Chapter 4 #2
“Where would you rather me be?” he asks and actually bats his eyelashes at me, those strange black eyes alight with patient mischief.
My tongue sticks to my teeth. Frozen, I can’t speak, locked in that same crossroads moment I felt in the classroom, in the hallway outside the nurse’s office, possibility sprawling out from my feet.
I can do anything. I can go anywhere. They can’t stop me.
I blurt, “You wanna get out of here?”
“Only always.” Grinning, Sebastian rockets to his feet. “Lead the way, Jenny,” he says and reaches for my hand.
I seize the moment, seize him. Our palms meet like magnets, fingers tangling, a truer North discovered in the way our hands slot so perfectly together. My blood fizzes, head swimming, buoyed by carbonated bravery.
This time, I lead, a tall ship on an empty sea. Sneaking gets noticed faster than looking like you’ve got somewhere to be, so I shove my carpetbag under my elbow, hold that stupid hall pass in my right hand where the cameras can see—another unmagical spell for invisibility.
“I’ve only been here a couple days,” I warn him under my breath, “but there’s this back stairwell I’ve never seen anyone use. I’m pretty sure there’s an emergency door hidden behind there.”
Shoving the heavy stairwell door open, I walk past the stairs to peer around underneath them. Just as promised, the emergency door stares sullenly through the gloom, green exit sign unearthly in the dusty shadows of the staircase arching overhead.
My fingertips buzz. I swallow twice to unstick my tongue from my teeth, that perfectly regular door a gateway to Narnia in my eyes. Sebastian, on the other hand, sizes it up like a seasoned truant. He glances back into the hall, gauges the distance between us and the office, shrugs.
“We’ll have to be quick. It’ll set off an alarm.”
Last chance to back out. The rational part of me, barely more than a whisper, tells me to turn back now. I swallow that voice down.
“I can fix that. Here, hold this.” I hand him my bag, wedging the hall pass inside it. “And tell me if anyone’s coming.”
Sebastian fires off a salute. I scramble over to the door, teeth clenched, holding my nerves like a knife. This shouldn’t be hard—wires travel up along the doorframe, leading to the metal box that houses electronic components and the little speaker where the alarm sounds.
Standing in the darkness, I bounce from foot to foot to hype myself up, shake the tension out of my tingling fingers.
Time for my party trick.
“You can do this,” I whisper, flexing my hands. “It won’t be that bad. It’s never that bad.”
Wedging my shoulder in the doorway to prop my body up, I reach up, feeling around the outline of the box. My fingers hit the grill. I close my eyes. Concentrating, I leave my body just the slightest bit behind, ease my soul out an icy, pin-prickling inch to plunge spectral fingers into the alarm.
I lied. It’s that bad. It’s always that bad.
The cold hits first, jagged teeth clamping my spectral arm as I force my soul through plastic and metal.
The sensation sends weird shock waves through my ghost, gnawing all the way up the silvery cord of me and into my still-tethered meat.
Then: the electricity, tongue to the socket, caffeine straight to my brain via migraine.
My body jerks and shivers uncontrollably.
I taste copper—probably bit my tongue again, but I can’t unclench my jaw with my muscles still seizing and half my attention dangling outside my body.
My head screams, but I fight through it.
I count out every aching second, suck the backwash dregs of life out of the machine on three, and wrench myself away before I can risk falling into the power line feeding it.
My skull overfull and buzzing, I snap back into my body just as the light on the alarm winks briefly dead.
“Okay, we’ve got maybe a minute. Come on,” I croak, pushing the door open. It barks an electronic cough, grumbles back to sleep. Turning, I glance back at Sebastian only to find him elbow deep and digging through my bag. “Can I help you?”
He emerges with my MP3 player and a triumphant grin, my headphones already spiderwebbing between his fingertips.
“A dramatic breakout needs a playlist.”
He steps so close his heat hits me like a wall, the scent of his ghost spray coiling around me, lavender and ash.
Haunting. Familiar like a word on the tip of my tongue, a name I don’t quite remember.
He holds out an earbud for me to take, his black eyes on mine strangely solemn.
Like he’s offering me something important.
As if my choice—my toes curled on the lip of one last jump into the yawning abyss—matters.
Reaching out, I pluck my earbud from his fingers with a tremble in my own. The bright-red cord hangs suspended between us, stringing our hands together. The moment doubles, overlapping déjà vu—
(Three old women pass a thread from hand to hand, ceaselessly weaving.)
(Coarse red thread winds through endless stone corridors, turn after turn.)
(Red ribbon binds two hands together, wrist to wrist and shimmering.)
I put the earbud in. The un-memories evaporate. Out in the hall, sharp-heeled footsteps grow closer. The stairwell door clanks, someone starting to push it open.
“Shit!” I swear. Scrambling outside, I drag Sebastian after me by the ear, barely giving him time to donkey-kick the door shut. We freeze, backs pressed against the metal, listening hard. Inside, muffled, the footsteps hesitate.
Oh, hell. They had to have heard the door close.
“Please be a student,” I whisper under my breath, more exhale than sound. “Please, please, give me this one thing.”
Ten seconds inch past, every single one a slice of forever. Then, the footsteps pick up again. I freeze. Do we make a break for it? Hold the door shut and hope they think it’s locked? I glance at Sebastian for some kind of answer, only to find him muffling laughter into his hoodie sleeve.
The footsteps grow hollow. The stairs—oh my god, thank you, they’re climbing the stairs. It wasn’t the nurse on my trail, just some dawdling student headed back to class.