Feet Aren't Made for Walking [BEING PUBLISHED!] #OnceUponNow

Part Four

Thirty-five minutes to midnight.

I was in total secret agent mode as we crept through the service entrance at the back of The Q. That is, if secret agents had feet that cramped up and caused them to stumble every two feet.

"All right, Leonard?" Corinne asked. We dodged several guards returning from a break room and ducked into a stairwell. I was panting, my hands gripping my knees, but Corinne appeared unaffected.

"I feel like my chest is about to explode," I said.

"Just hang tight. There's an elevator at the end of the hall." She pulled the door open a crack, searching for trouble. "All clear. Let's head up."

For the first time since Corinne rescued me from the pirate ship, I was filled with doubt. Mia had been seriously hurt last time I saw her. What if she didn't want to come back?

"She'll come," Corinne assured me. "You don't know how overbearing Wilhelmina is. Mia's probably dying to get out of there."

I chuckled as we waited for the elevator to arrive. It was on floor forty-five and needed to come all the way to the basement. "You've never met my mother. She's the same – wait. Does Wilhelmina have blonde hair?"

"Yeah..." Corinne answered slowly.

"Brown eyes?"

"Like a chocolate bar." She paused. "Or feces."

"Does she have a deviated septum that makes her squeak when she laughs and –"

"Yes!" A loud bang echoed behind us. Corinne jabbed the call button repeatedly, as if that would help us get upstairs faster. Two women and a man in crisp white chef's attire rounded the corner at the end of the hall. They halted when they spotted us.

"Did we hire new interns?" one lady wondered. The elevator arrived and Corinne pushed me inside before the doors opened halfway. She stabbed the button for floor sixty-four. The top floor.

"I have a bad feeling about this," she said.

"No kidding! My mother's a psychotic murderer!"

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Wilhelmina isn't your mother. She just looks like her. Remember that."

The elevator shot up with an incredible speed that made my head spin. If I had my old body back, I knew my skin would be speckled with sweat. Corinne retreated into herself, probably wondering if she'd made a horrible mistake.

As I watched the numbers climb, I thought about Wilhelmina and my mother. Mia and Beatrice. Sal and my father. I wondered who Corinne would be in my world. Would she be royalty there too? A student? A celebrity? More importantly, I wondered who Leo Clark was in Pittsborough and what I would do if I met him.

We reached the top of The Q with a loud ding that made my teeth grind. When the doors slid apart, Corinne took the lead, pulling me down a narrow purple hallway. I quickly discovered that Wilhelmina was obsessed with the color purple. The walls, the floor, even the ceiling were painted various shades that made me feel like I was living inside a grape.