Someone was shouting. My body slumped against the wall and slid to the ground beneath legs I could no longer feel. Faraway gravel shifted, and a deep cry rang out. There was a resounding crack and an earsplitting wail that sounded like a dying cat. Shoes scraped against the ground. High-pitched sobs descended into desperate pleas. I tried to understand, but the words became garbled and indistinct as my body slid toward the ground and my head connected with the concrete.

“Get out of here before I rip your heart out.”

Is he talking to me?

More shuffling.

Why is it so dark?

The sound of footsteps — farther and farther away.

Am I still alive?

Another set of footsteps, steadier and quieter than the last, moving toward me.

“Sophie? Can you hear me?”

Something gripped my shoulders. My whole body shook gently, but there was no strength left to open my eyes. I was dead to the whole world. Dead to everything, except his voice.

“Sophie? Come on.” More gentle shaking. A finger pressed up against my neck. I could feel my pulse throb against it. There was a sigh — long and relieved. “Come on, Sophie. Wake up.”

I struggled for the energy, but I was spent, like a deflated balloon. Silence followed, and I found myself trying to remember where I was and what was going on. Had I left the party? Did I fall down?

“Can you try opening your eyes?”

Why couldn’t I place that voice? It was so familiar yet so far away. An arm slid around my shoulders and another underneath my knees, lifting me away from the cold ground. My head drooped onto something hard, and I could hear a steady heartbeat drumming against my ear.

I sailed through the air, and into a warm place. The muffled sound of a car door gave way to the comforting hum of an engine, and soon I was rocking back and forth against something soft. The minutes bled into one long stretch of darkness until I was soaring again, through a realm of a hundred distant voices, flashing lights, and groaning beeps.

A lone finger trailed along the side of my cheek.

A faraway voice invaded the moment just as I was piecing together where I was, and the thought fluttered away from me before I could pin it down.

“I located her mother. Don’t you want to stay until she gets here?”

“I can’t.”

Footsteps clicked against the floor, getting softer, until I could hear nothing but the sound of my own breathing as it rattled through my chest. Feeling safe in the complete absence of everything, I fell into nothingness, where half-forgotten memories mingled with harrowing nightmares until I forgot what was real and what was imagined.

* * *

I woke to a ceiling entirely different from the one I was used to. It was big and tiled, with fluorescent lights that stung my eyes. The smell of disinfectant hung in the air, and the open curtains of a faraway window were a dull, unfamiliar green. I tried to wriggle my body, but it was constricted under the weight of overly tucked-in sheets. And yet, despite the warmth that clung to me, I felt a cold stiffness rippling through my left hand.

The bed was edged with bars and the walls beyond were a blinding shade of white. I flexed my fingers against the thick bandage just above them and noticed, with a pinch of horror, that there was an IV drip invading my hand.

“Mrs. Gracewell, she’s awake.”

My bed shook from the other side. I rolled my head and flinched against a sudden onslaught of pain in the base of my skull. The un-made-up face of my mother was the first thing I saw. Beside her was an exhausted-looking Millie, wearing an oversized hoodie and last night’s lipstick, which was just a red stain now. She scooted her chair forward. “How do you feel?”

Trying my best not to completely freak out, I wiggled each of my limbs in turn and was relieved to find them unbroken. I checked my body for bandages and found none. Then I dragged my hands through my matted hair and all around my face to make sure there were no stitches.

“What happened?” I croaked. “This is the worst headache I’ve ever had.”

“That’s OK, sweetheart.” My mother stroked my hand reassuringly. “That’s to be expected.”

Millie looked like she was about to burst into tears. Her foundation was streaked with tear tracks and there were dark smudges of mascara beneath her eyes. She dropped her head into her hands and pulled at her disheveled brown hair. “I’m so sorry, Soph.”

My mother squeezed my hand until it stung. “It looks as though you were drugged at the party.”

It took several seconds for the meaning of the words to connect in my fuzzed brain. Then my heart plummeted into my stomach. “Drugged?”

“We had no idea,” Millie sniffled. “One minute you were fine and then the next you couldn’t stand up. You kept forgetting where you were and you kept saying you wanted to go home.”

I tried to find them but the memories would not come. “So you brought me here to get my stomach pumped?”

Millie frowned and traced shapes in the hospital blanket. “We thought you were just drunk. Someone said you had taken some shots of tequila or something. So we sent you home with Robbie Stenson.”

My mother’s features scrunched into a display of disapproval. “Though Millie now knows she should have called me,” she said. “Whether you were drinking or not, I still should have been called to make sure you were OK.”

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Gracewell! If I thought for a second someone had slipped her something, I wouldn’t have just sent her home like that …” Millie broke into sobs that shook her frame with every heave.