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I sighed, looking resigned. I went to the kitchen and gathered them up from each drawer. I hoped he wouldn’t notice the missing butcher knife. He didn’t. He thanked me for my cooperation, scooped up the knives, and headed for the door. “It would be best if you got some sleep. Everyone else will be resting now, and we’ll all need to be up early tomorrow.”

  Boone’s theory that they didn’t pay much attention at night had merit. “Of course,” I said.

  He opened the door, then halted. “Oh, one more thing.”

  My heart leapt to my throat. Leave, already . “Yes?”

  “I know you’ve been without for a while, my dear, but I feel obligated to remind you that showering too much can over-dry the skin.”

  I let out a breath in relief. “I won’t overdo it.”

  “Good.” And he was gone.

  Despite my vow not to go back into the bathroom, I realized that I had to. For one thing, I had to get Foster’s elevator key. For another, I was probably going to need that butcher knife.

  Digging through Foster’s pockets meant that I got bloody again. The knife was also drenched in it. I washed everything best as I could in the sink. Then I closed the door on the bathroom, this time for good.

  I waited before I left the room, trying to give everyone time to go to bed. When I did step into the hallway, the lights out there were off. Good. I crept down the hallway, feeling the knife with every step. I had tucked it into the waist of my pants. A sheath would have been nice, but I didn’t have anything like that. As far as weapons went, it wasn’t great anyway. If I knew where they kept the machine guns, that would have been much better. But I didn’t know.

  At the elevator, I had to try different keys until I found the right one. But then the wall slid back, and the elevator door opened. It made a loud dinging noise. I swore silently and scurried inside before anyone could come out to see why the elevator was moving.

  The elevator closed before I saw anyone, but I didn’t know if that meant that no one had heard me or not. I hit the button for level two. I needed to get to the control room and figure out how to get Jason out.

  Level two was dark when I emerged. And silent, except for another annoying ding from the elevator. I eased my way out of it.

  Before heading down the hallway to the control room, I heard a noise. Footsteps?

  I froze in the darkness.

  A door was definitely closing. Crap. I didn’t know what to do. I considered diving back into the elevator.

  But if someone was walking around down here, why hadn’t he turned on the lights? That might mean that whoever moving around down here was... “Jason?” I whispered.

  The sound of a door opening. “Azazel?”

  It was him. I ran in the direction of his voice, and I felt him before I could make out his features in the darkness. He pulled me into a fierce hug, kissing me hard.

  “You’re out,” I said. “How did you get out?”

  “I picked the lock weeks ago. Dismantled the bed, used a screw. I’ve been coming out at night, trying to find a way out of here, but I haven’t been able to thus far.”

  “I have a key to the elevator,” I said. “And I know how to unlock the doors.”

  “How did you manage that ?” he said.

  “It’s a long story,” I said, tugging him in the direction of the control room. “I promise to explain everything later.” Including how I’m dead .

  The door to the control room was locked. “Damn it,” I said.

  “Here,” said Jason. He knelt down next to the door and went to work at it with the screw. It took several minutes, during which I anxiously peered down the hall, waiting for someone to come down.

  But then the door opened. We went into the control room. I found a light switch on the wall and turned it on. That was when I saw Jason clearly for the first time. His hair was greasy, clinging to his forehead, and knotted. It was getting pretty long. He’d had long hair when he was a cult leader in Jasontown, but since then, he’d been keeping it short. He hadn’t shaved either, and he had a full, crazy-looking beard. His face was a little grimy. I put my hand to his cheek. “You look awful.”

  “And you look surprisingly clean,” he said. “Is your hair wet?”

  “I had to clean up after I beheaded this dick who was trying to rape me. I took a shower. I told you it was a long story.”

  Several different emotions flicked across his face. Confusion. Rage. “Rape?” he said. “Shower? You had a shower?”

  “Jason. We have to focus on getting out of here.”

  “No,” he said. “Why were you in a place with a guy who was trying to rape you? And why was there a shower?”

  “I thought I could sort of... seduce him and get his keys away from him, but he got really... Look, never mind.” I threw up my hands in frustration and hurried over to a keyboard. I consulted the little diagram taped next to it. “So, I think all of these doors are where everyone’s being kept in isolation. Should I let everyone out at once, or should we get Boone, Grace, and Emma out from general population?”

  “General what?” He folded his arms over his chest. “You’ve been working with them. You had a shower.”

  “Not for long,” I said. “And it was the only way I knew to get information. I was trying to get us out of here.”

  “Well, I’m sure it was horrible for you,” he said. “Showering and all that.”

  I glared at him. “I’m just going to open all the doors. Then we get everyone in the elevator and go down to get Grace and Boone.”

  “Meanwhile,” he said, “I’ve been thinking you were dead, because they’d have no use for you. I’ve been spending every day wondering if I’d ever see you again. And you know about ‘general population.’ You didn’t think that if you got me out, I’d help take everything down?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And as soon as I figured out how to open the doors, I came down here to get you.”

  “Maybe you did,” he said, “or maybe you just happened to run into me.”

  “Jason.” I took a deep breath. “Do you really think that I wouldn’t come for you as soon as I could?”

  He clenched his jaw. Then he relaxed. “I guess not.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Can we focus?”

  He was next to me, his knuckles brushing my cheek. “This guy you killed? Did he hurt you?”

  I shook my head. “You know me better than that.”

  “It makes me crazy thinking of you in danger,” he said.

  I kissed him. “We’re still in danger, babe.”

  “Right,” he said. “So, you’re gonna open the doors?”

  I typed in the codes that Bartholomew had told me for every door on the diagram on the second and third floors. “That should do it.”

  Jason was staring up at the monitors, which were still set on the main room downstairs. It was empty and dark. “This place is where they watch us, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I said, going back to the hallway.

  “I’d like to destroy it all,” he said.

  “Well, we don’t have time.” I darted out of the control room and opened the first door I came to. Inside was an empty room. I ran to the next. Also empty. “Help me,” I called to Jason.

  He came out of the control room too and began opening doors. They were all empty.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “I know there are other people in here. I saw them on the monitors.” That wasn’t some trick, was it?

  “You said that you opened the doors on the floor up as well, right? Maybe they’re up there,” said Jason.

  Maybe. I pulled open the last door. Jude burst out of it. He hugged me. “Zaza? You’re alive?”

  Well, in a manner of speaking. I hugged him back. “I’m fine.”

  Jason cleared his throat. “You can stop hugging her now.”

  I released Jude. “You know, you’re in a bad mood,” I told Jason.

  “Maybe if I’d had a shower in my room, I’d be in a better one,” he shot back. “Good to see you
, Jude. Keep your hands off my girlfriend.”

  “Oh, I missed you so,” said Jude.

  “I think we should get Boone and Grace next,” I said. “If you guys can stop snarking at each other?”

  “Lead the way,” said Jason.

  I went back to the elevator. Using the key, I opened it, and we all trooped inside. I hit the button for level one, and the elevator lurched to life. In seconds, it opened onto Jude’s old wing.

  Jude looked around. “Home sweet home.”

  “I’ll get Grace,” I said. “Jason, you get Boone. Jude, you’re on Emma. Grab them and get back to the elevator as soon as you can. If they see us, they’ll gas us, and this whole thing is going to be over before it even gets started.”

  We took off. I jogged down Grace’s wing and threw open her door. “Grace, get up.”

  “What the hell?” said a voice, but it wasn’t Grace’s. It was Boone’s.

  Oh, shit. This was my fault. I pushed them together. I made them do this. But Boone really should have had a little bit of self-restraint. She was fourteen for God’s sake. “I don’t believe you, Boone. How could you take advantage of her like that?”

  “Azazel?” said Grace.

  “Relax,” said Boone. “We were only sleeping.”

  “Yeah,” Grace said. “Seriously. Nothing happened.” She sounded annoyed.

  “You know what? I don’t care. Get your asses out of bed, we’re breaking out.”

  Grace whooped.

  “Shh!” I said.

  But at that moment we heard the shrill voice of Emma. “Trouble!” she was screaming. “They’re causing trouble!”

  “God,” said Grace. “She’s such a cuntface.”

  I tore up the hall, Boone and Grace at my heels.

  Jason was in the main room. “Can’t find Boone.”

  “Got him,” I said.

  Jude raced into the main room. Emma followed him. She was shrieking. “Stop them! Stop them!”

  I ran to her, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her. “Emma, shut up. We’re getting out of here. Your baby is upstairs. I can take you to her.”

  She shoved me. “Trouble!”

  “They could turn on the gas at any second,” said Jason.

  “Maybe not,” I said, realizing. “They need the elevator to get to the control room.”

  “The elevator?” said Jude. “That’s the only way up?”

  I nodded.

  He turned on his heel and dashed into his wing. “It’s still here. How long you think before they pull it back up?”

  I turned to Emma. “Come with us.”

  She shook her head ferociously. “Nothing good ever happens when you cause trouble.”

  Jason grabbed my arm. “Leave her.”

  “But—”

  He was dragging me down the hall. Grace and Boone were running too. We dove into the elevator. I tried to yell for Emma one more time, but the elevator door closed on us. I pulled myself together as best as I could.

  “You can’t force her to do something she doesn’t want to do,” Jason said, squeezing my hand.

  I guessed that was true. Well, I couldn’t afford to think about it right now. I hit the button for the third floor and the elevator began to rise.

  Grace threw her arms around my neck. “We thought you were dead.”

  I am , I thought. But I couldn’t afford to think about that either.

  The elevator opened, and we were greeted by eight men with guns pointing straight at us.

  Jude hit the button to close the elevator door.

  They were shooting, and a few bullets got in. One caught Grace on the arm. She screamed.

  “Grace!” said Boone.

  “Which floor gets us out of here, Azazel?” said Jason, his fingers hovering over the buttons.

  “There are people on the third floor,” I said. “We have to get them out.”

  “ Which floor?”

  “Five,” I said. “But we can’t just go without them. We already left Emma.”

  Jason punched the button for the fifth floor. The elevator came to life again. He turned to me. He gazed steadily into my eyes. “If it were only me and you, I’d say we take them on right now. But we’ve got three other people here, none of them are trained, and one’s wounded. We have to leave them.”

  I shook my head. “They’re trapped. Jason.”

  Grace was crying softly, crumpled in the corner. Boone had knelt down beside her, inspecting the gunshot. “You’re okay. You’re okay,” he was whispering, but I wasn’t sure if he was trying to reassure Grace or himself.

  “We’re unarmed,” said Jason. “And they don’t die.”

  The elevator doors opened. I half expected there to be more men with guns here, but there weren’t. Everyone but me hurried out of the elevator. I hesitated.

  “Azazel,” said Jason. “We have to go.”

  He was right. We were almost there. Going back right now was stupid. I ran out of the elevator and led the others through the foyer to the door to the outside world. It was locked, but, as I predicted, smashing it was easy.

  Jason used his fist, bundled up in his jumpsuit.

  As he pushed aside the shards of glass, we heard the elevator open behind us, and the sound of men’s feet running towards us.

  “Go,” Jason yelled, pushing Grace through the busted door. Boone went next, and then Jude.

  Bullets careened around the corner. I dove through the door, with Jason at my heels.

  Boone, Grace, and Jude were just standing there, all looking terrified.

  “Run,” said Jason. “Are you mental?”

  We pushed them ahead of us, racing out into the night. In ten feet, we were on a sidewalk in a suburban neighborhood. Across the street from us, the comforting lights of a strip mall burned in the darkness. We slowed to a walk.

  The armed men hadn’t followed.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Boone was hunched over a computer in the public library, which was practically empty. Apparently, they were going to close in twenty minutes. I had been astonished to learn that we were in Paramus, quite close to the hospital Jason and I had been taken from. They’d barely moved us at all. We’d been right under everyone’s noses.

  I surmised that Bartholomew and the others weren’t chasing us because they didn’t want to expose themselves. Some of his comments led me to believe that he wanted his operation to fly under the radar. So, for the moment, anyway, we seemed relatively safe.

  Of course, we had no money, no phones, no weapons. We knew where we were, but that was it. We couldn’t even use a payphone to call for help. We had no change. Even if we could have gotten someone to spot us some money, we didn’t know anyone’s phone numbers. Back in the days before I had a cell phone, I used to have phone numbers memorized, but not anymore.

  It had been Boone’s idea to find a computer. “Get me to an internet connection, and I’ll find anyone’s number we might need,” he’d said. He could even text people from the computer, apparently. So Boone was working, and we were all huddled around him, watching.

  He was sending a text to Hallam, giving him our location and asking for him to pick us up.

  “You should contact your parents too,” I said. “And Grace’s.” I figured their parents had been worried sick about them all this time.

  “On it,” said Boone, pulling up another tab. “Grace’s first. What are their names?”

  Grace told him.

  Boone typed.

  Jason was shifting from one foot to the other. Unlike the rest of us, he wasn’t watching Boone but rather staring out over the library, as if he expected men with guns to burst in at any second. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”

  “What?” I said. “Having them find their parents?”

  “No,” he said. “Contacting Hallam.”

  “Who else would we contact?” I asked. Hallam and Marlena were the closest thing to family either of us had. Well, except for Jude now, I guessed.

/>   “Oh, God,” said Boone.

  “What?” I turned back to him. “What happened?”

  “I’m sorry, Grace,” he said.

  She was shaking her head, her face white.

  “What?” I said.

  “My parents,” she said. “There’s an article. It says they died in a car accident.”

  “It says you all died in a car accident,” said Boone. “According to this, you’re dead too.” He typed again, then shook his head slowly. “And so am I. And so is my family.”

  “Do you think they did this?” I asked. Bartholomew had told me that they didn’t kill people, but I didn’t exactly regard him as trustworthy. “Killed your families when they abducted you?”

  “It would make it all easier,” said Jude. “If the people they had locked up in there didn’t have families searching for them.”

  “Maybe the article’s wrong,” I said.

  “Maybe,” said Boone. But he didn’t look hopeful. He looked stricken.

  “You can stay with us for now,” I said. “I have a big house.” Hallam and Marlena lived there now, but it used to belong to my rich, crazy grandmother. She’d tried to kill Jason, and I’d pushed her down a flight of stairs, but she’d still left me everything in her will.

  “Your Hallam guy just texted back,” said Boone. “He’s on his way.”

  “Tell him he might need more than one car,” I said.

  Jason touched my arm. “I don’t want to go back there.”

  I turned to him. “Why not?” He wasn’t making any sense.

  He tugged me away from the others, pulling me down between the stacks. I stared up at rows of mystery fiction. “Jason, what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t think...” He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t think Chance should see me.”

  “Of course your son should see you,” I said. “You’re his father.”

  “I’m...” He swallowed. “What if I completely fuck him up?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said.

  Boone’s voice floated down to us, grim. “No, they’re definitely dead. I’m looking at death certificates here.”

  I poked my head out of the stacks. “Death certificates are on the internet for the public?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “I told you guys I was good with computers. I was afraid that I’d been away so long that everything would have gotten way more complicated, and none of my tricks would work, but I still seem to be on top of it.”