I jerked away. “Sorry,” I mumbled. I just needed to get to the bathroom.
Bathroom, bathroom, where the fuck was the bathroom?
The upbeat melopop rhythm of Third Eye Blind shrieked in my ears—why were they playing, like, their entire freaking discography—as my fingers braced against the wall.
Max’s face popped up in my vision, singing along with the song playing. He’d downloaded them, and we sang along in the car. He looked over to see if I was pleased, pulling my hand to his mouth so he could give it a quick kiss.
I shut my eyes tight. Please,pleaseplay another song.
When I opened my eyes again, the ground violently swooped and swerved. It looked so far away and was shifting as though made of tectonic plates. I could see the floor down below, people partying and screaming to their friends. The party was so much louder now. I clutched the rail with both hands to avoid losing my balance.
I looked down at the Solo cup I was still miraculously holding. I’d only had one cup of the moonshine; this shouldn’t have hit me this hard, this fast. Sure, I’d drank it fast, but it was still only one cup.
I thought back to any time I’d left my cup unattended, but I didn’t know a single female who would do that—it was preached into us from a young age. Always get a new drink; never return to one you’d left on the counter. Because that was something that was normal, that we should worry about guys drugging us so they could fuck our semi-conscious bodies while we were too weak to move.
No. I hadn’t left it alone. And I’d kept my drink covered with my hand. Most of the time, at least.
But—I swore inwardly—the cup that Alex had handed me, had I actually seen him pour it? There were other times it could have happened, too, when I was looking at the posters on the wall outside Basile’s office, when Grant, moving stealthily across the room, had drawn my eye when someone else could have slipped something in. All it took was one quick movement, dropping it into my cup. I certainly wouldn’t have tasted a difference.
I pulled out my phone to text Max, but the numbers blurred on the screen, and I kept typing in the wrong passcode. Images wafted across my vision, bits and pieces of another party, of another night, drunk and stumbling up the stairs to the bathroom. And, just like now, there in the memory is the dark teal green of the walls outlined by a squeaky oak banister going up the stairs.
I’d been here before?
Had I blacked out then, too, and it was only coming back to me now? God, what did they do to my drink?
A sick feeling twisted in my stomach. All my cleverly made plans, and for what? Was this what they did to Emma Garcia? To Joselyn?
But that couldn’t be right. My memory was playing tricks on me. I’d never been here before. The fraternity wasn’t even a fraternity when I was on campus. I half-climbed and half-crawled forward, fingernails digging into the banister that lined the upper level. I imagined my nails instead digging into Basile’s neck and ripping out a chunk.
Another flash. Of me, another time, laughing, a red Solo cup in hand. “Attention, everyone, I have an announcement to make!” and laughing hysterically.
An echo popped into my mind,What has happened once, happens again.
What the fuck, what the fuck.
Miraculously I made it to the bathroom and locked the door, frantically looking for something I could shove up against it.
If they’d roofied me, I’d much rather pass out here, in the bathroom, without anyone able to drag me off into a bedroom. I ran the faucet, dousing my face in cold water.
Open your eyes. Keep them open. Keep them the fuck open, Cella.
I fought against the tunnel vision. My pulse, which should’ve been spiking in my neck, had slowed to a dull thud, and if I listened to it, I could almost feel the lazy way it thrummed. I was overcome with sleepiness, and looked down at the floor for somewhere to lie down. I was so,sotired, could no longer fight against the blackness overtaking my vision. Pressing in on me, my vision clouding with spots. I ran water over a hand towel and pressed it to my forehead, praying the cold would snap my eyes into focus. That was when I saw it.
Nearly invisible against the scallop-shell wallpaper. Someone had drawn it with black marker. A circle with a ten-dot triangle inside it.
“I have to tell Max,” I said. It meant something, I knew it did.
Then everything pressed in too close, and I was falling. Cloth still in hand, head smacking hard against the floor.
Before everything went black, I imagined the lock of the door twisting to the side and I thought, hazily, I need to reach out. Put a hand out to stop it. But when my fingers stretched, I only caught the metal chain to the toilet. The shadows at the edge of my vision expanded until they blotted out everything. The floor was cool against my cheek.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
My dreams were dark and watery. I walked down a series of staircases, one after another after another, over and over again, only I wasn’t confused or lost. I knew exactly where I was going. I walked straight into the dark, the same dark space I entered when I called my Magic. But instead of the water that was usually present, Danica was there. Standing, smiling.
“Hello?” I asked.
She wasn’t wearing the dirty nightgown I’d seen her in last, but jean shorts and a tank top. Everything else about her was the same, though. The bruised skin, the shadowed eyes, the grim smile. It was a sick juxtaposition, the outfit of countless girls I’d seen at the party mixed with her condition now.
