Exiting her cell, we look around. There are several people trying to knock open the door leading outside with their bare bodies, but it does nothing. Some have swapped to shouting and screaming.
The sounds are desperate and heartbreaking.
What if we freed them, just for us to all die down here together? How cruel is that?
The doors are solid metal; there isn’t even a knob, just a track on the floor for them to slide open.
“They’re magnetic locks, there has to be a release, but I have never seen it,” Luna advises as she watches the scene play out. She helps me with Tiffany and lowers her voice. “We don’t have much time. There are too many of us, and with no air flow…”
She lets the truth hang in the space between us.
I know the brothers will come, but how can they make it down here? What if there isn’t a way to open it from the outside?
We can’t die here.
“I know where it is,” Tiffany says. “When I was first put down here, Maxwell showed me the room. Threw it in my face of how close I was to being able to escape, but that I never would.” She shivers. “It’s right next to where the women’s locker room is. They leave it unlocked, it feels like a type of psychological torture. Waving freedom in our faces. But it’sbasically a control room and there’s a big red circular button inside that will open the door.”
My memory flashes to the cracked door I saw when I walked toThe Play Housefrom the locker rooms. It has to be the same one. “I know where that is. I’ll go,” I say.
Everything is going to be okay, we’re all going to make it out of here.
Alive.
“I should come with you,” Luna argues. “You can’t be trusted not to get hurt.”
I catch her eyes, pushing Tiffany’s weight fully on Luna and freeing myself. Luna nearly falls to the ground before another girl comes up to help her.
But my point is proven. Luna is physically weak, and we both know it.
“I need to get there as fast as possible, we’re running out of time.” And we are. A headache has slowly been forming as time progressed, and now it’s stabbing me in the temple.
I don’t know all of the signs of oxygen deprivation, but I imagine this is the start of it.
Luna frees herself from Tiffany with the help of another woman.
I expect her to argue, but instead she holds out her hand, as if to drop something.
Placing mine under hers, I feel the cool metal of the razor.
She bends forward whispering in my ear. “There’s no way this is the only way in, be careful Sunday. And remember if you die, so do we.Again.”
“No pressure,” I murmur, wrapping my fingers carefully around the blade.
Side-stepping Luna I make my way down the hall, back to the horseshoe room.
“When the doors open, you all need to run. Do not wait for me,” I cast over my shoulder.
“We won’t,” Luna agrees. “But Sunday.”
I twist back to face her, she is watching me with a deep sadness.
“Please make it out of here too, okay?”
I don’t answer her as I continue my way down the hall. Most of those that we had let out are crowding towards the front, but there are a few stragglers that stand listlessly just outside their cages, as if they are dolls, empty and waiting for the next person to use them.
The thought is nearly debilitating, so instead, I focus on the here and now. I am going to open the door. I am going to get everyone out of here. The brothers will find us. The FBI will keep us all safe.
I’m inside the horseshoe room now, sprinting down the stairs, making my way back from whence I came. Repeating my exact steps as before.
