Free Student Body (Nightmare Hall) by Diane Hoh

all disappear.
    But it wouldn’t disappear.
    Besides, I had something else I wanted to do, and I didn’t want Bay to know. He’d disapprove, and try to talk me out of it.
    So I told him my burned skin hurt too much and I was going to go to bed.
    And I did. Nat and I both did.
    I waited for her to fall asleep. It took forever, and I almost dozed off myself.
    As soon as I was positive that she was really out, I got up quietly, threw on a pair of jeans, sweater, sneakers and jacket, and left the room.

Chapter 9
    I DROVE MYSELF TO the hospital. The secondhand maroon Escort that my parents had given me as a reward for being accepted at Salem wasn’t as flashy or as new as Hoop’s Miata or as useful as Bay’s car, but I liked it. It got me where I wanted to go, although most of the time I took the shuttle because it was free.
    But there would be people on the shuttle. They’d want to know why my face looked like someone had taken a torch to it, and they’d ask all kinds of questions about Hoop.
    Who needed that?
    Almost from the moment I slid behind the wheel, I had this weird, creepy sensation along the back of my neck. I had checked the backseat before I got in, as I always did, and there hadn’t been any maniacs in ski masks lying there, hiding under a blanket. So why the feeling, as I drove off campus, that someone’s eyes were boring a hole through the back of my head?
    There were cars behind me as I pulled out onto the highway, but that didn’t mean someone was following me. It was Saturday evening. Everyone was going out. If it hadn’t been for last night, I’d be with them: Mindy and Hoop, Eli and Nat, Bay and I, would be headed downtown to Johnny’s or to a movie at the mall, or maybe to a party at Nightmare Hall. The place was creepy, but they threw great parties there.
    Even on the open highway, the feeling of being watched didn’t fade. I kept glancing into my rearview mirror, but all I could see were headlights.
    Quit being paranoid, I told myself, and concentrated on driving. In spite of the salve, my burned skin still felt parchment-dry, and I ached every time I turned the wheel.
    When I reached the Medical Center, I went directly to ICU. Stepping out of the elevator, I found two people sitting in the tiny waiting area. A large, balding man was asleep in a chair, an open magazine in his lap. A small, gray-haired woman sipping coffee sat opposite him, her eyes staring at the white tiled floor. She’d been crying.
    I knew who they were from Parents’ Day. Hoop’s folks. I clenched my teeth. I did not want to talk to them. Was I going to be able to slip by unseen? Mr. Sinclair was no problem, sitting there with his eyes closed, but what if Hoop’s mother looked up? She might remember me, and want to talk. I knew I wasn’t up to that.
    I stepped back into the elevator, returned to the lobby, and took the fire stairs back up to ICU.
    Halfway there, I thought I heard footsteps below me, but decided it was my imagination. And even if it wasn’t, why shouldn’t other people be using the stairs? I kept going.
    I came out of the stairs at a safe distance from the waiting area and waited behind a tall, potted plant until Nurse Lovett left her post. Then I scurried into the ICU unit and went straight to Hoop’s window.
    He wasn’t there.
    The bed was empty.
    They had said he might not make it through the first seventy-two hours. And his mother had been crying …
    I almost lost it right then and there; until my brain said, Get a grip, Tory. Would Hoop’s father be taking a nice, restful snooze if his son had just died?
    Of course not. What was wrong with me?
    I went back out to the desk and waited for Nurse Lovett.
    “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said sharply when she returned and saw me standing there. “Only immediate family. What happened to your face?”
    “Where’s Hoop?” I demanded, ignoring her question about my face. None of her business. And I made no apology for the fact that