Page 75 of Made of Steel (Made of Steel 1)

What? I crouched down by my bed and pushed the suitcase aside. Where the hell was it? My heart started drumming in my chest. Had I imagined it? Maybe Don didn't need to steal my sanity. Maybe I had already lost it. "Seriously, Kins, stopping messing around." I stood up and started opening drawers, searching for the slippers. Fuck, what if she had seen them?

"Sadie, I never saw a box, I swear. What was in it?"

"Then how did it get in here?" I said, ignoring her. "And how did it disappear?"

"I don't know. Are you sure it wasn't a dream? Are you feeling okay?"

"It wasn't a dream." Was it? I remembered reliving seeing the crash site and feeling the knife in my stomach. Had I imagined it? But I wasn't crazy. The dorm isn't safe. The thought seemed to slam into my head in a rush. Shit. "We need to go."

"But I'm not ready..."

I grabbed her arm and pulled her to the door.

"Sadie, what on earth has gotten into you?"

"I need to see Eli." And I did. Even though I didn't fully trust him, he swore he'd never hurt me. He'd been taking boxing classes. For me. He could protect me from Don. He had to. God, I really was losing my mind.

"I knew you two would work it out," she said as soon as she calmed down about being dragged out of the dorm before she had finished her makeup. "Is the plan still on for tonight?"

"Yeah, sure." I wasn't even registering what she was saying. All I knew was that someone had broken into our dorm room. Twice. I needed to get as far away from it as possible.

I stared at my phone the whole way over to Eli's. "Call me back," I silently pleaded to Mr. Crawford.

"What are you doing? Put that away and stick to the plan," Kins whispered as we stopped outside Eli and Patrick's dorm building. No one was near us. She was making this way weirder than it needed to be.

"Kins, we talked about this. I'm not doing that." My heart wasn't in this at all.

"You just said it was still on a minute ago. It's too late to back out now. I'm too excited. Plus it's a great plan." She winked at me.

"I'm not..."

"But it's part of the plan."

"There doesn't need be a plan..."

"Stop talking." She slapped my arm, even though I had stopped talking as soon as I saw Eli through the glass door.

He smiled and opened it up for us.

"Hey!" Kins said, way louder than was natural.

Stop being weird! "Hey," I said and smiled up at Eli.

"It's about time you let her see your elusive dorm room," Kins said.

Eli laughed. "I wouldn't say it was elusive." He put his hand on my lower back as we walked over to the elevator. "I missed you in class today."

"I missed you too." He wanted me to be honest with him. But I couldn't tell him that his touch made me feel like I was burning. Like I was back in Don's clutches. I'm running out of time. I couldn't shake the vigilante's voice running through my mind. I couldn't shake the contents of the box, whether it was my imagination or not. The combination was the only reason I was here. I was scared to be alone. I was terrified and I didn't know where else to turn. And at the same time, I wanted to figure out if Eli was hiding something. What if the vigilante was warning me about him? What if he sent the box? I shook away the thought. The vigilante would have just told me to stay away from him if that was it. I tried to force myself not to think about the vigilante. He had asked me to stop. He couldn't save me from the nightmare I was living.

I noticed Kins fidgeting with her hands. Maybe I shouldn't have told her I was suspicious of Eli. She was acting so bizarrely. Or maybe she was just still upset about me yelling at her about a box that didn't exist.

"You doing okay, Kins?" Eli asked, as if he could read my thoughts.

"What? Psh. Yeah. I'm just excited to see Patrick. We've been attached at the hip recently and when his hip isn't literally next to mine I get all antsy."

Take a breath!

Eli laughed. "Yeah, I've noticed."

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