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Sienna
“Shit!”
I rummaged through my handbag, pulse racing.
Michaela stared at me with wide eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t find my key anywhere.” I crouched on the residence hall floor and tipped my bag upside down, dumping out its entire contents. “It’s not in here.”
“Okay. Take a breath.” Michaela knelt down to my level and put a hand on my shoulder. “It must’ve fallen out somewhere. Let’s mentally retrace our steps.”
“I guess it could’ve fallen out in the dining hall when we had dinner,” I said. “I always put my bag under the table, and it tips over all the time.”
“Then it’s probably there,” Michaela said, nodding slowly. “But it also could’ve fallen out when we were at the library this afternoon. Or at Tate’s apartment this morning.”
“True.” I scooped everything off the floor and put it back in my bag. “Could you please call Tate and ask him to have a look while I check the dining hall and library?”
“I’ll just text him while we walk over there. Dining hall first?”
“Oh, no, it’s okay. You don’t have to come with me,” I said, waving a hand as I rose to my feet. “It’s so cold outside.”
“So what?” Michaela let out a snort. “It’s good exercise. Besides, I don’t want you walking around alone at night. Especially after what happened a few weeks ago.”
She was referring to the tunnel incident, and she had a good point. I hadn’t felt safe walking around campus alone since it happened.
We schlepped all the way back to the dining hall to look for my key, but it wasn’t lying on the floor anywhere around our old table, and the staff told us that no one had handed anything in. We had the same result at the library.
“It could’ve fallen out while we were walking around earlier,” I said, rubbing the side of my head as we stepped back outside. “So it could be anywhere.”
“Ugh, yeah,” Michaela said, lips twisting into a grimace. “I really hope someone didn’t steal it out of your bag when we weren’t looking.”
My brows shot up. “You think that could’ve happened?”
“No, I doubt it. Sorry, I’m just being an idiot,” she replied. She peered down at her phone. “Dammit. Tate just messaged back. It’s not at his place, either.”
“I guess I have to go to student services, then.” I glanced over her shoulder to check the time on her phone. “If we hurry, we can get there before it closes for the night.”
The staff at the student services center were very helpful. They gave me a spare key for my dorm and set up an appointment for the locks to be changed in the morning, just in case someone had actually stolen my key today.
By the time we got back up to my dorm, it was almost nine. “I don’t suppose you still want to study with me?” I said, looking over my shoulder at Michaela as I turned the key in the lock.
“Of course I do!” She grinned. “I’ve had, like, zero motivation lately. So the only way I’ll get any of my class readings done is if you sit with me and guilt-trip me into doing it.”
She ended up staying until half past eleven. After she left, I locked the door and headed into the bathroom for a shower. That was one of the many things I loved about Whittaker—each dorm had its own private bathroom. Granted, they were all tiny, but it was still preferable to the communal bathrooms that most other universities had in their residence halls.
Once I was finished, I switched off the light and padded out of the bathroom, smothering a sleepy yawn. At the sight in front of me, a bolt of adrenaline zapped through me, and I was suddenly wide awake again.
My closet door was slightly ajar.
I knew it was definitely shut earlier, because Michaela had spent most of the night sitting right in front of it with her notes spread out on the floor, so I saw the door over her shoulder every time I looked at her.
With a slow, deep breath, I stepped backward, heading for the upper right corner of my bed. Without taking my eyes off the closet door for a second, I knelt down and felt around under the bed for the sturdy baseball bat I’d bought for protection just before I moved in. That was the thing about surviving an attempted murder—you never went to bed without at least one weapon around you ever again.
“I know you’re in there,” I said, keeping my voice as clear and confident as possible as I brandished the bat. “If you come out right now, very slowly, we can talk about this and try to sort it out. I won’t have to call the police.”
That was a lie—I planned on calling the cops as soon as I could grab my phone off the desk—but the intruder didn’t need to know that.
I took another deep breath, eyes still locked on the door. There were no sounds of movement from within. Not even the slightest rustle.
