I peek around the corner at the entrance to the third floor and find the hallway empty. Unfortunately, I’m also about as far from my room as I can be. And now that I’m this close, I just have to go. Run. I have to run. I close my eyes for a second, take a breath, and bolt out of the stairwell. I slide in front of my door and fumble it open. I duck inside, my heart raging in my chest, and just as I’m closing the door, I spot the guard with the X coming up the other staircase. He makes eye contact with me as I click the door shut. Shit!!!

I lean my back against the wall, my breath fast and heavy, and stare at Layla’s door. I open my mouth to call out for her, but I can’t even think of the words to describe what just happened. I want to scream at myself for not telling her I was meeting Ash in the first place. And now that there’s a dead body, what if Ash denies meeting me at all? She’ll definitely believe him over me. Hang on. It was Ash who told me to take that hallway. He was the one who said to keep to the left.

Could Ash have set me up to take the fall by intentionally sending me the long way around? That guard would have caught me outright if I hadn’t decided to run the last few feet. Ash knows their schedules to the second.

I sink to the floor and put my head in my hands. I’m so screwed.

Chapter Nine

WOOD CREAKS AND my head shoots up off my knees. Layla steps out of her room, not blinking and groggy like I would expect, but clear and focused.

She takes note of my crouched position and my strained expression. “You went out.” Her tone is accusatory.

“I did,” I say, my voice unsure and too fast.

Layla watches me, and I swear I can almost hear her thinking: You went out when I warned you not to.

“I met Ash in the vine courtyard.”

Her eyes widen and her lips momentarily press together before she says, “You got caught.”

I rub my hands over my face and press them into my temples. “No. Well, kind of. Not with Ash.” I stand up so fast that I see spots. I look at Layla for a long second and will myself to focus. “We went to those branches, the ones that make a bench in the sky, and we talked about the school, about nothing really. Then on the way back to the room, he told me to take the long way around to avoid the guards. And I…” My voice catches.

Layla glances at the door and back at me. “November.” There is an anxious edge in her tone now.