Chapter 4

The walk back to the dorm felt like walking through a dream. A campus security guard, a stout man with a kind but firm face, walked a few feet behind me. He was my escort, my babysitter.

"I' m just going to grab my laptop and a few textbooks," I told him as we reached the door to my room. My voice was steady, practiced. I was just a grieving roommate.

He nodded. "Take your time, miss."

I slid my key into the lock and pushed the door open.

The room was exactly as we had left it that morning. My messy bed, Chloe' s neat one. Her blue hoodie was gone, of course. A fresh wave of pain hit me, but I pushed it down, locking it away. I had a job to do.

I walked over to my desk, opened my backpack, and slowly started putting my laptop and a couple of books inside. I was moving slowly on purpose, letting the guard see me, letting him think I was just doing what I said I would.

His phone buzzed. "Yeah? Okay, I' m on my way." He turned to me. "Miss, I have to go. Will you be okay here for a few minutes?"

"I' ll be fine," I said quietly.

As soon as he turned and walked down the hall, I moved.

I dropped to my knees beside Chloe' s bed, my fingers searching for the edge of the loose floorboard. The wood was cool against my skin. I pried it up.

There they were. The cheap black phone. The small leather journal.

My hands trembled as I picked them up. This was it. The truth.

But I couldn't keep them with me. They would search me. They would search my belongings. The man in the suit from the first timeline-he would be back. I knew it.

I needed a place to hide them. A place they would never think to look.

My mind raced. Where?

Then it came to me. Emily' s room.

Emily lived one floor down. She was a music major, and her room was a chaotic mess of sheet music, instruments, and half-empty coffee cups. More importantly, she was terrified of spiders. Last month, I' d helped her move her dresser to clean, and we' d found a massive spiderweb behind it. She' d shrieked and refused to ever go near that corner again.

And I knew where she kept her spare key. Taped to the underside of the fire extinguisher case down the hall. A terrible hiding spot, but one that would work for me right now. She was probably still with the other students on the quad, or being questioned herself. Her room would be empty.

I slipped the journal and the phone into the pocket of my hoodie. I put the floorboard back in place, making sure it was perfectly flush.

I grabbed my backpack, walked out of the room, and locked the door behind me. I didn't go towards the exit. I went down the hall, to the fire extinguisher. My fingers found the tape and the cold metal of the key.

My heart pounded as I unlocked Emily' s door and slipped inside. The room smelled like coffee and rosin. I went straight to the dresser in the corner, pulled it out a few inches from the wall, and tucked the journal and the phone deep into the dusty space behind it. No one would move this dresser.

Just as I pushed it back into place, I heard them.

Footsteps in the hallway. Heavy, purposeful. And voices.

"-her roommate. Sarah Miller. We need to speak with her. And secure the room."

It was Dean Peterson' s voice. Cold and authoritative.

The same words. The same tone. It was happening again, just like before. The pattern was repeating.

My blood ran cold. They were at my door. My door. If I had stayed in there one minute longer, they would have found me with the evidence in my hands.

I held my breath, listening.

"The door' s locked," another voice said. A deeper voice. The voice from my nightmare. The man in the suit.

"Find the RA, get the master key," Dean Peterson snapped. "Now. And seal this entire floor. No one in or out."

I had to get out of there. But the floor was being sealed.

I crept back to my own room, my mind working furiously. I couldn' t stay in the hallway. I couldn' t stay in Emily's room.

I had to go back to my own room. I had to be there when they opened the door. I had to look like the grieving, traumatized student they expected to find.

I slipped out of Emily' s room, locked it, and put the key back under the extinguisher case. I ran silently back to my door, my key shaking in my hand. I unlocked it, slipped inside, and relocked it from the inside just seconds before I heard the heavy footsteps returning down the hall.

I threw my backpack on my bed and sat down, taking a deep, shuddering breath. I forced tears to my eyes, thinking of Chloe' s face as she fell.

It wasn' t hard. The tears were real.

I was ready. Let them come.