I smiled. “He dropped enough books in his first week to realize the wisdom of steel toes. Now they’ve become his signature.”
“I’m thinking of asking him for a bit of sorting help in the archives,” he said. “Do you think Rick would loan him out?”
“You could ask,” I offered. “If the task is solitaryandsecluded, well, that’s Hunter’s vibe.”
And of course, themomentI started to feel a bit easier and like I actuallywouldn’tsay something off-putting, cringey, or extra blurt-y, the elevator ground to a clunky halt.
“Cheers,” said Peter as he bolted for the doors even as they struggled to wind open. He slid between them, going sideways when the gap became wide enough—like Indiana Jones skirting a booby trap. Like he couldn’t wait to get away.
From me.
It was the kind of exodus that made me want to smell my pits.
Instead, as the doors closed again, I locked my jaw and tried to keep from recalling (and overanalyzing) everything I’d ever said to Peter Winston.
Maybe he’d thought the fairy lights in my room were weird. Maybe it was the fact that I’d worn rooster earrings for today’s barnyard storytime.
Could be the dad jokes…
No. If I had to guess, it was the Hi-C fruit punch I’d spilled on his dress shoes when we’d met at Taco Bell for an on-the-sly lunch that one time.
I sighed—loudly—as the elevator car started down, my face heating at the memory of Peter standing in a bright red pool of sticky juice.
Ca-clunk.
I yelped when the car jolted to a halt, the steady mechanical hum replaced by silence.
Followed by a far-off creaking—as the lights flickered.
“Oh no.” I shifted the bakery box to one hand as I hurried forward to press the buttons—all of them. They flickered like so many dazed eyes after a KO punch. “No, no, no, this is so not on my bingo card—ah!”
The lights failed. Darkness consumed me within the blink of an eye while an acrid burning aroma filtered into the car, chasing away the lingering ghost of Peter’s cologne.
“Noooo,” I squealed, free hand searching now for the emergency button—which I couldn’t find.
How many times had I been inside this stupid, cranky, crotchety relic of an elevator and never once bothered to locate that lifeline?
The lights flashed, this time revealing how I wasn’t alone anymore.
Backpedaling to one corner, which I smashed myself into, I screamed to findhimnow in the car with me.
He loomed in the flickering light like a living nightmare, dark robes spilling to the floor, skeletal hand gripping the staff of that grim scythe. Its curved blade gleamed sharp, a silver grimace in the fluttering dark.
Swirls of the smoke that, at the party, I’d mistaken for dry ice vapor wafted off him, charcoal wisps curling upward before misting away.
“Omigod, it’s you,” I rasped, my heart rapid-firing, my blood screaming in my veins, shooting primal panic into every inch of my trembling frame.
True to form, he didn’t answer, and he didn’t move. Not even when the car jolted hard and careened down a good five feet before jarring to a halt a second time.
Bracing myself by gripping the worn banister, I screamed again. This shout, short and sharp, started and stopped with the elevator. Still, I clutched the box of cupcakes in my free hand, its edges now crunched, the cargo within possibly crunched, too.
By all appearances, I was about to join the Crunched Cupcake Club.
He was death after all, wasn’t he? At least he was the collector of souls, as the book had said—something I’d assumed already.
Except, what was he doing?
The lights stabilized as, in a careless gesture, he tossed aside the scythe, which misted away to nothing. Then, fast as a darting shadow, he surged forward to tackle the closed doors, the sleeves of his ebony robes falling back to expose skeletal arms as he shoved bone fingers into the crack.
