Last Breath

by Diane Hoh

  But Ann recovered quickly, forcing a smile and saying heartily, “Well, good work, Talia. Your powers of persuasion are impressive.”

  “Not really,” Cassidy said casually. “Since I’m feeling fine, I didn’t have any excuse not to go. I wouldn’t want to be rude and not show up without a reason.”

  She half-expected Ann to retort, “A nervous breakdown is a perfectly good excuse, Cassidy.” Ann said instead, “Well, I’m glad you’re going. It’ll be fun.”

  But it wasn’t. At least, not for Cassidy Kirk. She thought at first it might be. The house was much more brightly lit than it had been last Friday night, and crowded with partygoers. Cassidy had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, she wanted everyone to notice that she was there and feeling fine. At the same time, she was seized by a strong desire to blend into the crowd and go unnoticed. So that no one would stare at her or whisper about her. With so many people, that could happen, couldn’t it?

  It didn’t. Three times, she walked into a room and people stopped talking. The sudden, heavy silence gave them away. They’d been talking. About her.

  Then Sawyer never showed up. “He thought you weren’t coming,” Sophie said accusingly. “You should have called and told him you’d changed your mind. Why didn’t you?”

  Cassidy didn’t know. Something to do with that last therapeutic kiss, she supposed. Or maybe it was because her sole purpose in coming to this party had been to show Travis and everyone else that she was fine. Just fine.

  She didn’t need Sawyer for that.

  Travis was with Ann, who seemed to Cassidy to be keeping a very tight leash on him. He did manage to elude her once halfway through the evening. Suddenly, Travis was at her side, asking if she was having a good time.

  “I’m having a wonderful time,” she said, her tone of voice just a shade too cheerful. “It’s much more fun to go to a party at Nightmare Hall when they’re actually having a party.” She held up a cracker. “They even have food this time.”

  Travis laughed.

  “I’m dying of thirst, though,” she said, feeling suddenly self-conscious. There wasn’t as much triumph involved in fooling Travis into believing she was fine as she’d thought there’d be. He didn’t seem all that surprised that she’d shown up. Did that mean he’d known all along she could pull herself together for this party? Sawyer hadn’t, or he’d be here. “I need something cold to drink.”

  “I’ll get it,” he offered, and she let him.

  He was returning, a can of soda in hand, when Ann reappeared. For the second time that day, Cassidy noticed the expression on her roommate’s face. When Ann saw Travis approaching Cassidy, holding out the can of soda to her, her cheekbones went white and her hands, dangling at her sides, curled into tight fists.

  “Hey, Ann,” Cassidy called recklessly, “come on over and have a seat! Travis was just wondering where you were, weren’t you, Travis?”

  And although Ann’s expression relaxed then, and she hurried over to them, Travis shot Cassidy a look of annoyance.

  Oh, well, can’t win ’em all, she thought, wondering at the same time why Travis would resent someone telling Ann he’d been missing her.

  Folding one hand over Travis’s left arm, Ann said to Cassidy, “Just for your information, the restrooms have Salem University stickers on the doors. That’s so we won’t go wandering into someone’s room by mistake. This is a dorm, after all, although it’s so different from the Quad, it really doesn’t feel like it. Anyway, there’s a restroom downstairs, off the kitchen, and two more upstairs.”

  “Thanks.” Cassidy took a healthy swig of her ice-cold soda. “And thanks, Travis, for the drink. You’re a lifesaver.”

  Tom Lucas, Sawyer’s friend from the administration building, came and asked her to dance then. She plopped her soda can on a windowsill and followed him out of the room. She was very careful to smile confidently at every party guest who stared at her as she walked to the dance floor.

  Let them stare. She was here and she looked great and if she wasn’t having the best time she’d ever had, they couldn’t know that. She had no intention of letting it show.

  She danced to three fast numbers in a row with Tom. They were both very good, and by the second number, people had cleared the floor to watch them. The onlookers clapped their hands in time to the music as Cassidy and Tom danced up a storm.

  “So, where’s Sawyer?” Tom called over the music and the clapping.

  She shook her head and shrugged.

  “You ever find that car you were looking for?” he asked as she twirled under his raised arm.

  “No.” She didn’t want to talk about any of that stuff now. She was dancing, and people were watching, but not because they thought she was weird or crazy, they were watching because they thought she was a good dancer. For the first time in a long while, she felt…normal. She didn’t want that ruined by thoughts of the phantom TransAm.

  By the end of the third dance, she was beginning to wheeze a little. If there was one thing she didn’t want tonight, it was an asthma attack. It would defeat her whole purpose for coming to this party…to show everyone how together Cassidy Kirk was.

  She thanked Tom for the dances, excused herself, and hurried back to the front parlor where she’d left her drink.

  The room was empty, but her soda can was still on the windowsill.

  Breathing hard, Cassidy snatched it up and drank.

  By the time she realized that her hand around the can was not cold, as it should have been, but uncomfortably warm, it was too late. She had already taken a long gulp from the can.

  And although she spat immediately, trying to escape the burning hot liquid as it poured from the can, her lips, mouth, and throat were already on fire.

  Cassidy screamed in pain, dropped the can, and ran from the room.

  Chapter 17

  HAND TO HER BURNING mouth, Cassidy raced along the hall’s hardwood floor, past the library, past the dining room, pushing her way through startled clusters of party guests gathered outside each room, until she got to the kitchen. It was crowded with people, all of whom stared as she rushed into the room and glanced about wildly for the nearest source of cold water.

  She was only vaguely conscious of Travis and Ann, Talia and Sophie, standing with Milo Keith, Jess Vogt, and Ian Banion, all of them watching in awe as she dashed toward the sink.

  Silence fell quickly, as if someone had suddenly pulled the plug on a radio. All eyes in the room were on her as she grabbed an empty paper cup from the counter and thrust it under the cold-water faucet. Filling the cup, she gulped water down, her hands shaking so hard half the contents spilled over her blouse and vest.

  But the water salved her burned lips and tongue and soothed her seared throat.

  “What’s going on?” Sophie’s voice said from behind Cassidy.

  “Cassidy, what’s the matter?” Ann asked impatiently as they all began to gather around the sink. Talia was busy shooing everyone else out of the kitchen, something Cassidy would have appreciated if she hadn’t been frantically trying to douse the fire in her mouth and throat with cold water.

  When she finally felt some relief, she turned away from the sink, leaning against it, the cup still in her hand. Water dripped down her chin and wet spots covered her silk blouse and suede vest.

  “That wasn’t a case of simple thirst,” Travis said. “What’s wrong?”

  It was hard to talk. Her lips hurt. “Someone,” she began unsteadily, “someone put steaming hot coffee in my Coke can.”

  The long, disbelieving silence hurt almost as much as the hot liquid had.

  Cassidy looked at Travis, hoping for some support. “That Coke you brought me, remember? I put it on the windowsill when I went to dance. When I came back, it was still there, right where I’d left it. But instead of cold soda, there was boiling hot coffee in it. I found out the hard way, by drinking it!” She grabbed a paper towel from the roll beside the sink, and dabbed at her lips with it. “I thin
k I’m getting blisters.”

  Ann peered closely at Cassidy’s face. “I don’t see anything. You look fine to me.”

  Cassidy gingerly licked her lips. “It still hurts. The coffee must have gone straight from the coffeemaker into the soda can.”

  Still no one said anything.

  Cassidy felt her cheeks grow as hot as her lips had been only moments before. “You don’t believe me, do you?” she accused. “Well, I’ll prove it to you. Wait here, and I’ll go get the can. The coffee will still be in there. I hardly drank any.” Before anyone could protest, she ran from the room.

  The front parlor was no longer empty. People holding paper plates on their laps had taken seats around the room. But the Coke can was still on the floor, right where Cassidy had dropped it. A pool of liquid surrounded it, soaking into the carpet.

  Ignoring the stares of everyone in the room, Cassidy bent and scooped up the can. “Mustn’t litter,” she said lightly, and can in hand, turned to go back to the kitchen.

  But she realized immediately that something about the can wasn’t right. Something was different. She hadn’t been in the kitchen that long. The can should still be warm. But it wasn’t. It was, in fact, cold.

  She left the parlor slowly, her steps hesitant. Why wasn’t the can still warm? That coffee had been too hot to cool off so quickly. Even if she’d been gone longer than she thought, it would still be lukewarm. It would not, however, be as cold as what her fingers were now touching.

  Unwilling to continue toward the kitchen until she was sure, Cassidy leaned against the wall in the hall and held the can up in front of her, touching here, touching there, with her fingers, hoping to feel some small shred of warmth.

  It was cold all over. Nothing warm, nothing hot, had been inside this can recently.

  I picked up the wrong can, that’s all, she told herself, moving back to the parlor to glance quickly inside. There had to be another can. Someone must have come in and picked up her can and put it somewhere.

  Oh, sure, a little voice in her head said sarcastically, and then they dropped a different can on the floor in exactly the same spot, just to balance things out, right?

  There were no other discarded soda cans anywhere in the room.

  The one she had in her hand, the one she had scooped up off the floor, had to be the same can she had dropped earlier.

  But now it contained nothing but the dregs of cold soda.

  I won’t go back to the kitchen, she thought, conscious of a painful tightening in her chest. I can’t face them. I’ll just leave now, walk back to campus alone or hop a shuttle. No one will even know I’m gone.

  “Did you find it?” Talia’s voice said.

  Too late. No escape now. Cassidy turned around. Talia was standing in front of her, an inquisitive look on her face. “Is that the can?” she asked.

  Without answering, Cassidy brushed past her and led the way back to the kitchen. “I know what you’re all going to say,” she announced grimly, “and I guess I can’t blame you.” She held the can aloft. “There is nothing in this can now but cold soda. All I can tell you is, when I drank from it a few minutes ago, it was filled with scalding hot coffee, and I burned my throat and my lips and my tongue.”

  Into the awkward silence that followed, Sawyer’s voice said, “Cassidy? What’s going on?”

  He was standing in the kitchen doorway. “I called over here to see how the party was going, and Ian told me you were here. I decided to catch up with you. How come you didn’t tell me you’d changed your mind?” As he walked into the room, he picked up on the highly charged atmosphere and repeated, “What’s happening?”

  Cassidy glanced around at the faces surrounding her. They were blank. They were obviously trying very hard not to register disbelief. She could almost see them struggling to pretend that nothing weird was going on.

  It was hopeless. She could spend the rest of the night explaining what had happened to her in the parlor, but with only cold soda in the can now, her words would be wasted.

  Icy, metal bands tightened around her chest.

  “Nothing,” Cassidy told Sawyer. “Nothing at all. I’m glad you’re here. But listen, why don’t you all go back to the party while I see what I can do about these disgusting water spots on my vest? I’ll just be a minute, Sawyer. Wait for me on the dance floor, okay?”

  “You sure you’re all right?” Travis asked, as Ann tugged on his sleeve.

  It took every ounce of will Cassidy possessed to say in a normal tone of voice, “Of course! Go dance with Ann like a nice date, Travis. I’m going to get one more drink of water.” Her head high, she turned her back on all of them and walked to the sink again. Over the sound of running water, she heard voices muttering in disagreement.

  But when she turned around again a few minutes later, the kitchen was empty.

  Cassidy leaned against the sink, grateful to find herself alone. She directed a hostile glance toward the Coke can, sitting on the oval wooden table.

  It couldn’t have had hot coffee in it, she thought, moving to the table to pick up the can. Not possibly. It’s cold. It was cold when Travis handed it to me, it was cold when I picked it up off the floor, and it’s cold now.

  Dr. Bruin had called the imagination a “very powerful tool.” She had even said that in mental illness, many people used that imagination against themselves, sometimes in very bizarre ways. “Some people hear voices, sometimes entire conversations. Others see images that are so real to them, they can describe them down to the tiniest detail.”

  Compared to entire conversations and detailed images, hot coffee in a Coke can didn’t seem like such a challenge for a vivid imagination.

  What was the proper psychiatric term for someone who believed they had burned their own lips and tongue and throat, actually felt the pain, when in fact, they hadn’t done any such thing?

  She didn’t want to know what the proper psychiatric term was.

  Just to be sure, she would check out her mouth very carefully in the restroom mirror. If, like Ann, she saw absolutely no evidence of any kind that her lips had been burned, she would have to give up and blame her imagination totally.

  That was such a scary thought, her knees wobbled. And the pain in her chest increased.

  Her fingers closed around the black velvet purse hanging by a golden chain on her left shoulder. She could feel the inhaler inside. Maybe I should use it while I’m in the rest room, she thought as she moved toward a door off to her right boasting a blood-red Salem University sticker. If the doctors are right about stress aggravating asthma, it’s a miracle I’m not already stretched out on the floor tile wheezing like, as Ann would put it, a dying frog.

  She pulled the inhaler from her unzipped purse with one hand while the other hand reached out, turned the doorknob, and pulled the stickered door open.

  Because her eyes were focused on her purse, she didn’t see that what she was stepping onto was not solid white squares of rest room floor tile, but instead a set of narrow, wooden steps leading downward, flanked by a wall hung with tools on one side and a rickety wooden railing on the other.

  Still looking down into her purse, she pulled out the inhaler and was reaching out with her hand to locate a light switch when her foot came down hard. On nothing. Knocked off balance by the misstep, Cassidy pitched forward, headfirst, letting out a small, startled cry as she sailed out into a cold, dark, musty cavern.

  Chapter 18

  AS CASSIDY SLAMMED INTO the wall at the foot of the stairs, bounced off, and landed with a painful thud on the hard earthen floor, a sudden breeze sailed in through an open kitchen window and slammed the cellar door shut. The light from the kitchen above vanished abruptly, plunging the cellar into darkness.

  After a long moment, Cassidy stirred and tried to pull herself upright. The door at the top of the stairs opened slowly, carefully. Cassidy raised her head, tried to call out, but the fall had knocked the wind out of her, and her voice along with it. She raised a hand in
appeal, a silent gesture that clearly said, “Help me.”

  The door closed with the click of finality.

  Completely disoriented, Cassidy didn’t realize for several moments that she wasn’t breathing normally. And that it wasn’t just from the fall. She was severely allergic to mold and mildew, and she could smell both in this dark, chilly cavern. Still, the coughing took her by surprise when it welled up inside her chest and spilled out into the cellar, one wracking spasm after another, shaking her entire body.

  She straightened up, hoping that would help.

  It didn’t. The coughing was out of control. She needed her inhaler.

  Her hand went to her side in search of her shoulder bag.

  It wasn’t there.

  The sound that came from Cassidy’s throat was tortured, a loud, rasping sound that echoed throughout the musty space. She had to fight for every breath, as if someone had tightened a metal vise around her chest.

  Gasping, unable to shout for help, she got on her hands and knees and began searching frantically in the darkness for the lifesaving inhaler. Above her, so close above her, she could hear party sounds…music, laughter, conversation…couldn’t they hear the dreadful sounds she was making? So loud, like a power saw scraping across a thick tree limb, so loud, why couldn’t they hear?

  It was bad, this attack, the worst ever. Without the inhaler, she could die. That had been explained to her, more than once.

  She knew it was true.

  “Somebody help me,” she tried to whisper, but the only sound she uttered was another loud, hoarse rasp.

  Refusing to give up, she scrambled on hands and knees along the cold, earthen floor, her hands frantically sweeping its surface for the missing shoulder bag.

  Above her, Travis and Ann entered the kitchen, leaving the party sounds behind. He went straight to the refrigerator for ice. “So, where’d you go?” he asked as he collected ice cubes.

  “When?”

  “A few minutes ago. I thought you were right there behind me, but when I turned to say something, you weren’t there.” Then he added drily, “That seems to be happening to me a lot lately.”