Page 145 of Say Yes to the Death

Angry voices came from behind them. The group moved quickly down the block, then cut left. They paused at the corner of Walnut and College Ave. Claire listened intently. More lights had snapped on at the house that was barely visible from the street corner.

“Let’s keep going,” Nicole said. She jogged across the crosswalk. Everyone else followed. They ran another three blocks and collapsed in the parking lot of a Rite Aid, bent over and breathing heavy.

“I think we lost them.” The voice rumbled in the chest of the person carrying her. It had to be Sawyer.

“Guys, what’s going on?” Claire asked, still upside down. “Why is everyone carrying weapons?”

Sawyer gently set her on her feet. Luke laid down an axe and glared at Sawyer. Mindy dropped what looked like a medieval flail onto the asphalt. She crossed to Claire and got right in her face.

“What’s going on? I’ll tell you what’s going on. I woke up, and you were gone. I called your phone, and it was still plugged into the wall. Then I checked your location with the watch”—she gestured to the GPS watch she had gifted Claire the month before— “and I saw that you were at the ESA house. I thought they had taken you. How could you do this?” Tears sparkled in Mindy’s eyes. She pushed Claire’s shoulders with two hands and released a frustrated scream.

Claire bounced into Sawyer. Her heart pounded in her chest. How in the hell had she gotten all the way to Venor? It was easily five miles from her apartment.

“It’s not her fault,” Sawyer spoke up. “She was sleepwalking.”

“Sleepwalking?” Nicole, who had been silent until that moment, dropped her bat in a parking spot where Kyle was sitting, sword at his side. “Since when do you sleepwalk?”

Claire sighed. “For a few weeks now. Since the incident. I had a handle on it, but I forgot to tie myself to the bedframe last night. I didn’t want Mindy to ask questions. But I didn’t know I could drive.” This was very bad. The press had only just decided to move on from the story of her vomiting and whipping a trash can lid at someone. If they got wind that she was sleep driving, her business would never recover.

“So, instead of being honest with your friends, you drove the company van five miles while asleep and spray painted a female symbol on the house of the crazy misogynists who want you to die?” Mindy had stepped up to Claire again.

Sawyer stepped between them and put a hand on Mindy’s shoulder. “She can’t control it. She sleepwalked at my house too. Right into a lake.”

Mindy peeked under Sawyer’s arm and jabbed a finger at Claire. “I am so angry at you. Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“I guess it was one of those things where if I pretended it wasn’t happening, it wasn’t real. Usually I take a snack with me, but I must have opted for spray paint this time. Oh wait, my nipples.”

“Your nipples?” Nicole came to stand next to her and wrapped a hand around her elbow. She sounded like she was speaking to a toddler who just had a nightmare.

Claire dug a hand into her bra and grabbed a handful of mystery bumps. She dropped them onto the parking lot.

“Are those buffalo cauliflower bites from JP’s?” Kyle asked from the ground. JP’s was the late-night student restaurant on campus.

“Apparently, I made a pit stop. I’m so sorry, guys. This is so stupid.”

Claire plopped down onto a concrete parking block. She was wearing both of her Taser ankle harnesses. At least if the ESA brothers had come to confront her, she could have incapacitated two of them. Mindy and Nicole sat down next to her. They put their arms around her, surrounding her in a cocoon of Paul Mitchell shampoo and Tide detergent. Kyle was still panting on the ground. Luke crossed his arms over his chest, brow furrowed. Sawyer stayed on his feet, eyes fixed on the university in the distance.

“Guys?” Claire asked.

“Hmm?” Nicole responded as she stroked her hair.

“Where’s my car?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

To Do:

- Make this the best proposal yet

- Find a way to sneak into ESA meeting

A cramp twisted Claire’s side as she ran from one end of the previously vacant storefront to the other for what felt like the fortieth time this hour. She arranged the freesias again, rotating them so that they caught the glow of the Edison bulbs strung in a crisscross pattern above.

The custom designed West Haven Escape Room sign had come down. The reception desk where Claire had checked the couple in had been disassembled and hidden. An eight-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower had been quickly hefted into the room. False greenery was arranged to mimic the Parc du Champ de Mars. The reminder of Paris didn’t sting quite as much now that she was on better terms with Luke.

The false ceiling was broken down, revealing pictures of the couple over the years hung from the rafters, slowly spinning in the breeze from the HVAC system. Mindy was fighting with dozens of white pillar candles that refused to stay lit. If no one ended up on fire by the end of this, it would be a miracle.

Speaking of miracles, there hadn’t been any retaliation from ESA after Claire sleep-tagged their frat house. Either they were regrouping and planning something truly horrible, or they didn’t know she was responsible for it. Every day that inched by since the attack was a small eternity. What would they do next? She really needed to infiltrate the meeting to find out what they were up to. But how?

---