The Third Lie's the Charm Read Online Free

clenched my teeth. Seth knew me well enough to know that the pearls meant trouble, and I didn’t want to worry him.
    â€œI mean, it’s not like he was my best friend or anything.” I failed to mention all those missed calls, the guilt, the way this whole eerie scenario took me right back to the days following Grace’s death last year.
    I looked around at all the other kids on the bus. They weren’t crying or even whispering. Maybe this was all some weird rumor. Maybe Alistair would amble up to my locker and tell me my roots were showing and explain in detail how my undercover plan was going to fail in that charming way of his, and everything would be normal. He’d be super pissed that I hadn’t returned his calls, but my nightmare would transform into a mistake and I’d be able breathe again.
    The bus turned a corner onto the tree-canopied lane that led to our school. Pemberly Brown sat on a hill at the end of the drive, all red brick and manicured landscaping. Every morning, the school’s refined beauty greeted me like an aging socialite with a restrained smile and a cupped wave. Ivy covered the brick, vivid green since the spring rain, and the first of PB’s famous flowers were sprouting in the beds around the building. I reminded myself to walk through the gardens after school. I could visit Grace’s bench and see if the crocuses had begun to push through the earth. They bloomed early, pushing through the snow even, so if you blinked you could miss them. I never did.
    My stomach dropped when I saw a group of suits unfolding themselves from expensive cars in the visitors’ lot. Men straightened ties and women shrugged into blazers as they gathered together before entering the building. It was happening. When I’d finally returned to school after Grace’s death, I’d learned that with the loss of a student came the addition of all sorts of important-looking adults. Grief counselors, board members, administrators from the lower and middle schools, pinch-faced psychologists only Dr. P. could appreciate.
    â€œKate! Wait up.” I’d wandered off the bus without waiting for Seth, who struggled with his roller bag. I didn’t have the energy to inquire why he even bothered with it. Roller bags were discriminated against in all high schools, as they should be. Bus steps, flights of stairs, narrow turns, crowded hallways. They all stood waiting to kick Seth in the proverbial balls on a day-to-day basis.
    â€œSorry, I’ll catch up with you later. Gotta finish calc. See you at lunch?”
    Seth’s face dropped, and it broke my heart. He was worried about me. Everyone was. I guess everyone should be. This hit too close to home. All of it. But I had to get to my locker; I had to push past the huddles of crying people. I had to shove through whispers and “did you hears?” and awkward, inappropriate hugs from teachers. I had to ignore the way my mouth watered in that just-before-you-puke-your-guts-out way and calm the heaving of my stomach. If I didn’t look, didn’t acknowledge any of it, was it really happening? If a phone went unanswered twenty-one times, did it ever make a sound?
    I touched the bronze plaques at each of the stations I passed, letting my fingers linger for a beat on the cool surface.
    The main entrance, Station 1. Aut disce aut discede. Either learn or leave.
    The computer lab at the end of the hall, Station 4. Liberae sunt nostrae cogitationes . Our thoughts are free.
    Detention, near my locker. Station 5. Abyssus abyssum invocate. Hell invokes hell.
    My name was called, but it sounded warped and distant. It could have been anyone—Seth tailing me, one of my new “Sisters” searching for someone to cry with, one of the grief counselors who barely recognized the girl with the faded blue hair as the preppy brunette who lost her best friend over a year ago.
    But my body moved forward in spite of the crowds and