I ducked instinctively, my free hand flying up to protect the back of my neck.
She moved swiftly, the bulbs popping and raining down on us as we passed, and then she let go of my hand to stretch her fingertips toward either wall. Door locks snapped open on both sides of the hall, even as the lights on the key card scanners remained a stubborn red.
Glass from the lightbulbs crunched into the carpet beneath my feet as I followed her.
Once she’d reached the end of the hall, she backtracked to the second-to-last room door and waved me inside, the motion tight as though it were painful.
She shut the door with care behind us, even as I heard the first confused guests open their now-unlocked doors and call out into the darkened hall.
“What’s going on?”
“Hello? Is someone there?”
“The goddamn power’s out again.”
Ariane held her position at the door, while I hesitated just inside the largest hotel room I’d ever seen. It was, from what I could see, three rooms. A living room with a huge flat-screen and a big sectional couch. Beyond that, I caught a glimpse of a dining table and chairs, and then, through a set of black-framed French doors, a big white corner of a bed.
“What—” I began.
She shook her head, holding her finger up to her mouth. A second later, her shoulders sagged as if she’d been holding her breath and finally exhaled, and the lock snapped into place on our door with a loud clack.
The same noise sounded in the hall, moving away from us, a series of muted thwacks that got quieter, like someone running past and hitting each door as he passed.
She’d forced open the locks on all the doors in this section and then released them. And I had no idea why.
I shifted my weight but kept quiet as the sound of heavy footsteps and the squawk of a walkie-talkie came through the door. “I’m on seven,” a man’s voice said just outside our door.
Security, it had to be.
I jerked back as if he could somehow see me through the door. Ariane caught my wrist, giving it a warning squeeze.
“I don’t care what you were working on,” the man said, annoyed. “You had to hit something with the electrical. I’ve got twelve doors that misfired here and broken glass everywhere.”
The doorknob rattled; someone checking to make sure it was locked. Even though I knew it was, my breath caught in my throat.
The walkie-talkie chirped again, a softer female voice asking a question, but the words were indistinct.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” the security guy answered. “Locks are back on line now, but you’ve got to get someone up here to clean up the mess.” His voice sounded farther away. He was moving on. The further rattle of doorknobs confirmed his location.
“Hey, are the lights coming back on or what?” a loud and irritated voice, no doubt one of the guests, demanded.
The security guy answered, his voice low and soothing, and Ariane edged away from the door, moving past me and deeper into the suite.
She peered cautiously around the corner into the dining area, which, when I followed her, also turned out to have a freaking kitchen in the opposite corner.
That didn’t seem to impress her, though. She paused only to grab several snack items from the honor bar basket sitting on the counter, then she kept moving toward the bedroom.
Getting us away from the door, I realized.
“What was that about?” I asked, tagging along after her. Just inside the bedroom, there was a doorway to a huge bathroom with a marble floor, a tub that would easily seat six, and a television in the mirror. Holy crap. On the bathroom counter, a silver tray next to the sink held any and every kind of personal item you might need—shampoo, toothpaste, mouthwash, cotton balls, a disposable razor, even condoms—in discreet packaging with the hotel’s logo.
Behind me, Ariane closed the French doors, shutting us off in the bedroom. “I couldn’t have them checking the room individually for someone breaking in. You’re the one who taught me that they can tell when the room locks are triggered on an unregistered room.”
I blinked. She was right. When we’d stayed in that crap motel on the way to my mom’s house. That felt like a lifetime ago.
“So you picked a floor that was under construction, figuring they’d blame anything strange on a malfunction or short circuit or something.” It was freaking brilliant. I felt a burst of warm pride in my chest. No, she was brilliant.
“You need to eat,” she said, pushing a package of pretzels into my hands with a frown. “You’re too pale.”
With my adrenaline pumping, I’d managed to push the shaky, unsteady feeling caused by the NuStasis battle in my body to the back of my mind. But now, when I felt relatively safe once more, it zoomed back to the forefront of my awareness.
I sat on the corner of the bed and opened the pretzels, eating a few in the hopes of a blood sugar boost. “Ariane.”