Page 72 of You'll Never Find Me

“That’s not always a bad thing.”

“Not always a good thing, either.”

“April,” Luisa said.

“What?” Tess was confused.

“You met Gabriel in April, right? Next April is eleven months away and will be your two-year anniversary, of sorts. It’s spring, not too hot, not too cold.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Think about it.”

Luisa frowned at the computer, tapped a few keys, frowned deeper.

“Someone installed a virus,” she said.

“Like a virus in an email when you click on a bad link?”

“It’s not an accident,” Luisa said. “Someone intentionally downloaded a worm that ate all the data.”

“How can it just be gone?” Tess yawned. It was only seven thirty, but she was exhausted. It had been a long week.

“It’s gone here, but I can recreate the data from the archives. We can’t do it tonight but it tells me someone knows the data will lead back to him, or her.”

Tess had more questions, but she couldn’t think clearly. “I’m going to find the break room. I need coffee.”

Luisa frowned. “Wait,” she said.

“What?” Tess rubbed her temples. She had a splitting headache. It seemed to come on suddenly, and it pounded.

Luisa didn’t answer. She rose from her seat and looked at the ceiling, so Tess looked at the ceiling. She had no idea what she was looking at. Luisa started walking around, then stopped as if to listen.

“We have to get out of here,” she said. “Drop to the floor, crawl to the door.”

The room began to spin and Tess could barely hear Luisa.

“Do it,” Luisa commanded, rushing over to Tess and pulling her down. Luisa grabbed her backpack, strapped it over her shoulders, and started crawling across the room to the door, urging Tess to move faster.

Tess tried.

“Whdya see?”

“I heard something—a hissing. You’re yawning, your words are slurred, I’m lightheaded. There’s gas coming from the vent in the corner.”

“Like at Logan Monroe’s house on Sunday,” she muttered, or thought she did.

“I smell something,” Luisa said. “Smoke, upstairs.”

Tess didn’t smell anything until they were halfway across the room. Then a pungent scent came from the ceiling, followed by smoke coming in through the vents. But her eyes were droopy, she was dizzy even though she was practically on the floor.

“Tess, move it,” Luisa ordered.

She tried to tell Luisa that she was going as fast as she could, but her words were jumbled.

A moment later, the fire alarm pierced the silence, a high-pitched trill that made her jump. She moved faster, then collapsed. She tried to get up, but her arms and legs were slow and heavy.

She smelled burning—like a campfire, but more pungent. She kept moving, or thought she was moving, but Luisa was yelling at her over the sound of the alarms. Then suddenly, Luisa picked her up and had her over her shoulder. The first thing Tess thought was Luisa was way too small to carry her—Tess had at least four inches and forty pounds on her. But Luisa carried her easily.