Page 75 of I Hope This Doesn't Find
“Technically, Abigail sent it.”
“Abigail sent it? Sadie’s best friend, Abigail?”
“Sorry, I was walking past their dorm room and kind of overheard a bit of their conversation—I left just as Julius showed up to her room though. So I’m guessing he likes her.”
“Whose room?”
“Abigail’s room.”
“Wait, Julius likes Abigail?”
“No, Julius likes Sadie. They just share the same room.”
“Him and Sadie?”
“No—Oh my god, this is why you’re so behind on gossip.”
I’m breathing against the knot in my chest and scanning the room, but I can’t find Julius anywhere. I have no idea where he is or what this means or why I’m doing exactly what I’d accused Danny of doing earlier: forgetting the issue at hand. It’s so bizarre how our brains work, how our priorities are organized by emotions instead of actual significance. This cabin could be flooded soon and still we’d be standing around gossiping, too fixated on our own petty grievances and grudges and crushes to notice the sky falling.
“Just. Stop,” I say to nobody in particular. “Stop.If you disagree with me, I can’t force you to do much. But if you do agree, then please, listen to me.”
I don’t expect anything.
For a long time, it seems that I’m right not to. Nothing happens. Nobody moves.
But then Rosie nods and flashes me her best smile. “Okay, I got you. Buckets coming right up.” It’s like magic. For the first time, I think I truly understand the terminfluencer. Because with a few simple words, everybody has been influenced. Her friends leap into action right away, and someone whips out tape to stop the smaller leaks. The water has already progressed through most of the room, but we manage to stop it from flowing into the corridor.
Just when I think the worst of it is over, the bulb above me suddenly flickers. There’s a loud buzzing sound, like an insect caught in a trap.
And the power goes out.
•••
The corridor is pitch-black.
I fumble my way alone through the darkness, away from the others, feeling the hard, cool plaster of the walls for support. Outside, the rain is pounding harder than ever. Water slams against the roof and churns through the old pipes. The wind shrieks through the trees, and it sounds eerily like the wail of a child.
The bare skin on my arms turns into gooseflesh. I’m sharply aware of every hiss through the cracks in the window, every tremble in the floorboards. I swallow, rub my hands together to warm them, but the wind picks up again, louder. The back of my neck prickles.
Stop it, I command myself, cursing Julius for telling that horrible story.It’s completely made up. He just enjoys scaring people.
I take another careful step forward—
And a cold hand wraps around my wrist.
I let out a hoarse shriek. All rational thought abandons me. My fight-or-flight instincts kick in, and because there’s nowhere to run, I can only fight. I jerk back, squirm and punch and kick out like a wild, cornered animal.Oh my god, I think hysterically as my fist connects with something hard.I’m about to be murdered by a ghost girl in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. The school isn’t even going to take responsibility because they made us sign that form—
“Sadie. Stop it—ow, stop—”
It doesn’t sound like a vengeance-seeking ghost girl. The familiar voice registers a beat too late.Julius.My body doesn’t understand even though my mind does; I’m still thrashing, swinging my fists around. Then the long fingers around my wrist tighten. He grabs my other wrist. Locks both of them together with one hand, pins them to the wall behind me, high above my head.
“Hold. Still.”
I go still, but my heart continues hammering so hard I can hear the blood rushing through my veins. For more reasons than one. Because soon my eyes have adjusted enough to make out Julius’s face, bare inches from mine. He’s breathing hard, the muscles in his arms tensed from holding me in place. One step closer and our lips would touch.
Everything floods through my brain at once. The look on his face when he stood in my doorway. The idea that he’d punched Danny for me. The fact that he heard me state very clearly that I like him so much it feels like a sickness—
Shut up, I tell my brain.
