Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

I left my shit on the floor and made my way down the rest
of the stairs, the alarm still blaringly loud.
But I didn’t hear anything else. There were no voices, no
movement, no doors being slammed… Was everyone already
gone?
My heart started to thump harder. What do I do? Shit!
Half the school was in the lunchroom. They would’ve just
gotten out through the exit in there. The rest of the school—
everyone in classes or the auditorium—wouldn’t be gone yet.
Right?
“Hello?” I called out.
I waved my hands in front of me, trying to veer in the
direction the doors were in, but I walked right into something
hard and hissed at the pain in my shin. I grabbed hold of a
wooden chair that had been left untucked from the table in the
rush to get out.
My hands finally found the wall, and I scaled them down
until I found the doors that led into the rest of the school.
Opening one, I stepped through.
“Hello!” I shouted again. “Can someone help me? I don’t
know my way out!”
The alarm pinged again and again down the hallway, and I
inhaled through my nose, smelling smoke.
No. I paused. Not smoke.
It was a cigarette.
Had someone been smoking in the school?
But then my face fell as I breathed in the faint scent that
reminded me of the last time I smelled that.
My heart started to race, and not in a good way.
Finding the stairwell, I descended one flight and found my
way through the entrance to the main floor.
“Hey!” I called out again. “Anyone?”