Crescendo

She turned back at the door. “Yeah?”

I opened my mouth, and that was when I remembered my pride. Vee was my best friend, but she also had a big mouth. If I asked about Patch, I risked him hearing about it secondhand. He’d find out just how hard a time I was having getting over him.

I pulled on a smile. “Thanks for the cupcakes.”

“Anything for you, babe.”

After Vee left, I peeled back the paper wrapping on one of the cupcakes and ate alone in the quiet mechanical hum of the lab.

I did another half hour of homework, and ate two more cupcakes, before I finally dared a look at the black envelope sitting at the edge of my vision. I knew I couldn’t avoid it all night.

Breaking the seal, I shook out a black card with a small heart embossed at the center. The word sorry was scripted across it. The card was scented with a bittersweet perfume. I raised the card to my nose and breathed deeply, trying to the place the strangely intoxicating scent. The smell of burned fruit and chemical spices stung all the way down the back of my throat. I opened the card.

I was a jerk last night. Forgive me?

Automatically I slid the card an arm’s length away. Patch. I didn’t know what to make of his apology, but I didn’t like the commotion it caused inside me. Yes, he’d been a jerk. And did he think a card from the drugstore could negate it? If so, he was underestimating the damage he’d caused. He’d kissed Marcie. Kissed her! And not only that, but he’d invaded my dreams. I had no idea how he’d done it, but when I woke in the morning, I knew he’d been there. It was more than a little unnerving. If he could invade the privacy of my dreams, what else could he do?

“Ten minutes until closing,” a librarian whispered from the doorway.

I sent my three-paragraph essay on amino acids to the printer, then scooped up my books and wedged them inside my backpack. I picked up Patch’s card, hesitated once, then ripped it multiple times and tossed the scraps into the trash can. If he wanted to say sorry, he could do it in person. Not through Vee, and not in my dreams.

Halfway down the aisle to pick up my print job, I reached out to steady myself on the nearest desk. The right side of my body felt heavier than the left, and my balance wavered. I took another step, and my right leg crumpled, as if made of paper. I crouched down, gripping the desk with both hands, tucking my head between my elbows to get blood flowing to my brain again. A warm, drowsy feeling swirled through my veins.

Straightening my legs, I came to a wobbly stand, but something was wrong with the walls. They were stretched abnormally long and narrow, as if I was looking at them through a mirror at a fun house. I blinked hard several times, attempting to bring my vision to a focal point.

My bones filled with iron, refusing to move, and my eyelids sank against the stark fluorescent lights. In a panic, I ordered them open, but my body overruled all. I felt warm fingers curl around my mind, threatening to drag it off to sleep.

The perfume, I thought vaguely. In Patch’s card.

I was on my hands and knees now. Strange rectangles wavered all around, spinning before me. Doors. The room was lined with open doors. But the faster I crawled toward them, the faster they jumped back. Off in the distance, I heard a somber tick-tock. I moved away from the sound, lucid enough to know that the clock was at the back of the room, opposite the door.

Moments later, I realized that my arms and legs were no longer moving, the sensation of crawling nothing more than an illusion in my head. Scratchy, industrial-grade carpet cushioned my cheek. I fought once more to push myself up, then shut my eyes, all light spiraling away.

I woke in the dark.

Artificially cool air tingled my skin, and the quiet hum of machines whispered all around. I got my hands under me, but when I tried to raise myself up, dots of purple and black danced across my vision. I swallowed the texture of cotton thick in my mouth and rolled onto my back.

That was when I remembered I was still in the library. At least, I was pretty sure that’s where I was. I didn’t remember leaving. But what was I doing on the floor? I tried to remember how I got here.

Patch’s card. I’d breathed in the tangy, bitter perfume. Shortly after, I’d collapsed on the floor.

Had I been drugged?

Had Patch drugged me?

I lay there, heart thumping, eyes blinking so rapidly the blinks came one on top of the other. I tried to get up a second time, but it felt as if someone had a steel boot planted in the center of my chest. With a second, more determined heave, I pulled myself to sitting. Clinging to a desk, I dragged myself all the way to standing. My brain protested the vertigo, but my eyes located the blurry green exit sign above the media lab door. I tottered over.

I turned the handle. The door opened an inch, then caught. I was about to tug harder, when something on the other side of the window set in the door caught my eye. I frowned. That’s weird. Someone had tied one end of a length of rope to the outer door handle, and the other end to the handle of the door one room down.

I smacked my hand against the glass. “Hello?” I shouted groggily. “Can anyone hear me?”

I tried the door again, pulling with all my might, which wasn’t much, since my muscles seemed to melt like hot butter the minute I tried to exert them. The rope was strung so tight between the two handles, I could only bring the lab door roughly five inches out of the frame. Not nearly enough to squeeze through.

“Is anyone there?” I shouted through the door crack. “I’m trapped on the third floor!”

The library answered with silence.

My eyes were fully adapted to the darkness now, and I found the clock on the wall. Eleven? Could that be right? Had I really slept more than two hours?

I pulled out my cell, but there was no signal. I tried to log on to the Internet but was repeatedly informed that there were no available networks.

Looking frantically around the media lab, I combed my eyes over every object, searching for something I could use to get out. Computers, swivel chairs, filing cabinets … nothing jumped out at me. I knelt down beside the floor vent and shouted, “Can anyone hear me? I’m trapped in the media lab on the third floor!” I waited, praying to hear a response. My one hope was that there was still a librarian around, finishing up last-minute work before heading out. But it was an hour shy of midnight, and I knew the odds were stacked against me.

Out in the main library, gears clanked into motion as the cage elevator at the end of the hall rose up from the ground level. I jerked my head toward the sound.

Once, when I was four or five, my dad took me to the park to teach me how to ride my bike without training wheels. By the end of the afternoon, I could ride all the way around the quarter-mile loop without help. My dad gave me a big hug and told me it was time to go home and show my mom. I begged for two more loops, and we compromised on one. Halfway around the loop, I lost my balance and tipped over. As I was righting my bike, I saw a big brown dog not far off. It was staring at me. In that moment, as we stood watching each other, I heard a voice whisper, Don’t move. I gulped a breath and held it, even though my legs wanted to run as fast as they could to the safety of my dad.

The dog’s ears pricked and he started toward me in an aggressive lope. I shivered with fear but kept my feet rooted. The closer the dog came, the more I wanted to run, but I knew the moment I moved, the dog’s animal instinct to chase would kick in. Halfway to me, the dog lost interest in my statuelike body and took off in a new direction. I asked my dad if he’d heard the same voice telling me to hold still, and he said it was instinct. If I listened to it, nine times out of ten I’d make the best move.

Instinct was speaking now. Get out.

I grabbed a monitor off the closest desk and threw it against the window. The glass smashed, leaving a huge hole in the center. I snatched the three-hole punch off the community work desk just inside the door and used it to knock out the remaining glass. Then I dragged a chair over, climbed up, braced my shoe on the window frame, and jumped out to the hall.

The elevator hissed and vibrated higher, passing the second level.

I covered the hall in a sprint. I pumped my arms harder, knowing I had to reach the stairwell, adjacent to the elevator, before the elevator rose much higher and whoever was inside saw me. I tugged on the stairwell