Passenger (Passenger, #1)(11)

Nothing and no one to help her.

Go find Mom and Alice, she thought. Go home.

But she couldn’t—she had to know. She needed—she needed—

The blood drained from her head, until she felt as dizzy and light as the specks of dust floating through the air around her. It was like passing into a dream; the halls were blurring at the edges as she walked, devouring the gilded mirrors, the rich wooden chests and chairs. Shadows played with the doorways, inviting her in, turning her toward one of the emergency stairwells. The sound became a pounding, a drum, a call louder and louder and louder until Etta thought her skull would split from the pressure—

A deafening shot ripped through even the feedback, startling Sophia to a skidding stop. Etta’s whole body jerked with the suddenness of it. Awareness snapped against her nerves; the stench of something burning, something almost chemical.

She saw the blood first as it snaked across the tile to her toes.

Then the milk-white head of hair.

The thing was a crumpled body.

Etta screamed, screamed, screamed, and was drowned out by the pulsing feedback. She pushed past a startled Sophia to get to the body on the cold tile, heaving, a sob caught in her throat, and dropped down to her knees beside Alice.

Breathing, alive, breathing—

Alice’s pale eyes flickered over at her, unfocused. “…Duck?”

Blood sputtered from her chest, fanned out against Etta’s hands as she pressed them against the wound. Her mind began to shut down in its panic.

What happened? What happened?

“You’re all right,” Etta told Alice, “you’re—”

“Shot?” Sophia said, leaning over Etta’s shoulder. There was a tremor of something in her voice—fear? “But who—?”

A shout carried to them from the other end of the hall. Three men in tuxedos, one of them the man in glasses she’d bumped into in the Great Hall, followed by a security guard, seemed to come toward them in slow motion. The emergency light beside them caught a pair of glasses and made them glow.

“Call 911!” Etta yelled. “Somebody help, please!”

There was a slight pressure on her hand. Etta looked down as Alice’s eyes slid shut. “…the old…familiar places…run.…”

Her next breath came raggedly, and the next one never came at all.

The scream that tore out of Etta’s throat was soundless. Arms locked around her waist, dragging her up from the ground. She struggled, thrashing against the grip.

CPR—Alice needed help—Alice was—

“We have to go!” Sophia shouted into her ear.

What the hell is going on?

The door to the stairwell directly behind them scraped open. Loose hair floated around Etta’s face, clinging to the sweat on her cheeks and neck.

The stairwell was so brightly lit compared to the rest of the building that Etta had to hold up her hands to shield her eyes.

The humming…it was as if the empty air on the edge of the landing, just above the stairs, was moving, vibrating in time with the sound. It shimmered the way heat did when it rose from sidewalks on an unbearably hot day. The walls leaned in toward her shoulders.

“Sorry about this.”

She was shoved forward, and the world shattered. A blackness ringed the edges of her vision, clenched her spine, dragged her, tossed her into the air with crushing pressure. Etta lost her senses, her logic, her thoughts of Stop, help, Mom—she lost everything.

She disappeared.


ETTA DIDN’T SURFACE BACK INTO REALITY SO MUCH AS SLAM INTO IT.

Hours, days—she wasn’t sure—a small forever later, her eyes flashed open. There was pressure on her chest, making it difficult to draw a breath. When she tried to sit up, to open the path to her lungs, her joints cracked. Her arms and legs cramped as she tried to stretch out, to feel in the darkness—they struck something hard and rough.

Wood, she thought, recognizing the smell that filled her nose. Fish.

She coughed and forced her eyes open. A small room unfolded around her. The wood floor dipped violently to the right, as if someone had upended one side of it.

As the bright sparks cleared out of her vision, and her eyes adjusted to the dark, Etta dragged her legs in and her chest up, so she could sit up in—what was this? A large cradle, a bunk bed built into the floor and bolted to the wall.

The museum…what was going on?

There had been some kind of…some kind of an explosion.…

Where were the cold tile floors of the stairwell? Where were the fire alarms? Her heart was in her throat, fluttering like a desperate animal. Her muscles felt like they’d been carved out of wood. She reached up, trying to scrub the burning sensation from her eyes, erase the black spots still floating there.

Alice. Where was Alice? She had to get to Alice—

The fuzz of static in her ears burst like the first clap of rain from a thundercloud. Suddenly, Etta was drenched in sound. Creaking, groans, slamming footsteps, pops of explosions in the air. Screams—

“—forward—!”

“Behind me—!”

“—the helm—!”

The words took shape, strung together like dissonant chords, smashing cymbals. The room was clogged with silvery smoke.

This wasn’t the stairwell; this wasn’t any office in the Met. The walls were nothing more than panels of dark unfinished wood. When she turned, she could just make out the shape of a chair and a figure cowering in it, arms clasped over her head.