I snatched my hand back and grabbed the door. “Are you coming or not?”
We stood in front of the glass double doors and stared, somehow both waiting for the ultimate evil to come barreling toward us or for a commercial break. The school remained silent, the double doors cloudy and revealing nothing, and there was no pause to regroup or offer some sort of cheery distraction. My heart was thundering in my ears and Will had been uncharacteristically silent the whole walk from parking lot to school entrance. A wind kicked up and a handful of skeletal leaves and garbage brushed past us.
“Ready?” I asked, my fingers closing around the administration key Principal Lowe had offered me.
Will shrugged and attempted to look nonchalant, but his eyes never left the keyhole. “I guess.”
I unlocked the door and stepped aside, waiting for Will to push it open.
“What?” he asked.
I gestured. “You always open doors for ladies.”
He cocked a brow. “I didn’t know gender roles held firm even in the face of unspeakable danger.”
I steeled my body and tried to sum up confidence I didn’t feel. “What are you so worried about? You said yourself we’ve checked the place twice already and found nothing.”
Will pushed open the door for me and I hesitated before stepping through. “Yes, but that was before your whole ‘I see dead people . . . if I care to look’ routine.”
I huffed, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “I don’t see dead people. I mean, I’ve seen dead people.” I shuddered. “I’ve probably seen more dead people in the last two years than most people will see in their whole lives.”
Will glanced at me before slapping a flashlight into my hand. “You’re not the best at putting people at ease, you know?”
I flicked on the flashlight and shined the yellow bulb toward Will’s face. “Hey, you’re the Guardian.”
He slung an arm over my shoulder. “And if there’s a team of fallen angels lurking around this place, then you’re in luck.”
“Otherwise?”
Will flashed his light down the blackened hallway. “Otherwise? You’re on your own.”
“What a relief,” I groaned.
“They don’t pay me enough.”
I rolled up on my tiptoes and glanced through the windows into darkened classrooms that looked as benign as they had during the day—desks in neat lines, unoccupied by witches, hobgoblins, or any other manner of creepy-crawly; stacked textbooks; glossy posters reminding girls to stay off drugs.
“I ask again,” Will said as we approached the last room. “What exactly are we looking for?”
“I don’t know, exactly. Just keep an eye out for anything that seems . . . off.”
Will swung his light toward me, and I was enveloped in a bright yellow glow. I rolled my eyes.
“You’re funny.”
“You’re off.”
“Upstairs.” I shined my light and took the stairs two at a time. By the time I crested the second floor my hackles had gone up. Something hung heavy in the air; there was a sort of buzz, a crackling electricity that hadn’t been there before.
“Do you feel that?” I hissed over my shoulder to Will.
He just wagged his head, eyes focused on me.
My skin started to prick and I could feel the sweat start to bead at my hairline and over my upper lip. My heartbeat sped up, the thrum a solid ache in my chest.
“There’s something here,” I whispered, shaking my head. I clawed at my chest and pressed my palm against my quick, steady heartbeat. I was finding it hard to breathe. My eyes stung, and every muscle in my body perked, then stiffened. I felt like I was walking into something—something cold, something with icy fingers that walked down my vertebra bone by bone—something evil.
I paused and Will stopped behind me. I could feel his energy—warm and comforting—a hairsbreadth behind me.
“There.” I didn’t know when I did it, but I had turned and was facing a door, my arm extended, index finger pointing.
“We need to go in there.”
Will obeyed wordlessly, slipping past me and pushing the door open. His hand went for the light switch, but I stopped him. “No.”
I knew there was something in the room. I knew there was something that would be disturbed by the light. I clicked my flashlight off and Will did the same, the thin strips of moonlight coming through the window the only illumination in the room.
“This is the art room,” Will said, looking around. “Haven’t we been in here before?”
There were no desks in this room, just a circle of wooden easels surrounded by high stools. Some easels held canvasses in varying stages of completion, some were empty. There were half-canisters of paint, brushes scattered on a long table, nothing out of the ordinary. But still, something nagged at me.
“There,” I said finally, pointing to a tiny scrape of white peeking out from underneath one of the easels. “Do you see that?”