Caleb looked like he wanted to argue further, but instead he dragged over a second chair so that he could sit next to Luca.
This morning had all been his fault; Luca knew that. He hadn’t been able to get the what-ifs out of his head: if he had been faster, if he hadn’t been so distracted, then he would have seen it sooner. He could have helped Michael. Instead, he had to watch while the runners took him away. He knew it all came down to bad timing—if the runners had come in even a few minutes later, he might have seen first, he might have been able to do something. Instead, the two burly men dressed in blue entered and immediately caught sight of the boy, wandering aimlessly toward hallways he should have been nowhere near.
Of course, he had to bring Jamie in. To the runners, and Jamie, this was only Michael’s third incident, which was infrequent enough to warrant raising a warning signal. Luca had been quick enough to catch most of the others—fortunately for Michael—but it was getting worse. Luca didn’t know how much longer he would be able to keep Michael safe.
He didn’t know if he should. The kid headed the same way, every time. Maybe it wasn’t obvious from the two or three instances the runners had caught, but to Luca, who had watched Michael try to leave time and time again, it was impossible to miss.
He was headed to the lobby.
He was trying to get out, and Luca had no idea why.
There was nothing out there for him, and Michael had to know that—they all did. More than that, there were the rumors, rumors of dark and dangerous things that kept all the residents pinned to their beds at night, kept their feet on the well-trod hallways they were supposed to walk, rather than the ones Michael tried to take, the ones that might lead away.
The rumors that warned against leaving. The ones that would be enough to fill a person’s nightmares and haunt their every waking breath.
If Luca’s nightmares weren’t already haunted, that is.
They all knew these rumors, the ever-present threats that loomed around them like unfulfilled prophecies begging to be enacted.
Michael couldn’t leave. So why did he keep trying?
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Luca asked, shaking himself back to the present. Usually at this time of day, Caleb was cleaning bathrooms with Anker. Runners didn’t like for them to bail on their assignments.
Caleb was quiet for a moment, which set a thin trail of dread leaking into the pit of Luca’s stomach. “Jamie came in.”
Luca’s dread exploded, and he opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Caleb cut him off. “He took Anker. Said I could be done for the afternoon since it’s harder for me to do the work without someone else. So I came here.”
Conflicting thoughts spun through Luca. Pity for Anker, who had been taken twice already this month for testing—more than anyone should have to endure. Relief that it had been Anker and not Caleb. Anger more than anything—at Jamie and the Warden and this building they were all trapped in together. That they had no way out of.
“You okay?” Luca asked, not able to put words to any of his other emotions.
“Sure,” Caleb responded lightly. “Who wouldn’t appreciate a day off?” But Luca could see through his friend’s bravado; people were being brought in more and more often for testing now. Luca hated it, would choose never to go back if he was given the option. But he knew that for Caleb it was worse. The last time he had been tested—nearly six months ago now—had taken such a severe toll on him that he had been left unconscious for a week. Caleb had barely survived that round of testing, and Luca knew there was no guarantee he would live through another—a realization that Luca was sure Caleb was more than aware of himself.
Without the testing, though, they were worthless in the eyes of the runners. The Warden. And so, what would that make any of them, as untestable residents?
“So,” Caleb said, interjecting neatly into Luca’s downward spiral of thoughts. “Anything interesting happen in here?”
Luca thought about the woman. Everly. He thought of Maurie. Michael. He thought of everything that was going wrong in that building, the danger he could feel now looming around every corner.
“I saw someone,” he found himself saying. “A woman. She came in with Jamie after—”
“She was with Jamie?” Caleb asked, skepticism rising in his tone. “Who was she?”
“She said she was Dr. Dubose’s granddaughter.”
Caleb’s eyebrows shot up. “Dr. Dubose has a granddaughter? I didn’t know he had any family at all.”
“I guess most of them probably do, they just choose not to talk about it. Her name is Everly.”
“Why was she here?”
“I don’t know,” Luca said. “She didn’t say.”
Caleb hummed thoughtfully. “Keep an eye on her?”
“Yeah,” Luca said distantly. “Yeah, I will.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jamie guided Everly away from the room full of screens, leading her by the elbow back to the elevator and up to the lobby. He deposited her just outside the elevator doors, then spun on his heel and retreated back inside, pressing another button so that the doors soon closed in front of him.
Standing alone—not counting Sophia, who sat stoically behind her desk—Everly closed her eyes and tried to think.
It was clear Jamie wanted her to go home. He hadn’t said anything to her since they’d left that room, but from the stern set of his brows, the downward cast of his lips, she knew he’d been unhappy. She’d pressed her luck too far and was now expected to leave.
Which made her want to do the exact opposite.
She glanced around. There really was no one there to stop her. She couldn’t get back down to that room, the one with the screens, with Luca, with the unnerving image of that young boy . . .
But she could always go up.
The more she thought about what she should do, the more she became aware of what she was still blatantly not thinking about, and the more she became aware of what she was not thinking about, the more her mind insisted on thinking about it again.
The hundredth floor.
No.
Everly squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the voice in her head that was begging her to go back up.
