For one absurd second, she wondered whether she was still asleep. Whether this was some jagged continuation of the dream, and she was about to wake up properly any second now.She squeezed her eyes shut once again and forced them open. The scene hadn’t changed. Margo could feel the cold on her bare feet. The bite of morning air at the open window, and it was all real. And the look in Rad’s eyes was very real too.
What on earth was going on?
“Go around to the front door,” Margo told them. “I’ll let you in.”
She realized she was in her pajamas. Margo quickly grabbed the nearest sweatpants and pulled them on. Her sweater went over her head inside out the first time, and she made an irritated sound under her breath as she yanked it back off and fixed it. She shoved her feet into sneakers without bothering with socks, dragged a brush once through her hair, then gave up when it made no difference, and the knots sent pain shooting through her roots.
Margo was almost at the bedroom door when she remembered her phone.
It was still where she’d left it on the bedside table.
Margo picked it up and checked it while hurrying down the hall.
The message was there.
A group text.
To Rad. Willa. Ace.
Get here NOW!
Sent sixteen minutes ago.
She stopped dead in the hallway.
Her stomach dropped so suddenly it felt like she had missed a step.
“No,” Margo whispered. “It can’t be… how on earth…”
She tapped the message, as if opening it again might make it disappear or explain itself. But it stayed stubbornly where it was, time-stamped and undeniable. There was no sign anyone else had touched the phone. No half-open app. No clue. Nothing but the blunt fact that from her phone, while she had supposedly been asleep, that message had been sent.
A knock sounded at the front door.
Then another, more impatient one that she knew was probably an annoyed Willa.
Margo forced her feet into motion again and let them in.
Willa came in first, hair scraped into a hasty knot, oversized sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder, and bright yellow duck-shaped fuzzy slippers. Rad followed close behind her, his T-shirt wrinkled, alongside his sweats he’d probably tugged on in haste, his expression still carrying the tail end of fear. He looked like a man who had come running without stopping to think about anything except getting there.
Ace jogged up the path just as Margo had opened the door wider and came in behind them, equally disheveled. His shirt was buttoned wrong by one hole, his boardshorts looked crinkled like he’d pulled them from the laundry hamper, and his hair looked as though he had run his hands through it rather than found a comb.
Margo shut the door and looked at the three of them.
“I didn’t send that message,” Margo said again.
Willa studied her face. “You do look like you were asleep.”
“I was asleep,” Margo’s voice raised slightly and brimmed with frustration.
Rad looked down the hall, toward the back of the house, then back at her.
“Did you hear anything?” He asked.
“No.” Margo shook her head. “Nothing. I was in bed, fast asleep. I woke up to you two banging on my window.”
“So how did you send that message then?” Ace asked. “Is it on your phone? Did you check?”
“I did,” Margo said, nodding. “And it’s there.” She clicked the screen and handed it to Ace, who took it. Her eyes looked down the hall toward the kitchen. “I’ll make coffee.”
