I’m not fast enough. My feet are too tiny and weak. Four stairs from the landing, I jump, hoping to gain ground as I spiral down the empty staircase.

He does the same, landing behind me with a massive thud.

My heart sinks. He’s faster than me. I’ll never make it down three flights.

I round the stairs to the second-level exit. Willing my legs to move faster, be quicker, make it to the door. My life depends on it. I jump the last three stairs, hurling myself forward. Just as I grab the handle, he catches my wrist and yanks me back.

I start to scream. But his other hand reaches around and clamps my mouth shut.

He’s tall and strong. He locks me in an iron-clad grip impossible to escape. I kick at him, hoping to shatter his kneecap or split his shin, but instead I’m a cloth puppet dangling in his arms.

“Calm down,” he says.

His voice is deep and rough. He’s trying to soothe me. He needs me to stop fighting so he can break my neck or throw me down the remaining two flights of stairs.

He takes a step forward, trying to control me. Refusing to give in, I lift both legs and kick off the wall. He loses balance and falls back against the railing of the stairwell, grunting. I rock my shoulders, flailing hard, but he tightens his grip.

His breathing accelerates. But he steadies himself with ease. He pins my arms and presses my back tight against his chest. My toes brush the ground.

I rack my brain for what my self-defense instructor would tell me to do to incapacitate him before conceding I’m completely defenseless.

“Stop fighting.” He leans in as he talks, just like the boy from the pier. His cheek presses against my head. His lips brush the top of my ear, sending chills down my back, and I know without a doubt it’s him. He’s come to finish what he started Saturday.

“Swarm are all over this library. If they see you, they’ll find out why you’re here.”

I thrash back and forth. Without a doubt, this is the guy who threw me off Navy Pier.

“Did you use your own account?”

He sounds angry. A short temper must be a prerequisite for the Death Mob.

“To sign in,” he adds impatiently.

The fight in me deflates. My library card number. He’s right. If anyone checked my account history, they’d see how many computers I signed into, that I checked IP addresses, that I’d searched for the tweet that announced the attack. Those dots aren’t hard to connect.