Casting a sideways look at Caleb, Luca said, “We’ve got some things we need to take care of before lights out. We’ll be gone for an hour or two, and I highly suggest you stay put. There’s no use in wandering around out there; you’ll only get lost and then be caught. You got that?”
He could tell she didn’t like what he was saying, but she nodded. “Good,” Luca said. “We need to get going. I’ll be back right before lights out. Don’t do anything stupid.”
As Luca turned to leave, he thought he saw Everly reaching behind herself, placing a hand near the small of her back. Before he could see why, he left, closing Everly in alone within the small, gray room.
Luca and Caleb walked in silence for a minute before Caleb stopped, forcing Luca to slow down and look at him.
“Are you sure we can trust her?” Caleb asked in a low voice.
“No,” Luca said, raising his shoulders. “I’m not. But I think we can, Caleb. I—I can’t explain it. I think we need to.”
Caleb watched Luca closely for a second before speaking. “Who is she?”
“She’s—” But Luca didn’t know how to answer that. Who was she, this woman who had formed so solidly out of his living nightmares, his waking dreams? Why did they keep crossing paths, and why did he feel so at ease around her? The dreams . . . they always ended with so much fear. Dread. So why didn’t he feel that way when he was around her now? What did it all mean?
Luca sighed. “I don’t know who she is. But I intend to find out.”
“And you think helping her get out is the best option? Is that even possible?”
“Maybe. People leave—Dr. Dubose, Jamie. It could be that only residents like us are trapped. Maybe she’ll be okay.”
“But if she leaves . . .”
“I don’t know, Caleb. I really don’t know anything.”
Caleb was silent. They started walking again down the green passageway, headed for the dome. “I don’t know how I feel about Everly,” Caleb said eventually. “But you clearly see something in her. So, I trust you, and I’ll help you. Whatever you need.”
Luca looked over at his friend. “Thank you.”
After roll call, Luca slipped out of the gray-clad ranks and made his way to the laundry room where he grabbed a spare blanket off the shelves lining the expansive walls within the musty room, as well as a pair of gray scrubs. He stood for a moment, considering, before he also grabbed a small towel and dunked it into one of the vats of warm water that were used throughout the day to scrub down the soiled fabrics. Then, his pillage in hand, Luca quickly walked back toward his room.
Everly was still inside, and the sight of her—safe, for now—released something that had been pent-up in his chest. A fear, he realized. For her. Evading her eyes, he tossed her the gray bundle he had collected for her.
“Thought you could use a change of clothes,” he said, indicating her blood-stained outfit. “Here,” he said, handing over the wet towel as well.
Everly looked up at Luca, her mouth hanging agape. “Thank you,” she said.
He turned away to allow her to change. When he turned back around, Luca could see that the clothes he had brought hung loosely on her tall, slender frame, but anything had to be better than what she’d worn before. He saw her sigh with relief at the change, and then she picked up the towel from where she had placed it on the floor and spent a few minutes vigorously scrubbing at her arms and hands, trying to remove any remnants of the red that had dried all over her skin.
Luca wanted to ask her what happened. He wanted to know whose blood it was, what she had seen. What she had done. But every time he opened his mouth to ask, he found that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know yet, so instead he watched as she washed away any traces of red until the towel was dyed a dirty pink and her skin was clean.
Wordlessly, Everly piled up the soiled clothes and towel in a corner of the room and laid out the blanket Luca had offered her parallel to his bed. Luca lay down on the bed, resting atop the thin blanket, and they both lapsed into silence until the lights shut off.
Luca wouldn’t close his eyes. He couldn’t—not with her lying so close. He couldn’t fall asleep because he knew what would come. But against all his wishes, as the minutes bled into hours and he heard Everly’s breathing begin to settle into something calm and even, his own eyes began to droop, and Luca found himself falling toward the flames.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Another snapshot within the building:
One hundred floors of residents, fast asleep in their gray beds, clad in their gray scrubs, dreaming gray dreams—those who were still capable of dreams.
One single secretary with mind-numbingly beige clothes—sitting at her desk, awake, in a sense, staring at the empty space ahead of her.
A floor below that, in a gray room on a green hallway, a young man, asleep in his bed against his will, with his arm hanging limply over the edge, his hand reaching without realizing.
Next to him, a young woman, also asleep. She lay there, beneath the patchy blanket she was given, curled up into a tight ball with her arms wrapped around her head.
One floor below that, a man in red scrubs with tufted gray hair and blue eyes rimmed in green, pacing the length of his room: back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back. He had been pacing for over a week and would continue to pace for many days still to come.
A few halls over from him, a person in black had been watching the screens on the wall for hours.
It was due to this close vigilance that the person in black was able to spot immediately when the young woman was in the stairs, on the black floor, lost in the building. When she found the young man, when he—predictably—led her back up to his room (with camera feeds that were being looped in the surveillance room, perhaps, but not from the dark office belonging to the person in black).
Time passed differently in the building—if it passed at all—and so it was hard to gauge exactly what day it was in the outside world, exactly what that would correspond to for the people inside. But still, something comes and something goes, be it time or something more ethereal than all that.
Staying in the building had consequences—for some people more than others.
The person in black was certain that the woman curled up on the floor of that man’s room had no idea what it meant for her to be there. What it would mean if she stayed much longer.
But the person in black knew.
There was a timer in the person in black’s head. Again, time passed differently, but still the timer was there, and the digits were rising closer and closer to that sought-after number.
It would be soon. The person in black couldn’t suppress a keen smile.
Very soon, there would be no turning back. It always happened. Maybe slightly different every time, but still. It would happen.
