“Keep your hands where we can see them,” Sammy said in a deeper voice than usual. He had the billhook out. His hand trembled.
“You can’t stop us,” Lucy said. “We’ll… kill you if you try.” She eyed the staircase. It was between them. She thought they could tackle Kelly before she could reach the first step. “If you make a sound, you’ll be sorry.” She pointed the ruined knife and ignored the small voice in her brain that wondered if she had enough blade left to stab someone—and the will to do it. Maybe Kelly would think the tremors shaking her hands were barely suppressed rage.
“Every door has a numeric locking code, and there’s a building-wide security check done at midnight, so you won’t be able to get back out again without help,” the woman said. Somehow her voice was familiar to Lucy. It nagged at her memory. She cudgeled her brain, but her thoughts were still muddied by the drugged coffee.
“We want to leave,” said Aidan. “You’ll help us get out of here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Lucy.”
Lucy forced herself to take a couple of steps. She squinted into the faint light, trying to see the woman. “Who are you?” she said.
Kelly turned toward them. Her right eye was surrounded by grafts of too-pink flesh, the tint of a pencil eraser. Lucy caught a gleam of a milky pupil and a cheek, cratered and pockmarked and covered in flesh-colored makeup.
The other half of Kelly’s face was normaclass="underline" skin pale and even, her left eye, bright blue. The round-collared cotton shirt she wore was as neat and white as the uniform Lucy had last seen her in; only the wreck of her face spoke of the months that had passed. Time seemed to shift backward. In her mind, Lucy could hear the nurse’s measured tones warning of the pinch of the needle, feel the rubber tubing tied tight around her biceps, smell the pine-scented cleanser the school janitors used. Automatically she looked down at the woman’s feet, expecting to see the standard issue white brogues, but they had been replaced by gray cross-trainers.
“Mrs. Reynolds!” Lucy said. “I don’t understand. What happened to you?”
“Who is that?” asked Aidan, sidling up beside her. He wasn’t too steady on his feet. Sammy, one step behind, gripped his elbow.
“The nurse from my high school.”
The generator started up its slow grumble again. Frigid air blew from the vents. Lucy felt the skin on her arms rise up in goose pimples. Equal parts chill and fear, she thought.
Mrs. Reynolds had moved closer. Now she stood with her good eye facing them.
“What happened?” Unconsciously, Lucy’s hand, the one not gripping her knife in a death hold, flew up to her cheek, felt the reassuring smoothness of her skin. Immediately she was embarrassed. The woman’s scars were horrifying. In the light, she could see that the nurse’s right eye was opaque with a bluish cast. Blind.
“The plague. The risk of nursing sick people.”
Lucy’s chest contracted in pity. It was awful, but she had to remember the circumstances. Mrs. Reynolds was in this place. Which made her an enemy. She flexed her fingers and tightened her grip on her knife.
“And what are you doing here?”
“I work here,” Mrs. Reynolds said.
“For her?”
“It’s complicated. Dr. Lessing is… she… she saved my life. Everyone here owes her a debt of some kind. The work she’s doing is important.”
“So are you here to convince me to just give up everything?” To her horror, Lucy found that she was crying. Seeing the nurse was a jarring reminder of her life before.
“No, I’m not. You’ll have to trust me.”
“Crap,” Lucy mumbled, swiping her streaming nose against her sleeve. She looked up at Aidan. His face was shocked. She gave herself a mental shake and raised the knife.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Lucy transferred her attention back to the nurse. “If that’s true and you want to help us, get us out of here now.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the nurse said, “Okay.”
They crept down the stairs, their boots slapping against the hard marble. Mrs. Reynolds led them quickly, sure-footed in the gloom. Her sneakers were silent. Lucy glanced over the railing. The hallway far below was in complete darkness. It looked like a bottomless hole.
One floor down, then two. She could barely discern the outlines of doors leading to unknown rooms. No light gleamed from the cracks under the doors. She wondered if the other Sweepers were sleeping. The air conditioner had shut itself off again, and the generator was quiet. All was silent but for the puff of their breathing and the faint squeaks of rubber soles.
Slowly, Lucy’s eyes adjusted to the dark. The steep stairs became more distinct. There were different grades of black, shades of gray. She quickened her pace, holding on to the railing in case she stumbled. Aidan and Sammy were right behind her.
Lucy could see the front door now. It was massive, steel, with a gleaming column of locks and bolts on one side and a heavy chain looped across it. They should have been suspicious when they’d come and found the place open, should have known it was a trick. People like this didn’t leave their doors unlocked.
“Break to the right once you’re outside,” Mrs. Reynolds said in a low voice. “The floodlights only illuminate the immediate area around the front entrance. If you stick to the edges, you’ll be practically invisible.”
Lucy hesitated. She didn’t know what to say.
“Just go. Once you’re through the door, run as fast as you can.”
Lucy hurried toward the door. Her hand reached up to pull the chain free and to click back the first of the deadbolts. The nurse, her shoulder pressed up against Lucy’s, tapped a sequence of numbers into a keypad. A red light turned to green. Lucy tried not to stare at the ravaged cheek so closely. She fumbled with the heavy bolt. It was stiff and she needed both hands to pull it back. But what to do with her knife? She didn’t dare put it down.
She felt the rush of cold air against her back first. An inner door had opened somewhere. Then the scuffle of heavy steps came out of the darkness behind them. She whirled around. Prepared for the suddenness of blinding lights, she pressed her free hand to her forehead and shielded her eyes. Even so, when the switches were thrown, the glare from the fluorescent tubes was dazzling. Lucy blinked furiously to sharpen her vision. Sammy had fallen back, his hood pulled over his black mask. Aidan braced himself. His eyes cut left and right looking for an escape route, but they were trapped.
At the corner of her field of vision, Lucy saw Mrs. Reynolds draw away from them. So much for her help, Lucy thought. We should have threatened her. Taken her hostage. She pressed up against the door, feeling the heavy bolts against her spine, searching for some way out. The foyer split into two corridors, which threaded around behind the steps. She didn’t know if they linked up or meandered in opposite directions. She knew the facility was huge, complex.
“Why are you acting like this?” Dr. Lessing said in her calm voice. She rested her hand against the steel banister. Her hair was no longer contained in a neat bun. She had it tucked behind her ears. Her lab coat was unbuttoned as if she had just thrown it on, and she wore blue slippers on her feet.
“Guests don’t sneak out like furtive thieves in the night,” she continued. “I’m disappointed in you, Lucy and Aidan. I thought we were being honest with one another.” The cool gray-painted stone walls picked up her words and threw them back again. The echoes were disorientating. Her gaze lingered on Sammy’s form, and a frown appeared momentarily on her forehead. His eyes glittered through the sockets of his mask.