“Three more hours,” Hayden says as we squeeze past him into the panic room. “Three hours and we’re walking straight out of this hellhole.”
Forty-five minutes to go. Will, Jules, and Lilly are sleeping again. I don’t know how they can. Perdu’s tied up at the end of the panic room like a psychotic freaking Sméagol. His wrists are knotted to two hooks in the wall, his arms stretched wide, hands limp. He doesn’t talk. Doesn’t move. He’s just glaring, his eyes dark and glittering.
The light strip on the ceiling has started cutting out. Flash-flash-flicker, the panic room going black for seconds at a time. The oppressive heat is gone, replaced by a damp airlessness. A warm sheen has settled clammily against my skin. I’m curled into a ball right next to Will, his body so close I can feel the warmth coming off his back. I hold my face, sweet talking myself into a calm that won’t come.
You’re safe, Ooky. They’re all right beside you, Will and Lilly and Jules and Hayden, they’re right here––
I open my eyes. Perdu is watching me from the far end of the capsule. I can feel the hatred gathered around him like a cloud of insects. Images fly into my mind: the picture of me hanging in Rabbit Gallery, only someone’s scratched out my face; a bunch of veiny purple grapes, tiny black bugs floating inside them like embryos; six gleaming wires carving me up neatly––
Don’t look at him, Anouk. Don’t think about him.
But something in those eyes makes me want to hide, to apologize or beg forgiveness. Something in those eyes is accusing me.
I wake to find Perdu leaning over me, blood and spit glistening down his chin. He exhales, a short, sharp gasp. And slumps forward, right on top of me.
I scream. Shove him off. Hayden is behind him, holding the serrated hunting knife. The blade glints ruby in the light. His shirt is covered in blood. “Anouk?” he whispers. His eyes are wide.
I scrabble backward, falling into Lilly’s sleeping form. “What did you do?”
Hayden drops the knife and it slides across the floor, leaving a red smear. “He got free, I don’t know how, he charged you!” His voice is scared.
Blood is starting to pool under Perdu, dark, dark red. He’s still breathing, gurgling softly. Lilly’s sitting up, pushing me away.
“What happened?” Jules is sitting up, too. “What’s going on?”
“I heard him when he started crawling or you would be dead, too,” Hayden says. “We need to go.”
Lilly sees Perdu and lets out a shriek that quickly devolves into a tired, defeated moan. Hayden squeezes past them, starts grabbing things off the shelves, toppling my five careful piles. Food packets and batteries go spinning, falling to the floor. He’s got the flashlights. The batteries.
“Everybody up!” he bellows over his shoulder. “We’re getting out of here.”
“He’s bleeding,” Lilly says. “He’s dying!” She crawls to him, rolls him over. She’s trying to staunch the flow of blood from the wound in his back with her bare hands, but there’s too much of it, and there’s something weird about: it’s thick and gloopy, and something is swimming in it, strands of darkness––– Hayden shoves her away. “Don’t get close to him,” he growls, but she shoves him back, crying.
“Hayden, he’s going to die.” She slides around him. Starts looping the leftover gauze from Will over Perdu’s wound. It’s soaked through instantly.
I don’t know what to do. I feel sick. Will is sitting perfectly still, staring at the knife on the floor. The buzz is back, dark and low, pulsating in the air. Everything is pandemonium, everyone crawling over everyone else.
“We should never have let him in here,” Jules says. “This was your stupid idea, Hayden!”
Hayden practically throws the three flashlights at us. Now he’s snapping open the black, oblong box again. Inside is the handgun, encased in black foam. He takes it out and shoves it into his waistband.
“What about Perdu?” Jules asks, and Lilly starts smacking the metal arch of the wall, her eyes squeezed shut.
Hayden is unbarring the hatch, crawling out. “Leave him,” he says over his shoulder. “We’re not coming back.”
Lilly looks at me, her face streaked with tears. I meet her gaze for a fraction of a second. Shake my head and scramble out after Hayden.
Flashlights click on. The floor creaks under our feet. I catch one last glimpse of Perdu in the panic room. His head is tipped back, eyes wide as he watches us go. Hayden slams the hatch shut. Now it’s just us, the dark, our flashlight beams swooping along the walls.
We hurry east, the way we came, darting through the doors as quietly as we can. Hayden’s up front, then me, Will, Lilly, Jules. We’re drawn out in a line.
Will taps my shoulder with his good hand. I glance back at him. “Anouk?” he says under his breath.
“Yeah?”
“Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure.”