Justice (Deck of Lies #1)

Deck of Lies

Book 1: Justice

By Jade Varden

Cover art by Meagan Lampton

Copyright © Jade Varden 2011

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Created and published in the United States of America.

Chapter 1

Have you got your laptop?

Yes, mom.

Did I remember to give you lunch money?

Yes, mom, I grinned at her. It was a rare thing to see my calm, quiet mother so frazzled. She was more nervous than I was about my first day at Sloane Academy.

It’s okay, mom. She’s not going off to Harvard just yet.

Stanford, I corrected automatically.

My brother Aaron fell heavily onto his usual stool at the wide kitchen island, which was already set for breakfast. He pushed a hank of dark brown hair out of his eyes as he looked me up and down. I was wearing my school uniform for the first time, and feeling too nervous to eat the eggs and toast in front of me. Knowing me, I’d spill something down the front of my crisp white blouse, or slouch over the plate and get wrinkles in the grey vest. Nice outfit, Rain. You already look like a spinster librarian. The colleges will be calling any day now.

You leave her alone, my mother took a mock swipe at him with one of her blue and white checked kitchen towels. If you’d studied harder, maybe you would have a scholarship to one of the best prep schools in the country right now.

I don’t think I’d look very good in the skirt, ma, he answered with a laugh, shoving a huge forkful of eggs into his mouth.

I couldn’t help but envy how comfortable Aaron looked in his gold sweatshirt, hunkered down over his plate, getting crumbs all over his khakis. Students weren’t allowed to wear clothes with logos on them at his high school -- my old high school -- so he had about a dozen plain sweatshirts in UCLA colors. To this day, I can’t see a gold sweatshirt without thinking of Aaron.

This is just such a good opportunity for you. My mother’s large, brown eyes were wet with tears as she reached across the counter to take my hand. You were meant to go to fancy, expensive schools like this one.

I wish I had her confidence. My hands were shaking as I pulled my backpack onto my left shoulder and scooped my purse under my right arm. I just hate starting in the middle of the year. I should have waited until next year.

They said you could go ahead and begin attending classes, and there was no reason to wait to start getting the best possible education. When that hard expression came into my mother’s golden-brown eyes, I knew to give in -- quickly.

Yes, mom, I sighed. It was something I’d heard before.

Besides, if you’d started last week this would all be familiar now.

I sighed again. Mom, I had to say good-bye to my friends and my teachers at my old school.

Well, you’ve had a week of good-bye and now it’s time to say hello to all your new friends and teachers at Sloane Academy. Hello, brand-new life, she sang.

I couldn’t help but smile at her optimistic enthusiasm as I scooped my bowl of yogurt off the place mat. Mom had added banana slices to the mixture today. She made her own plain yogurt by the gallon, a white, gooey mess that tasted terrible until the fruit and granola were added.

Ready for your card? While I was busy spooning the cold breakfast into my mouth, my mom had placed an old, beat-up knit handbag on the counter. Before I could answer, she dipped her fingers inside to pull out an old, worn deck of cards.

Oh, mom, I groaned. When I was little, I used to love watching my mother work with the cards. Her short fingers were never more nimble than when they were stacking, spreading and dealing from that colorful deck. The cards were dark blue, with little stars all over them. I used to believe they were magical. But today… I don’t want a reading.

We’ll just pull one, she smiled brightly, tapping the edges of the deck on the Formica countertop to get them all straight.

I suppressed a sigh. Just one, I mumbled around a mouthful of fruit and yogurt. I heard Aaron snicker, and shot him a glare out of the side of my eye. Aaron didn’t have the patience to watch Mom draw out her cards and read the meaning of each one. He couldn’t sit still and listen long enough to hear her explain what each stark, simple image symbolized. I used to love seeing her do her Tarot, especially when she gave big, full readings with a complete spread of cards -- but today my mind was too full to pay attention.

With great fanfare, my mother stepped up to the island. Clear your mind, she instructed, as she always did.

This was the part I knew I would have trouble with. Clear my mind -- when I was about to go to a brand-new school, far different from my old one? She might as well have told me to grow a pair of wings. But I did my best to close my eyes and breathe deeply, the way she’d taught me.

Think about your first day at school, my mother’s voice drifted to me from that otherworldly place she connected to so easily. I kept my eyes squeezed tight as she fanned the cards out on the island, but I knew if I looked down I would see dozens of little stars gleaming on top of midnight blue. Pick a card, she whispered.

My fingers inched out, and my eyes opened the moment I felt my hand make contact with the deck. My mother quickly plucked my selection from the counter, sweeping the remaining cards into a loose pile before she flipped mine, face-up, between us. We both leaned forward to look down at it.

The first thing I saw was the two swords, crossed as if in combat. A golden scale, perfectly balanced, dangled between them.

Justice, my mother intoned. I don’t know why, but I felt a little shiver go through me.

Yeah, what’s that one mean? Aaron grunted.

Consequence. Fairness. The righting of a wrong, she recited. For some reason, my mother couldn’t take her eyes off that card. The scales represent balance. The swords represent the blind eye of Justice -- cold, impersonal, they strike swiftly and without warning.

"But what’s it mean?" Aaron demanded again.

My mother’s eyes were unfocused when she looked up at Aaron, staring through him more than at him.

But I didn’t have time to listen to one of her long Tarot explanations now. Quickly, I sat my bowl back on the counter. My mother jumped at the noise and seemed to shake herself out of her trance. I’d better get going. I don’t want to be late on my first day.

She was around the island in a flash, pulling me into her arms for a hug. You know how to get there, you’re sure?

I’m sure, mom. I’ll be okay.

If you have any trouble, use the GPS on your Blackberry. My dad advised as he entered the kitchen. He was just pulling his UCLA baseball cap over his dark brown head, hair the same shade as Aaron’s. I always joked that between the two of them, they were funding the entire athletics department because they bought so much stuff with the UCLA logo on it.

I will, Dad. I hugged him, too, before I gathered up my things and moved out the back door, casting a last look of envy at Aaron.

Have a good first day, honey, my mom cried.

Good luck with the rich kids, Aaron teased.

I’m sure you’ll do just fine, princess. My dad got in the last word, as usual.

The brave smile I gave them faded as soon as I stepped out of the back door. My stomach felt like it had turned inside-out, and my knees were watery as I walked down the driveway to my car. It was a 1964 red Corvair, one of my father’s many weekend projects. With a perfect interior, classic paint job and souped-up engine, the Corvair is the envy of car collectors around the world -- so he says. Of course, mine didn’t have any of that. Instead, it had lots of character -- in the form of ripped leather seats, a beat-up dashboard and multiple rust spots.

But the engine, while not souped-up, purred like a kitten. Substance over style is my mother’s all-time favorite saying. For the first time, I was hoping the engine wouldn’t start when I turned the key.

No such luck. The Corvair roared to life as usual, and my belly did a sickening flip-flop. I took a deep breath before pushing the gear shift into the Reverse position. It was time to face my first day as a student at the ultra-fancy, ultra-conservative Sloane Academy.

I’ll be okay, I repeated to myself as I backed down the driveway. I’ll be okay.

Forty minutes later, I was staring at the most unlikely-looking school building I’d ever seen. Once a private mansion, the Edgar P. Sloane Academy was a weathered grey stone structure surrounded by sycamore trees on all sides. The campus, fan like, sprouted around the central building in a maze of brick walkways, gardens and smaller buildings that were once houses for storage and servants. Sloane even had its own private stables and its own private lake, or so I’d been told during the brief campus tour I’d taken three weeks before.

It was one of the premier schools in the country, and until recently students had to be well-connected and wealthy enough to pay the hefty tuition (twenty-five thousand per year) just to get in the door. But this year, the school was opening up classes to five students who received academic scholarships by virtue of some new endowment from some wealthy alum.

I was one of them. The school alumnus I met with told me that more than thirty thousand applicants had been considered; more than ten thousand essays had been read. I was in a very small percentage of students who had been accepted from a very wide pool, and to hear my parents talk I was already on my way to becoming the next President of the United States -- or at least a Senator.

But as I stood in the shadow of the main building of Sloane Academy, I just wanted to be nobody special again. I wanted to go to the high school I’d attended the week before -- riding along in my brother’s pickup truck, dressed in a sweatshirt with my hair in a ponytail. I pressed forward instead, moving straight toward the front doors from the tiny student parking lot, shuffling my purse and backpack into position as I moved.

Sloane was even different from a normal school on the inside. The corridors were wide and wood-paneled, the floors carpeted. It was more like walking into a museum than a school building.

Rain Ramey?

Yes? I whirled to face a girl dressed the exact same way I was, only she was at least four inches taller than my 5’3". And thin. She had the build of a model, but the stiff way she held herself made her look awkward as she stood clutching a stack of books to her chest. She had big, hazel eyes, magnified by the most stylish eyeglasses I’d ever seen. How’d you know?

Laurel Riordan, she introduced herself. You have sort of a lost and confused look on your face. Come on. I’m your big sister for the day, and the lockers are down the stairs. She immediately started down the hall at a fast clip. I had to jog to keep up with her long stride. Other students were milling around the further we went down the hall, but Laurel’s brown head was easy to follow because she was so tall. She wore her hair in a straight, neat bob that fell perfectly to her chin. I’d taken thirty minutes to tame my wild blonde curls into something that looked like order, and following Laurel I felt hopelessly sloppy and out-of-place. Even her knee-high, grey socks looked like they’d been ironed. Mine were sliding down my calves as I struggled to match her pace.

She took me down a mahogany staircase to the basement. Here, the floors were tiled. Laurel led me past row upon row of wood-paneled cabinets before stopping at one with a small brass plaque that read 389.

This is you.

I just stared at her for a minute until I realized that these were the lockers. The revelation came when Laurel opened the cabinet next to mine (388) and started changing out books. There’s no lock.

Everyone at Sloane uses the honor system. But don’t keep anything in it except for books. The janitor ruined my friend’s Prada backpack last year with wood polish.

Um, okay. I opened up the locker to peer inside at a wide, empty space separated by a single shelf, watching Laurel out of the side of my eye as she jostled items around in her arms.

Ready? Good. Your homeroom is down this way.

Okay. I repeated, preparing myself to sprint madly down the hall after her.

My first day at Sloane, and I was off and running.

I’d never really been the new girl before that day. I’d followed Aaron from school to school, and practically everyone knew Aaron’s name. He played basketball and baseball, ran track and worked summers as a lifeguard at the public beach. I just had to introduce myself to make friends at our old high school.

Not at Sloane. The words drummed through my head all morning long. There were no blackboards at Sloane, and even the teachers looked like they were wearing designer shoes. I’d been in three classrooms so far, and none of them had desks. Everyone sat at solid wooden tables on cushioned chairs, typing away furiously at their laptops while I hunted and pecked my way across the keyboard. I’d begged my parents for a laptop for years, and the one I had now still had the unfamiliar, new feeling that comes with being two weeks old. After finding it on the school’s list of basic starting supplies, my parents had to relent and buy it.

But I wasn’t even excited about that anymore by the time the bell chimed for lunch. Laurel had materialized at my side after every single class, and I wasn’t surprised to find her standing outside my English class as students spilled out into the hallway all around us.

The cafeteria is down the hall. I always eat in the science lab. See you before fifth period. Laurel was already walking away before she finished her quick instructions, and I could only nod dumbly as she melted into the crowd. I wasn’t expecting to be left alone for lunch, but I let the tide of students carry me along in the direction of the cafeteria as I wondered into which pocket of my purse I’d stuffed my lunch money.

I was checking them as I drifted into the large room, which was filled with more of those solid-looking square tables, when I felt myself hit something soft.

A loud, female shriek immediately followed, and I closed my eyes. Under no circumstances did I want to look up to see what I’d done.

"Do you see what you’ve done?"

I shook my head back and forth, squeezing my eyes shut even more tightly.

That’s when I realized that the hum of surrounding students was gone. The entire room had lapsed into silence. I finally looked up into a pair of furious blue eyes and was immediately confronted with the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. Once upon a time, I’d hoped I would grow into such a beauty. But where her blonde hair was sleek and shiny, mine was a mass of frizzy curls that sprouted in all directions, radiating away from my face like Medusa’s legendary tentacles. And her uniform was probably pristine…before I bumped into her, anyway, clearly spilling something bright orange all over her. It had fallen onto her blouse, her vest, her pleated skirt, her sheer knee socks, her shiny black heels…

I’m so sorry! I blurted. In the hushed cafeteria, my voice sounded loud and hysterical.

The blue eyes narrowed, and I thought I saw a sneer work its way onto her perfect features. I would ask you to pay for my brand-new Choos, but from your Payless specials I can tell you obviously can’t afford them. Look, Dee. It’s one of the scholarship kids.

That’s when I noticed the girl standing slightly behind her. She had a shock of auburn hair, so perfectly styled I couldn’t believe she’d been going to classes all morning and not sitting in a salon. I was too embarrassed to admit that I had no idea what the blonde was talking about. The rest of the cafeteria was starting to buzz again, but softly. The whispers made me feel like I was in a roomful of snakes.

I’m Rain Ramey, I offered weakly. I really am sorry about bumping into you. I was looking for my lunch money.

Lunch money! The blonde laughed, but there was something hard about the sound. She was looking for lunch money, she repeated it, evidently for the one called Dee’s benefit. Too bad the cashier doesn’t take food stamps. Another hard little laugh followed her cruel statement, and she nudged Dee with her shoulder.

As if on cue, Dee burst out into cold laughter, too. I felt my face flaming as they both brushed past me, each rudely knocking my shoulder as she breezed by. I stood looking after them, wishing I could vanish. Anything to avoid moving again. Maybe if I stood still long enough, everyone else would think I’d turned to stone…and then, they would stop staring.

No such luck. The whispers only grew louder, and everywhere I looked I saw faces pointed at me. I turned and exited the cafeteria as quickly as possible, practically running out of the room.

I didn’t know where else to go but my locker. Maybe I could act like I was poking around in there for the next thirty minutes, until the lunch period was over. Of course, I only had two books so far…but no one knew that but me.

I wanted to turn and run when I saw the back of another student, already buried in his