Page 194 of A University of Betrayal

“Forget about it! You stay here. I still have something to show you.”

And that wasn’t even a lie. Five minutes ago, Larissa had texted me that we had missed a page while reading the diary, and now I was dying to squeeze the last bit of information I could get out of this shred of a book.

“Not the pregnancy test, is it?” Vivienna laughed gleefully. “That would be a scandal.”

I didn’t stop, but pulled Julian up the stairs without restraint.

“What pregnancy test?” he asked in alarm behind me.

“Don’t worry, not mine.”

“I’ll tell the Circle everything anyway, Bayla Adams!” Vivienna called from downstairs, and I jerked to a halt.

Slowly, I turned on the stairs and looked down.

There she stood. Vivienna, the spawn of hell, carrying my little secret. The devilish grin on her face spoke for itself.

“I can’t have you breaking the rules so brazenly. You’re ruining our reputation!”

Julian had to laugh, which made Vivienna visibly boil, and a book flew at him. He dodged quickly, and it smashed against the window pane of the stairwell.

“I warned you!” she hissed.

The murderous look in her eyes gave me the kick I needed to turn away from her and pull Julian further up the stairs, into the room where Grace, Larissa and Julie seemed to be having a heated debate.

“She fell in love again, so she never replied to the letter, and that’s why she stopped writing the diary.”

Grace seemed very determined to defend her point of view. A few of her wild black-brown corkscrew curls had fallen into her face. There were a lot of old books spread out in front of her, reminding me of the ones from the Quatura underground temple. There were strange brown stones scattered all around her and then, in contrast, Julie on the other bed, sitting at her laptop and trying to concentrate on something.

“I don’t think so. No. She had far too many questions and the new guy could never have clouded her mind so much that she threw all her principles overboard, just like that,” Larissa argued, throwing the figure-hugging leather jacket carelessly into the corner of her bed.

“Butmaybeshe realized that it’s pointless to bother with all this,” Grace hissed angrily.

“Then why didn’t you ever find out about her?” Larissa seemed to be in an argumentative mood. “I’m telling you. There’s something in the bush justwaitingto be uncovered.”

Grace was beginning to lose her composure and when she looked at me, I could swear I saw hope in her eyes.

“Thank Godyou’re back. Your bloodthirsty friend is, firstly,unable tostay away from us; secondly, she touched the diary again, which you wanted to bring back and; thirdly, she is involved in forbidden things!”

“Firstly, I would never hurt you guys; secondly,good thingI looked again and thirdly; forbidden things areexactlymy field of expertise.”

Grace shook her head, obviously frustrated, and seemed to want to give up arguing with my dominant friend for the time being.

Larissa only now seemed to realize that I was present.

“Bayla! There you are.Finally!”

She seemed to have forgiven me again.

Larissa looked at Julian and gave me thatI-know-what’s-going-on-here look, which made me widen my eyes and shake my head. The urgent need to explain myself spread through my stomach.

“What’shedoing here again?”

“Grace, please,” I began. It was my luck that Grace seemed to be exhausted. I pulled Julian, who was about to leave again, further into the room, and he sighed, but gave in. “Julian doesn’t bite. Otherwise, your mother probably wouldn’t have allowed him to live in your neighborhood.”

Grace sighed as well.

“Bayla!” Larissa jumped up and came toward me. The next thing I knew, I was holding a scrap of paper in my hand and immediately recognized Alice’s handwriting. “We overlooked this yesterday.”

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