I pushed up at the vent, relieved when it lifted easily. The open space left was just big enough for me to fit through, and I boosted myself up, crawling into the small space before slowly lowering the vent back into place, and not a moment too soon.
The men came in the door slowly, their guns raised as they surveyed the room. One reached for the switch by the wall and flipped it up; light filled the room. I flinched away from it and scooted as quietly as I could away from the slits in the vent. They moved throughout the room, peering under the shelves. I watched as one backed up into the stepstool, sending it crashing to the ground. I covered my mouth to keep myself from gasping out loud. I had completely forgotten about that.
“What was that?” one of them said, his voice coming out gruff. He sounded bored.
“Someone left out a stepstool,” was the answer. He came right into my line of sight, and he looked up, and I froze. “Stupid kids. Let’s go; this room is clear.”
They lingered a little, thoroughly checking the room, before leaving and locking the door behind them. I let out a sigh of relief and surveyed my surroundings.
I was obviously in a ventilation system, probably the air conditioner because I was immediately cold. The hairs on my arms stood up, and I rubbed them. It was a fairly decent size system; I had just enough room to crouch down. I started to crawl away from the direction that the men had headed in, hoping to find myself in a different area.
My hands and knees started aching almost immediately as I crawled through the small, suffocating space. There were bends and turns, and I kept going, turning left or right as I saw fit. I had no idea where I was heading. I only stopped to look down through the vents that I passed on my way. I felt like a spy, someone out of an action movie and I had to bite my lip to keep myself from laughing.
I had no idea how long I’d been crawling through the ventilation system when it started to slope down. I tried going down slowly, putting pressure on my palms to keep myself from slipping down the slick metal. When it finally leveled out again, I realized that I had come to a dead end with one large vent, large enough for me to fit through. I peeked out and saw metal steps. I must have ended up in the stairwell. Again. I hesitated for a moment and then reached for the vent, pushing it out.
It landed with a loud clatter on the metal floor beneath me and I paused, my heart doing a series of flips in my chest as I waited to see if anyone had heard it. When a few uneventful moments passed, I crawled out and fitted the screen back on the vent. I walked over to the number and saw six. I had gone down one floor. I immediately started running up the stairs.
I reached level five again and found myself in a different part of the compound. This must have been a different stairwell, because I recognized nothing around me. I crept through the hallways, listening for the sound of footsteps, but this wing felt relatively abandoned. There was also a distinct lack of cameras, which both relieved me and made me feel nervous. I glanced around, wondering if there were smaller, less detectable cameras in this particular hallway.
I continued on, pausing at each door and peeking inside to look for Ash. I was so tired, and I had no idea how large this compound was, or even how large each level was. It could take me ages to track down Ash if I had to stop and peek inside each and every door.
Just as I was thinking this, I reached a fork at the end of the hallway. A sign was there, pointing in each direction. Miraculously, perfectly, unbelievably, the arrow pointing to the left had small block letters printed above it reading: Detention.
My heart burst open, and I sprinted down the hallway, not bothering to mask the hard sounds my feet made as they hit the linoleum floor. There were doors in this hallway, the same as before, but the windows had small bars across them, and each one had a small door in the center of it, about the size of a dog door. I started peeking in the windows. Empty. Empty. Empty. Empty.
Wait.
I halted and returned to the door I just passed and felt my heart leap up into my throat. There was someone in this room, the first person that I had seen, and I knew almost immediately that it was Ash. I examined the lock on the door and was relieved to find that all it required as a key card. I hadn’t thought for a moment if I would have needed a fingerprint or password to get anywhere in the building. I’d had a direct route out of here planned by Liam and Tommy, and none of it included anything more than the keycard that was tucked into my bra. I yanked it out, sliding it through and watched as the light blinked from red to green. I reached for the door handle and pulled the door open.
AS SOON AS I OPENED the door, Ash looked up and froze, his eyes wide. I wanted to rush at him, but he looked absolutely shocked to see me in front of him.