“Trusting you about a secret liaison is one thing. Trusting you about your safety is something else.” I bobbed my head toward the door. “Call it community improvement if you want, but it seems pretty apparent that you’re involved in something nasty. I’m not going to just stand by and watch you get hurt.”
“You’re not my mother.”
“Nope,” I agreed. “But I’m your new BFF.”
Her expression softened.
“I don’t need all the details,” I said, holding up my hands, “but I am going to need to know what the hell was on the other side of that door.”
As if on cue, a crash sounded again, and the door jumped on its hinges.
“We get it already!” she yelled. “Crawl back into your hole.” She grabbed my arm and began to pull me down the hall and away from the ominous door. “Let’s go.”
I tugged back, and when she dropped my arm, slipped the flip-flops back onto my feet. She was trucking down the hall, and I had to skip to keep up with her. “Is it an axe murderer?”
“Yeah,” she said dryly. “It’s an axe murderer.”
Most of the walk back was quiet. Scout and I didn’t chat much, and both the main building and the Great Hall were dark and empty of students. The moonlight, tinted red and blue, that streamed through the stained glass windows was the only light along the way.
As we moved through the corridors, Scout managed not to look back to see whether the basement door had been breached or whether some nasty thing was on our trail. I, on the other hand, kept stealing glances over my shoulder, afraid to look, but more afraid that something would sneak up behind us if I didn’t. That the corridors were peacefully quiet didn’t stop my imagination, which made shapes in the shadows beneath the desks of the Great Hall when we passed through it.
Exactly what had been behind that door? I decided I couldn’t hold in the question any longer. “Angry drug dealer?” I asked her. “Mental institution escapee? Robot overlord?”
“I’m not aware if robots have taken us over yet.” Her tone was dry.
“Flesh-eating zombie monster?”
“Zombies are a myth.”
“So you say,” I muttered. “Just answer me this: Are you in cahoots with those Montclare guys?”
“What is a ‘cahoot,’ exactly?”
“Scout.”
“I was exercising. Great workout. I got my heart rate up, and I got into the zone.” Her elbow bent, she pumped one arm as if lifting a dumbbell.
When we opened the door to the building that held our dorm rooms, I pulled her to a stop. She didn’t look happy about that.
“You were being chased,” I told her. “Something behind that door was after you, and whatever it was hit the door after we closed it.”
“Just be glad we got the door closed.”
“Scout,” I said. “Seriously. What’s going on?”
“Look, Lily, there are things going on at this school—just because things seem normal doesn’t mean they are. Things are rarely what they seem.”
Things hardly seemed normal, from late- night disappearances, to the coincidental meeting of the boys next door, to this. And all of it within my first twenty-four hours in Chicago. “Exactly what does that mean, ‘rarely what they seem’?”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “You said you had a weapon.” She scanned me up and down. “Exactly what weapon was that? Flip-flops?”
I held up a foot and dangled my thick, emerald green flip-flop in front of her. “Hey, I could have beaned a pursuer on the head with this thing. It weighs like ten pounds, and I guarantee you he would have thought twice before invading St. Sophia’s.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that would hold them off.” At my arch expression, she held up her hands. “Fine. Fine. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I’m in a club for gifted kids. Of a sort.”
“A club for gifted kids. Like, what kind of gifted?” Gifted at fibbing came immediately to mind.
“Generally gifted?”