I wake up after a rough night’s sleep with a renewed determination. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Hazel has checked out and how Lucie doesn’t seem to believe there is any hope. I don’t believe there is, either, and last night I was getting closer to falling apart.
But at least I still have fight in me. Theo has his again, too. Hazel and Lucie are done. Kevin and Priya aren’t proactive, but at least they’re trying to be positive. At one point during the night, I got so frustrated I almost woke them up to yell.
I’m glad I kept myself in check, though, because that would have added to their hopelessness.
There’s no chance of me going back to sleep, so I get out of bed and tiptoe past the others. Hazel is still sleeping peacefully on the bunk below mine. I don’t know how she can sleep after deciding that she’s going to die in here. I certainly wouldn’t be able to.
So much damn negativity!
I grit my teeth, pulse racing with irritation at the situation. She’s my best friend, and she’s usually so tough. No one breaks Hazel. Or they didn’t used to.
“Piper,” Theo whispers as I get to the door.
I turn my head. “Yeah?”
“I’m getting up, too.” He slips out of bed and follows.
I close the door behind us and head to the kettle. I need coffee. A really big hit of caffeine to cheer me up. When someone is moping around and scowling, I find it super-hard to be near them. Even when my sister died and my world fell apart, I still strived to get out of bed and live my life.
This place is too small to step on eggshells because someone is in a bad mood.
I stop in my tracks on the way to the little kitchen area.
The door to the hallway to hell is open.
Open.
We didn’t leave it open last night, and as far as I know, no one was up in the night. Has it been unlocked since the lights went out yesterday?
No, it couldn’t have been. Even if the door was unlocked, it can’t open by itself.
I step closer, my heart rate quickening. Did Caleb, Owen, and Matt come in here? Do they do that? The thought of them watching all the time is bad enough, but knowing they could have been here, so physically close, makes my stomach churn.
“Theo,” I call.
“What’s up?” he asks. I hear him step closer.
“Did you leave the door open when you came back in? Did you hear it lock?”
“What the…? No, it was definitely closed and locked.” He shuffles closer to me, his arm touching mine as he looks around the room.
They must have come in during the night.
“Why would they come in here? Everything we need, food, toiletries, and all that stuff gets left in the hallway to hell,” he mutters.
Okay, I really hope they can’t hear because he just mentioned our nickname for that hallway loudly.
“And why leave the door open? They wanted us to know they were here. Why?” I ask the questions, but I don’t expect him to have the answers. We can speculate, but the only people who truly know are the crazy trio.
Theo shakes his head. “The mind games are evolving.”
“The rooms aren’t enough for them anymore,” I whisper. They’re not content to just watch and send us to be tortured; they want more interaction. They want even more control and to have us constantly on edge.
He draws in a deep breath through his nose and puts his hand on the small of my back. “It’s okay. We can still do this, Piper.”
I nod numbly. It’s one thing to be sent to those rooms, I know what’s going to happen there, but to never be sure what could happen while I’m asleep? How will I get any rest at all?
At the moment, I’m barely getting four hours of sleep at night. My parents would be shocked to know that I rise with the sun. Not that I see the sun much through the one tiny frosted-glass window above us that is half covered in leaves and moss.
“Hey,” he says, stepping in front of me and holding my upper arms in his strong hands. “Don’t do this to me or yourself. No second-guessing yourself. We had a pact, remember?”
“Yeah.” My spine straightens with determination. “I’m here. Should we go in there?”
He looks over his shoulder at the open door. “I don’t know…”
“What do you think is going on?”
“Maybe it’s just a food drop-off,” he says, but we both know it’s not.
“We have to go, Theo. I’m not going to be scared of an open door!”
I pull back out of Theo’s grip and walk toward the doorway. He follows like I knew he would; he’d never let me go alone.
We stop by the threshold, and I look around the corner. Gasping, I step into the hallway. “Theo, it’s open!” The door on the other side is wide open, too.
What’s going on?
“Is this some sort of test?” he muses.
“Probably, but we’ll never know if we don’t see how far we can get.”
He grabs my hand, stopping me from getting farther than two steps. “You sound like you’ve lost it, Piper.”
“Yeah, well, that seems to be the theme around here. Maybe to survive this prison you need to be a little off-kilter.”
His eyebrows pull together. “I think you should have some coffee before you do anything. Clearly you need the caffeine to get your brain going.”
I tilt my head to the side and fold my arms. “Are you coming or not?”
Groaning, he looks to the ceiling and closes his eyes. That’s a yes.
“Fine, but if this goes wrong, it’s your fault.”
I shrug. It’s not like it can get much worse.
Theo walks ahead and extends his arm to his side, making sure I stay behind him. I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t need protecting.
Still, I’m not about to make a big deal about it right now. We have more pressing issues.
We enter the clothes room and my nerves ignite. The next door is open, too.
“Something isn’t right,” he mumbles. “You know this is a trap, right?” he adds as we take small steps closer to the next door.
“Yep,” I reply.
“Do you want to go back? I’ll do this alone,” he offers, slipping his hand in mine.
I grip tight. “I’m going.”
“Thought you’d say that. So stubborn.”
We walk through the clothes room into the place where we were told all about this little house of horrors. Black and white squares dance over the TV screen. They’ve left that on, but it seems about as accidental as leaving the doors open.
They’re trying to ratchet up our fear.
It’s working. My heart pounds, but I keep my face emotionless. They’ll be watching this for sure.
Theo and I move farther into the room and head for the next open door. We’re almost back to the long corridor. What if the door to their man cave is open? That’s the only thing stopping us now. Their room has large windows; we have escape options there. It’ll be so much easier to get out.
“Theo?” I whisper as we approach the door. “Should we have woken the others?”
“Whatever they have planned here isn’t going to be fun or easy, Piper.”
“But what if that’s the test? What if they want to see if the first people awake, always you and me, will go and leave the others behind?”
He stops near the threshold. “This isn’t our escape, Piper.”
I lower my voice again. “They’re obviously not letting us go, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try.”
His dark brown eyes look conflicted. He wants to share my optimism, but he doesn’t believe it could be this easy.
I don’t think it will be this easy, either.
I turn away and walk along the corridor. The door at the end is open.
Rooms zero to five are on either side of us. My skin prickles with heat as I recall what I’ve endured in room two. I breathe heavier, trying to inflate my lungs to stop my body from curling up when faced with the memories.
I hate this corridor. It holds nothing but pain and despair.
“Piper, look!” Theo says. I whip my head around just in time to see him run past.
My feet move faster, rushing to him as he runs through the door into their game room. “The front door is open!” he shouts back.
“Theo, wait!” I call, pushing myself as fast as him, straight for fresh air.
This is too easy!
The soles of my feet thud against the hardwood floor as I dash past their pool table and arcade games. Theo doesn’t wait even for a second; he launches himself through the open door, and he’s out.
I hesitate, slowing for a second, but then I’m outside. The thick, dry air is unforgiving, clawing at my throat with every breath.
“We’re out,” he says, his dark eyes wide.
“I can’t believe it. But we need to get the others.” I look around. “Where are those guys? Why have they let us go? This isn’t the end, Theo.”
The front door slams behind us. Theo and I jump and turn around. I grip his arm as we watch Owen smiling from behind the glass window in the door.
“No,” I whisper. The others are still trapped in there.
Owen’s grin widens, and he mouths run.