The room was sandwiched between the North Tower and the library, right by where the philosophy section was. The blueprint clearly showed that there was a relatively large room with doors opening both on to the second floor of the library and into the tower itself. There was also a door leading out into the corridor in the main building, but when I tried to picture the spot where it should be – adjacent to Le Conte’s classroom – all I could see in my mind’s eye was a stone wall.
Had the door been bricked over? Why?
And whatwasthat room between the library and the North Tower?
Vague pieces of a shadowy puzzle rearranged themselves into the silhouette of Feathering.
She was always there, always in the library – somehow.
She knew who I was when I went to seek out my alibi. And she knew who T.A. Renner was, and she lied to me about it.
Why, why, why?
But I barely had time to process these revelations and what they might mean.
The feral thing inside me finally awoke with an ominous yawn, a black dread unrolling in my gut, spilling into my organs like shadows. Tendrils of anger climbed up my throat, jagged claws dug into my lungs, my whole chest convulsing in pain.
No no no no please no I can’t do this please noThe opening of a door, in another world. Lottie’s ragged shriek. ‘Alice?Alice!’
Fuck her fuck her she doesn’t care about you, you should just kill her to get it over with, everyone you love leaves you anyway, slit her throat and drink it allI fell to the floor with an animalistic groan, clawing my fingernails into the green tartan carpet.
‘Is it happening already?’ Lottie asked urgently, from the other side of a long dark tunnel.
Throw her out of the window, we’re not high enough to die but high enough to hurt, and don’t you want that, don’t you want to see her hurt, how good would it feel to see herMy own duality waged war in my heart, and only one side was ever going to win.
‘Alice, stay with me, okay?’ Lottie said, dropping to her knees and opening my briefcase to find a vial. I dimly registered the fact she knew the six-digit combination, but it seemed like a very abstract thing to be concerned with when I was about to lose myself to the darkness.
‘It’s too soon,’ I heard myself whimper from very far away. ‘I should have had more time. It’s not even been three weeks, I –’
Hurt her hurt her hurt her, before she can hurt youI thrust the thoughts back with all my internal might.
Fear slalomed through me.
What if the transformations kept getting closer and closer together?
What if the darkness eventually consumed me entirely?
I watched in acute horror as she used the blood sugar kit to take her own blood and add it to the vial.
There were just moments left before Dark Alice wrested control of my body. Every inch of me hurt, and I cried out.
As my vision began to turn black, I murmured, ‘Lottie, you have to run. Lock me in. So I can’t . . .’
‘I’m not leaving you,’ she said fiercely, gripping my shirt collar where it gathered at the top of my spine, blazing blue eyes just centimetres from mine. ‘I told you, you don’t have to suffer this alone.’
A long, low groan leaked out of me, along with the last wisps of my consciousness. In the final moment before the darkness took over, I tried to move my mouth to beg. Beg her to go, before I hurt her, or worse. But my teeth bit down on my tongue, and the world disappeared.