White Rabbit(25)

Moonlight glows against the pale skin of her face as she shoves her platinum tresses behind one ear and grabs for the pack of Camels sitting on the coffee table, and a wave of déjà vu crashes over me; it’s like Lia all over again as the sudden illumination reveals a dark, ugly bruise on Peyton’s jaw. I almost pounce. “Is that compliments of Fox, too?”

“What?” Peyton glances up, startled, and then she covers the injury with her hand, shrinking back from the light instinctively. “No. What do you mean?”

“Fox and Arlo got into a fight and we heard there was some collateral damage,” I explain judiciously, watching Race out of the corner of my eye as he puffs mechanically at his cigarette. “It’s part of the reason I’m worried about April.”

“She didn’t have anything to do with that,” Peyton states restlessly. Then: “Wait, how did you hear about it?”

“Lia told us.”

Peyton shakes her head, lips pursed, annoyed at the lack of discretion. “Then she should have told you that Race, April, and I were all out in the hot tub when that whole thing went down. We don’t even know what it was all about, all right? One minute we’re having a good time, and the next minute those two drunk shitheads are trying to throw each other through a window. By the time we made it up to the porch, it was all over, and Arlo was on his way out the door.”

“So what happened to your face?” It’s a pretty tactless question—but then, Peyton is a pretty tactless person, in my experience. Like the daughter of Regina George and Voldemort, she’s made a lifelong hobby out of inflicting her point of view on others, no matter how abusive or unsolicited it is. I’ve gone to school with her since kindergarten, and cannot remember the last time she was remotely nice to someone who wasn’t rich and/or popular.

“Fuck off,” she answers promptly, living up to my low expectations. “Fuck all the way off.” Angling a glare at Sebastian, she shakes her head. “Honestly. What is he doing here? Why is he talking to me?”

“Peyton.” Sebastian meets her gaze imploringly. “People were throwing punches at this party, and he’s worried about his sister. Just tell him what he wants to know and we can all fuck off, okay?”

The girl doesn’t exactly signal her agreement, but neither does she hurl the ashtray at my head, so I repeat the question. “How’d you get hurt?”

She doesn’t answer right away, taking her time lighting another cigarette while her boyfriend turns and stares daggers at her across the sofa. At last, in a sulky and almost accusatory voice, she says, “Ask April.”

“I’d love to, but she’s not answering her phone.” My delivery is so smooth, I doubt that either of them can sense how pissed off I have suddenly become.

Peyton shifts, her mouth twitching down at the corners. “She hit me, all right?”

“Why?”

“Because she fucking flipped out!” Peyton’s eyes flash, and she skewers me with that look that popular kids always have on hand for guys like me—that hateful who-gave-you-permission-to-exist? glare—and I can tell her tolerance of our exchange is reaching its true terminus. “How is it any of your damn business, by the way? Go out there and talk to her, if you’re so concerned with how she’s doing. Not that I can understand why you even give a shit. April doesn’t even like you.” She’s worked her way onto more familiar ground, now, sneering at me contemptuously. “She thinks you’re a freak. I mean, everybody thinks you’re a freak, but April talks about it all the time. She says you used to stalk her and Hayden.”

“Is that why the party broke up so early?” Sebastian forces the conversation back on topic. I can’t tell if it’s because he’s afraid I’m going to lose control of myself—which I’m not, thank you, having endured far worse than Peyton’s weak game—or because he’s deduced, correctly, that my usefulness as an interrogator is finis. “Because April took a swing at you?”

“Yeah,” Peyton confirms shortly. “Fox kicked Arlo out, and then April went psychotic, and it kind of put a damper on things, you know? You asked how April ‘seemed’ the last time I saw her? She seemed like a crazy fucking bitch who was trying to rip my head off my shoulders. So forgive me if I don’t really give a crap what she’s up to or how she’s doing right now.”

“You guys should’ve called me,” Sebastian admonishes Race blithely. “Jake Fuller was having a thing at his place, and it was totally wild. You could’ve come over there instead.”

“We sorta weren’t in the party mood anymore.” Race speaks through locked jaws, as if the words hurt coming out.

My ex-boyfriend gives a vigorous nod, playing dumb to the unfriendly mood that hangs in the air like smog. “So what’d you do?”

“Came back here.” Race gazes off into the trees, black shapes in the darkness that obscure the view of nearby homes and offer the Atwoods a natural privacy screen. “My parents are with my sister in DC, so we’ve just been sort of chilling.”

He won’t look at us, and I struggle to tell if this means he’s lying. Frankly, I can’t quite figure out why he’s answered the question at all; if it had come from my mouth, I’d have been lucky to get so much as a middle finger in response. But he isn’t acting as if he finds Sebastian’s interest odd or intrusive. It’s impossible to figure out if this is because he has nothing to hide or because he’s been rehearsing his story, waiting for the chance to provide it.