Serena Vanderwoodsen's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

Under the glass dome, Serena's phone buzzed a fourth time. She read it in her lap so Blair couldn't see. He knows you moved. He is checking cafes. Serena kept her face still and slid the phone into her pocket. Nate came through the terrace door a minute later, snow on his shoulders, hands red from the cold. He pulled a chair out and sat without taking off his navy coat. He looked at Blair, then at Serena, and waited. "He didn't buy it," Nate said. "I gave him three wrong turns. He wrote them down. Then he walked the opposite way I sent him." Blair pressed her palms flat on the table. "He's coming here." "Probably," Nate said. Serena watched the street through the glass. Two women passed with shopping bags. No camera. Not yet. She pulled her phone back out and typed a message to the family pilot. Bring the helicopter. Twenty minutes. She hit send. "Okay," Serena said. "We can't sit here. He'll check every terrace on the row. We need him looking somewhere else while we get to the pad." Blair's eyes went wet. "Where. There's nowhere." "Yes there is." Serena leaned in. "I'm going to make him think you already left." Blair blinked. "How." "Two suitcases. A pink one and a silver one. I'll have them dropped at the taxi stand by the bridge with the string lights. You send a car from there toward the airfield on the other side of the woods. He sees the bags loaded. He follows the car. He thinks we ran." "And me?" Blair said. "You walk the other way with Nate. Head down. Hood up. Meet me at the clearing behind the ice castle. The helicopter lands there." Nate nodded once. "I can do that." Blair looked at Serena the way she had on the last trip, when Serena had said something cruel and then apologized in the morning. This time her face softened instead of closing. "You planned all of that in ten seconds." "I've been planning it since the first text." Serena reached across the table. "Trust me. Please." Blair took her hand. Serena made two calls. The concierge at the rental house, for the bags. A driver, for the taxi stand. She spoke in short sentences, the way her mother did when money was moving. Then she stood. "Go now," she said. "Cross the wooden bridge. Keep the string lights behind you. Don't stop." Nate stood too. He held the terrace door for Blair. Blair pulled her hood up over the pink hat and stepped out into the snow. Nate followed. Serena watched them turn the corner and disappear. Her phone buzzed. Blocked number. Where are you going, Serena. She smiled at the screen for the first time in three days. He was watching her, not Blair. The trick was working. Now she had to walk out the front door and let him see her leave alone.