When more vines snaked their way toward this new offering, I found another nearby gap—small ones were opening up everywhere—and stuck my hand through that one, to leave another blood sample. One more time, on the same side of the jungle gym, and the one-way flow of vine traffic became obvious.

My pulse racing, I clenched the bottom of my shirt in my cut fist to slow the bleeding, ignoring the fresh pain as I watched the side of the metal dome opposite the blood offerings I’d left. The gaps between the vines were growing wider and wider.

After a couple of minutes of glancing back and forth between the mass of vines behind me and the steadily thinning stream in front of me, I saw my opening. An entire metal-framed square was completely unobstructed. Even better—it was a ground-level square. No climbing required.

I sucked in another deep breath, then let go of my shirt, hoping that the bleeding had slowed enough for me to crawl through the bars without drawing the vines back toward me, the source of their feast. Then I dropped onto my stomach and carefully shimmied my way through the opening in the grid.

Halfway through, something caught on my shirt and tugged the material, and I nearly panicked. It was a thorn. It had to be. I froze, and could only wait—it felt like forever—for the vine to pull itself free from me and move on. After that, I scrambled, caution forgotten in favor of speed. When my hips were through the hole, I pulled myself forward with my hands, then tucked my knees beneath me and pulled my feet out of the cage.

I crawled away from the jungle gym and sat on the ground several feet away, my knees drawn to my chest, my arms wrapped around my legs. For nearly a minute, I could only breathe, staring at the cage I’d thought I’d die in, watching the creeper vines slither and squirm toward the drops of myself I’d left for them.

Then I smiled. I’d done it. I’d freed myself, with no one’s help. My dad always said I was the embodiment of the adolescent sense of entitlement, or some such crap that meant I was determined to have my own way. Who knew that would ever actually come in handy?

But one glance up at the sky and its wrong colors was enough to kill my smile. I’d crawled out of a jungle gym, but I was still far from home and safety. Hell, I was still a block away from Luca, if he was still where Addison had said he was. Assuming he’d ever been there in the first place. I was far from sure I should believe her, considering the cryptic riddles she’d spouted when her eyes lost focus.

Listen. Ha! Listen to what? To the steady ticktock of my life slipping away in this nightmare of a world, where I didn’t belong? I was hearing that loud and clear, but it didn’t help.

Still, I’d listened to the vines slithering toward drops of my blood, and that had sparked the idea that got me out. So listening had helped. But what else was there to hear?

Newly frustrated and still scared, I stood and stared across the elementary school playground, trying not to see and hear everything thatshouldn’t have been there. The weird plants. The rustling noises coming from bushes with purplish leaves, like nothing I’d ever seen before.

Eastlake High was a block away. At least, it was in my world. Here, there was no telling what lay in the block between me and Luca, and strolling down the sidewalk in plain sight of every Tom, Dick, and Hairy-monster seemed like an extraordinarily bad idea. But without any good ideas, bad ones were all I had.

The sky darkened with every step I took, like a bruise ripening, and eventually I stopped looking up, because scaring myself felt stupid when there were so many things out there willing to do the job for me. After a quarter of a block, I realized someone—or something—was following me. The steps were soft and punctuated with light scratching sounds, like a dog’s claws on a wooden floor. I didn’t turn, because I didn’t want to see what was there. If it was big or fast enough to eat me, turning to look wouldn’t do me any good, and running would only lead to panic. As long as the steps didn’t speed up or get closer, I would maintain the status quo.

There were other sounds I couldn’t identify, and other things on the edge of my vision, but I didn’t dare turn and look. I just held the course and tried to keep my thoughts occupied so they couldn’t focus on things I was scared to think about.

Addison had called me a fool and said I didn’t listen. Ha! I got myself out of the cage, didn’t I? What kind of fool could do that? And I’d listened when she called the creeper vines greedy and bloodthirsty. In fact, that’s what had given me the idea to…

Ohh. She’d given me a hint. Were there any more of them buried in the nonsense she’d spouted?

Addison had said I could go home. Of course, she’d also said I was dead, but unless my collision with the classroom door had actually killed me, and this really was hell, I wasn’t ready to jump to that conclusion. But her hint had gotten me out of the cage, so clearly some of what she’d said was relevant.

I replayed everything I could remember from my strange conversation with the dead rock star. She’d said I could go home, but she couldn’t take me. She’d told me to go back the way I came. She’d said I didn’t need Luca, or anyone else, and that I didn’t know what I was or what I had.

She was right about that last part. I was starting to think I didn’t know anything.

About halfway to the school, I realized that the scent of my blood might be what was attracting the follower I had yet to actually look at. So I stopped just long enough to squat at the edge of the sidewalk and wipe my bloody palm on the creepy, off-color grass. That got rid of most of the fresh blood, but also reopened the wound—and restarted the pain. But a minute later, the footsteps at my back were replaced with a creepy slurping, crunching sound. My follower was eating the grass I’d bled on.