Page 67 of Because I Killed Him
Then… silence.
The Purple Copper and I exchange a tense glance, sweat and fear tangling between us.
Minutes crawl by before either of us moves. I pull myself onto one of the sofas and strip off my heels. My feet are a mess, the blisters torn and oozing. The pain cuts through my panic.
Beside me, the Purple Copper kneels with a pale, focused expression. His fingers fly over the controls of the comm-link embedded in a bracelet on his wrist, tapping through menus and flicking between channels.
“No reception,” he mutters. “Emergency channels are silent,too. This isn’t right.” He cycles through encrypted frequencies, desperate yet methodical. Static greets him on each channel. “Something’s blocking them. Or us.”
“Could it be the room?” I ask.
“No. Something else. I don’t know what.”
It strikes me then that we’re trapped in this room until the Stag Leap Gala ends. All. Night. Long. But at least we’re alive.
“Thank you,” I say. “I thought you were lying about helping me earlier.”
The Purple Copper pauses, rubbing the swollen bruise on his neck where I hit him. Then he holds out his hand. “Sergeant Arthur Croft.”
I shake it with a faint smile. “Loredana Waldsten.”
“Glad to meet you, miss.”
He sits on the sofa beside me, and we wait a long time, listening for sounds outside the door. The seconds stretch too long, and the silence is so heavy it seems to seep into the walls, the floor, and us. Croft continues working his comm-link, with no better results, and I notice the confusion on his face slowly turn to worry. Eventually, I grow restless and glance around for a distraction.
The lounge is lush and cozy, but the walls spoil the illusion. They’re covered from floor to ceiling with glowing digital photographs. Hundreds scroll and shift, each new image fading into the next.
I step closer for a better look. Photos of smiling faces fill my vision, a constellation of power staring back at me. Politicians. Tech moguls. Scientists. Celebrities.
And then…Dad?
He appears in one of the old photos, captured mid-laugh, in a moment from decades past. He’s wearing his Fraternity uniform, his flat-top cap tilted at a roguish angle, and there’s a wild, carefree spark in his eyes I haven’t seen since I was a child.
For a moment, I take in the image with a stinging heart. Then my gaze shifts, and I feel the air leave my lungs as if I were gut-punched.
Standing beside Dad, with an arm draped over his shoulder, is President Theodore Reeve when he was a student. An unlit cigarette dangles from Reeve’s mouth, and he’s wearing his own Fraternity uniform, the vivid blue clashing with Dad’s green. The shadow that usually casts sadness overReeve’s face is gone, as if whatever caused it hasn’t happened yet. He looks genuinely happy.
What the fuck?
Dad always said to stay away from Blues. Time and again, he warned me never to get close to them, much less trust them. And yet here he is, looking like a best friend to one of the most powerful Blues.
Croft, noticing my alarm, steps closer. “Something wrong, miss?”
“No, I just—”
The crash of shattering glass cuts me off. We both spin toward the door, where a dark shape moves beneath the narrow gap and across the floor over the broken glass. I stagger back, my pulse spiking as deathstalker scorpions skitter toward us in a pale, glistening stream.
Croft doesn’t bother drawing his weapon. The scorpions are everywhere, far too many. Their claws scrape the floor, and their tails lash back and forth as they scurry closer.
I leap onto the nearest sofa and tear the digital photographs off the walls, hoping to find a hidden door or window. Then I spot the ceiling vent.
“There!” I cry, pointing to the vent. “Give me a boost!”
Croft sidesteps a swarm of scorpions and locks his hands together. “Hurry, miss,” he shouts as more deathstalkers close in, their claws clicking at a frenzied pace.
I step on his hands and push off hard enough to grab the grate, then curse when I realize it’s bolted in place. I punch hard, my knuckles cracking against the metal. Blood spurts across the grate, but my adrenaline is too high to register pain.
Croft staggers beneath my weight. The scorpions are swarming the sofa now, a feverish, poisonous mass. My heart kicks wildly as I continue punching the grate. Then, my fist tears through the metal, right into the hollow shaft above. Blood winds down my arm in thin trails as I grab the edges of the grate and pull until the screws loosen and fall away with a clatter. I tear off the grate, dropping it as I pull myself up into the shaft, my breath sawing in and out of my lungs.
