Gravity, a young adult paranormal romance (32 page)

"You can stay here," I offered, gesturing
randomly to my room.  

"I don't know if your dad would like that," he
said, smiling wryly. He looked so tired, I couldn't possibly
imagine him having to walk all the way back home in the
cold.

"You can sleep in here. On the floor," I
added, in case I was giving off any other vibes.

I took a pillow and an extra blanket off of
the foot of my bed, and propped them up on the floor.

"I know it's not fancy," I said
apologetically.

"It's fine. Thank you." He took off his
sweatshirt and laid it on the back of the chair. The homey gesture
reminded me of when Hugh would come home from work, and toss his
jacket on my parents' bed. As he propped himself up, I sat down
next to him on the floor. I couldn't help myself.  

His eyes registered confusion now that I was
so close. I stroked the side of his cheek with the back of my
hand.

"Can we finish one thing?" I asked softly. And
then I kissed him, gently at first. He responded immediately,
moving his lips against mine, putting his arms around me and
running his hands along my back. The kiss grew in intensity, all of
my feelings rushing to my mouth, searching his with my
tongue.  When I finally pulled away, gasping for breath, we
looked at each other.

"Goodnight," he said, pressing his forehead
quickly against mine, and then lying down on the pillow.

I crawled into bed and shut off the light.
 

Chapter 21

I took it as a cosmic sign that McPherson was
absent from school the next day. Nurse Callie did the morning
announcements instead, a welcome change.

At lunch, Theo and I gathered around Henry and
Alex's table to make plans.

"I don't know about being a part of another
one of your crazy schemes," Alex said, shaking his head.

"Okay, Ricky, you just go to the Tropicana,"
Theo said.

"What the hell?" Alex said, looking like he
was about to sneeze.

"You never watched
I Love Lucy?
Why am I
not surprised?" She scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"Can we please get back to the topic?" Henry
asked impatiently.

"Sorry," Theo muttered.

"We need to have a distraction, so that we can
get into the security office," Henry explained. "That way we can
check out the tape of the day of the fire."

"How exactly are we supposed to do that?" Alex
asked.

"Figure something out," Henry said. "You're
both very creative." Theo and Alex exchanged a look, eyebrows
raised.

Ten minutes later, we were all standing over
by the administration offices, watching the office workers through
the glass front as they chatted by the counter.
   

"I hope this works," I said softly.

"Me too," Henry replied. We stared at each
other. If we got caught, we would be in too bad of trouble for even
his father to get us out.

Theo fell to the hard floor and started
screaming.

"I didn't mean it!" Alex shouted, all part of
the scene we had rehearsed.

The two office assistants, followed by Nurse
Callie, ran out to where Theo lay twitching on the
ground.

Henry and I rounded the corner, walking
quickly. The security officer took his lunch breaks outside, so we
had the office to ourselves. We slipped inside the door, hopefully
unnoticed.

I followed Henry back into the security
office. A slideshow of images of different parts of the school
cycled on the monitor.

There were boxes of labeled DVDs beneath the
desk. We each pulled out a box and started thumbing through them.
Every DVD was dated.

"What was the date of the fire?" I
asked.

"November sixth. It's not here," he said, not
sounding entirely surprised. "Son of a..."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"I'm completely sure. Thursday the fifth is
here, Monday is ninth is here. No Friday." He pushed the box back
in place.

"Then our only alternative is to go down in
the basement," he continued. There was a need in his eyes I
couldn't argue with. "We have to see what he's hiding."

"Why are you so sure there's something down
there?" I asked, but I knew he was right. The voices I had heard
there the first day, the charred black marks like a sunburst from
underneath the door. All obscure evidence that the basement
harbored a secret. Not to mention McPherson's creepy shed, and the
fact that he was conveniently missing.
    

"It's something so important he felt the need
to stop the electricians or anyone else from going down there,"
Henry reasoned. "They were supposed to come on the following
Monday, Wick told me."  

We slipped out of the office, where Theo and
Alex were still holding everyone's attention. It looked like they
were running out of ideas. We skidded back around the corner,
keeping fast to the wall, and then came back, walking as casually
as we could.

"Oh my gosh, Theo! Are you okay?" I asked,
rushing to her side. I hoped my acting skills were okay, as I
hadn't needed to use them since the school play in seventh grade.
 

"I think I'm alright, I just got knocked down
by this dummy and I thought I broke something," Theo said groggily.
I caught Alex wrinkling his nose at her. I helped Theo up to her
feet, where she immediately straightened.

"Yep, I think it passed," Theo said, striding
away with her shoulders back.

Alex shrugged to the others left wondering
what had happened, and trailed behind us. I especially hated
tricking Nurse Callie since she had been so nice, but I felt like
it couldn't be helped.

"Did you find anything?" Alex asked when we
were out of earshot. Henry filled them in on the missing
DVD.

"So now you're going into the basement?" Theo
asked, looking concerned.

"We'll be careful," I assured her. I found I
was just as curious as Henry to find out what McPherson had been
hiding down there. I had a feeling little Alyssa had something to
do with it, as much as that made me fearful. There was a reason she
showed herself to me in the school.  

The two of them headed back to class as the
bell rang. Henry and I joined the crowd heading to their
classrooms. When we reached the blocked off area, Henry and I
waited until the hall cleared out. Making sure no one was around;
we slipped through the traffic cones and into basement
access.

The acrid smell of fire damage still clung
heavily to the room. We entered onto a small platform, with a burnt
circle in the center of the floor. Navigating around the burn mark,
we began to descend the metal stairway.  

Our steps echoed in the air, metallic tinks as
we went further into Hawthorne's belly, the old foundation. The
area in which we found ourselves had existed for a long time. The
rooms were filthy, poorly lit, with grime on the drab gray
walls.

"What are we looking for?" I asked Henry,
putting my head on his shoulder without realizing I was doing
it.

"Whatever it is that snake is hiding down
here," Henry said. He pulled out his phone and lit the back light,
casting a synthetic glow, which only illuminated the ugliness of
our surroundings more. Barrels of some unknown substance slouched
against the wall. He walked over and cracked the top of one; it was
empty.  

"This is disgusting," he commented. As if to
prove his point, a trio of rats scurried along the wall. I jumped,
while he remained in place.

"Does anything scare you?" I asked, checking
the pulse in my neck.

"Of course," he said. "Just not the normal
stuff. I guess I've immunized myself a little over the
years."

We stopped when we heard noises beyond, like
someone dragging a cumbersome object across the floor and
struggling to do so. Exchanging a look, he shut his phone and we
made our way to a closed door behind which the noise was coming
from.

Henry jiggled the handle. It appeared
locked.

"What do we do — "

I was cut off as Henry pulled out his wallet,
retrieving his Visa and sliding it into the slit between the door
and the frame. The lock popped easily.

"How do you know how to do that?" I wondered
aloud.

"I told you everyone has secrets," Henry
said.

Inside the room were rows of old supplies that
had been there possibly for decades. It looked mostly like pool
equipment — buckets of old chlorine, hoses, broken
floaters.

We walked behind a shelf, and peering through
the gap, saw the source of the noise. The bucket next to the man
wafted the smell of strong chemicals our way. Two filthy sleeping
bags were next to him on the floor. To my horror, I noticed human
hair spilling out of them, and I had to jam my fist in my mouth to
stop from screaming.  

Mr. Warwick scrubbed the floor furiously. His
throaty breathing was loud in the short-ceilinged chamber.
 

"We need to get out of here," I
whispered.

Henry's fingers were busy. "I'm telling Alex
to call the police," he whispered back, hands visibly
fumbling.

"Who's there?" Warwick called out. Henry and I
froze, peering back through the gap.   

He stood up, his shirt sleeves rolled up to
the elbows. A gritty sponge dripped dirty water from his
hand.

 
"I know someone is there, I
heard you." His voice wavered.

"What do we do?" I whispered frantically. For
once, Henry looked scared. The color washed out of his face,
leaving his skin gray. His fear worried me most of all.
 

Warwick started advancing to where we were,
hiding behind the flimsy shelving.

"Just let me think for a second," Henry
whispered, squeezing his eyes shut.

"We don't have a second!" I said through
gritted teeth. I looked around the area we were in. Diagonal to us
was a stack of large, rolled up tarps in a wire bin.
 

It was only a matter of moments before Warwick
reached us. Chlorine stung my nose as I breathed rapidly. It was
either there or nothing, as I couldn't see anywhere else the two of
us could even try to hide.  

"Over there," I mouthed, and ran and dove
underneath the stacks. Henry followed, and we shimmied into the
space, sitting against the wall.

"I'm going to find you," Warwick called out.
"I know you saw me. And the girls. Sorry to say that means I'm
going to have to shut you up. For the greater good."
 

We watched as he reached into his pants pocket
and retrieved a small gun, which glimmered in the faint, grimy
light. My stomach dropped and I swallowed hard.

I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my chin down
towards my hammering heart. I never would have imagined Warwick
being anything but kind. He was the person who performed magic
tricks with decks of cards and pulling quarters out of my
ear.

He passed the stack of tarps that protected
us. He kept talking conversationally, as if he were lecturing us on
Abraham Lincoln instead of being caught trying to hide a couple of
rotting corpses.

"The girls won't tell anyone. They're dead.
Funny thing about being dead. It makes it so you can't tattle." He
continued to stalk the area, peeking into shelves and around items,
and out the door.  

"I think he's in the other room," I whispered
after a few minutes, my voice shaking so much I could barely
articulate the words.

"How do we get out of here?" Henry
asked.

"I don't know," I said, my mind racing with
possibilities, all tumbling over one another so I couldn't separate
them into a coherent plan.

"We should just wait," Henry said.
  

"No, I'll go look and see if there's a way
out," I said firmly. I started to get up.

"Are you nuts?" he asked, pulling the sleeve
of my shirt, hard. His eyes were wild. "He'll kill you,
Ariel!"

"Me doing something is a better option than us
staying here and waiting to be killed," I said, and yanked my
sleeve out of his grasp. "And besides, he's my dad's best friend.
He won't kill me. The police are on their way, but who knows how
long it will take for them to get to us?"

Bravely or stupidly, maybe a mix of both, I
crept out, and around the shelving, leaving Henry protesting behind
me.

I crept down the row of crowded pool supplies,
looking back and forth. I tried everything I could to squash the
rising fear within my chest. Panic would only make things worse.
I'd seen him go through the door ahead of me, but I didn't know
where he was looking, and how much time I had. I couldn't see any
other doorways. If only there was a window or a vent shaft...
  

"
Gotcha!
" Warwick said, catching me
by my hair as I shrieked. He had been hiding in a shallow space in
the wall between two stacks of bromine buckets. My eyes bugged out
of my head as my vision shook, every cell inside me screaming at me
that I was trapped and disaster awaited me.