22. Friend
Cornered. Have to act now.
Before they can make a move, I barrel through them. Aaron. Sophie. Cadence. All three of them, one happy little team.
I bolt upstairs into the house itself, Aaron and Sophie right behind me. It would be too easy to be cornered again in the cramped backstage, so I leap onto the stage and then halfway up the curtain, imagining a few more clean swings to reach the top and get across to the catwalk and then to the fire escape.
There can’t be more than eighty or ninety pounds left of me, but the curtain is so old and frayed that it tears right along its upper seam and drops me a dozen feet onto the stage in a dusty, achy, coughing tangle.
Aaron, Sophie and Cadence jump onto the stage before I can get my feet under me, grabbing the curtain around me and
