Chapter 5 The Alarm Incident

The Alarm Incident

POV: Lily

The clock said 8:34.

I stared at it long enough that the numbers started looking wrong, like they belonged to a different morning, someone else's morning, not mine. Not today. Then my brain caught up and I was already moving before I finished the thought, hand shooting to the nightstand, grabbing my phone. Dead. Completely, totally dead. I jammed the power button. Nothing. Held it down for ten full seconds. Still nothing.

Backup phone. Drawer. I yanked it so hard the whole nightstand shifted and the phone lit up in my hand and I almost said something out loud when I saw 8:34 confirmed on that screen too. Then it blinked. Went white. Restarted on its own like it had somewhere better to be.

I stood there watching the loading bar.

My watch was on the nightstand. I grabbed it. Dead battery. Of course.

The backup phone came back. 8:36.

Biochemistry exam. Nine o'clock. Building on the far end of campus.

I have not been late to a single thing since seventh grade. My mom's car broke down that morning and I was twelve minutes late to a science test and I sat in the parking lot afterward and cried until she made me get back in the car, even though I'd scored the highest grade in the room. Twelve minutes. And I have carried that feeling around for nine years like it was proof of something. So I set six alarms for exam mornings. Six. I checked them twice before bed, both phones on chargers, everything ready.

One charger had been loose in the wall for three days. I kept meaning to fix it.

The backup phone glitched off overnight on its own.

Six alarms and every single one found a way out.

I grabbed my bag off the desk and started moving. Phone, laptop, notes, ID. My hands were shaking and I caught the edge of my planner with my elbow and it hit the floor and I left it there because I was already out the door.

The hallway stopped me.

Not a decision. My body did what it does when everything goes wrong at the same time and there's no system left to fall back on. My breathing went fast and shallow and useless and I bent forward with one hand on the wall and my bag dropped off my shoulder and landed on the floor and I let it. I pressed my forehead against the wall and tried to get one full breath in and the more I chased it the further it went. My legs were shaking. My eyes burned. Eight-thirty-seven on a Tuesday and the first exam of my semester and I could not get air into my lungs in my own hallway.

The front door opened.

Boots. Murphy's collar. The boots stopped.

"Hey."

I knew it was Asher. I didn't move.

"Exam," I said, into the wall. "Nine o'clock. Twenty-two minutes."

He didn't answer right away. I heard him set his keys down on the counter slowly, like he was being careful about the sound.

"How far's the building?"

"Twelve minutes by car." I straightened up and pressed the back of my hand hard against one eye. "Comm Ave is backed up past Kenmore by now. Always is." I pulled in a breath that was better than the last one. "I know there's nothing I can do. I just need a second."

"You're out of seconds."

"I know that."

Murphy put his nose against the back of my knee. Just sat there with it pressed there, warm and still, and something about it cut through whatever was spinning in my head and made room for actual air. I reached back and put my hand on his head and held it there.

When I looked up, Asher was at the counter. He'd already turned around. Black motorcycle helmet in his hand, full-face, the kind built for real roads not weekend rides, and he was holding it out across the hallway between us like it was a simple thing, like this was a simple morning.

"Bike lane the whole way down Commonwealth," he said. "I know a cut behind campus that drops you at the side entrance of the science building." Not explaining it to me, just laying it down. "Seven minutes."

He had a coffee stain on his collar from the overnight. His eyes had the specific kind of tired that comes from ten hours on shift, not from bad sleep. He had just walked through the front door and instead of going to bed he was standing here with a helmet in his hand, and he wasn't making anything of it, not even a little, and that somehow made it harder to deal with than if he'd made a big thing of it.

"I've never been on a motorcycle," I said.

He didn't pull the helmet back. Didn't offer a reason why it would be fine. Just stood there and waited with the same patience he had with Murphy when the dog didn't want to move, like he had already decided what was going to happen and was just giving me time to get there.

I crossed the hallway.

Took the helmet out of his hand.

It was heavier than it looked. The weight of it settled into my palms and I looked down at it and then at the door and then at my backup phone, which said 8:39 and was not wrong and was not going to change.

"Get on," Asher said.