Dial Em for Murder (20 page)

Sebastian ignored the interior design choices, focusing instead on my locker.

“Do you want me to stand guard outside?” I asked nervously.

“No need.” He fiddled with the knob, listening to it, adjusting the dial, and then he yanked. My locker door swung open.

“How did you do
that
?” I demanded, impressed in spite of myself.

“Child's play. You should really upgrade this piece of crap lock.”

I crossed my arms tightly across my chest. “Didn't you just tell Nasir that no lock could keep you out?”

He grinned. “I'm not the one you need to worry about breaking in. I'm the good guy here.”

I nearly rolled my eyes. Even in the girls' locker room he looked entirely in his element. Completely confident. And full of bullshit.

It was exasperating.

“Okay, well, thanks for the help.” I handed back the Slate that I'd been clutching in my hands, but he didn't seem to realize that was his big cue to leave. Instead, he remained right in front of my locker, making it impossible for me to open it without brushing against his athletic frame.

Not that it mattered. I was there to grab my bag and get the hell out.

My fingers connected with soggy cloth and I flinched. Someone had poured, I sniffed at my fingers for confirmation, yep, Sprite all over it.

Lovely.

“I see you're settling right in. Making new friends.”

“I've got it under control, thanks.” I grabbed onto one sticky bag strap before shutting the locker with a whole lot more force than I'd intended. “Let's get out of here.”

“But we haven't gotten to second base yet. Don't kill the fantasy. Boy in a girls' changing room, things get heated. I press you back against the locker and we see where it goes from there.”

Oh god.
Sebastard
was better than me at creating romance novel scenarios. Except he probably pictured it as the opening sequence for a porn movie. One that he'd probably enacted plenty of times with
real
Emptor Academy girls, like Peyton.

I wondered if he'd ever used that exact line or if he hadn't needed to bother with words. Maybe Sebastian could look at a girl, really
look
at her, and have her willing to go along with whatever scheme he had in mind. He had all the polished charm of a seasoned con man.

Good thing I wasn't interested in anyone other than Ben.

“Yeah, I'm going to pass.” Even holding the bag away from my body to avoid the ick factor, I knew
exactly
what the abrupt tremor meant and I froze. My Slate was vibrating.

I twisted, suddenly terrified that someone was inside the locker room with us, lurking in the shower stalls, biding their time in the shadows as they waited for me to come within reach.

My hand dove into the bag, connecting with every item that
wasn't
my Slate. Wallet. Keys. School ID card.

“Emmy?”

I didn't care if I looked half-crazed as I shoved my wallet into Sebastian's hand, hissed, “No talking!” and continued searching through my bag. The world shrank to my one need: I had to know if the Potential Hostile was skulking closer to the locker room.

Sebastian didn't need to be told twice. His mouth snapped shut, but he gripped my arm and hauled me toward the light switch. He quickly flicked it off, plunging the room into darkness, before leading me into the blackest recess of the room. He moved noiselessly, making the vibrations of my phone seem deafeningly loud. I might as well have broadcasted an announcement over the PA system.

Emmy Danvers is hiding in the girls' locker room. Feel free to kill her at your earliest convenience.

My hand finally connected with the Slate and I clutched it desperately, hoping that would muffle the vibrations. To stop it from giving us away, because someone was coming.

I could feel it.

The little hairs on the back of my neck pricked up and I
knew
it was only a matter of time. Any minute now. Any second.

I tugged out the Slate, even as a small part of my brain pointed out that the exact yardage between me and the killer wouldn't matter to their bullet. Not if they shot at close range.

There was a message waiting for me on the screen.

No, I wasn't having fun. In fact, this was agony. Gut-clenching, teeth-chattering torture. Cruel and unusual punishment for a crime I didn't commit.

And I didn't know how to make any of it stop.

The words kept flashing at me, obscene in their gaiety.
Are you having fun yet?
As if this was a trip to Disneyland. As if the killer wanted to share a joke with me, but didn't care that
I
was the punchline.

As if he hadn't stopped laughing since our paths had crossed in the coffee shop.

“Breathe,” Sebastian's voice was so soft in my ear I felt the words more than I heard them. “You're going to hyperventilate if you don't slow it down.”

The same self-assuredness of his that had annoyed me earlier no longer seemed nearly as obnoxious. Maybe because while I was struggling to remain fully conscious, he had no trouble slipping into the role of a Lamaze coach. My vision started tunneling and I felt like a freaking idiot. I ought to have mastered breathing at some point in the last, oh,
sixteen years
.

Instead I was so far out of my league that not even Jules Verne could find me.

“Slow and steady,” Sebastian wrapped an arm around my stomach, pulling me deeper into the shadows. “I'm right here.”

I was splintering apart. Falling to pieces. Coming unraveled just like the scarf I'd attempted to knit for my mom, but which was now a moth-eaten tangle in some dark corner of my closet.

My fingers shook as I reached out and touched the message flashing on the screen, fully aware that I was losing it. Or maybe I'd lost it days earlier. I didn't have to imagine how Frederick St. James had felt standing in that Starbucks with me anymore. His paranoia, his fear—I could even hear his last death rattle in my own panicked wheezing.

My stomach knotted so tightly I doubled over.

Someone was stalking me, toying with me, mocking me with these snide little texts. My fear was his entertainment.

Rage swamped my vision and suddenly my trembling fingers had no trouble spelling out a message of their own.

I pressed “send” before I could chicken out, watching the words disappear into cyberspace with a twisted rush of satisfaction. There was nothing for me to lose.

Nothing that wasn't already in jeopardy.

No amount of texting would ever make a hardened killer change his mind, so I didn't bother pleading for pity. Maybe the killer would alter his murderous timetable, attack me sooner rather than later, but I was willing to risk it. If I was trading in a few minutes of my life for the angry rush of satisfaction in texting back my tormentor, well, it was totally worth it.

Still, I shrank away from the crack of light filtering in through the bottom of the door, pressing my body more firmly against Sebastian's in the process. I had no intention of making myself an easy target. If Sebastian was caught in the crossfire with me, he couldn't say I didn't try to warn him. Mostly because the killer would probably finish him off next.

His arm tightened around my waist as we caught the sound of footsteps and the unmistakable jangling of keys moving nearer.

The Slate vibrated harder.

Sebastian's hand covered my nose and mouth, stifling the hysterical laugh that tried to escape. My head rang with the muffled sound, beat with it, as if the unspoken amusement was being jackhammered into my temple. The footsteps grew louder, or at least I thought they did. I wasn't entirely certain. The blood pounding in my ears made it nearly impossible for me to distinguish fact from fiction. Echo from enemy.

Red splotches swirled across my vision, but I couldn't let my stalker get the last word while I trembled in fear. If this was the end, I wanted to fake one last act of bravado. I wanted to annoy him as much as humanly possible.

Step. Jangle, jangle. Step.

Pause.

My heart stuttered to a stop. All those clichés about being frozen in fear, paralyzed with doubt, numb with terror, they suddenly made way too much sense. More red splotches appeared out of nowhere, coating the darkness, as my world shrank to include only the rattle of keys and the creak of a door handle being turned.

Sebastian whirled me around so that our faces were inches away.

Then he started kissing me.

Hard.

The icy chill of a metal locker pressed flat against my lower back seared through me, and I wanted to writhe away from it. My body felt like a ceramic mug taken directly from the dishwasher and filled with ice cubes until it was a hair's breadth away from either cracking the container or melting the contents.

Sebastian's kiss felt like both.

His hands tunneled into my hair, gripping me in place, as he took total control of my lips.

I'd spent years imagining my first kiss, mapping out the most plausible scenarios. Most involved watching a movie with Ben, glancing up to see his eyes riveted on me instead of the screen. He would push aside a lock of my unruly hair, tucking it out of the way, before
finally
making his move. It would start slow and tentative, before blistering passion would wash all the hesitancy away. I'd imagined it happening a thousand different ways in a million locations, but there were a few things that stayed constant. My first kiss would be with someone who cared about me—whether or not that someone was Ben—and it would be magical.

This hurt.

It felt too good. I hated the way my fingers clutched his coat, even as my body refused to push him away. Hated that I didn't want it to end. My first kiss was a lie. It was supposed to be with someone who
loved
me, not someone who could barely tolerate me. I had spent the past sixteen years as a devout believer in perfect moments and happily ever afters, despite all evidence to the contrary, with an intensity that could only be called faith, and this was ripping all those daydreams to shreds. They hadn't come true.

Not for my mother. Not for me.

Step. Pause. Jingle. Pause.

Sebastian's mouth captured what would have otherwise been a gasp of fear, as a set of lights flicked on. I clenched my eyes shut against the sudden brightness, bracing myself for the inevitable.

There would be pain. Endless jagged waves of torment and—

“Oh,
come on
. Get a room, will you?”

Those weren't the words I'd been expecting.

Dancing hot pink and electric blue dots temporarily obscured my vision, but they faded to reveal the same sullen-faced girl who had assigned me a locker earlier that day. Her disposition hadn't improved any in the past few hours. If anything, her scowl had only curled deeper with disgust.

Her obvious disapproval would've seemed a lot more menacing if I hadn't been braced for a killer to riddle my body with bullet holes. Sometimes I wished that my imagination was a little less active. The killer didn't need to bother taunting me with his stupid text messages: I already excelled at torturing myself.

“Emmy finds me irresistible,” Sebastian offered a boyish grin that had probably gotten him out of far more serious scrapes.

The glare she leveled at me was so intense I wanted to tell her to form a club with Peyton, or better yet, file a petition.

Either that or they could call up their doting parents to see whether a sizable donation to the school could successfully ban me from the premises. President Gilcrest didn't strike me as being immune to bribery, especially if it meant discarding the scholarship kid who didn't belong here.

She ignored Sebastian's attempt at charm. “Take it somewhere else, Romeo. The girls' locker room is off limits.”

Sebastian nodded as if he'd been properly chastised. “C'mon, Emmy. I'm sure we can find a different way to give you a thrill. Add some handcuffs instead.”

I jabbed him in the stomach, but that didn't shut him up.

“Ouch, babe. Clearly, we need to establish safe words. Mine is
fedora
.” He slung an arm across my shoulders and I fought the urge to shove him away. My skin prickled then burned with embarrassment.

The rumor mill wouldn't be content reporting a few illicit kisses, especially not with Sebastian going out of his way to pour gasoline on the flames.

My phone vibrated again with a new message.

If the killer was referring to Sebastian, well, he definitely made me feel homicidal enough to consider it.

“Stop scowling, Emmy.”

I glared up at Sebastian who looked entirely too self-assured as he strolled down the gym hallway in the wake of everything that had happened in the locker room. “Or what? You'll kiss me again? That's quite a threat, Sebastian. I might die of boredom.”

His smile seemed forced at the edges, like he was trying to compose a thank-you note for an itchy wool sweater that he'd never wear in public or in private. “What was the very first lesson I taught you, Emmy?”

“Never wear white to a police precinct after Labor Day?” I quipped.

“Don't piss off the person throwing you a lifeline.”

Oh. Right.
That
advice.

“Yeah, that doesn't work for me. My mom taught me to stay away from jerks.”

Sebastian dropped his voice to a low growl. “Shut up and smile, Emmy, or you can face your text buddy all on your own. How does that sound?”