My pupils dilate when a shadowed figure causes the candle’s wick to flicker. Melody shouldn’t be back from her Friday night study session yet. She doesn’t get in until after seven. It’s only six forty-five.
With my heart thudding out a familiar, boom-boom, boom-boom noise I haven’t heard the past two years, I race for Melody’s dorm, leaving my backpack in the unnamed FBI agent’s truck. A professor shouts for me to slow down when I weave through a group of students gathered in the quad. Her demand is drowned out by the hum of excited chatter when I climb the front stairs of Melody’s dormitory and toss open the front door.
I hear the thumps of my feet twice when they bounce off the bland white walls slowly closing in on me. Their hearty stomps follow me down the corridor on the first floor of Melody’s dormitory building and into her room at the very end. Her father taught us to pick the room with the quickest exit point, but it must never be at the front of the property. This was the safest option out of the three rooms we had to pick from.
When I reach Melody’s room, instead of knocking like I usually would, I rear back my shoe and kick the door handle. While charging into her room, I take a mental note to improve her security since her door buckled with only one kick.
I stomp my foot down three times, calling out Melody’s name without using any words. Her room is dark, but I can sense someone’s presence, and it isn’t the tall blond man who followed my sprint from his truck.
“This is the police. Stay where you are until we’ve scoped the area.”
I’m about to tell him that his words are useless to Melody since she’s deaf, but I don’t have time for that right now. My awareness of Melody isn’t as strong as it usually is, but that could be solely based on this being our first drill separately. For well over a decade, it was always her and me versus her dad.
My head snaps to the side when a creak shrieks through my ears. It sounded like someone tiptoeing across fading floorboards, which means the perpetrator is most likely in the bathroom.
I lift my chin when the stranger gestures for me to clear the bathroom while he searches the pitch-black room. He has his gun at the ready. I have my fists.
With my ears pitched for any signs of life, I creep toward the attached bathroom of Melody’s dorm. My steps are fast enough to cross the room in less than a heartbeat but slow enough to be soundless to the person’s shadow I can see underneath the door.
Dampness trickles over my skin when I lower the handle. I’m not sweating. It’s steam from a shower, although I can hear no water running.
When I fling open the door with enough force the handle bursts through the drywall, my hearing gets damaged by a mangled squeal I’m very familiar with. Melody jumps away from the vanity so quickly, the laced-edge towel wrapped around her wet frame slips from her body.
“Jesus, BJ. You scared the shit out of me.” She gathers up her towel before re-knotting it around her thrusting chest. “What are you doing here so early? You are not supposed to arrive until seven.” Her facial expression has gone from panicked to pleased in less than a nanosecond.
Before I can answer her or gloat how ecstatic I am that even a year of us being together, she’s still happy to see me, a male voice I assume belongs to the unnamed FBI agent shouts, “He’s gone out the window.”
“Seek shelter now,” I demand to Melody before charging back into the main area of her dorm.
When I spot the back end of the agent darting into the hallway, I race for the only window in Melody’s room. After diving through the gap left open by the perpetrator, I take off after him on foot. He could be one of many of the late teens to early twenty gentlemen surrounding me, but only one is heading for the parking lot west of the dormitories, so I’m confident I’m chasing the right man.
I reach the back of the F150 truck just as the dark-haired man dives into the driver’s seat. Knowing I’ll never make it to the cab before he takes off, I attempt to climb into the truck bed. I have one leg over the old-style fender when he takes the corner he was parked on too quickly not to dislodge me from his vehicle. Unlike the last time he got away from me, this time his plates are clean enough for me to see them in their entirety.
I’m not the only one taking notice. As the blond agent comes to a stop at my side, he shouts down his cell phone, “The perpetrator is driving a 1953 F150. He’s going west on Albert. License Echo Delta Charlie—”
I miss the rest of his squawk. I can barely hear my pulse over the fire alarm sounding from Melody’s dorm.
“Did you sound the fire alarm?” I ask the unnamed man. If he did, he’s clearly an idiot. Mr. Gregg taught me to sound the alarm when I need a group of people to shield my exit, but if you’re seeking someone, the last thing you want is a crowd.
“No,” he replies, shaking his head. “I’m not that stupid.”
Although my fitness isn’t what it was twelve months ago, I push it to the absolute limit during my race back to Melody’s dorm. The unnamed agent follows me stride for stride, only slowing when we reach the stream of people filing out the front exit.
“Seek her in the crowd,” the stranger shouts, his words garbled by the furious pump of my legs since I’m still running. “The fire alarm will bring her out.”
“No, it won’t,” I deny, my voice panicked. “She’s not just deaf, she has also been taught not to fall for things like smoke and the flashing lights of unmarked cars. She’ll stay hidden until I find her.”
Smoke burns my lungs when I reach Melody’s room. The curtains my mom made her are engulfed by a furious fire. Its flames lick the cracked paint shards on the wall, doubling the work of the fire extinguisher that’s usually hanging halfway down the corridor.
“Aim the nozzle at the base of the fire, not the flames. It will stop it from spreading.” The RA from Melody’s dorm nods before following my instructions. He contains the fire remarkably quick, but my pulse is still at a heart-damaging high.
“Melody?” This stomp is harder than my previous one to ensure she can feel its vibration over the commotion outside of her dorm.
As the events of eleven months ago roll through my head, I check under her bed first. When I find it void of a living thing, I move to her closet. It’s also empty.
I bang my foot down three times again before making my way to the bathroom I discovered Melody in earlier. Halfway there, in the corner of my eye, I spot the unnamed FBI officer signaling for local law enforcement officers to stand down. I was so honed-in on finding Melody, I didn’t realize my hunt came with an audience.
“Melody, it is me, Brandon. Don’t come out swinging, okay?” I sign to my reflection in the mirror, praying she’s placed herself into a position she can see it.
