The Masked Truth(21)

Either I’m turning down the third hall … or I’ve circled back and I’m turning down the first. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised. Every wall is beige. The flooring is office linoleum. The doors are standard-issue, with no numbers or other markings. I began to wish I’d brought a pen or something to mark the corners as we turned them so we didn’t circle back.

When I whisper that to Max, he says, “I’m counting doors and keeping track.” One step ahead of me. I’m lucky to have him. I really am.

The sounds that sent us into hiding seem to have moved on, never actually coming our way. The one noise I listened for most, I didn’t hear: gunfire. Yes, that’s what I listen for, as I move down the hall, the sounds not of rescue but of more death.

You don’t know Maria and Lorenzo are dead.

Sure, they might have survived the bullets. Only to bleed out on the floor while we race around, helpless and hopeless.

Aren’t you Little Miss Sunshine?

Used to be. Not anymore. Sorry.

The thing is, as horrible and selfish as it might be, I tell myself they’re dead. I have to, or how can I justify creeping through these halls, looking for an exit, while they’re dying a hundred feet away?

I think of Maria. The girl with the reassuring smile and the defiant T-shirt.

Dying alone.

Like the Porters.

No, the Porters didn’t die alone. They perished together, watching their life partner die with them, both thinking of their child, their only child, in the house with killers, perhaps about to follow them into death and they wouldn’t live long enough to know if she survived or shared a cold grave with them.

Little Miss Sunshine …

I think it’s that internal sarcasm that actually keeps me going, keeps me from thinking of the Porters and Maria and Lorenzo and bottoming out right there in the hall. Wallow in the horror of their fates and then slap myself out of it with self-mockery. Whatever gets you through the night. Or through the semi-dark halls with armed killers lurking around the corner.

We turn down another hall when someone coughs up ahead.

It’s not just a cough. It’s … it’s an awful gurgling, sputtering, wet sound. Max’s fingers grip my shoulder. When I look back, he doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring forward at that sound. Even as he glances at me, our eyes meeting, there’s only a silent Did you hear that? Which obviously I did—the halls are quiet enough that I swear even the swish of our stockinged feet must echo.

I nod, and he looks … relieved? I suppose I’m not the only one who’s jumpy, wondering if I’m imagining that creak down a hall or that whisper behind us. Just because Max is a guy—and a smart-ass—doesn’t mean this situation doesn’t scare the shit out of him.

I start toward the noise, and he grabs my shoulder again, harder this time, nearly flipping me backward as I stop. When I turn, he gives me a What the hell? look and pantomimes that the noise came from exactly where I’m heading. I nod, remove his hand and continue on. After an exasperated sigh, he comes after me, whispering, “We need to go back the other way, Riley. Away from the men with pistols.”

I motion for him to stay where he is while I investigate. That gets me a look that’s a borderline glower. I ignore him and keep going until I’m at the corner. I peer around it to see … blood. A snail’s trail of it down the hall and through a cracked-open door. I hear breathing from inside that room.

No, it’s not breathing, no more than the other sound was coughing. This is the wheezing of a life-or-death struggle for breath.

Is it Maria? She was shot in the chest. Maybe she’d only passed out and then came to after everyone was gone, presuming her dead, and she crawled in here. I pick up the pace, but Max plucks at my sleeve, and I spin on him with a glare, which he returns as he mouths, Trap.

Seriously? I mouth back, and jab a finger at the trail of blood. His mouth sets in a firm line, and I realize he has a point. Cantina was shot too. This could be him, lying in wait with a gun. Or the other two could have staged the blood and be inside, faking the labored breathing.

I motion that I’ll be careful and creep forward, one ear on that door, the other on our surroundings. I can hear footsteps, but they’re multiple halls away.

I inch to the partly open door and peer in to see only darkness. In that darkness, though, I hear rasping breaths, and the hairs on my neck stand on end, every horror movie rushing back. I’m leaning when Max shoulders me aside, his glowing watch in his hand now. I take it from him and shoulder him aside. He mock bows, granting me the honors. I ease the glowing watch to the door crack.

Lorenzo lies on the floor, his shirt soaked with blood, his face pale. He lifts his head, but his eyes won’t focus. One hand is clapped over his wound. Every breath sounds like a death rattle.

I open the door.

“Brienne,” he says. Then he blinks hard. “No, Riley.” And I know he’s far gone—even in the partial darkness there’s no mistaking me for blond little Brienne, and behind me Max mutters, “Bloody hell,” as if knowing what it means.

“We need a mobile—a cell phone,” Max whispers as he brushes past me into the room. He crouches beside Lorenzo. “Did you confiscate any?”

I stare at him, crouched in a dying man’s blood, his final words: Hey, can you tell us where to find a cell phone?