Page 116 of The Order of the Bitter Hunt

Without responding, Jun lifts the phone to his ear. He waits, lips pressed together…

“Straight to voicemail,” he mutters.

I snatch the phone from him and open my tracker app. Tobey and I always share our locations—always. Her name is still on the app, but her location won’t update. The last update was at eleven o’clock at night.

When she sent that final message.

“She was in our dormitory nine hours ago.” I pry myself from bed and slip on my shoes. “Let’s go.”

Jun is coming with me; we don’t even have to discuss it. Strength comes in numbers. If something happens to Tobey, I need all the help I can get.

What if Tobey is the next to go? Amelia said they had a plan for Tobey, after all.

The alarms haven’t gone off… yet. It’s the only sliver of comfort I can find. She may still be alive—or we may be the ones to stumble on her body.

Outside, everything is normal. Peaceful. The courtyard is free of investigators. It’s almost eerie how calm the gray morning is. While my world ends, students shuffle into their classes without a care.

“I don’t think anyone died,” I say. “Not yet.”

“Good. Then we have time to find them.”

My dormitory building is as eerie and serene as the rest of campus. We walk up to the room, and I fling the door open, praying for Tobey to be on their bed. They’re not—but Caldwell is.

“Did they text you?” I ask.

Jun shuts the door behind us.

“Yes. Please,” Caldwell says, “tell me you’ve seen them.”

“I haven’t,” I say. “The last thing they texted me was asking for help.”

“Me too. It was nearly midnight, and I’ve been here ever since. They left the door unlocked.”

“Fuck.” Jun grunts from behind us.

“How could you have left them alone so late?” My voice breaks, and I squeeze my eyes shut, shaking my head.

“I could say the same to you.”

“Stop,” Jun says. “Fighting with each other won’t help us find Tobey. We need to focus, to come up with a plan.”

While the room is empty, there’s no sign of a struggle.

“I already swept the room,” Caldwell says, sounding downtrodden. “There’s nothing here—no clues, no secret notes.”

“No sign of a struggle?” Jun asks.

Caldwell shakes his head.

“Then we have to check the rest of the campus,” I say. “My phone said this is the last place she was. They couldn’t have gone far.”

We spend the day searching,but find nothing. No one has seen Tobey—and we ask nearly everyone.

The alarm never goes off, but I’m on edge as I wait, expecting to hear the blaring warning sound…

The day ends, and it still doesn’t come.

She’s only been missing for one day and, as always, no one takes our concerns seriously.