So I decide to ignore the poor lost soul at my door and I roll over onto my stomach, scrolling through Twitter. So many people I follow were at the panel today, tweeting about Jessica Stone (me), saying that they supported her (ME!), and how they wished she would’ve spoken out sooner (definitely her). I try not to think about what could happen to my #SaveAmara campaign if Jessica Stone backed it. I got a taste up there on the panel, and I can’t get the sweetness out of my mouth. Starflame, it was intoxicating.

People actually listened to me—to her. To us.

Imagine what I could do with a little more time.

I pause on a tweet by Darien Freeman, posting a pic of him kissing his girlfriend’s cheek, him in his geeky Starfield T-shirt and her in what I assume is her costume for this year’s cosplay contest—Princess Amara with a Cinderella twist. His caption reads Ah’blena.

It’s a term of endearment in the Starfield universe. The closest translation is my heart or my other half, and for a moment I sort of wish I had someone to call me ah’blena.

“You don’t have time for romance,” I mutter to myself, and scroll on to the next tweet. Besides, I have a princess to save. I don’t need some hunk-a hunk-a burnin’ love clouding my head—

Someone knocks on my hotel room door again.

This time I glance up, and wait. Because instinctively that’s what everyone does when they hear strange sounds at night, right? Like a dumbass, they wait for it to happen again instead of calling the police. Or the front desk.

This is why I’d die in a horror movie.

It’s not Milo—I just got a text from him saying he and Bran are at a showing of Galaxy Quest.

Another three loud raps on the door. I crawl to the edge of the bed.

“Hello!” a voice calls from the other side. Female. Light, honeyed yet harsh, with the slightest Southern drawl. I know that voice. I imitated that voice.

Dread coils in my stomach like a snake.

Oh no.

“Hello!” she calls again and bangs on the door. I stumble out of bed, my legs still wrapped in the sheets. “I know you’re in there! I have your keycard!”

Holy crap, how loud can she be?

Before she has a chance to wake up the entire hallway (including my parents, and I do not want to explain to them what a starlet is doing knocking at my door at ten p.m.), I unlatch the lock and peek through the peephole, but someone has their finger blocking it. Because that isn’t murdery at all.

I’m going to die.

Maybe I can wait a few more seconds, maybe she’ll leave and—

She knocks once more and I quickly crack open the door just a hair.