I Solemnly Swear ☆ CAPTAIN SWAN

Chapter 4 ☆ The tumblers

Emma's POV

Getting inside the building without anyone noticing wasn't really a problem, as everyone was in the dining hall getting lunch, so Lily and I were able to sneak up the stairs fairly quickly. Still, nerves were rushing through me, and I stayed very close to her— so close that I ran straight into her when she suddenly came to a stop on the first floor.

"Hey, watch it!" she hissed, jerking her head back.

I felt irritated almost immediately. "I didn't know you were going to stop here! I can't read minds, you know," I added sarcastically.

She raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth, but she changed her mind at the last second.

"What?" I said, yanking her arm back. "What were you going to say?"

"Well, we don't really know what you can or can't do." Her gaze was burning in mine, and she didn't even have to remind me of the accident with Will.

Great. But at least she wasn't running away from me.

I sighed and decided to forget about it. "Come on, the library is just—"

"Not too fast." She looked around the corner and commanded me to take a step back, which I did— but only because I was terrified that we were going to get caught.

After a few seconds, Lily nodded that the coast was clear and we ran across the hallway to the door of the library.

"Okay, how are we going to get in?" I whispered, because I knew the door was locked during the day. (I'd tried getting in the library before. Didn't work.)

"I'm prepared," she said, digging something small out of her pocket. She showed me a hairpin and got a smirk on her face. "It's all about the tumblers."

I had no idea what that meant. I watched her, almost mesmerized, as she put the pin in the door lock and started twisting it around. After a few seconds, I was almost sure it wasn't going to work and my nerves were rushing back, but then, right after I flinched when I heard a noise down the hallway, the door popped open and we both rushed inside.

The school library was dark and gloomy, and pretty much all of the books looked as though they'd been there since the middle ages, but it was still one of my favorite places. It was the only place where it was quiet, since we weren't allowed to talk inside.

It was perfect.

But as we snuck up to the first bookcase, we also realized that we were the only ones who were making noise.

"Are you sure he's here?" I asked as Lily stuck her head round a corner. I stayed behind her, skimming the rest of the library, but apart from a considerable amount of dust and the posters on every bookcase telling us to be quiet, it was empty.

"I saw him going in here," she said. "The bathroom is right next to the library, I know I'm not mistaken."

"I didn't say you were," I mumbled, but I was starting to doubt it when we'd checked the first half of the library. That didn't take us very long, because our sad excuse of a library wasn't much bigger than a classroom.

"There's always a funny smell here," Lily said when we'd reached the bookcases with scientific books. She crouched down and tilted her head so she could read the book titles as we passed them. "I don't really come here that oft—"

"Shh!"

She snapped her mouth shut when she saw what I was pointing at; at the other end of the room, sitting at one of the study tables and surrounded by books, was the new kid.