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?
That’s not actually what he said. His voice is low, soft even, his wording polite, his tone apologetic. Yet all I can see is a dying man and my brain screams that we need to do something, do anything, to save him.
And how exactly would I do that? Sloane was the lifeguard. She’d studied CPR. I didn’t like the water, one of those “childhood incident” things that never quite goes away. Last year, I’d signed up for a first-aid course with Shannon, back when we were still friends, but we’d skipped out to sneak into a summer concert.
I still remember giggling about that. Hey, look at me, being all rebellious. I remember, too, covering protests in Egypt for the school paper, and talking on Skype to someone who’d been there, and thinking that was real rebellion, honest rebellion, and me? I skipped a first-aid course once to go to a concert.
How many times have I thought of that missed course? Starting with kneeling beside the Porters’ bodies. Now, seeing Lorenzo, the floor opens up and I’m back there, beside their bodies, thinking, You idiot, you stupid little idiot, why didn’t you take the course, and it doesn’t matter if they’re dead, if you have no doubt they’re dead, what would you do if they weren’t, and you couldn’t help them because of that goddamn concert and—
“Riley?”
That isn’t Max or Lorenzo speaking. I’m not in the warehouse anymore. I’m crouching beside the bodies of two people I saw alive only moments before and there’s a voice on the steps, calling, “Riley?” and I jump up, ready to shout, No! Stay there, Darla! but I’m not certain the killers are far enough away that they won’t hear me, so I rush toward the stairs and I grip the railing and my hand slips because it’s covered in blood. Their blood. Her parents’ blood. And she’s coming down the steps, close enough for me to hear her breathing, and I go to wipe my hands on my jeans, but that won’t help and—
“Riley?”
Another voice, this one jerking me back. Fingers on my elbow. The fog clears and I see dark blue eyes, and I think, Who has those eyes? and I have no idea until the face comes into focus, and even then the first thing I see is freckles over a nose and a faint scar underscoring a cheekbone, and I don’t recognize those either until I see the rest of the face—the arched nose, the too-sharp chin, the blond hair plastered by sweat to the side of his face.