Chapter Thirty-Eight
THIRTY-EIGHT
“Noah?” Izzy gasps his name as he falters in front of us. She instinctively tries to move in his direction, but I keep a tight hold on her. “Are you okay?”
“What’s going on?” he asks, his voice slurring slightly.
I take a step back, pulling Izzy closer toward the door as he moves forward and stands in a slice of light that cuts through from outside.
“Fliss, what are you doing? He needs our help.” Izzy starts toward him again, so I squeeze her arm so hard she yelps.
“You can’t trust him,” I say, loud enough for Noah to hear me too. He squints a little, unhappy at being called out, I’m sure, but I don’t care.
“Fliss, look at him,” Izzy pleads, shrugging me off and lowering the weight. “He’s hurt!”
“How do you know it’s his blood?” I hiss.
Her eyes widen as she realizes what I mean and she stops talking, giving me precious seconds to take in everything I can about the situation.
The thought of sitting with Noah in my kitchen only days ago taunts me, but it also stirs a memory.
He told me he had a heart condition. What if Izzy was right all along and Noah believes that by copying the painter, he can become immortal?
Noah sways a little on the spot, and I study him from head to toe as quickly as I can.
His hair is a mess, but that’s not unusual.
He seems unsteady, but that could be a ruse, and his pupils are tiny black pinpricks.
He looks like he’s on something. My eyes follow a trail of blood that starts at the collar of his light blue T-shirt and soaks the front of it a dirty brownish-red, petering out to a dull splatter on his jeans.
The soles of his white sneakers are dark, as though he stepped in Alessandra’s blood. The thought makes my stomach churn.
I clutch the gallery keys between my fingers. If I can get us out, we can lock Noah in while we call the police, and if we can’t, well, the keys are the best weapon I have on me. I inch backward, hoping Izzy gets the memo to follow me.
“What happened, Noah?” I ask, keeping my voice as calm as I can.
“I don’t know.” He reaches a hand up to swipe at his face and then pulls it away, staring at it in confusion. “This isn’t my blood.”
“See?” I whisper. I tug Izzy and nod my head at the door while Noah is distracted. She looks between us both, her expression pained.
“No, it’s hers, the gallery woman…She was so loud.” Noah’s eyes widen but his face is a mask, not betraying any emotion. “So scared.”
“Alessandra,” I hiss, fury surging. He doesn’t even know her name. How did I not see what he really is, especially after I found Jen’s necklace? My lips burn with the memory of our kiss, making me feel sick.
I lean my weight against the door, praying that in his current state he won’t notice if I push it open slowly. I start talking again to cover the sound of the glass door. “How could you do it?”
“Do what?” he asks, looking up at us as a breath of cool air drifts through the open door. Noah’s expression clears suddenly, his eyebrows narrowing to a point. “What are you doing?”
“Go, now!” I yell to Izzy, trying to push her through the gap, but she hesitates, looking between the two of us. Fear clutches my throat as I feel our time running out. “Izzy,” I plead, pulling her with all my strength.
“You can’t leave!” Noah roars, lunging toward us.
Against my better judgment, I let go of Izzy and push open the door as wide as I can, hoping she’ll follow me out and we can ditch Noah and run, but instead I hear a heavy thunk as I stumble into the quad. Then there’s silence.
“Izzy?” I ask, breathing hard.
She’s standing right where I left her and the doorstop is still clutched in her hand, but now it’s raised in front of her face and Noah is lying at her feet.
“I hit him in the jaw,” she says, stunned. I approach her and hold my hands out to take the weight from her, but she tightens her grip. “I didn’t mean it, I swear, but he was coming toward us and…Oh my god, have I killed him?”
“I doubt it—you probably just knocked him out.” Noah groans on cue as I edge around his prone figure.
“See? Not dead.” Izzy sighs in relief, though her skin has taken on the greenish tinge of someone who is about to throw up.
“But we need to get out of here and call the police before he comes around so they can arrest him.” There’s no way I’m staying here so he can shut us up for good. I don’t say that to Izzy, though.
“You’re right,” Izzy says, and I know what she’s thinking. He fooled us both.
Noah’s fingers twitch too close to her ankle for my liking, and that’s all it takes for me to drag her back to the door.
We go quietly, and as soon as we’re out I carefully close the door and lean on the glass, taking in huge gulps of fresh air.
Izzy runs to the center of the green and drops the weight to pull her phone out, before realizing I’m not beside her.
She looks back at me, but I wave at her to carry on.
“Call them,” I shout, trying to get my shaking fingers to keep hold of the keys.
I turn back to the door, focusing all my energy on getting the first key into the lock and twisting it until I hear the dull clunk of the barrel turning. I have to crouch to find the second keyhole, but the bottom half of the door is shrouded in darkness.
“Fliss!” Izzy screams my name, and I look up to see a figure looming on the other side of the glass.
“No!”
The pane shakes between us as Noah bellows, throwing himself into the door, his hands leaving trails of blood on the glass.
I brace myself, aware that one lock and my body weight are all that’s keeping his hands from being around my throat, and the thought is enough to make me fumble the key ring. It falls to the floor, hitting the ground with a dull clang.
Fear washes through me in waves as Noah backs up, his face twisted and pupils pinprick small, as he puts ground between us.
Then he rushes at the door again, his body slamming against the glass with an almighty thump.
I drop to the ground, terrified, and see Noah backing up a third time. I scrabble around on the cold paving for the keys. I find them and shove what I hope is the right key into the second lock, twisting it and sobbing with relief as it locks. I pull the key out and back away, praying it will hold.
“Run!” I scream.
Izzy doesn’t hesitate, and I’m right behind her as I hear Noah collide with the glass again.
I cross the quad as fast as I can, and my flip-flops slap the soles of my feet, the sound echoing in the empty courtyard like gunshots.
Izzy stops in front of the Clarendon Building on the far side, her eyes on the gallery as she holds out a hand and urges me to reach her.
“You did it,” she pants, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me to her. “God, I didn’t think you were going to lock it in time, but you did.”
“Just,” I gasp, aware that my whole body is shaking. I look over at the gallery too, expecting to see Noah pressed up against the window, but he’s gone. “Can you hear anything?”
Izzy pauses. “No. Is that good?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. I squint at the gallery. “Maybe he’s gone back for Alessandra’s keys.” I shudder, thinking of him taking them from her.
“I don’t really want to wait and find out,” Izzy says through chattering teeth. “He could be back any minute.”
“We need to get out of here. Come on, this way,” I wheeze, pointing down the closest alleyway, hoping Noah doesn’t know which way to follow if he does get out. “Did you call the police?”
“The battery is completely dead.” Izzy waves her phone in front of me, wincing at her poor choice of words.
“Okay, we’ll go home and use the landline,” I say, trying to make a plan. I ignore that Noah knows exactly where the apartment is, but I don’t know how to get to the police station and the campus office is already locked up.
“But how are we going to get into your house? I left the doorstop on the green.” She pauses. “Should we go back?”
“No, we’ll find something else.”
We skulk through the alleyway, where tall stone walls rise above us on either side, blocking out any light.
I keep my eyes on the narrow cobbled path, because there are no streetlights down here and the road is uneven.
Izzy stays close behind, and it takes me a minute to interpret her heavy breathing.
She’s crying.
“Did you see Noah’s eyes?” she says quietly between sniffles. “I didn’t think…He never seemed the type to take drugs, you know, but what if he’s the one who spiked my drink? Do you think that’s why he’s done all this? Is it all a drug-induced psychosis?”
There’s that itch in my brain again, but I don’t get the chance to examine it because a tall, dark shape rears up at me. I swallow a scream and tense my whole body, my eyes scrunching up involuntarily as Izzy bumps into me.
“What’s wrong?” she says, immediately on guard.
I pry my eyelids apart when there’s no immediate attack and let out a sigh of relief, but my heart is fluttering wildly and I realize I’m on the verge of a meltdown. God, not now, Fliss!
“Just a dumpster,” I say out loud, hoping it will help, but my body is threating to fold onto the ground as I think about what’s just happened. We carry on for a few shaky steps before Izzy stops me.
“Fliss? You’re breathing weird.”
“I know,” I say, my voice rising higher with each word. “It’s just too much, I need a minute, and we don’t have one and…”
“Shhh, it’s okay.” Izzy steers me along the alleyway, her hands firm but gentle on my shoulders. I can’t believe after everything tonight she’s the one talking me down. “Let’s start trying the gates.”
“What?” I blink back tears and spot a wooden gate set into one of the walls. Izzy presses on the handle as we pass it, but it’s locked.