Dial Em for Murder (26 page)

“Took us sightseeing.” Sebastian finished for him. “Do you remember the part where I said I'd kick your ass if you ever mentioned it again?”

Nasir shook his head, but he seemed more amused than unnerved. “That's what keeps landing you in therapy, man. You're supposed to use your words to express your feelings, not to make idle threats.”

His grim smile wasn't amused, but something must have happened between the two boys to forge their friendship—maybe in Hungary, or Houston, or right here at Emptor Academy—because Sebastian didn't glare at Nasir. Instead, he pulled out the Slate and typed in, O-S-W-A-L-D.

Everyone, including a very confused Kayla, waited in tense silence.

“This is hopeless. It could be
anything
. You get that right? Your grandpa gave his Slate to
me
, which means he's crazy enough to pick a random string of numbers.” My brain felt like it had been clamped in a vise. I snatched the Slate from Sebastian and headed for the door.

He followed right behind me. “Where the hell do you think you're going?”

“To get my best friend her freaking coffee!”

I wanted to run away. The overused muscles in my legs began tightening, tensing, bracing themselves for the hard impact of the cobblestones beneath my sneakers. Except running wouldn't accomplish anything. Speed didn't make a damn bit of difference on a hamster wheel.

Zipping my hoodie up higher against the early morning chill, I kept my gaze locked on the cafeteria.

“Emmy, hold up.”

Oh, hell no.

I refused to adjust my stride. If I sped up it would look like I was running away.
Poor little Emmy Danvers can't hold her own with Sebastian St. James. Can't manage much of anything. Can't last more than a handful of hours before falling apart.

Sebastian interrupted the mocking tirade playing in my head. “You're not—”

“Don't you dare finish that sentence!” I snapped. “I swear, if you so much as
think
about giving me another one of your orders, I will end you.
So leave me alone.
”

Sebastian ignored my threat. “The cafeteria closes at midnight and there's a campus security guard who starts his rounds there. He should be headed this way within the next twenty minutes.” He held out something that gleamed dully in the darkness. “If you want coffee, swipe in at the library. Third floor, third door on the left.”

My fingers closed around two cold metal keys.

“Why are you giving this to me?” I raked a hand through my hair, my head pounding with the pressure of a thousand unanswered questions. “Why are you pretending to be nice? We both know it's an act. So what are you trying to weasel out of me now?”

The lamplight illuminated a flash of his white teeth as he grinned. “Coffee, for starters. I take mine black. Oh, and grab me a bagel while you're at it. Better hurry. The guard will be here soon.”

Apparently I had been demoted to the role of barista/waitress/personal assistant.

I totally should have seen it coming.

“How will you guys get past the guard?” I called out to his retreating form as he began heading back to the computer lab.

“It's not hard. We'll lock the door and turn out the lights in fifteen minutes. So feel free to take your time in the library.”

He continued down the pathway again, but I wasn't quite ready for him to leave. Not when questions still bubbled under my skin like the carbonation in a shaken soda can.

“Do I want to know how you got these keys?”

He turned slightly, his face half-cast in shadows. “Nope.”

That was the last thing he said before he faded into the darkness, which made the whole situation feel like a setup. A trap. Maybe I'd be surrounded by ninjas the second I swiped my ID card and entered into the main lobby of the library. Maybe Sebastian wanted to keep me away from the computer lab so that he could blackmail my best friend without any interference.

Or maybe I had become paranoid in the extreme.

That last possibility—the paranoid one—had more than a little truth to it. Standing outside the building also increased my odds of getting busted by a security guard, escorted back to the girls' dormitory, and given a lecture about respecting the curfew.

That settled it for me.

I swiped my ID card before fumbling my way inside. The lobby was a gaping black void but flicking on a light would've turned it into a beacon. No way would the security guards overlook my trespassing expedition then. Still, the darkness creeped me out. I was getting whiplash from craning my neck every time I heard a noise. It wasn't distinct, nothing as easily dismissed as a branch tapping against a windowpane.

It was infinitely more sinister, probably because it only existed in my imagination.

I forced my mind to rewrite the script. Instead of being the stupid girl in a horror story, I was a secret agent. An international woman of mystery. A dark alter ego of myself who wore little black dresses and dark red lipstick. The kind of girl who could intimidate with a narrow-eyed glare and then follow it up with a roundhouse kick.

An opposer to evil. The nemesis of bad guys everywhere.

Nemesis, I actually liked the sound of that a lot. Nemmy wouldn't stand in front of an unlocked door because she was too afraid to turn the freaking knob. She didn't waste her time on self-indulgent displays of weakness. She kept her head down and focused on the task at hand. For tonight, I was willing to let her take the lead.

My steps faltered only once as I passed the gleaming mahogany checkout desk. Empty of all life, the library looked like a ghost town. Almost as if a plague had ravaged the residents leaving only the building untouched in its wake. I breathed in the familiar scent of pages from well-loved books and forced my muscles to unclench. It went against every instinct, but I hurried past the rows and rows of books without pausing to read the spines. Audrey was stuck with Sebastian
and
Nasir until I resurfaced with the coffee, and while Kayla might be good at diffusing tension, she was way out of her league now.

There were still ten minutes before Sebastian's scheduled blackout. If I rushed, I could rejoin the others while the security guard made sure that no millionaire heirs were helping themselves to a late night feast. Shoving open the door to the stairwell, I took the steps two at a time, panting as I raced into the rare books section. A half dozen items were placed under what looked like a bulletproof display case.

Nearly there.

The Slate began to vibrate in my pocket, and just like that, Nemmy was gone. It was like she'd never existed, which
technically
she hadn't. But still. It was as if I had never imagined her in the first place. That strong kickass, I-ain't-afraid-of-no-killers persona deserted me.

My heart thudding painfully in my chest, I fished the Slate out of my pocket.

I was so screwed.

My life didn't flash before my eyes as I scrambled toward the room Sebastian had mentioned, I didn't have any profound thought about existence or my place in the world, and I definitely didn't care if my underwear was clean. There were exactly two words running through my head, and they were
Oh, shit
.

Not
“Run, Emmy!”

Not
“Hide, Emmy!”

That would've been entirely too practical for someone who forgot to take the
killer
into account before stupidly storming off on her own.

I deserved to die.

Scratch that, I didn't deserve to die. I wasn't a mass murderer, or a child molester, or a corrupt accountant who'd just screwed a bunch of senior citizens out of their retirement funds. Unless I was paying for crimes from a past life, this wasn't a case of karmic retribution.

I didn't deserve to die.

And yet the only person I had to blame was myself. Ben had told me countless times to hand the Slate over to the authorities, but I'd been hell-bent on finding my own answers. I'd gambled on myself—on my nonexistent sleuthing abilities—and now I had to pay the price.

The Slate vibrated again.

I ducked behind a bookshelf, peering frantically into the darkness. I thought the dark blob ahead of me might be a doorframe, but I had no idea how many I'd already passed, and the sharp waves of panic crashing through me didn't make it any easier to recall.

The Slate jolted in my hand with a fresh set of vibrations.

That wasn't the only bit of information it had to share with me.

My hand flew to my mouth to stifle the scream burning at my throat. It probably defied some primal instinct that believed screaming loud and long enough would send someone running to my rescue.

Except right now? The only person who would rush over was the one currently hunting me down.

I darted forward. I wanted to cling to the books and hide amongst the hardcovers forever, but instead I plastered my back against the wooden door and tried to hide in the dark recess of the frame.

My fingers fumbled in my pocket for the keys. I should have tucked the one that unlocked the lobby door into the back pocket of my jeans. Instead, I had let them clink softly against each other as I'd raced up the stairs. Now I had to test two keys on what might be the wrong door, all without giving my position away to the killer.

Because what my life really needed at this precise moment was another challenge.

My entire body shook as if I'd tripped into an ice bank. The palms of my hands would probably still have the key imprint when the medical examiner saw me at the morgue. I was clutching the sharp ridges tightly enough to draw blood, but the pain cut through some of the fear.

It sharpened everything. The warm familiar musk of books became oppressive, the silhouettes of shelving units loomed menacingly around me. The darkness began to recede as my eyes adjusted to the room, which might've been comforting if the shadows weren't my best source of protection.

I shoved the key blindly at the lock, expecting it to immediately resist. Instead, it slid home so sweetly I wanted to weep in relief. Apparently, there was still enough Nemmy in me to keep it together because I didn't make a sound. Maybe it was knowing, without a doubt, that these next few minutes were going to be my last. That every scare, every instinctive glance over my shoulder, every increase in my pulse, it had all been building to this moment.

Sebastian wasn't around with any of his so-called lifelines. Audrey couldn't hack me out of danger. Ben couldn't save the day by calling the cops.

It was just me.

I shut the door as quietly as I could before engaging the lock and jamming a chair underneath it for extra reinforcement. At best, it might stall him for an extra minute or two. It wouldn't stop him. Not this time. He was still coming. I began searching the area for a weapon, a distraction, a distress signal; I wasn't picky. Nothing I saw inspired much confidence.

There was a long granite-tiled countertop with a whole set of utensils in a hard plastic container, but I didn't think the killer would be impressed if I brandished the nearest piece of silverware and advised him not to fork with me. If I had even the slightest clue how to create a bomb, I totally would have used the butter knife to strip the wires on the coffeepot or something. Except realistically that seemed like a great way to electrocute myself and take care of the killer's job for him.

The cupboards were mostly empty. A few boxes of cereal, some granola bars that had probably been sitting there for the last decade. Five very stale looking bagels sat on the counter near the coffee pot, which had me hoping that I'd find a bread knife with razor sharp teeth.

Instead, I came up with a handful of spatulas, a ladle, and inexplicably, a whisk.

I continued ransacking the drawers for anything that even vaguely resembled a weapon more than, oh, say an eggbeater. A container of bleach was the closest to a chemical weapon that I could find, and it was too sludgy and crusted over to fling into my attacker's eyes. My Slate vibrated again as I grabbed a floral-etched casserole dish.

I held my breath and stared at the screen, bracing myself for the Potential Hostile update. It reminded me of being six years old and crawling scared into my mom's bed during a lightning storm. She had held me protectively, whispering through every electric crack that the storm was God's way of putting on a show. She said that the flash of lightning that blazed in the sky was a performer making a grand entrance and the answering thunder clap was a round of angel applause.

The killer was putting on quite a show, but I wasn't going to cheer his grand finale.

He was headed in the wrong direction. All I needed to do was buy enough time for the security guard to reach the library. As long as the killer didn't bust through the door within the next ten minutes, I stood a fighting chance. My fingers trembled. Flashing the lights on and off, heaving the ceramic casserole dish out the window, it might be enough to make the killer retreat. Bide his time for another chance to strike.

Unless he decided a few more dead bodies wouldn't make much of a difference.

I stared numbly at the Slate, my body locked in a terror so complete it paralyzed me. I had a freaking casserole dish, a set of keys, and a password-protected tablet. If I had paused to grab my bag before exiting the computer lab, I could have at least called Audrey for help. Hell, I could have called the
police
. But no, I'd headed straight for the door with the one piece of technology I couldn't crack to save my life.