I looked up just in time to see Roland’s button eyes glistening, lips pushed out into a rodent’s smile, his small yellowed teeth bared. His fat fingers hugged a crude hunk of wood, which cracked against my skull. I felt myself wobble while I worked to focus my eyes. There was Roland. There were two Rolands. There was a sweet-looking, cupcake-shaped light fixture and graffiti on the ceiling.
My eyes were open—though they felt somehow rolled back, locked, staring at my own eyebrows. Roland started to gather me up, awkwardly, roughly, pushing me to my feet. I stumbled but stood, feeling heavy and weary. I let him gather up my hands and push them behind me before I realized what that meant. I started to fumble, to pull away, when I heard the sound of tape being ripped, when I felt the tightening as he wound it around my wrist.
“What are you doing?” I asked, the sting of my head blooming into a full-blown throb.
“I’m surprised a girl like you didn’t already catch on. Guess all that time on earth didn’t teach you a damn thing, did it?”
I stumbled as Roland pushed me forward. “What are you talking about? Where are you taking me?”
“Look, it’s really nothing personal. We had a nice date.”
“This is what that’s about? The date?”
Roland snorted and continued shoving me forward. I hesitated, trying to buy some time, when I felt a swift kick to my heel and heard an exasperated groan.
“Christ. Would you walk already?”
I shuffled along, wincing, gritting my teeth against my tears, trying to listen for Will.
He knows where I am, I told myself. He’ll be here any minute.
I heard keys jiggling in a lock and I was shoved forward again. I counted my steps—forty-one, in case that mattered—until I was spun around. I heard the click of something metal; I felt the freeing slice of a blade and suddenly my hands were free. Before I could do anything about it, I was shoved backward, and a narrow door streaked with dirt and chipping paint was slammed in my face.
“What are you doing? Why are you locking me in here?” I grabbed the doorknob and shook it, yanked it. “What are you doing?”
“I’m making it easy for you, Sophie dear. In a couple of hours the sun will pour right through that window there, and poof. End of story for all of us.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I know the legends. I know the rules,” Roland said, his voice creeping through the crack in the door. “One little burst of sunlight ...” He chuckled—an eerie, grimacing laugh—and I heard his heavy footsteps as he shuffled away from the door, whistling.
The panic didn’t start to set in—didn’t start to creep up my neck, to reach out and strangle me—until I yanked on the surprisingly secure doorknob; then I whirled around and took in my cramped surroundings as they started to close in on me. I was in a dingy bathroom—tiny, about the size of my closet—and, apparently, untouched since the Reagan administration. The tin box spitting out paper towels was dented and rusted. The walls were filthy and laced with scrawled profanities and detailed suggestions of what I should do to myself. There was a small, high window on the back wall. It was covered with a pane of dingy glass and looked like it could be pushed open rather easily—if the whole thing hadn’t been secured with a horizontal set of metal bars.
I started to feel the blood pounding in my temples. I felt beads of sweat prick out above my upper lip and at my hairline. I’m not particularly crazy about public bathrooms to begin with, so to be locked in one in the middle of... Oh God, where the hell was I?
I turned around and started beating the door, kicking and punching and screaming until the heels of my hands were raw and my throat felt sandpaper-achy. I gave one last wallop, one last howl.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Roland! I’m not a vampire. Let me out of here! Let me out of here and I’ll prove it!”
When there was no response, I gave the door a final swift kick; then I looked for a place to slump down and cry. But being in a public restroom, I knew that seating was limited.
That made me cry harder.
Roland was trying to kill me.
Roland thought I was a vampire, so he was going to kill me.
I stopped.
Roland. Thought I was a vampire. And was going to kill me.
The idea seemed so absurd, so laughable—until I thought of Mrs. Henderson. The centaur from the dock. Bettina, and Kale.
He was going to kill me.
And I was going to die in here, and someone would find my shriveled body in a mess of single-ply toilet paper and misspelled profanities. I sniffed. There was no way I was going to let that happen, no way I would let my tombstone bear the inglorious statement: SOPHIE LAWSON: SHE DIED IN THE JOHN.
I raked the heel of my hand across my wet cheeks and wound a loop of toilet paper to blow my nose. Being locked in a public restroom did have some perks, I guess. I went to the cracked and wobbly mirror, steadying myself against the sink. I gave the mirror frame a gentle knock.