Priscilla’s mouth hung open, but she didn’t deny it, which in Millie’s humble opinion was as good as confirmation.
“I knew it,” said Millie under her breath. “I knew there was something up with you.”
People got a lot of things wrong about YA writers. They said they weren’t mature, that on some level they hadn’t grown up, were still working through their high school trauma, most of which was bullshit. But one thing was true.
Like real teens, YA authorslivedfor gossip.
They treated it like currency, they bought and sold and bartered. They knew the value of a piece of news, when to share, and when to hold it.
“Don’t worry,” said Millie, “I won’t tell.”
She even meant it. At least for now. She expected Priscilla to be grateful, but the woman let out an exasperated breath.
“Do whatever you want, Millie,” she said, heading for the door. “Some of us have a contest to win.” Her hand was on the knob when she looked back. “Not that you need to worry, of course. Must be feeling pretty confident. I mean, you already turned in your pages. And with so much time to spare...”
“Goddammit,” snaps Millie now, sitting at the desk.
She’s lost track of the number of words.
Again.
Millie groans in frustration. She was past twenty-five hundred, with a page and a half still left to scan.Surelyit’s enough. She throws the pages down and gets up, stiff from sitting in the wooden chair. She needs to stretch, and there’s a new character to introduce, one who doesn’t have a name yet. Normally she’d go online, find a list of creative baby names, and pick one exotic enough to be memorable but not so weird that it looks entirely made up.
She racks her brain, before remembering the shelves of books in Fletch’s library.
Maybe she can find something in there.
Millie heads for the door.
In order to get to the stairs, she has to go past Jaxon’s room. It shouldn’t be hard, but tell that to her body, which slows down as it reaches his door, the air going thick around her limbs until she comes to a stop.
Just then, she glimpses Priscilla across the way, on the opposite side of the stairs. She doesn’t know if she’s coming or going, and doesn’t really care.
Millie presses her ear to Jaxon’s door. But she can’t hear anything.
“Jaxon?” she calls into the wood.
No answer. Millie clears her throat and raises her voice.
“Jaxon?” she says louder. Still nothing. Her hand goes to the handle before remembering it’s locked. She frowns. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? But it isn’t my fault. You really scared me, and I know this sucks, but it’s not like you’re in prison, it’s a castle bedroom, and you have everything you need to write, so don’t be mad at me, or if you are, I don’t know, channel it into your work!”
She trails off, met only by silence. “Fine,” she snaps, kicking the door. “Be an ass about it.”
Millie storms off down the stairs.
She reaches the landing, is already pivoting toward the second set of steps, when she realizes she’s standing on the spot Sienna landed when she fell. The dark patch on the runner where her head had stopped, the bloodstain no longer red but not yet brown.
She gasps and jumps out of the way, horrified by the way her shoes leave fresh stains, because the blood’s still damp. The death, still fresh.
Thud thud thud, goes the body.
Clack clack clack, go the keys.
As they both tumble toward the end.
“Millie?” Her head snaps up. Kenzo’s standing halfway down the other set of stairs, his typewriter wedged under one arm and the ax in the other, a look of worry on his face. “Are you okay?”
Her full-wattage smile clicks back into place before she realizes it’s the wrong expression to be wearing, given all that’s happened. Old habits. She tamps it down, softens the edges into something sad, a small furrow in her forehead.
