Page 93 of Stay Scared

“I’m right behind you.”

The panel shoves him forward. Metal catches near his shoulder, and Cade makes a hard sound through his teeth but keeps his arm extended, holding the wall away from me by inches.

I duck into the recess and pull the founder key from beneath my jacket. The lock has no electronic display, only a black steel housing with a narrow slot beneath a corroded handle. Original hardware. Something Rook cannot rewrite from a terminal, though he clearly knows how the corridor around it works.

“Deep notch toward the hinge,” Cade says.

“I remember.”

My first attempt misses the mechanism. The wall slams into his vest again, and blood appears along his side.

“Cade, you’re bleeding.”

“Open the door before I start doing it somewhere less convenient.”

I shove the key deeper and turn. The lock fights me. Behind Cade, the segmented wall keeps advancing. Then something catches inside the mechanism. Heavy bolts retract.

I wrench the door open. Darkness waits beyond it.

“Go.”

Cade releases the panel. It crashes into the opposite wall as he throws himself through the doorway.

I seize the front of his vest and pull until his boot clears the threshold, then slam the door behind him and turn the key from the inside. The compression wall strikes the other side hard enough to shake dust from the frame. Then it keeps grinding past us.

We are no longer inside the moving corridor. We are sealed beside it.

A small mechanical panel wakes above the lock.

PRESSURE EQUALIZATION: 08:00

MANUAL RELEASE DISABLED

The countdown begins at 07:59.

I stare at it. Whatever old mechanical system controls this room has locked the door until the compression corridor finishes its cycle. Rook cannot crush us in here. We also cannot leave. For eight minutes, neither side gets a vote.

Cade leans against the door with his head lowered while blood slips from beneath his vest and spots the concrete near his boot.

“Move away from there.”

“I need to know the lock holds.”

“The wall already hit it hard enough to test the warranty. Sit down before Rook reaches this corridor and finds you unconscious.”

Cade looks at his side as though the blood has personally inconvenienced him. A jagged strip of metal sliced through the fabric beneath his left arm. The cut starts near his back ribs and disappears beneath the vest.

“Take it off.”

He remains against the door.

I grab the front buckle and pull him toward me.

“The vest, Cade.”

His eyes drop briefly to my hand fisted in the webbing before his hands rise to the fasteners.

He releases the upper buckle while I undo the lower. When he lifts his injured arm, the color drains from his face.