Lilly, Jules, and Will are lined up like sardines at the far end of the capsule, huddled together under the reflective thermal blankets. I set down a bottle of water quietly. Watch them. The light buzzes overhead. I’ve just finished counting every food packet, battery, and medicine bottle on the supply shelves. I separated them into five equal piles. This way if we have to make a run for it, we’ll each have stuff to grab. It only took twenty minutes. We have hours to go.
I stare down the length of the panic room with half-lidded eyes. Hayden’s not asleep, either. He’s sitting on the cot, staring at the hatch. His knees are drawn up to his chest, oddly vulnerable.
I sit up and scoot toward him. He doesn’t say anything when I settle next to him.
“When you were out there,” I say, staring at the hatch, too, trying to see what Hayden’s seeing, “did you find anything about a butterfly man?”
“A butterfly man? What are you, four?” He doesn’t look at me.
“That’s what Perdu called him,” I answer sharply. Whatever dreamy haze I came over here in is gone. At the other end of the capsule, Will shifts.
“Is that your boogeyman?” Hayden asks. “Is that who you’re blaming all this on? Because you should stop. It’s people doing this. People like you and me.”
“They’re not like us. We’re not that insane.”
“You’re more insane than I am and I supposedly died.”
“Yeah, well, not all of us were holed up in a fancy bunker this whole time.”
I remember a second too late that he wasn’t, either. He was dumped down here, wounded and alone. Maybe we were the lucky ones. At least we were together.
“Why d’you think we were brought down here?” he asks after a second. The harsh edge is gone from his voice.
“Don’t know.” I smell that overpowering stench again, sickening sweet and rotten. “Jules thinks it’s random. Lilly thinks it might be a genetic thing, which makes more sense with all the medical tests we had to do during prep.”
“But why us? What did they bring us here?” He sounds almost pleading.
I stare at my brogues, gleaming black against the wrinkled landscape of the sheets. “I have no idea,” I say. I don’t mention my portrait hanging in Rabbit Gallery, the weapons, the Nazi-stolen rabbit picture. I can’t think about those things and I don’t want him to, either.
“Hayden, did you cut the camera feed,” I ask suddenly.
“What?” Hayden glances at me. “No. Why?”
“I dunno, I just—I was hoping you had.”
We’re silent for a second. A wave of sleepiness washes over me. We’ve been down here at least forty-eight hours now. No sunlight, no way to tell whether it’s night or day. My internal clock is seriously messed up. I think my brain has started filtering out that buzzing, like it does with birdcalls and passing cars.
“Four hours till we head for the exit?” Hayden says, like he’s asking for my agreement. I look into his eyes. They’re so weird, flat and coin dull at first glance, but deep, deep down something is moving, struggling––
“We don’t really know where the exit is,” I say.
“We’ll find it.”
I don’t like how he’s looking at me. I can’t handle the smell. I nod and crawl back to the others. Curl up next to Jules. When I think it’s safe, I crack open one eye.
Hayden’s watching us. He’s so still on the cot, like he’s in a frozen movie frame. He has that same slightly wondering, longing look Perdu had. It’s like he’s thinking: friends. You guys are friends now. Must be nice.
I blink. His face is blank again. Cold. I close my eyes and hope he didn’t notice me in the dimness.
Someone’s outside the hatch.
I sit bolt upright. The strip of light is still on, dull and buzzing. Lilly, Jules, and Will have piled into a crinkly silver heap behind me. Hayden is asleep on the cot, his face to the wall.
I hear it again: the gentle snick-snick of wires and metal prongs shifting. Someone’s outside the hatch, trying to get in.
“Hayden?” I crawl quickly down the capsule and grab his shoulder. “Hayden!”
He jerks awake. I nod toward the door. He scrambles off the cot. “How long?” he whispers.
“Don’t know. Just heard it.”
Outside, the clicking stops.
We stare at each other. A million horrible possibilities jumble together in my mind. Helmeted figures. Miss Sei on hands and knees, a gun clenched in those thin white fingers. A huge spiny butterfly, dragging itself through the shadows, its wings rustling behind it.
I shudder and crawl as fast as I can back to the others. “Get up,” I say, quiet and urgent. “Get up, now!”
“What?” Lilly rolls onto her back, rubbing her eyes. Jules is trying to swat me away. I grab his hand and slap him with it.
“Get up!” I whisper.
The snick-snick has started again. Not faster. Not slower. Patient, like a dentist.
Lilly sits straight up and stares. “What was that?”
Again the sound pauses. Again it starts up.
Lilly and Jules crawl toward Hayden. Will follows. His wounded hand is still clutched to his chest, but his face looks better, the glazed look gone from his eyes. I watch them, disconnected for a second. My head feels fuzzy, numb. We must not have been asleep for more than an hour or two.