Emma’s boots tapped a weary rhythm down the dormitory hallway as she fished inside her satchel for the single key she still hadn’t copied.
The corridor smelled faintly of burnt popcorn and industrial disinfectant, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like bored hornets. A week’s worth of cryptic messages, folded squares of heavy linen paper- bounced through her mind:
“Your hair smells like pears when the sun touches it.”
“You bite the tip of your pen at 11:07 every Tuesday.”
Each note had appeared in impossible places: the interior pocket of her raincoat, the zippered pouch she kept her birth control in, even tucked under her eyelid-ready contact lens.
She should have been terrified. Instead her pulse thudded with a shameful bloom of heat that pooled low in her belly.
She pushed the k
