The Anti-Prom - By Abby McDonald Page 0,51

but this time, I don’t even flinch at the shadows. The panicked knot in my stomach has melted into a glorious exhilaration; every pulse singing in triumph.

I did it.

I stepped up. I saved the day. Meg Rose Zuckerman is a spectator no more.

“Hurry!” Jolene yanks my arm, racing down the dark corridor.

“But he’s gone,” I gasp, stumbling after her. “Meg came through. We’re all clear!” I still can’t believe it, but somehow the girl flipped a switch and started acting like a different person. Someone awesome.

“Not yet. She set the alarm.” Jolene rounds the corner ahead of me, clutching her backpack and that painting of hers, rolled into a thick bundle. “That means we’ve got two, maybe three minutes to get out before the system goes live.”

“Oh, crap.”

We run past dark offices and storerooms, fast enough to feel a burn in my chest. I am so not cut out for extreme sports. Or, you know, running.

Jolene throws open one of the heavy metal doors at the end of the hallway. “Back here,” she gasps.

“No freaking way.” I stop dead. Looming out of the dark are huge stacks of soft toys: rows and rows of oversize, lurid teddy bears and bug-eyed bunny rabbits. “I’m going to have nightmares about these freaks.” I shudder, prodding a blue frog. His face is fixed with a manic kind of grin, like he’s about to come alive and start sacrificing small children.

“Bliss!” Jolene plunges ahead, her flashlight flickering in the black.

I sigh. We couldn’t go sneaking around any bright, warm places in a decent part of town. Nope, with Jolene, it’s all creepy warehouses and alarm systems that could go off at any minute. I race down the aisles, my heels echoing on the concrete. There’s a loading bay in the back, and — thank God — the pale green glow of an emergency exit sign shimmering above the —

“Locked.” Jolene throws down the heavy chain padlock, swearing. She kicks the door angrily.

“That’s it?” My panic kicks up a level, but she’s already sweeping the back wall for our escape. The beam pauses on a row of narrow windows, closed up tight and way too high to get to. “Oh, no.” I shake my head, following her expression. “Are you kidding me!”

Jolene doesn’t answer; she just makes straight for the shelves underneath and hoists herself up. “Jolene, stop!” I hiss, but she keeps on climbing, the whole shelving unit quivering with every move. “Get down from there. It’s, like, twenty feet high.”

“More like fifteen,” she corrects me, clambering up the shelves. “And do you see any other way out?”

“No, but do you want us to break our necks?” I gulp. Getting stuck in a brace all summer would wreck my social life way more than Kaitlin and Cameron ever could. I can just imagine it now: them frolicking at every pool party in town, while I stay stuck indoors watching daytime TV and listening to my mom lecture me about the consequences of my actions.

Jolene clearly doesn’t share my summer schedule. She reaches the top and heaves the window open, looking down at me, impatient. “Come on, Bliss. Get up here!”

“And then what?” I cry. “Is there even anything on the other side?”

“We don’t have time to find out!” Jolene waits another second and then shakes her head. “You know what? Fine. Stay. Get caught!” She starts to squeeze herself out the narrow space, headfirst.

“Jolene!” I yelp, but just like that, she’s gone.

The warehouse is silent.

“Perfect,” I mutter, gathering my skirts and reaching for the first shelf. “Be that way. I’ll just tell the cops you”— I grab for the next railing —“were the one who started all this”— my thigh hits a hard edge, and I let out a yelp —“when they scrape my comatose body off the concrete”— the stack begins to sway; I gulp —“in one great mangled heap!”

At last, I reach the top. The floor is a very, very long way away. I stick my head through the narrow gap. “Jolene?”

“Drop down.” I hear her voice coming from outside. In the light from the security lamps, I can see her dusting herself off — way, way below me. “Don’t be such a wimp,” she hisses. “There are boxes and stuff to break the fall.”

Right. Because break and fall are really words I want to hear so close together. I begin to slowly squeeze through the space.

“Get a move on,” Jolene orders, frantic. “The alarm will go on any second now.”

With a