The Speed of Light: A Novel(23)

Connor clears his throat. “But I can walk you in. I mean, just get you inside or whatever.”

I smirk, open the apartment door, and flick on the light in the entryway. “Did you want to check the place out, Officer?” I ask as we step inside.

He chuckles. “Sorry. Didn’t seem right to leave before I knew you were safe inside.” His face is beaming, and it’s cute. An adorable gentleman. “So, can I see you again? Maybe a New Year’s Day matinee?”

Tomorrow. I swallow, drop my eyes. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” Then I add quickly, “But maybe this weekend?”

His smile glows. “Great. I’ll check out the movie times and text you?”

“Sounds perfect.”

Connor leans down and kisses me again—soft and slow, his face lingering in front of mine afterward. “Happy New Year, Simone.”

“Happy New Year, Connor.”

The door clicks shut and I lean against it, dizzy from the wine and the kisses, my fingers warm where his hand was holding mine. I turn and catch my reflection in the silver wall mirror and can’t help it—I flash myself a goofy grin. This night was perfect, and I’m seeing him again this weekend.

This weekend—but not tomorrow.

Tomorrow I’m going to my first MS support group meeting. I told Nikki I would, and I can’t go back on my word.

I stare at myself in the mirror, my smile slowly fading—as if the woman staring back at me has drained all the elation from my body. As if she knows more than I do.

How long can this last? You don’t know what’s going to happen to you.

I don’t like this dumb lady in the mirror.

So I use the rest of my wine buzz to stick my tongue out at the mirror and then skip off to bed, forcing the fear from sneaking into my gut, ignoring it when it inevitably does.





PART THREE

DETERMINATION





Monday, December 6, 9:42 a.m.

Fear cramps in my belly, but I rise from the floor, push gently against the bathroom door—the creak is deafening. I freeze, wait, but the room outside is silent. I risk another tiny push, then another, pausing each time, ready to leap back if the gun-wielding monster reappears. But he doesn’t. At last, the door is open enough for me to slip out into the break room.

The fluorescents are garish, and I blink against them—oh God, what am I doing out here, exposed, with no plan. Last summer’s active shooter training swirls through my mind—Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. But I can’t focus on that when Nikki is out there alone. She could be scared, injured.

She could be dying.

I press forward through the eerily calm break room, and it’s surreal, like a diorama, not real life—a make-believe refrigerator, squat and humming; replica cherrywood cabinets, dulled by years of use. But I look down, and there’s no more pretending. Charlene is so very real lying there on the floor, facedown, motionless. The snowmen on the back of her holiday-print turtleneck smile up at me as blood seeps into the faded brown carpeting.

I crouch next to her, whisper, “Charlene?” My trembling fingers find her wrist, search for a pulse, but I don’t know if I’m doing it right. But I have to be sure. Deep breath now—one, two, three—I push up her shoulder so I can see her face, her chest.

My hands fly to my mouth, and she rolls back down—so much blood, its metallic scent mixing with my own nervous sweat and something else, something foul.

“Charlene.” The word comes out an anguished whisper, and I squeeze my eyes shut—this can’t be real, she can’t be gone, not the woman with the infectious laugh and the face that lit up when she talked about her grandchildren.

Go, go, go!

The command rises from within me because I have to keep moving, I can’t stay here. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper to Charlene, then push myself up, stumble away.

But when I reach the doorway of the break room, I stop again. To the right, the corridor leads into the Student Union, to an exit. The commanding voice of our campus police officer rings in my head: Get out, Archer! Evacuating is the best option when possible, but I don’t know what horrors await me in the Student Union. Students are gone for winter break, but there are staff members who work in that building—are they okay? Did the shooter stop there first?

The thought makes me shudder, and yet the real reason I won’t go that way is because the other way leads to Nikki, and I won’t leave her.

I stand up straight. I’m coming, Nik.

Holding my breath, I peek around the door—same empty corridor, more ominous than ever before. My hand throbs where my phone should be—dammit, I left it on my desk—but I step out anyway, crouching low. The stark white walls seem to close in around me as I creep forward, my own ragged breathing deafening in my ears.

With my next step, my left leg flares. I glare viciously down at it. Don’t you dare. As if that could stop it. But I can’t give up now. I push forward, trying to ignore the pins and needles in my leg.

Ahead on my left there’s a doorway, and my pulse picks up. That door leads to a staircase—upstairs are Administrative offices, and downstairs is an exit. Freedom.

But instead I focus farther down the hall at a door on the other side—Stan’s office, where we were supposed to meet. I cock my head. If Stan arrived when I was in the bathroom, Nikki would’ve come down here.