A feral scream erupts from her.
I shrink back from her flailing hands, like she can still reach across the table and grab me.
She obviously tried.
And she knocked off the empty latte glass which has smashed over the floor.
Asta’s scream drops into a guttural sound, something animalistic—but Landon has her in his hold, and he drags her out of the mess hall.
Mildred hesitates for a beat before she follows them.
I watch her go, but she stops in the doorway—and so I know they don’t venture any further than the atrium.
There goes my shot at making a run for it.
Oliver breathes the word with the same dread swaying in my gut, “Fuck.”
He turns his gaze down on me.
I might be sick.
I might be sick all over the tray, the table, my lap, the floors. And that, still, would be better than what’s about to happen.
Oliver yanks away from the table—and marches right out of the hall with the same determination that had him stalking towards me from the buffet.
On a mission.
It takes me a few seconds, but I land on that mission—and the panic has me scrambling out of the seat.
I chase Oliver’s swift steps through the atrium.
Asta shrieks the moment I’m within her line of sight.
Landon snatches her up again.
I don’t have more than a fleeting look for her, or for the footsteps that follow behind, because Oliver is starting up the staircase.
And my worst fears are confirmed.
He is heading for the phone booths.
“No,” I shriek, and snatch for the back of his sweater, “don’t call him, don’t tell him!”
Footsteps are rapid and messy behind me, charging and chasing and storming up the staircases, but my full panic is aimed at Oliver.
He shrugs out of my grasp.
His pace doesn’t break, doesn’t falter all the way to the landing, then he stalks down the corridor.
Distant background noise reaches me, “You bought him a fucking Vacheron?”
I hardly hear it or register it as I snatch out for Oliver’s cashmere sweater again.
He whirls around to shove me away from him.
The newsletter falls from his grip as my plimsoles stagger on the runner rug—all muffled by the second shout from the background, “A fucking Vacheron?”
There’s a hiss behind me, a shush, shoes thudding on the rug, shadowing me, but I fix my pleading, watery eyes on Oliver.
