Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 112951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
She snarled.
It hit me then. The library.
My eyes bulged out. “You were there, at the library.”
She pulled back, her eyes narrowing.
“Yes!” It came back then. “You were standing by the doors watching Shay. I saw you, and you saw me, and then you started reading like you hadn’t been watching him.”
I hadn’t cared, or noticed. I was avoiding Shay then. It was so long ago, but Shay found me. He walked right past her like she hadn’t been there at all and dragged me out to study for a quiz. I hadn’t looked for her again.
No—there was more.
I started remembering—the football game. She was there, too.
“You were there. The Dick Crushing moment.”
Missy’s words came to me. “Some girl stopped by the room and asked about you.”
“That was you. You went to my old dorm room, asking about me.”
Phoebe paused, her head tilting. Her eyes were so flat.
A chill went down my spine.
“You might not understand it, but you being here is a problem. You’ll bring him into her life again, and she’ll end up leaving my brother. Then my relationship with him will end, too. He’ll stop coming to see me. I can’t let that happen.”
I saw the two shadows again.
They’d been behind me before. They were in front of me this time.
They were coming, coming, getting bigger and bigger.
I couldn’t look away from her.
I barely glimpsed them before.
She became those two shadows.
And then hearing her last words, it was like seeing the bat appear for the first time again.
She said, “I’ve been racking my brain about how to handle you, and then I remembered that you were attacked.”
She started forward.
She said, “I need to finish what they started. That’s why you were brought here.”
She started for me—
No.
I knew what she was going to do in the back of my mind, but time turned off for me. It slowed. She was starting for me.
It didn’t matter.
An eerie calm came over me.
This was my make-up time. I was getting a second chance.
I wouldn’t be a victim this time. She was giving me that opportunity. She didn’t sneak up behind me. She was coming at me from the front.
I could fight back this time.
I would fight back. I felt the need to do this rising up in me.
“Hey!”
I stopped.
Time snapped back to reality.
That was Casey’s voice.
Phoebe stopped also, turning around. Both of my roommates were running toward us. They were in their pajamas. Kristina had grabbed a robe, but it flopped open, flying behind her like a cape.
Casey had a perpetual scowl on her face. She pointed at us. “What’s going on? That’s my roommate.”
Phoebe was a deer in headlights. She was right in front of me, a dumbstruck look on her face, and she gaped between us.
This whole thing was surreal.
Kristina was right next to Casey, our room phone in her hand. She was holding it up toward me. “Shay called. He said something was wrong.”
Phoebe was trapped.
I was standing in the only opened door. The other one was locked in place, and my roommates boxed her in. Her only way out was through us, or if the dorm room opened behind her. I doubted she could crawl through the window, and for what?
I said, “Just give it up.”
Beads of sweat formed on her forehead. She looked between my roommates and me.
Then, one by one, the doors all along the hallway started opening until the RA came out and the lights were switched on.
Our little triangle of four that had formed now doubled.
The resident advisor saw Phoebe, then me, and stopped in her tracks. She let out a sigh. “Oh, boy.”
Casey reeled to her. “Oh, boy? What does that mean?”
She ignored Casey, looking at me. “What happened?”
“Call security. She threatened me. She’s psycho because of Shay.”
“Me?” I could hear from the phone in Kristina’s hand.
She handed it over. “He’s on the phone. He said your phone cut out, and when he couldn’t get ahold of you, he called us. We called the cops.”
“Yeah.” Casey waved her cell around. “They’re coming.”
“No.” Two uniformed police opened the door from behind me with a security guard beside them. “We’re here,” one of the cops spoke, raking over the group. His eyes fell to me and then Phoebe. “We received a 9-1-1 call that hung up. It was traced back here. Took a bit to coordinate with campus security what dorm until,” he nodded at Casey, “your call. Thank you, ma’am.”
“Ma’am.” She fought against grinning. “He called me ma’am. I don’t know if that’s insulting or flattering.”
“Kennedy!” Shay barked from the phone, and I took it, saying into it, “Cops are here.”
“Good, but why?”
The first officer took out his notepad. “Someone needs to start talking.”
The resident advisor ran a hand through her hair. “Uh . . .” Her eyes found mine again. “Go with Kennedy.”
Casey shot her hand up again, cell phone still in it. “We came out to the hallway, and swear to God, we saw this bitch”—she pointed at Phoebe—“starting to chase our roommate.”