Page 142 of Wicked Little Secret

Macey asks me where, but I’m already half out the glass door of the student union. People grumble and rush to step aside as I shoulder my way through the crowds in the long, tunneled hallways.

I pivot at the next intersection and then dash up a cascade of stone steps. My bookbag slaps against my back as I trot across campus in record time.

He wouldn’t… he wouldn’t…

The two words are all I can manage of the incomplete thought, practically gasping for air. I round the corner in time to spot Heather’s golden head bobbing among the other students clogging up the corridor. She’s headed straight for the hall that leads to Professor Adler’s office.

No! NO!

The scream is deafening inside my head. The panic that grips me is sweeping. I rush down the rest of the hall, heartbroken and desperate to intervene.

He can’t replace me with her. He can’t see in her what he saw in me.

He wouldn’t… he wouldn’t… HE WOULDN’T.

I fling open his office door and barge inside without knocking.

I make it three steps past the threshold before I realize Heather’s not in here. She must’ve gone through a different door.

“Wha…?”

“Hello, Miss Oliver,” comes a familiar smooth, authoritative voice from behind me. “I had a feeling you’d show up.”

The door swings shut with a resounding thud. He steps up behind me as the air empties from my lungs. Yet I find I can’t turn around. I can’t bring myself to, vaguely aware that it would mean trouble.

It would only confirm what I’ve walked into.

“Professor,” I mutter breathlessly, “I thought… I followed…”

“Yes, I know. Because I know everything there is to know about you. I told Miss Eurwen about Driscoll meeting me. I knew she’d tell you. And I knew you couldn’t resist,” he says, gripping me by the waist. His other hand comes up toward the side of my neck and I feel the sharp prick of a needle piercing my skin.

My legs give out almost instantly, no longer able to hold myself up. I slip backward into his arms, left peering upside down at him and the twisted smirk spreading across his face. The edges of my vision have begun to blacken, consciousness fading away.

“Believe me when I say, Miss Oliver… we’re about to get to know each other exceptionally well.”

29

NYSSA

SUGAR - GARBAGE

It feelslike being born again the next time I open my eyes. I fight through the deep sleep that’s held me captive for who knows how long and push my eyelids open. Both feel like they weigh a ton.

So does my body, aching and throbbing as I find myself immobile.

I’m passed out on some kind of bed, a thermal blanket thrown over me.

The room I’m in is foreign, one I’ve never been in before. The walls are made of limestone, like most of the campus at Castlebury, though there’s a hollowness to the space. It’s almost as if it isn’t supposed to exist; it’s been carved out of another, deeper space, and then set aside.

A draft lingers in the air that seems permanent.

As permanent as the heavy silence seems to be, the walls likely soundproof.

The blanket that covers me slides down my body as I push myself up on the bed. Bleariness fades for restored eyesight. I use the moment to scan the area.

It might as well be a bedroom.

I’m lying in one corner where the bed’s been placed, and there’s a desk and chair pushed up against the wall to my left. On the far wall in front of me there’s a row of bookcases. Other than the books crammed on the shelves, there’re items like a world globe, scales of justice, and a glass case of what looks like a anatomically correct human heart.

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