10. Maddox

TEN

MADDOX

My feet thud as I hurry up the final flight of stairs to the fourth floor.

I might be an athlete, but I'm not exactly stealthy. So when I hear the ding of the elevator above me on the fourth floor, I slow my ascent.

It's not like I need to have eyes on her since I can hear her cart from here.

At the end of last year, when my grades started to slip, I spent a fair amount of time in the study rooms on the second floor, but I also came up here a time or two to find a book for an assignment.

It's a mostly unused floor, so it's quiet. But there is a pair of chairs in the far corner that I got to know fairly well.

They're boxy armchairs, and they aren't the most comfortable things, but I have fallen asleep in them once or twice. And most importantly, they're in the direction she's heading.

I take a sharp right— away from the squeak— and circle around the other end of the shelves. If I hurry, I can get to those chairs before she circles the last stack.

Staying on the balls of my feet, I move as quietly as I can down the end aisle.

I'm perpendicular to the stacks, but with the noisy wheel, I know when I'm nearly across from her. If I don't time it right, she'll see me through the aisle.

Lengthening my stride, I cross the next gap in two steps.

When she doesn't call out, and the cart doesn't stop moving, I let out my exhale.

But I don't slow down.