Chapter 22 - The Awful Truth

Chapter 22
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Just hours before Homecoming, the doorbell rang at Charlotte’s house. Emma left her Diet Coke on the kitchen counter and padded through the hall to get it. She opened the door to find an older, spiky-haired, tattooed woman in a black tutu, ripped CBGB T-shirt, and worn motorcycle boots. She looked like a cross between the Bride of Frankenstein and a coked-up Courtney Love.

“Hey, sweetie!” the woman at the door cried, breaking Emma from her thoughts. She grabbed Emma’s arms and kissed her on both cheeks, leaving behind vampy red lipstick prints. Emma wasn’t sure if she should assume the woman knew Sutton, or if this was just the way she greeted everyone. She played it safe with a cool smile.

We’d met before—I was sure of it. A memory slithered through my mind: the woman and Charlotte’s mother talking in hushed voices in the kitchen. You know I’ll kill him if it’s true, Charlotte’s mom had said. But both of them straightened and smiled when I entered the kitchen, gushing with small talk about how fashionable I looked and if I thought they could pull off denim leggings, too. (The answer, for both, was a groaning “no.”)

The woman sauntered into the kitchen and plopped two giant makeup cases down on the farmhouse table. “Okay, ladies!” she croaked in a two-packs-a-day voice. “Let’s get you gory and gorgeous for Homecoming!”

Madeline, Charlotte, and Laurel cheered. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The idea was to primp at Charlotte’s, take dozens of sexy, Facebook-worthy pictures in their Halloween dresses, and then their dates would pick them up in a stretch limo a half hour before the dance. Well, everyone else’s dates—Emma hadn’t bothered to ask anyone after Ethan. She tried to play it off like going stag was the cool thing to do; Sutton probably would have.

Emma still had a lot to learn about me. The only place I went stag was the bathroom.