Chapter 28 Quinn #2
“Ah, a rare thing,” he mocked, and I chuckled at his playfulness. My laughter cut off when I heard the thump. “What is it?” Gray asked, instantly alert.
Straining to hear, I pulled the phone away from my ear. “I don’t know.” I waited. “I think I imagined it.”
“Imagined what?” His voice was tight, and the tone low.
“Nothing.” I forced the cheeriness in my tone, and I knew he wouldn’t buy it at all.
“Quinn.” His low warning tone actually soothed me.
“I thought I heard a bump. Jesus, I’m a cliché, the things that go bump in the night.” My laugh sounded brittle.
“It’s only seven thirty. I think you need a few more hours for the bumping to begin,” Gray murmured, and I jumped when I heard it again.
“Ask Jett where Ava is,” I asked him as I rose to my feet.
“Baby?”
“Ask him.” I turned in a circle. I heard the muted conversation, and then Gray was back on the line.
“She’s only just left. You’re too early,” Gray told me tersely. “What is it?”
I heard the thumping more rhythmically now, and I clutched the phone tighter. “Gray? I don’t think I’m alone.”
“Get out.”
My feet stayed frozen to the spot. “It’s probably the janitors, I’m overreacting.”
“Okay, overreact, but get out.” I heard him moving. “Now, Quinn. Keep talking and walking.”
Spurred into action with the urgency of his voice, I left the karaoke machine and started back up the aisle to the doors. “I’m walking,” I assured him when he asked me.
The floodlights being turned on for the stage as the theater was plunged into darkness made me cry out in alarm. Frozen, I looked back at the stage wildly.
“What the fuck is it?” Gray demanded.
“The lights got dimmed, the stage is lit up,” I told him in a low whisper. “I don’t care if I’m chicken, I’m running out of here.”
I didn’t wait for his reply, and I started jogging to the doors. The doors were locked. What the fuck was happening?
“Gray, the doors are locked!”
“Try the next one,” he ordered sharply. “It’s probably just the janitor. He hasn’t got the memo you girls are going to be there and is locking up.”
“With the stage lights on?” I hissed fiercely.
“Just get to the other doors. We can be pedantic when you’re outside,” he snapped.
“Ass,” I muttered as I reached the other door. “It’s locked.”
“You’re locked in the auditorium?” His voice was steady and calm, and I knew he was about to explode.
“I think so,” I admitted as I looked around again. “Can you ask Jett to call Ava?”
“He’s on the phone with her. She’s coming, babe.”
“Will you stay on the phone with me?” I asked him, my voice almost inaudible.
“I’m going nowhere.”
“I’m completely overreacting. I know this.
” I tried to make light of it. Gray said nothing, and we were merely on the phone, silence between us.
I heard the thump again, and I jumped just as the lights went out completely, which caused me to scream in fright.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, the lights are out.
I think you’re right: it’s just the janitor, and he doesn’t know I’m in here. ”
“Ash is on the phone to maintenance,” Gray told me. “Just hold tight.”
“Now I know how people feel when we do Mayhem,” I tried to joke, and I heard his sharp inhale. “Gray?”
“I’m here, baby, you okay?”
“What was the gasp?” I demanded as I pressed myself against the wall like a coward.
“Jett elbowed me in the ribs.”
“And you say I’m a terrible liar,” I mocked him. I glanced at my phone screen quickly. “You cannot kill me for this, I mean it,” I warned. “My battery’s about to die.”
“Tell me you’re making a bad joke.”
“I thought I had plugged it in,” I admitted weakly. “I don’t remember switching it on.”
“Queeny,” he breathed softly, and I heard his despair. “Ava’s almost there, okay?”
“Okay.” I felt tears threatening, and I cursed myself inwardly for being this oversensitive idiot. I was locked in a building that was supposed to be locked at this time of night. I was fine. I was being hysterical. “I’m completely overreacting,” I told him again.
“Who gives a fuck?” Gray replied gruffly, and I had to smile at his complete dedication to me.
“I never used to be so troublesome,” I joked weakly.
“Yes, you did,” was his quick reply.
“Dick.” I heard it go, and I held the phone up as the red flashing battery icon took over the screen, and my phone died. “Shit.”
What did I do now? Sit and wait for someone to come get me, or try more of the doors?
Why hadn’t I already tried more of the doors?
Carefully, I made my way to the next door, my hands scraping across the wall, keeping me steady.
I stumbled over a trash can and yelped spectacularly loudly in the empty theater, the acoustics echoing back to me.
Well, that wasn’t fucking creepy at all.
Trying not to be the hysterical girl that panics in every horror movie ever, I reached the next door and gently tugged.
Nothing. Fine. Next one. Sometime later, I was back at the stage, and I knew I didn’t have the courage or the energy to try to make my way around the other side.
The green glowing sign of the EXIT taunted me, and I cursed myself for a fool as I hastened toward it.
I had tried the locked doors, not the emergency exits.
Gray was going to kick my ass, and I deserved it.
Pushing on the bar, I almost screamed with frustration as it refused to budge.
Weren’t they supposed to open? Wasn’t that the whole point of them?
They opened no matter what and were unobstructed at all times?
This college sucked balls at safety, I rambled to myself as I held tightly onto the bar like it was a lifeline.
The good thing about the exit was it gave some light to the dark room.
Which was a good thing.
Until I saw the shadow move on the other side of the hall.
Fuck off.
I hadn’t seen that. It was my imagination. Please, Lord, let me be alone in here. I stood stock-still, hardly breathing, for I didn’t know how long.
The lights went on at the same time as the doors flung open, and I screamed out loud at the loud bang, and then I heard Ava say, “It’s okay, we have her.”
Blinking, I looked at her and Mia as I hurried toward them. I didn’t care that I looked like a fool. My steps slowed as I saw the janitor.
“You?”
“Well, I didn’t know we had royalty in the building,” the greasy-haired guy from the bar smirked at me.
“You locked me in?” I could feel my fury overcoming any other emotions, and with a move borne of fear and desperation, I punched him.