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I t hurts to open my eyes, which still ache with sleepiness. I want to give up and go back to sleep, but there’s something awful, some nagging terror that tears into my subconscious when I try to turn over and go back to sleep. My knee bumps into something hard .

The darkness around me is too dark .

I draw a ragged breath, the air suddenly too limited, as I make sense of the oppressive feel of darkness above my face. I reach out a hand and find, just six inches above my face, a wall. My fingers ache from sticking them into it. I press my palm to the wood; it’s rough to the touch, old plywood .

I’m buried alive .

I’m in the forest outside the house on Holleyside, where no one is going to hear me if I scream. I don’t know how to Uma Thurman my way out of here. I push my knees up into the wood and heave, but nothing happens, and I let my feet slip back down. My legs and arms still feel floppy and weak, like I did when I was poisoned. I make myself draw small, slow breaths. There’s a fine edge of panic slicing into my chest, and I need to calm down .

The winter ball is still a week away .

The timeline is on my side. Someone will have to come make sure I don’t die before then. Unless, of course, they’re only accepting natural blondes .

I feel in my pocket for my cell phone. Nothing. Of course that’d be too simple .

As the seconds tick by and my breathing slows again, even though the air still feels too thin, I press my hands into my eyes. I want to cry, to release some tension, but my eyes are dry. I don’t think I’ve cried since I died .

I used to be a crier. I cried when I read romance novels, both when the characters were kept apart and when they finally came together. I cried at SPCA commercials, and I cried at Sarah McLachlan music because it reminded me of them. Sometimes I hated it, when I couldn’t stop myself, but other times, I had loved the catharsis of crying .

There’s a soft klink above me. My heart races .

I feel with my fingers all the way across the boards, searching the confines of my space, trying to learn every inch of my trap. I wonder if the someone up there is my would-be murderer or rescuer. My fingers search every corner desperately. No weapon .

I do, though, find a hole, rimmed with plastic, about as wide across as a coffee cup. I struggle to make sense of it, pushing my fingers in, but I can fit my hand into it up to my wrist .

Right, it’s an air hole, a pipe allowing oxygen in for me to breathe. So whoever is out there can hear me, and I can hear them, too. Maybe that soft klinking sound is a shovel ?

“Hello?” I call, the word sounding grossly inadequate .

“Ash? Oh my god. Are you okay ?”

The deep, warm voice I love best .

Jax .

“Yes! I’m fine. Are the police with you?” My voice sounds just as desperate as I feel .

“No. I wasn’t sure if you wanted the police — “

I’m buried in the fucking ground! I want whoever can help. “Yes! Call them now. And my sister. Are you safe there ?”

“I’m just trying to get you out .”

“Stop.” It takes all I have to say those words when I desperately want to be out and free. “You have to make sure you’re safe. Call the police first before you do anything else .”

“I don’t get a signal out here, Ash. I’m just trying — ”

“ Then go . ”

“I’m not leaving you .”

There’s a sound, a strange human sound–the cracking open of a mouth, it sounds like, the beginning of a laugh. Then, Jax gasps, the sound of a startled breath. There’s the klink of the shovel, hitting the ground .

And then nothing .

“Jax?” It’s quizzical at first, despite my fear .

The seconds drip by .

“Jax! Jax!” I scream for him. Now I really am panicked; I claw at the wood until my fingernails split and pain stabs up my fingers. Suddenly my fingers are wet. Blood .

I fall silent, afraid to give anything more away to whatever or whoever it is out there .

My foolishness has led me to this space, this darkness, this threat to my best friend. This is all my fault .

Minutes, hours. I don’t know how much time passes. I drift in and out of sleep, my mouth turning dry and ashy. I swallow thick saliva, turn over as much as I can as my back and hips begin to ache, trying to relieve the pressure of being forced into one position. Every decision I’ve made haunts me .

Awful images rise to my mind: Jax with his face bloody, Jax with his eyes blank. I push them away, wanting to scream. I lose it and hit the top of my coffin, banging into it with my knees, screaming, and I feel a sudden agony, hear one of the bones in my hand pop. I scream and scream .

Nothing changes .

And then, minutes later, I hear the klink , and then a plop. Klink. Pause. Plop. Pause . Dirt is being moved above me .

And I wait, jagged and bloody, to see what comes my way next .