mirror, hacking through my reflection. I was screaming and crying, tears and snot rolling over my chin, throwing my weight against the bathroom door when a heavy force pushed against me. My legs were matchsticks and I crumpled back to the horrible pebbled tile and Will looked down at me.
“Soph?”
In an instant the bathroom was bright and dry. The mirrors reflected the unscathed Pepto-pink stall doors and the only sound was the slight hum of the overhead lights and my own thrumming heart.
I could see that Will was geared to say something smart, but the second he saw me, he crouched down at my feet and pulled me to him, one hand on my shoulder, the other cradling my cheek. He thumbed a tear from the end of my nose. “What happened?”
I looked over both shoulders, expecting singing birds or a giant neon sign blaring CRAZY PANTS with an arrow pointing to me.
“There was, and then—” I sniffled. “Something happened in here, Will!”
Will stepped around me, poking his head in each stall, doing a quick check. He turned to me and shrugged, his expression surprisingly sympathetic.
“I—I don’t know what to say,” Will said.
I pushed myself up and used the heel of my hand to wipe away the tears, then scanned the room myself from the safety of the doorway.
“Lights were blinking, and then they went out and there was—” I paused while Will studied me. I couldn’t tell if he was listening hard or considering whether or not my family history of nuttiness and pure evil had seeped into my brain. “There!” I pointed to the ceiling, cocking my head. “There, you hear that, right?”
The ominous squeak-squeak-squeak sounded again. I grabbed Will by both lapels. “Tell me you hear that!”
Will slid his arms around my waist and carefully led me into the hall. His eyes were intense. “Yes, I heard that, too.”
Part of me felt like collapsing in relief in his arms. The other part of me wanted to climb the length of his body and bury myself in his neck while we ran from imminent danger.
“What is it?” I whispered.
The triple squeak stopped, but my heart continued to hammer.
“Wait,” Will hissed. “Listen.”
Something heavy hit something hard. I could hear goo, something—blood?—sloshing and I started to heave. “That’s a body. That’s a body hitting the ground if I ever heard it.”
Will took his hands off me and turned carefully. “Go back into your classroom and lock the door. Don’t come out until I tell you to.”
I clung to his back, wrapping my arms around him and burying my forehead in the cleft between his shoulder blades. “No. No, no, no, no, no. I can’t lose you, too. I won’t sit by and watch you die.”
He looked over his shoulder. “Thanks for your vote of confidence.”
“There it is again!” I gripped fistfuls of Will’s shirt and moved with him, my eyes clenched shut.
“This would go a lot more smoothly if you would let go of me.”
“I can’t.” My muscles had seized up, my full body molded into the shape of ardent terror. “If I survive, I’m going to be in this position forever.”
“Lucky me. Would you just—” He wedged his hand between my front and his back and I was forced to move a quarter inch. “I thought you were supposed to be some great crime-fighting asset. Weren’t you learning to be tough or something?”
Squeak-squeak-squeak.
My bladder felt heavy, but I was ready.
Finally, I felt Will’s body loosen slightly. He pulled my hands from his shirt. “This one’s yours.”
He stepped aside and I imagined myself jumping into my most Buffy-esque fighting stance before doing some sort of dive roll into a helicopter kick that would disable my attacker.
In actuality, I was crunched myself into a chair pose and held my fisted hands close to my sides, protecting my breasts. The smell of fear, adrenaline and fate hung in the air.
And it smelled like bleu cheese.
“Steve?”
Steve, the Underworld Detection Agency’s resident troll and three-foot-tall stalker, grinned at me, baring all three of his snaggled yellow teeth.
“What the hell are you doing here? You almost got your ass kicked!”
“By him?” Steve motioned toward Will, who was doubled over, holding his gut, doing that silent, tears- down-the-face kind of laugh.
I wanted to slap him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Sophie needs Steve. Sophie is in danger, and Steve would never leave his Sophie in danger.” He looked disdainfully at Will. “A true gentleman would never leave his woman in danger.”
“I’m not your woman. And why do you have a bucket? Why—” Knowing—sickening, overwhelming knowing —crashed over me. “You’re wearing a uniform. A janitor’s uniform.”
“Steve is undercover. Steve knows that’s the best way to protect his woman.”
Will stopped laughing and gasping for air long enough to say, “Does he always refer to himself in the third?”
“Steve does,” said Steve.
“Okay, okay, wait. Both of you—wait. Steve?”
“Steve is filling in for the janitor on vacation.” He looked at his bucket and frowned. “Steve doesn’t like his job very much.” He flapped nonexistent eyelashes. “But anything for my Sophie.”
“Did you just start today?”
Steve nodded.
“So when you said Soph—I—was in danger, it was just general. You don’t have any pertinent information, do you?”
A slip of Steve’s forked black tongue washed across his bottom lip. “Steve always has pertinent information.”
Will straightened. “Share it, mate.”
Steve shot him a blood-curdling glare. “Steve only shares with his woman.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, hoping that would stop my new, suddenly pounding headache and the fact that my left eye was starting that twitching thing again. “Okay, Steve, what information do you have?”
He grabbed the wooden handle of the mop he had been slapping across the linoleum and pointed to the second floor with it. “Toilet’s clogged.”
I gaped. My eye twitched. “That’s your pertinent information?”
“Steve fixed the clog.”
Will blew out an annoyed sigh. “Fabulous. You’ve exorcised the crap out of the toilet.” He clapped. “Brilliant job, mate.”
“Steve, we don’t have time for this. Will and I need to—”
“Doesn’t Sophie want to know what clogged the toilet?”
I felt myself blanch. “Not especially.”
He poked his mop into his bucket and laboriously fished out a sopping wet sweater. “Not even if it was this?”
I took a step closer. “Is that a sweater?”
Will took a step closer. “From here?”
Steve flicked the sweater end of the mop in Will’s direction. “For Sophie’s eyes only.”
“Fine, Steve. It is a Mercy sweater,” I told Will over my shoulder. “Where did you get this?”
“Steve feels like he’s sharing a lot of information.”
