29. Piper

29

PIPER

JANUARY 2, 10:30 P.M.

The sequence of emotions goes something like this.

First, stunned. Then, concerned—I did just pepper-spray my own brother right before April camera-whipped him in the head—and then, as soon as it's clear that he's not broken or unconscious: pissed.

"What the fuck?" I explode. "What the actual living fuck, Wyatt!"

He sputters a cough as he sits upright. "Yeah, sure. Help me up. Ask me how I'm doing after you literally maced me in the face."

"I'll do it again if you don't start explaining right now."

Wyatt groans, yanking off his gloves and wiping them across his eyes. "I didn't want to do it."

"What, stalk us? Attack us?"

"I didn't attack anyone!" Clearly realizing how useless that sounds, he heaves a sigh. "I didn't want to."

"Then please enlighten us."

Wyatt pushes himself up to standing.

"I was initiated a couple weeks after our birthday. Back in October. I didn't want to—I thought the whole thing was fucked up—but I had to. Dad didn't want to do it, either, but it was part of the deal."

A cold feeling slices through me. "What deal?"

Wyatt rakes a hand through his matted hair. "I…"

"What deal, Wyatt?" I demand, my grip tightening on the pepper spray.

He looks between the three of us before landing back on me.

"You have to swear you won't tell anyone," he says. "Or… or I'll tell everyone what y'all did. The things from the Jester message, the stuff y'all don't want getting out."

I stare him down, a hot ball of anger in my throat. Does he really know, or is he bluffing? I glance at April and Vivian, and they both look to me, like they're waiting for my call. I don't want to risk it.

"Fine," I say. "We won't tell."

He nods grimly. "It was about a year ago, last winter break. For New Year's, we all went out to some of the Tulane bars. Me and the guys, and Lily, Savannah, and Vivian."

Right. Wyatt and his posse spent most of that break getting trashed, while I was holed up in my room, cramming for the February ACT I insisted on taking so I could raise my 34 up to Aiden's 35. Which I did—even if I'm struggling to remember, now, why that mattered.

"After we left," Wyatt continues, "Lily and I were walking home, and she was kind of pissed at me. I was pretty wasted, I guess, and she didn't like when I got like that. So I was already in a mood when this guy comes up to us—this frat-boy asshole—and starts asking Lily if I'm bothering her. If she wants a real man. He's just fucking taunting me, and Lily—" He stops. "She's letting him. She's, like, egging it on, just to piss me off. And so I snapped."

Vivian's jaw clenches, her arms folded tight against her chest.

Wyatt clocks it, too, because he adds, "Not at Lily. I would never hurt Lily. But this guy, he got up in my face, and I just lost it. Went at him, started punching. I realized pretty quickly I was a lot stronger than him, but I couldn't stop, even when Lily was screaming at me. I guess I blacked out a little, and the next thing I remember, he's on the ground. Just… just fucking pummeled. Bleeding."

Vivian shakes her head slowly, and April's face is blank as she grips her camera. I just stare at Wyatt, some irrational part of my brain thinking he must be joking, but the guilt in his eyes is real.

"And then what happened?" I ask, fighting to keep my voice level.

"Lily was freaking out, and I was panicking, so we just—we left." Wyatt shakes his head. "I tried to forget it, like maybe I was so drunk I imagined it. Lily never mentioned it, either, but I could tell from the way she looked at me." His guilty look shifts to pure devastation. "A week or so later, Detective Marty showed up at our door, and I'm thinking, this is it. They know what I did, and I'm about to get in so much trouble. But then…" Wyatt pauses. "Then he sat me and Dad down, and told us that this frat guy was trying to press charges. Apparently he wound up in the hospital. He was fine in the end, but as soon as he could, he went to the police and gave them my description and Lily's. Marty said things were looking bad for me, 'cause they caught me on a traffic cam that night, but… there was a way out, if we wanted it."

Dread settles deep in my stomach.

"He wanted y'all to join the Pierrot," I guess.

Wyatt nods. "He made it sound so simple. Dad would have to join and start going to the meetings, and then, when I was eighteen, I'd get initiated, too. We had to hide it from you and Mom, but that was it. That's all we had to do, and the Pierrot would pay off the guy, make him stay quiet. Marty made it sound like this—this brotherhood. This group of guys who had each other's backs. At the time, I remember thinking it was weird that there wasn't a catch, nothing else they wanted from us, but it was too good to pass up. So Dad told him yes."

"But they did want something," I realize. "They wanted Dad to help cover up Margot's murder. That was… what? Barely a week after she died?"

He looks down. "I had no idea. I feel like such an idiot now. But yeah, that must have been the deal."

Even though I had already suspected it, it's like the floor drops out from under me. Dad was only trying to protect Wyatt, like he has been this whole time. And maybe he was trying to protect me, too, by keeping it a secret. But I can't fight the creeping worry that maybe he just didn't think I could handle it.

"Do you know, then?" April asks hoarsely. "Who killed her?"

"No," Wyatt says. "Until the last few days, I didn't even put together that it wasn't just an overdose."

"Then why the hell are you in the Jester costume?" Vivian demands.

"Because it was Lily's idea."

That's enough to make us all go quiet.

"What?" I ask after a stunned moment.

"The stunt at the ball," he says. "It was her idea."

My brain is a jumble of thoughts, all of them sharpening into one: Mom was right. She told me she thought Lily knew who threw the blood at her, and when I confronted Wyatt about it, he acted like I was being ridiculous. Still, some part of me doesn't want to believe it.

"That doesn't make any sense," I snap. "Why would she want you to do that?"

"Because, I—" Wyatt hangs his head. "I told her about the Pierrot. Ever since that New Year's, I knew she hadn't really forgiven me, but I still didn't say anything until last month. Things had been getting worse with us, and I just—I thought if I told her about the Pierrot, she'd understand. She was mad, at first, but then she started begging me to take her. She wanted to see it for herself, and… I don't know. I can't ever say no to her. I thought it might fix things. So we went. It was a bad idea."

Obviously, I think, but I grit my teeth to keep from saying it out loud. Of course he gave her what she wanted. Even I've been foolish enough to make that mistake.

"After we went… I don't know why I thought Lily would just let it go. She couldn't. She wanted to do something about it. She said it wasn't fair, what they were doing to me. So she came up with this plan. She thought if we pulled the stunt at the ball, we could expose the Pierrot without anyone knowing it was us. They'd never suspect it. I thought she wanted to help me. I didn't think… I mean, I had no idea the Margot stuff was part of the plan. When those projections started, I was just as confused as y'all. I tried to ask Lily what was going on after the ball, but then she wouldn't talk to me, and then…"

"And then you left her there," Vivian finishes, bitter.

"She dumped me," Wyatt argues. "She said she was going to leave town. I thought she just needed to sleep on it, that we could talk it out when she calmed down. But then, the next morning…" His face crumples. "I'd barely even had two sec onds to process that she was gone before I got this text. It was from a number I didn't recognize, telling me I had to get to the Beaumont darkroom ASAP and take this phone out of one of the ceiling tiles. They told me if I didn't, and y'all got to it first, then our deal was off. They signed it with the Pierrot motto, too, so… I knew what that meant. And that's how it started. The texts kept coming, telling me what I had to do."

"That phone." Vivian frowns. "The burner. Why'd you give it to me?"

"What?"

"On my car, in the parking lot. It was sitting there in an envelope."

"I didn't," Wyatt says, confused. "I dropped it off where they told me. I don't know how it got there."

Vivian scoffs. "Right. Just following orders, then."

"I had to," he argues. "They—"

"Did you even stop to think for one second that these people might be the reason Lily is missing?"

It's the first time I've ever heard Vivian really lose her cool, and it clearly shocks Wyatt, too.

"Someone at the Pierrot killed Margot, Wyatt," she continues. "And Lily knew about it. You can't seriously still think she just ran away."

"I know. I know that now. I just didn't think she actually…" Wyatt covers his face. " Fuck. "

"But you can help us find her," I try, desperate to regain control of the situation. "You have to. You have an in with these guys. If you can convince them you're still on their side, then maybe—"

"Do you honestly think these guys would help me after what they did to Dad?"

His words cut deep, even worse because it's true.

"And maybe Lily really did run," he adds. "Maybe she saw what was going on and just got the fuck out, left us all behind. It's what she always wanted, anyway."

Wyatt's voice is sharp, but in a way I recognize. Because I guess this is one twin thing we share: using anger to cover up the wound, to hide how hurt we feel. I want to do something—slap him, snap him out of it, or maybe just try to comfort him, help ease the hurt—but before I can decide, my phone starts to ring.

"Shit," I hiss. "Mom."

The panic on Wyatt's face must be a mirror image of mine. "I thought she was still at the police station."

"Well, she's calling!"

"Well, don't answer!"

"Obviously I'm not. I'll just let it ring."

For an excruciating minute, we all watch my phone with silent, anxious stares. Then the ringing stops. I breathe out.

Wyatt's phone starts to buzz.

"Goddammit," he mutters, ending the call.

In an instant, my phone is ringing again. A new worry pulses through me.

"Something might have happened," I say.

"Don't—"

I brace myself as I answer, putting on my best attempt at a casual tone. "Hello?"

"I need someone to explain this email to me right now."

I freeze. This was not part of any of the worst-case scenarios that were spinning through my head. Despite her stern words, Mom sounds almost desperate. Scared.

"What email?" I ask.

"To the whole Beaumont list, Piper. Students, teachers, parents."

"Mom, what email ?"

"It's about you," she says.

I squeeze the phone so tightly my fingers hurt. "What?"

"And Wyatt," Mom continues. "And April Whitman. And Vivian Atkins."

They all stare at me, like they can feel their names through the phone, even if they can't hear them.

"I don't understand," Mom says, her voice tinny in my ear. "It says you sabotaged another student's Vanderbilt application."

My heart starts to pound, my face hot.

They know. Everyone knows. Vanderbilt will know, and the Jester did this. Not my brother, standing here like their helpless puppet, but whoever's been pulling the strings.

"It has accusations about each of you," Mom continues. "Piper, is this true? Did you do this to someone?" And then, after a small pause, "Was it Lily?"

Stop digging around other people's secrets, or I'll show the world just what you've been hiding behind those pretty masks of yours.

We forgot about the threat. We got too comfortable, thinking we could outsmart him. Thinking we could win.

We might have unmasked the Jester, but we forgot they could unmask us.