people? It’s got to be past midnight and people are probably sleeping.
Or maybe that would just be me if I hadn’t actually been invited out to the party that I’m never invited to.
I get to my door first and push it open, silently planning to close it in his face, but then I remember I have no real lock on the door and my stomach sinks again. If they’re so keen on letting me be one of them, maybe the first thing they can do is buy me a lock for the door they ruined. I go to flick the light on, but nothing comes on once I do. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I growl. I start inside, trying to remember where I put that flashlight I brought from home, but Lucas’s arms come around me again, pulling me back to him. I try to struggle free, but he only holds me tighter.
“What?” I demand, definitely not in the mood for any of this shit.
“Shh,” he chastises, and just the way he says it pulls me back into reality. His chest thumps against my back.
I hold still, nothing sounding but the beating of my heart in my temples. My eyes scan the dark interior, picking up shadows, but discarding them when they don’t move.
“Look at the other dorms,” Lucas whispers. “Their lights are on.”
I look up and down the wooden walkway. It’s true. Beyond the front curtains, hazy glows of interior light can be seen. “I must’ve blown a fuse, maybe?”
Lucas’s hand tracks down and squeezes my own. He moves in front of me. At my doorway, he squats and removes something from his shoe. It’s only when he brings himself to full height again that I realize he’s holding a knife.
My heart thumps wildly. I hold on to the railing behind me as Lucas moves into the dorm. He doesn’t bother with a flashlight as he prowls like a stray on the hunt.
Waiting outside feels like it’s taking forever. Any other day, I wouldn’t be freaked out. I’d sigh in annoyance and charge right in like I attempted to do at first. Lucas is taking this seriously though, so fear dances up my spine, settling with a tension right in the base of my neck.
A few minutes later, Lucas reappears. He’s on his phone. I only catch some of the conversation but it’s enough to set me on edge. “Yeah, we can’t stay here. Compromised.”
“Compromised?” I ask. What are we, in a James Bond movie?
Lucas ignores me, pulling my dorm room door closed. He moves to the balcony, propping one foot up on the lower ledge as he listens to whatever is being said on the other side of the phone call. Eventually, he says, “Yeah. Sounds good.”
I roll my eyes and push off from the railing to head into the dorm myself. If it is compromised—whatever that means—it’s because those assholes broke my fucking lock.
“Dakota,” Lucas calls after me. “God dammit.”
I head for the kitchen and pull out the small flashlight from the junk drawer. I shine it around the dorm. It’s in an even bigger mess than the guys left it. I gasp when I see that not only are the cushions pulled off the couch, but they’ve been torn up, tufts of stuffing litter the floors in white, puffy clouds. All the cupboard doors in the kitchen are hanging open. The refrigerator, too.
I close that door and then march into my bedroom, pulling up short. I hold the light on my perfectly made bed and blink a couple of times.
“Dakota, come on,” Lucas says. He seems to have sobered up in the last few minutes. “We can’t stay here.”
I clamp down on my jaw as I read the bright red message on my bed. Good girl. I walk forward, fingering the G in girl only to find it slightly damp. Red spray paint. The edges of some of the letters end in fading red dots instead of thick, straight lines. However, it matches the same block lettering as the letter that’s in the top of my closet.
I swing the flashlight to the closet and find all of my clothes on the floor. There are even a few holes inside that look like the drywall has been hammered through. Chunks of the wall decorate the heap of clothes at my feet.
“Come on, Dakota,” Lucas urges. “We have to go.”
“Go? Go where?” I ask, spinning around to shine the light in his eyes.