I scrubbed at the heel, feeling like Lady Macbeth. Self-defense or not, I’d just killed someone. That was bad. That was really bad. I looked in the mirror, and saw that other than flushed cheeks and bright eyes, I looked pretty much the same as I had when I came in the bathroom. Well, except for the line of Salmon Fantasy scrawled across my face. I grabbed a paper towel and began scrubbing at my mouth.

Even my hair wasn’t that messed up. I should tell Ms. Brenda that the next time I go in, I thought automatically. Then it occurred to me that there was no way to tell my hairdresser that her ’dos hold up even when you’re kicking the crap out of sword-wielding teachers.

After I was done getting the blood off my shoe and ugly lipstick off my face, I tossed the paper towel in the trash and looked around. Mr. Hall’s body was against the stalls, and Dr. DuPont was lying about three feet away. There were big cracks in the tile from where I’d slammed Dr. DuPont’s head into the wall, and the bathroom door lay in pieces on the floor, surrounded by a fine layer of grit and more broken tiles.

Without really thinking, I slid my shoe back on and hobbled over to the trash can, where the second high heel lay on its side.

I guess this is the part where I should have started screaming and/or vomiting, but I just felt . . . numb. Certainly not as horrified as someone who just watched two men die (and one by her own hand. Well, her own shoe) should feel.

That weird feeling, like adrenaline times a thousand, was still flowing over me. That was probably what was keeping the nervous breakdown at bay. As I stepped over the fallen door and out of the bathroom, I wondered why no one had come looking for me yet. I mean, I must have been in there for at least half an hour. Then I glanced at my watch and saw that only eleven minutes had passed since I’d bumped into David Stark.

I walked down the English hall, and the farther I got from the bathroom, the shakier my legs felt. I was almost to the gym lobby, close enough to could hear the band’s lead singer say, “Okay, in just a few, we’ll be announcing Homecoming Queen, so come on up here, ladies.”

That’s when I felt something in my stomach shift dangerously, and I turned and ran back down the English hall.

As my heels clattered down the hallway—

Oh God, oh God, don’t think about your heels, don’t think about your shoe sticking out of his neck!

I realized I should have run down the history hall because there was no way I could go back in the bathroom with Mr. Hall and Dr. DuPont.