God, what a jerk, I thought, pushing the bathroom door open.
If my shoes had sounded loud in the gym lobby, it was nothing compared to how they sounded in the bathroom. Like the dress, they were a little ridiculous, more for their height than their cost. I’m 5’6”, but I was tottering around 5’10” on those bad boys.
Looking in the mirror, I saw why Bee had been so horrified by my naked lips. My skin is pale, so without lip gloss, my lips had kind of disappeared into my face. But other than that, I looked good. Great, even. The makeup lady at Dillard’s had done a fabulous job of playing up my big green eyes, easily my best feature, and my dark hair was pulled back from my face, tumbling down my back in soft waves and setting off my high cheekbones.
Yeah, I know it’s vain. But being pretty is currency, not just at the Grove, but in life. Sure, I wasn’t staggeringly beautiful like my sister, Leigh-Anne, had been, but—
No. Not going there.
I unscrewed the tube of Salmon Fantasy, shuddered again at the name, and started applying. It wasn’t as pretty as my Coral Shimmer, but it would do.
I had just slathered on the second coat when the bathroom door flew open, banging against the tile wall so loudly that I jumped.
And scrawled a line of Salmon Fantasy from the corner of my mouth nearly to my ear.
“Oh, dammit!” I cried, stamping my foot. “Brandon, what—” I don’t know why I thought it must be Brandon. Probably because it seemed like the sort of moron thing he’d do, trying to scare me.
But it wasn’t Brandon. It was Mr. Hall, one of the school janitors.
He stood in the doorway for a second, staring at me like he didn’t know who—or what—I was.
“Oh my God, Mr. Hall,” I said, pressing a hand to my chest. “You scared me to death!”
He just stared at me with this wild look in his eyes before turning around and slamming the bathroom door shut.
And then I heard a sound that made my stomach drop.
It was the loud click of a deadbolt being thrown.
Mr. Hall, the tubby janitor, had just locked us in the bathroom.
Chapter 2
Okay. Okay, I can handle this, I thought, even as panic started clawing through my chest.
“Mr. Hall,” I started, my voice high and shaky.
He just waved his hand at me and pressed his ear to the door. I don’t know what he heard, but whatever it was made him turn and sag against the wall.
And that’s when I noticed the blood dripping on his shoes.
“Mr. Hall!” I cried, running toward him. My heels slid on the slick tile floor, so I kicked them off. I got to Mr. Hall just as he slumped to the ground.
His face was pale, and it looked all weird and waxy, like he was a dummy instead of a person. I could see beads of sweat on his forehead and under his nose. His breath was coming out in short gasps, and there was a dark red stain spreading across his expansive belly. There was no doubt in my mind that he was dying.
I knelt down next to him, my blood rushing loudly in my ears. “It’s gonna be okay, Mr. Hall, I’ll go get someone, everything is gonna be fine.”
But just as I reached for the deadbolt, he reached out and grabbed my ankle, pulling me down so hard that I landed on my butt with a shriek.
Mr. Hall was shaking his head frantically.
“Don’t,” he gurgled. Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose, like he was trying to calm down. “Don’t,” he said again, and this time, his voice was a little stronger. “Don’t open that door, okay. Just . . . just help me get to my feet.”
I looked down at him. Mr. Hall was pretty substantial, and I didn’t think there was any way I was lifting him off that floor. But somehow, by slipping my arms under his and bracing myself against the wall, I got him up and propped against the door of one of the bathroom stalls.
Once he was up, I said, “Look, Mr. Hall, I really think I should get help. I don’t even have a cell phone with me, and you”—I looked down at the sticky red circle on his stomach—“you look really hurt, and I think we should call 911, and—”
But he wasn’t listening to me. Instead, he opened his shirt.
I braced myself for a wound on his stomach, but I wasn’t prepared to see what looked like a bloodstained pillow.
With a grunt, Mr. Hall tugged at something on his back, and the pillow slid from his stomach to land soundlessly on the floor.
Now I could see the gash, and it was just as bad as I’d thought it would be, but my brain was still reeling from the whole “Mr. Hall isn’t fat, he just wears a fake belly” thing. Why would Mr. Hall pretend to be fat? Was it a disguise? Why would a janitor need a disguise?
But before I could ask him any of this, Mr. Hall groaned and slid to the floor again, his eyes fluttering closed.
I sank with him, my arm still behind his back. “Mr. Hall!” I cried. When he didn’t respond, I reached out with my free hand and slapped his cheek with enough force to make his head rock to the side. He opened his eyes, but it was like he couldn’t see me.
“Mr. Hall, what is going on?” I asked, the acoustics of the bathroom turning my question into an echoing shriek.
I was shaking, and suddenly realized how cold I was. I remembered from Anatomy and Physiology that this was what going into shock felt like, and I had to fight against the blackness that was creeping over my eyes. I couldn’t faint. I wouldn’t faint.
Mr. Hall turned his head and looked at me, then really looked at me. Blood was still pulsing out of the gash that curved from under his khaki slacks around to his navel, but not as much now. Most of it seemed to be in a big puddle under him.
“What . . . what’s . . . your name?” he asked in a series of soft gasps.
“Harper,” I answered, tears pooling in my eyes, and bile rushing up my throat. “Harper Price.”
He nodded and smiled a little. I’d never really looked at Mr. Hall before. He was younger than I’d thought he was, and his eyes were dark brown. They were beautiful, actually.
“Harper Price. You . . . run this place. Kids talk. Protect . . .”
Mr. Hall trailed off and his eyes closed. I slapped him again, and his eyes sprang open. He smiled that weird little smile again.
“You’re a tough one,” he murmured.
“Mr. Hall, please,” I said, shifting to get my arm free. “What happened to you? Why can’t we open the door?”
“Look after him, okay?” he said, his eyes looking glazed again. “Make sure he’s . . . he’s safe.”
“Who?” I asked, but I wasn’t even sure he was actually talking to me. I’ve heard that when people are dying, their brains fire off all sorts of weird things. He could have been talking to his mom, or his wife, if he had one.
Suddenly there was a loud rattle at the door. I gave a thin scream, and Mr. Hall grabbed at the stall door like he was trying to pull himself up.
“He’s coming,” Mr. Hall gasped.
“Who?” I yelled. I felt like I had stepped into a nightmare. Five minutes ago my main concern had been whether Salmon Fantasy would clash with my pink dress. Now I was cradling a dying man on the bathroom floor while some crazy person pounded on the door.
Mr. Hall managed to get himself into a sitting position, and for one second, I thought we might actually be okay. Like, maybe the wound that had soaked through that pillow wasn’t so bad. Or maybe this whole thing was an elaborate prank.
But Mr. Hall wasn’t going to be okay. There was a white line all around his lips, which were starting to look blue, and his breaths were getting shallower and shorter.
He swung his head to look at me, and there was such sadness in his eyes that the tears finally spilled over my cheeks. “I’m so sorry for this, Harper,” he said, his voice the strongest it had sounded since he’d run into the bathroom.
I thought he meant he was sorry for dying and leaving me at the mercy of whatever was on the other side of that door.
But then he took a really deep breath, lurched forward, grabbed my face, and covered my lips with his.
My hands reached up to pry his fingers from my cheeks, but for a guy who had barely been able to talk a few seconds ago, his grip was surprisingly strong. And it hurt.
I was making these muffled shrieks because I was afraid to open my mouth to scream.
Then I felt something cold—so cold that it brought even more tears to my eyes—flow into my mouth and down my throat, and I went very still.
He wasn’t trying to kiss me; it was like he was blowing something into me, this icy air that made my lungs sting like jogging in January.
Tears were streaming down my face, and I let go of his hands, my arms falling to my sides. By now, my chest was burning like I’d been underwater for too long, and that gray fog was hovering around the edge of my vision again. As the gray spread, I thought of my sister, Leigh-Anne, and how hard it was going to be on my parents if I died, too.
I don’t know if it was that thought, or the fact that being found dead in the bathroom underneath a janitor was not how I wanted people at the Grove to remember me, but suddenly I felt this surge of strength. The gray disappeared as adrenaline shot through my system, and I wrapped my fingers around Mr. Hall’s wrists and yanked with everything I had.
And just like that, he was off of me.
I took a deep breath. Never had I felt so happy to breathe in slightly stinky bathroom air.
For a long time, I just sat there against the stall door, shaking and gasping. I could still hear whatever was on the other side rattling, but it seemed far away for some reason, like it wasn’t even connected to me.
I guess it only took about thirty seconds for me to catch my breath, but it felt like forever. I looked down at Mr. Hall. Lying on his back, his eyes staring at nothing, it was pretty clear that he was dead.
Just as I was taking that in, the rattling at the door stopped.
The burn in my chest had faded to a tingle, and there was this jumping feeling inside my stomach, like I’d swallowed a whole bunch of Pop Rocks. My arms and legs felt heavy, and my head was all spinny.
