Everly did not know how long it took, but she was certain hours must have passed as she inched her way down the hidden staircase. It was a slow process, making her way down the stairs without being able to see an inch in front of her face.
After a while, she put her foot out and was jarred to feel level ground. Breathing somewhat uneasily, Everly put her arms out, feeling the walls around her for a hint as to where she was. Her hands connected with the surface of what felt like another door, and she searched around until she found a doorknob, obscured by the dark. Everly didn’t hesitate long before twisting it and, finding this door to also be unlocked, she pushed her way out toward whatever lay beyond.
Dim light pooled into the stairwell from the crack made by the partially opened door. Stepping out, Everly had to squint to see anything beyond her own two feet, so little was the change from the pitch-black stairwell to the space she had just entered. Once she could see a little more clearly, Everly spun around, looking to see where she was.
It was a black hall. The same hall, Everly realized with a shock, that Richard’s laboratory was located on.
Or, at least, the same floor.
Maybe, she thought, trying to latch onto something, anything.
Maybe she could find him down there.
Maybe he would help everything make sense.
Maybe he could help her get out.
Or maybe he was the reason for the blood-covered room, a part of her mind tried to intervene. She brushed that thought off, knowing she was running low on options.
Looking around the inky black halls, Everly’s mind skipped to Richard’s lab, and she shivered, the sterility of that lab reminding her of the white room she had just come from. She rubbed her arms, only to quickly stop when she remembered the blood that was still stuck to her skin, now mostly dried.
Hurriedly, to divert her mind, Everly started to move. Besides the color, there was nothing striking about the setting—nothing that indicated what part of the floor she was in, or what direction she should walk in order to seek Richard.
Without much more of an option, Everly set out arbitrarily in one direction, walking down a dark hallway in the hope that it would somehow lead her where she was meant to go. A few minutes of walking brought Everly to a place where the hall widened, then intersected with a separate hall. She glanced briefly down each identical path and on a whim turned left.
As she kept walking, Everly came across nothing but more hallways and more intersections, but no doors. It was a labyrinth of paths and corners, none of which were proving useful. Everly was becoming frustrated, and a little wary. Two more turns went by, and she had to stop.
She was clearly going nowhere. Whatever there was to discover on that floor, it was hidden where even she couldn’t find it, and wherever Richard might have been hiding, she felt no closer to him than when she had started. It was beginning to feel dangerous, being down there all alone, and she didn’t know if it was worth it anymore. Deciding that it was best to go back the way she had come, Everly spun around, then stopped.
She had no idea where she was. The floor was a maze with no beginning and no end and no center; Everly had sense enough to recognize when she had become hopelessly lost.
Taking a deep breath, Everly decided that the only way through had to be forward, even if she didn’t exactly know which way forward was. She started walking again, trying desperately to remember which turns she had made on the way in, and thinking all the while that she was heading farther and farther away from her destination.
Half an hour passed (or something that felt like half an hour). In that time, Everly accomplished nothing other than taking a handful of random turns. She was becoming more and more certain that she was going to die down there, lost among the midnight black halls, when a sound nearby made her freeze, and all the color leached out of her face.
She heard footsteps. Coming toward her.
Everly sprinted in the opposite direction, not giving any thought to whether the person behind her could hear the pounding of her feet. She fled blindly through the maze of halls. Out of breath and energy, Everly eventually slumped against a wall, listening for any sign of pursuit.
Her head snapped up as she heard the footsteps again, only much closer now. At that point, she was too tired to run, and whoever was coming near her was too quickly approaching, so Everly waited, looking up from her crouch on the floor to see who it would be to round the corner.
The person she saw running down the hall toward her caught Everly so off guard that she sat frozen and blinking for several moments before moving.
It was the man, the one who had teased Sophia that day in the lobby of the Eschatorologic. The one she had seen again in the security room when she followed Jamie down there.
Luca.
He seemed equally as surprised to find Everly down on that floor as she was to find him. He cocked his head to the side, studying her.
“You,” he said, in a voice so low it was nearly a whisper. Catching himself, he blinked heavily and spoke again, louder this time: “How did you get down to this floor?”
Realizing how awkward she must have looked crouched beside the wall, Everly made to stand up, and then she considered his words. Considered why she might not have been in a place that was safe for her. Considered why, if she couldn’t be down there, this man still could?
“I can be down here,” Everly said defensively, offering Luca no further explanation. “And what about you? Does my grandfather know you’re down here, sneaking around?”
Luca grinned, though to Everly it looked to be a smile laced with some kind of pain. “Ah, yes. The granddaughter of the great Richard Dubose. I suppose that gives you an unlimited access pass now, does it?”
Everly didn’t say anything, but she saw his eyes taking her in, snagging on the blood encrusting her clothes and skin, which she had been desperately trying to forget about. She could see the alarm when it entered his mind.
“What happened?” Luca asked, any smugness from before gone. “Are you okay?” He moved to step closer to her, but Everly quickly retreated until she was pressed against the wall.
“I’m fine,” she said shortly. “It’s not mine. I—” But she didn’t know how to explain how she had come to find herself covered in another person’s blood.
Luca didn’t comment again on the blood, but she could tell he was still assessing her, trying to understand what she had found herself in the middle of. “You’re running from something. Or someone.”
Everly held her tongue, but she could see his mind still whirring.
“You are,” he said, more accusatory this time. “You saw something, didn’t you?” He nodded toward her ruined outfit, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Look,” he said, “I don’t care what you saw or what you did, all I’m saying is you should watch your back. The Warden has spies everywhere in this building.” His eyes roamed the ceiling, and he spoke out of the side of his mouth without looking back down. “There are eyes all around us. If they catch sight of you, there’s no going back.”
“What spies? The old people upstairs?” Everly snorted, but she watched Luca uneasily.
Luca only stared at her. “You really don’t know anything about this building, do you? Why did you come?”
“Why do you care?” Everly asked sharply. “Who are you to care why I’m here?”
“I—” Luca started. She saw his eyes widen, then he sighed. “Clearly you have some trust issues,” he said. “You won’t survive in this building without friends though—even if you are Richard Dubose’s granddaughter—so how about this: I’ll prove to you that you can trust me.”
