Héctor heard a voice, far away, like it was in a distant room at the end of a hallway. “Juliana? Héctor? Where are—?”

It cut off, and the two of them were met with silence.

“Sal!” Héctor called out, and he ran to the other side of the Room, toward where he had heard their voice. “Where are you?”

There was no response.

He turned back to Juliana. “What just happened?”

Juliana gulped. “Héctor,” she said. “I think I happened.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

“I’m sorry,” said Héctor. “What?”

Juliana began to pace back and forth across the Room. “Remember your theory?” she said. “About this place?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“I think it’s more complicated than that,” she continued. “Not just what we need. I think this place also keeps us safe.”

“Safe?” Héctor shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

She stopped pacing. “Okay,” she said after a short pause. “Like this!”

Juliana walked to the door of the Room and flung it open. Beyond it were the bright and shiny halls of Swifton Middle School. Juliana stepped out into the hallway. “You ever notice that the Room doesn’t open up into a spot in the hallway where people can see us leave it?”

He thought about that for a moment. She wasn’t wrong, was she?

She came back in and closed the door behind her. “There were times when I wasn’t paying attention when I went back into the world, and I only realized after the fact that no one ever noticed me.”

“Really?” he said.

“Ever,” she said. She crossed her arms in front of her. “I think it protects us, too.”

“But I feel like we should be a little worried, because . . . where is Sal? Did they, like . . . get zapped into another dimension? Do they even exist anymore?”

Juliana’s mouth dropped open. “I don’t think this place would do something like that,” she said. “They must still be here. Maybe we just can’t see one another?”

“Maybe,” said Héctor. “But you were saying . . . you think the Room was protecting you? And that’s why this happened?”

“It’s gotta be that,” said Juliana, and then she went quiet and pressed her lips together. “I think it happened to me before.”

“Whoa, what? When?”

“The day I found the Room,” she said. “I was so furious after what Mr. Stafford did to me that I couldn’t see straight. I felt light-headed, like I was in a tunnel that was getting smaller and smaller. And I almost did something bad.”

“Bad?” said Héctor. “Bad like what?”

She winced. “I turned around and went straight to Mr. Stafford’s office. I didn’t really know what I was gonna do, but I was so furious that I just wanted to say mean things to him.”

“I’m assuming you didn’t, though?”