Hesitant to break the silence, Bonnie touched the arm of one of the girls. “What’s going on?” she whispered.
“It’s a candlelight vigil for the missing people,” the girl whispered back.
Missing people? Bonnie scanned the faces in the photographs. Young, smiling, about her age. “Are they al students here?” she asked, horrified. “What happened to them?”
“Nobody knows,” the girl said, her gaze serious. “They just vanished. You didn’t hear about this?” Bonnie’s stomach dropped. She knew that a girl was attacked—or something—on the quad the first night, but she hadn’t known about any disappearances. No wonder her gut instinct had warned her to be scared walking across campus the other day. She could have been in danger.
“No,” she said slowly. “I didn’t hear anything.” She dropped her eyes and bowed her head, silent as she sent out a fervent hope that these three happy-looking people would be found, safe and sound.
In the distance, a siren began to wail.
“Something’s happened.”
“Do you think someone was attacked?”
A babble of frightened voices rose as the sirens got closer. A girl near Bonnie began to sob, a hurt, scared sound.
“Al right, what’s the trouble here?” said a new, authoritative voice, and Bonnie looked up to see two campus police officers shouldering their way through the crowd.
“We … uh…” The girl who had spoken to Bonnie gestured at the photos and flowers against the wal . “We were having a vigil. For the missing people.”
“What are those sirens for?” another girl asked, her voice rising.
“Nothing to worry about,” said the officer, but his face softened as he looked at the sobbing girl. Bonnie realized with a slight shock that he wasn’t much older than she was.
“Miss?” he said to the crying girl. “We’l help you get home.” His partner looked around at the crowd. “It’s time to break things up and head inside,” he said sternly. “Stick together and be careful.”
“I thought you said there was nothing to worry about,” said another girl angrily. “What aren’t you tel ing us?”
“There’s nothing you don’t know already,” the man said patiently. “People are missing. You can never be too careful.”
If there’s nothing to worry about, why do we have to be careful? Bonnie wondered, but she bit back the words and hurried away down the path, toward the science building where Zander had suggested they meet.
The idea of trying to have a vision, to see if she could learn anything about the missing people, nudged at Bonnie’s mind, but she pushed it away. She hated that.
She hated the loss of control when she slid into one of her visions.
It was unlikely to work, anyway. Her visions had always been about people she knew, about immediate problems facing them. She didn’t know any of the missing people.
She bit her lip and walked faster. The excitement about her date had fizzled out, and she didn’t feel safe now. But at least if she got to Zander, she wouldn’t be alone.
When she arrived at the science building, though, Zander wasn’t there. Bonnie hesitated and looked around nervously. This corner of campus seemed to be deserted.
She tried the door of the science building, but it was locked. Wel of course it was—there weren’t any classes this late. Bonnie shook the handle of the front door in frustration. She reached into her bag, then groaned as she realized she’d left her phone back in her room.
Suddenly, she felt very exposed. The campus police had said to stick together, not to wander around alone at night, but here she was, al by herself. A cool breeze ruffled her hair and she shivered. It was getting awful y dark.
“Bonnie. Psst, Bonnie!”
Zander’s voice. But where was he?
Bonnie saw nothing but the dark quad, streetlights throwing little circles of light on the paths. Above her, leaves rustled in the wind.
“Bonnie! Up here.”
Looking up, she final y spotted Zander on the roof, peering down over the side at her, his pale hair almost glowing in the moonlight.
“What’re you doing up there?” she cal ed to him, confused.
“Come on up,” he invited, pointing to the fire-escape ladder on the side of the building. It was lowered to just a couple of feet above the ground.
“Real y?” said Bonnie dubiously. She walked over to the fire escape. She could make it onto the ladder, she was pretty sure, but she was going to look clumsy and awkward scrambling up on it. And what if she got caught? She hadn’t actual y read the campus regulations thoroughly, but wouldn’t climbing the fire escape up to the roof of a closed building be against the rules?
“Come on, Bonnie,” Zander cal ed. His feet clanging loudly against the iron steps, he ran down the fire escape, shimmied down the ladder, and leaped to the ground, landing catlike on his feet beside her. He went down on one knee and held his hands out together. “I’l boost you up so you’l be able to reach.”
Bonnie swal owed, then stepped up onto Zander’s hands and stretched for the ladder. Once she swung her leg up onto the bottom rung, it was a piece of cake, although the slightly rusty metal was rough against her hands. She spared a moment to thank al the powers of the universe that she had decided to wear jeans rather than a skirt tonight.
Zander trailed behind her up the fire escape from one landing to another until final y they arrived on the roof.
“Are we al owed to be up here?” Bonnie asked nervously.
“Wel ,” Zander said slowly, “probably not. But I come up here al the time, and no one’s ever told me not to.” He smiled that warm, wonderful smile at her and added, “This is one of my favorite places.”
It was a nice view, Bonnie had to admit that. Below them, the campus stretched, leafy and green and mysterious.
If anyone else had brought her up here, though, she would have complained about the rusty fire escape and the concrete roof, suggested that maybe a date should involve going somewhere. This was a date, wasn’t it? She froze momentarily in a panic, trying to recal exactly what Zander had said when he suggested meeting here. She didn’t remember the words themselves, but they definitely had a date-y feel to them: she wasn’t a kid anymore, she knew when she was being asked out.
And Zander was so cute, it was worth making an effort.
“It’s pretty up here,” she said lamely and then, looking around at the flat dirty concrete, “I mean being so high up.”
“We’re closer to the stars,” Zander said, and took her hand. “Come on over here.” His hand was warm and strong, and Bonnie held on to it tightly. He was right, the stars were beautiful. It was cool to be able to see them more clearly, here above the trees.
He led her over to the corner of the roof, where a ratty old army blanket was spread out with a pizza box and some cans of soda. “Al the comforts of home,” he said.
Then, quietly, “I know this isn’t a very fancy date, Bonnie, but I wanted to share this with you. I thought you would appreciate what’s special about being up here.”
“I absolutely do,” Bonnie said, flattered. A secret little cheer went up inside her: Hurray! Zander definitely knows we’re on a date!
Pretty soon Bonnie found herself tucked up against Zander’s side, his arm around her shoulders, eating hot, greasily delicious pizza and looking at the stars.
“I come up here alone a lot,” Zander told her. “One time last year I just lay here and watched a big fat ful moon get swal owed up by the earth’s shadow in an eclipse. It was nearly pitch black without the light of the ful moon, but I could stil see its dark red shape in the sky.”
“The Vikings thought eclipses were caused by two wolves, one who wanted to eat the sun, and one who wanted to eat the moon,” Bonnie said idly. “I forget which one wanted to eat the moon, but whenever either a solar or a lunar eclipse happened, people were supposed to make a lot of noise to scare the wolf away.” Zander looked down at her. “That’s a random piece of information to know.” But he smiled as he said it.