Chapter 13 #2
“Where’d you go?” McKenna asked. “When I woke up, you were—oh, Dani, are you okay?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Dani said, surprising both of them with how bitterly it came out. She softened her tone. “Please. Can we just hang out with Oliver and not talk about it right now?”
McKenna nodded slowly, though the look of concern didn’t leave her face.
“Of course, babe,” she said, hooking an arm around Dani’s shoulders.
She launched into a description of her newest design idea for a Gingerbread-inspired gown as the two of them entered Oliver’s dorm and trooped up three flights of stairs to the top floor, then to their door.
Neither of them had been to Oliver’s room before, and in the depths of her despair Dani felt a twinge of jealousy at their ability to live on campus, even if the building was nothing to write home about.
From her perspective, just being in the dorm lent them an extra heft of belonging.
Even the little name tags on the door with cartoon animals chosen by the RA made her envious.
McKenna was still talking about what materials she’d use to imitate Gingerbread’s turquoise feather as she knocked on Oliver’s door. Oliver didn’t answer right away, so they stood there for a minute before McKenna knocked again.
“They could be out grabbing something to eat,” she said.
“Or maybe they forgot about our plans?” Dani said.
“That doesn’t seem like Oliver.”
No, it didn’t. Dani started to get nervous after five more minutes and several rounds of knocking. “Let me see if they messaged,” she said. She was pulling her quartzpad out of her bag when the door swung open.
“There you are,” McKenna said. “We were just on the precipice of worry—Oliver?”
Dani looked up from her bag and the breath left her body all at once.
Oliver stood in front of them, sure enough, but something was clearly wrong: the way they loomed stock-still in the doorway, the slight tilt of their head, the unseeingness of their gaze.
Dani squinted at their face and realized with a stroke of horror that their pupils were way too big in their irises—just like the woman at OneiroLabs.
“Kenz,” she said, “run and get help. I—”
“It’s you,” Oliver said suddenly, their voice trembling as their eyes homed in on Dani. “I’ve been waiting for you. You have to tell them—you have to tell them to stop!”
Before Dani could say anything, Oliver launched themself at her.
McKenna let out a startled yelp; Dani stepped back, crushing her bag in her arms, and Oliver stumbled and fell onto their knees at her feet. They reached up and grabbed her by the jacket, pulling her down toward them, desperation twisting their face.
“Please,” they choked out, like the word was glass in their throat. “Please, they’re going to hurt Emi. You’re the one who—you have to tell them—”
Dani was dimly aware that other things were happening around them.
McKenna was saying Oliver’s name again and again; doors were opening in the hall, emitting curious students from their rooms; one of them was telling someone else to call the emergency line.
But the only thing she could bring sharply into focus was Oliver—Oliver, kneeling before her with terror seeping from every pore in their skin, their dilated pupils seeing her but not really seeing her, a trickle of blood rolling slowly out of one nostril. Begging her for help.
“Please,” they said, a whimper.
Before she could answer, two students took Oliver by the arms and loosened their grip on Dani’s jacket.
“Tell them!” Oliver cried. Their gaze was still locked on Dani’s, but they didn’t resist as the students guided them as gently as they could down the hall into the lounge. “Please, you have to tell them!”
Then they were gone, the door closing behind them and muffling Oliver’s pleas. McKenna was at Dani’s side then, wrapping her arms around her, smoothing her hair back from her face. “Dani, oh my gods, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Dani said, but tears were tumbling down her cheeks. “We should go with them, we should—”
“An ambulance is on the way,” McKenna said.
She was clearly trying to keep her composure, but her eyes were wide with concern.
“They’re just going to calm Oliver down and keep an eye on them until it gets here.
I don’t think you should go in there—they think you’re someone you’re not, something they’re dreaming. ”
“We need to help them,” Dani sobbed. “We have to do something, Kenz.”
“I know, babe,” McKenna said, with a note of fear Dani had never heard in her voice. “And we will. But the professionals need to do their thing first.”
Clinging to each other, they sank to the floor, curling up against the wall.
McKenna stroked Dani’s hair until the EMTs came, sedated Oliver, and rolled them out of the dorm on a stretcher.
Dani and McKenna stood on the curb, the wind whipping at their clothes, watching the blinking lights of the ambulance until the vehicle was out of sight.
All of Dani’s tears had run out by then. A rounded, pulsing anger grew beneath her sternum as the wails of the ambulance faded and the truth of what had just happened solidified around her.
“They can’t get away with this,” she said finally, turning to look at McKenna. She felt wild in that moment, but surer of herself than she ever had been. “I won’t let them.”
McKenna set her jaw. “I’m behind you, babe. All the way.”
Dani gave her a swift, tight hug, then set off.
No wifting for her on this journey; she strode purposefully across campus, into the lobby of the OS building, and down to the oneiromancy department.
It was abandoned, of course, except for a single student doing homework in the corner, but Dani didn’t hesitate.
She marched down the hall until she reached room number six, then dropped her bag on the floor and squatted down to pull out a notebook and pen.
She tore out a blank sheet and wrote two hasty but legible words right in the middle: I’m in.
She sat back on her heels for a moment, assessing what she’d written.
She should probably crumple up the paper and shove it back into her bag.
She had literally everything to lose: her shot at making something of herself here at the Leap, her friendship with McKenna, the cozy apartment they shared, the way she’d started to feel like she might actually be able to call someplace home.
And Kass. If she lost her place at the Leap, she lost Kass, too.
But then she remembered Oliver’s face, their panicked pleas.
How many others were struggling like they were?
And she might lose all those other things anyway—might forfeit her scholarship at the end of the year, might get kicked out of her apartment, might have cut her and Kass’s story short before it had even begun.
She couldn’t just stand by and watch this happen, not if she could do something about it.
Before she could change her mind, Dani signed her initials to the paper, folded it in half, and slid it underneath Silva’s door.