A Drop of Night(57)

Perdu leaps at me, teeth bared. Hayden knocks him out of the air like a fly, the hilt of his knife connecting with the back of Perdu’s head. Perdu drops to the floor, wailing.

“You will die!” he shrieks. “Vous allez mourir, you wretched children of darkness!”

Lilly, Will, Jules, Hayden, me: we all stand stock-still, gaping at each other.

“What did he say?” Jules asks.

“He wants to come into the panic room,” I say. “He says it’s not safe out here, but he’s not making any sense, he’s—”

“He said the butterfly man hates him,” Will says quietly, turning to me. “He said he’s moving us around like dolls. Perdu might be working for the butterfly man, but I don’t think it’s voluntary. He wants to get out of here.”

“We’re not taking him in with us,” Jules interrupts. “Not in a million years. We need to get rid of him and we need to get back inside—”

“We’re no safer in there,” I say, and Jules snaps right back: “We are; we’re definitely safer than out in the open.”

“We can’t let him go,” Lilly says. “It doesn’t even matter whose side he’s on; he knows everything and he can tell on us.”

“Lilly, do you want him in there with us?” Jules says, exasperated. “He almost got us killed! We have no idea who he is! Maybe he is the butterfly man.”

Hayden’s chewing the inside of his lip, head down. He looks up sharply. “This is how it’s going to be,” he says. “Anouk, you said he knows where the exit is? So he’ll lead us out of here. If he tries anything he’s dead; until then, we’ve got a guide. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, didn’t Confucius say that?”

No, Hayden. Confucius did not say that. But Hayden’s already dragging Perdu roughly across the floor. “Somebody help me. Rope and two carabiners, I need them now.”

Lilly runs for the hatch.

“We’re taking him in with us?” Jules asks, disbelieving. “We’re doing this?”

Lilly crawls out of the panic room, a heavy coil of fluorescent-orange climbing rope looped over her shoulder. Perdu watches her pass the rope to Hayden, and I see the exact instant the realization hits him.

A spasm races down his cheek. He shrieks, high and birdlike, tries to wriggle away. Hayden places his foot at the small of Perdu’s back and pins him to the floor. “Aurélie!” Perdu coughs. “Aurélie!”

“Don’t hurt him,” Lilly says, and I watch as Hayden ties his wrists, his legs. I try to force my thudding heart back into its designated cavity.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Hayden says to Jules, knotting the rope through the carabiners. “It’s either this or we shoot him in the head, and something tells me you wouldn’t approve of that, either.”

Perdu’s tied up in so much orange rope he looks cocooned. Hayden shoves him through the hatch. Lilly nods at Jules reassuringly, and they crawl in after Hayden.

It’s just Will and me now, standing in the darkness. He’s right next to me, his wounded hand resting against his stomach, his face slightly illuminated by the light from the hatch.

“It’ll only be for a few more hours,” he says quietly. “We’ll be okay.”

“You say that every time we’re in imminent danger of being killed.”

“I haven’t been wrong yet,” Will says, and somehow he manages a smile. His eyes spark warm and blue.

“Get in!” Hayden barks, and we both move for the hatch.

“Three more hours,” Hayden says as we squeeze past him into the panic room. “Three hours and we’re walking straight out of this hellhole.”



Forty-five minutes to go. Will, Jules, and Lilly are sleeping again. I don’t know how they can. Perdu’s tied up at the end of the panic room like a psychotic freaking Sméagol. His wrists are knotted to two hooks in the wall, his arms stretched wide, hands limp. He doesn’t talk. Doesn’t move. He’s just glaring, his eyes dark and glittering.

The light strip on the ceiling has started cutting out. Flash-flash-flicker, the panic room going black for seconds at a time. The oppressive heat is gone, replaced by a damp airlessness. A warm sheen has settled clammily against my skin. I’m curled into a ball right next to Will, his body so close I can feel the warmth coming off his back. I hold my face, sweet talking myself into a calm that won’t come.

You’re safe, Ooky. They’re all right beside you, Will and Lilly and Jules and Hayden, they’re right here––

I open my eyes. Perdu is watching me from the far end of the capsule. I can feel the hatred gathered around him like a cloud of insects. Images fly into my mind: the picture of me hanging in Rabbit Gallery, only someone’s scratched out my face; a bunch of veiny purple grapes, tiny black bugs floating inside them like embryos; six gleaming wires carving me up neatly––

Don’t look at him, Anouk. Don’t think about him.

But something in those eyes makes me want to hide, to apologize or beg forgiveness. Something in those eyes is accusing me.



I wake to find Perdu leaning over me, blood and spit glistening down his chin. He exhales, a short, sharp gasp. And slumps forward, right on top of me.