The next day, I search the hallways. 

It hasn't been a week yet, I think. I'm trying not to think about my mom, but still she slips into my thoughts when it's dark and there's nothing else in my mind to take her place. Some part of me doesn't mind. 

That small part is scared. She doesn't want to go off into the world--there has to be a reason that everyone is gone, that no one knows why. She doesn't want to find that reason, doesn't want to answer to the harsh realities that could very well come with it. 

But the rest of me is brave, or so I think. The rest of me wants to be out of here, to find my mother, and to make things right in my life. 

Really, they may never be right again, but I'd certainly like to try.

There are doors leading off from the hallways, opening to small, cramped room stuffed to the brim with the lesser sort of medical supplies. There is no freezer full of blood bags (not that that'd be useful to me, anyways) or retired MRI machines, but there is plenty of storage, and I wonder who of the people gathered knew to come here. 

I also wonder why there is only us here and why no more have come. I'm pretty sure I was abandoned because I was unconscious, but I can't've been the last to wake. 

There should be more, but there isn't. 

I don't ask Logan nor Jamie, but he finds me anyway, obnoxiously knocking on the open doorway of the room I'm current rummaging around in. 

"Hey," he says. "What are you looking for?"

"Anything," I answer, and it's the truth. 

"Well, what kind of anything?" teases Jamie, standing beside me and peering down into the crate I'm on. This one in particular is full of manuals for those beds that rise up and down, coated in a thick layer of dust. I'd been holding onto the small hope that something is hidden in here, namely the key out of here, however unlikely that now seems. 

I turn to look at him, and find him smiling in the dim light. 

"What kind of anything? Buried treasure?" he repeats, adding a stupid little joke to the end of his sentence. 

"Of course, what else? Blackbeard's famous for visiting the dark and dank basements of hospitals," I retort, which does nothing to repel Jamie's smile. 

"And leaving pretty little keys in them," continues the blond boy. My gaze flits to him from where it has wandered back to the manuals in front of me. 

So he knows about the key, and that I'm searching for it. Has he talked about me with Logan, during my daily expeditions off into the complicated cave system that are these hallways? 

More importantly, does he have it?

My eyes try to find it on him, looking for a lump in his pocket, a chain around his neck, but there is nothing, my search hindered even more by the terrible lighting.

"What school did you go to?" Jamie asks, stretching his arms across the crate, curling his palms around the outer rims, elbows bent just a little bit. 

I'm instantly defensive. Why is he changing the subject so abruptly? It really can't be that serious--all I want is to get out of here, and it's not like I'm much of a help staying. 

Really, how could it hurt to just unlock the door for a few seconds and let me slip through? Everyone would be happy. It's mutually beneficial. 

And yet the door is locked and the key is hidden, so there must be some reason. Maybe there is a monster hiding behind the door, leaning against the iron, ready to burst in once some foolhardy girl tries to escape. 

"Sunnyside High," I say. Sunnyside's an interesting place, the polar opposite of its name. It is a building full of teenagers who side-eye the girl with long eyeliner and dyed hair when they pass her in the hallway but are fine with her when she's chugging beer from red solo cups with them in the dark, making out with girls in the center of a crowd of cheering teenage boys. They don't like when she studies or reads, but taking hits off her vape and talking to every boy who's willing to talk back is just fine with them. 

I won't try to say that Sunnyside made me who I am, because it didn't, not completely. I've never been the pathological people pleaser, the one to do anything to fit in. It was part of it, though, of course it was. But most of my change in personality was me, and my desire to be different. 

"I have a friend who goes there," Jamie says, a throwaway comment that honestly is not worth acknowledging but I have to, because what if he has the key?

"Oh, really? What's their name?" I ask, looking him in the eye as if I am interested. His eyes are pale, even in the darkness. 

Jamie shifts a little, and his hair falls into his face, light and fluffy. He shifts again, and it is gone. 

"Chester," he answers. I look away. "Know him? Red hair, tall?"

I laugh, in a way that isn't really funny. "Wish I didn't know him. He's my ex, shitty guy."

I'm still trying to suck up to Jamie and see if he'll give me that key, but god, Chester was a dickhead and I'm not sad he's out of my life, only surprised he's in Jamie's. If he can't accept that his friend is a bad person then he's not worth my time, escape plan or no.

"Oh," he says, as if he didn't know. I wonder if maybe his reaction is genuine. "Well, I'm sorry."

"For what?" 

"I don't know, for him, I guess? I mean, he didn't ask me to tell you he's sorry or anything, but I've heard about you, and from me, I'm sorry."

"Okay," I respond, unsure. "I accept your apology, Jamie. But I should get back to scavenging."

I'm not pushing him away on purpose, but my headache has flared again, and it is hard to focus on anything when all you can hear, see, and feel is an aching, undeviating pain. 

He smiles, again, and this one illuminates the room better than any light ever could. Once again, I avert my eyes. 

"Tell me if you find any keys," he says with a wink, as if he cannot resist, and sweeps out of the room, trailing a hand across the walker I'm still reluctantly using. 

I spend a moment thinking. 

He obviously wants me to know about the key, and to look for it. Switching away from the topic so quick, then mentioning it again? It's a dead giveaway. 

And he must have it, too. He's got to--I've searched everywhere else, and unless it's carefully tucked into the soles of someone's shoe or something like that, I'm not going to find it. 

Unless I talk to him. 

Another plan comes to mind, this one much different from the ones before. It's stupid but not as bad as the others, and so it is the one I choose. 

Tomorrow, I will execute. 

are you ready? the next chapter's about to be interesting... out nov 13th, in honor of Taylor swift and her lucky number <3

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