A Drop of Night (8 page)

I wake with a gasp, the air ripping into me. It's freezing cold.
I'm lying on something hard. My eyes are open, but all I see is blackness. My mouth tastes raw. Bloody.

I don't move. I don't know if I
can
move. And now I'm scared, every nerve ending flaring, setting my skin on fire. Images flash across my vision: a glinting red pill. Wrinkled sheets, straightening from one second to the next. Dorf smiling, his lips forming words:
the experience of a lifetime
, he says, and toasts us.

Maybe I got away. Maybe I got out into the fields and hid and that's why I'm cold.

But I didn't. I ran upstairs and—

They caught me.

Oh no. No-no-no. This was stupid, freaking idiotic; I swallowed some of the pill juice. I was knocked out.

I'm so dead.

The air is perfectly still. The surface under me is smooth, glassy. I listen, the blood hammering in my ears.

I'm not alone. Somewhere close by, someone is breathing. Multiple people.

Who? Are they watching me?
My heartbeat speeds up. I'm sweating despite the cold. My mind instantly jumps to kidnappings, human trafficking, eighties horror movies with meat hooks and dusty lightbulbs and gallons of blood. But you don't fly in murder victims and slaves to France on a private jet and let them eat at your table. You don't send them reams of embossed stationery.

I uncurl one hand and move it slowly across the floor.
Don't panic, Ooky. You can figure this out. You can get out of this—

Something slithers against my fingers. I jerk back. Cloth. I touched cloth, felt the faint warmth of skin. Someone's lying next to me. A foot away.

It's Jules.

I can smell his hair, that sharp, floral pomade he was wearing. I sit up, relief burning through me. Ease myself onto my knees.
Please don't notice I'm up. Whoever's here, please don't kill me.
I crawl forward. My fingers find Jules's face, and I clamp my hand over his mouth.

“Jules,” I whisper. He tries to shrug me off, but he doesn't wake up. “Jules!” My free hand jogs his shoulder. Now his eyes must have snapped open because he's struggling, grunting.

“Jules, shut up. It's me.”

I move my hand and pray he won't start screaming. I keep the other hand on his shoulder so he stays down.

“Anouk?” His voice is a cracked whisper, scared.

“Wait. Be quiet.” I crawl a little farther, come to another body.

This one's Lilly. I can just make out her blond hair, lying against the dark floor. I shake her. She comes up quiet, with a soft gasp. Hayden's next. He doesn't wake up at all. I shake him, press a finger to his pulse and feel the rapid pump. He's alive.
So why isn't he moving?

I keep crawling, a hard knot of pain springing up in my head. Will is curled up like a huge puppy. I barely touch him, and he rolls onto his back and stares at me.

I can see a bit more now: the outline of Will's face, and the shapes of the others sitting up, looking around blearily.

“Guys?” I clear my throat as softly as I can. Dig my
fingernails into my palms. “They drugged us. They took us somewhere; we need to get out.”

Lilly sobs, high and strangled. “Where? Get out of where?”

“I don't know. Just keep quiet. Move slowly.” I feel the tension prickling around me like an electrical storm, rising toward full-blown ignition. I keep my voice low, all on exhale, no sudden spikes in case someone's listening: “Don't panic. Don't
panic.”

Jules stands and knocks against a wall. The sound is hollow, beer bottles rolling against each other on the floor of a car. We're using more air now that we're awake. I can already feel the space heating up.

“I don't have my phone,” Jules says. “They took my phone!”

I go back to Hayden and kick him hard. I don't care if it hurts; we need to move
now
. I see a pinprick of light spark to my left. Lilly has a key-chain light in her hand. She's crying over it, shining it directly into her eye.

“Oh,
thank
you
.” I grab it from her. Point it over the walls. I see a person facing me, and for a second everything inside me shrivels in stone-cold terror. But it's just my own reflection. The walls are mirrored. We're in a
room—a small cube—and everything from the floor to the ceiling is mirrored.

“Help me find a way out,” I gasp. Start stumbling around, feeling along the glass for seams. I don't know how much time we have, but the people who brought us here do. They'll know exactly how long the red pills last, and what they plan on doing to us afterward, and if ours have already worn off they'll be coming soon. It occurs to me that the mirrors might be two-way. Someone might be right on the other side, watching us.

I find a seam in the corner of the chamber. Dig in my fingernails and pull. Nothing moves. I start to sweat. We're piling over one another now, a bunch of squirming guinea pigs in a cage.

“Anouk?”

I swing the light around. Right into Will's face.
Crap
. He raises a hand to shield his eyes. “There are chairs,” he says, and gestures.

I spin the key-chain light.

Yep. Two chairs, facing each other. Spindly gilt Louis XIV things, starkly out of place against the glass.
Were they even there ten seconds ago?

No, they just randomly appeared, Anouk. Of course they
were there.
I go to one. Try to pick it up. Maybe we can use it to go ballistic on the glass. It's bolted to the floor. I drop down. There are thin grooves surrounding the legs, marking a square.

I shine the light up. The ceiling is glass, but it's not completely mirrored like the walls. I can see myself in it, my face a pale oval, eyes wide. And I can also see
through
it: the faintest ghost of a mural, floating just above.

A butterfly. The wings are wide and ragged. In each one is a human eye, peering down.

“Look up,” I say. “Look!”

The eyes are positioned exactly above the chairs.

“Somebody go sit in that chair. Anybody, go!”

Jules and Lilly are hyperventilating. Will frowns at me. Frowns at the chair. Goes to it. I sit opposite him.

Nothing happens. I don't know what I was expecting. I guess because the chairs are the only anomaly in the room, it stands to reason that they're somehow related to—

A sharp
clack
splits the air. The chair drops under me, one inch. Lilly lets out a soft screech. My hands clench the seat, so hard my knuckles pop. I stare at Will. His chair dropped, too.

“Um . . .” I swallow. “Okay, that was—”

Clack.
Again, louder this time, a pistol shot of sound.
Clack. Clack.
Something's moving under the floor, behind the walls, all around us. Will's eyes lock on mine.

I open my mouth to say something, but the noise is getting louder, deafening. The whole room shudders.

The walls are moving backward and apart. Behind them are more mirrors, and they're moving, too, sliding one after another. An alarm goes off. A harsh, screaming siren.

I launch out of the chair. So does Will. Nothing stops. I whip around. Lights are flickering on, dull and fluorescent. The room definitely isn't a cube anymore. I can see down a hallway now, double-glass walls, ribbed with cables and tubes of light. The three other walls have opened onto a maze of mirrors. A labyrinth, as far as the eye can see. Abruptly, the siren cuts out.

Nobody moves. Nobody breathes.

I hear footsteps. Coming toward us. Several people, boots pounding, and behind them the unmistakable
click-click
of stilettos.

I spin to the others. “They're coming,” I whisper. “They're coming!”

Hayden is still on the floor, spread-eagled, fast asleep. I go down on one knee, slap his jaw.

He doesn't move.

They're almost here.

We drag Hayden five feet, drop him, and run. Into the maze of
mirrored panels in a rustling, whispering group. The key-chain light's weak beam is almost hidden inside the knot of legs and bodies. My heart is mashing painfully against my ribs.

Where do we go? Where-where-where?

Three panels in, we stop. Huddle. I look back over my shoulder. The mirrors are two-way. I can see what used to be the cube room, the chairs standing in the open now. Hayden, sprawled on the floor.

I click off the light just as Miss Sei emerges from between the mirrors.

She's accompanied by four figures. Identical, tall, wearing black bodysuits and dark helmets, like motorcyclists or riot cops. The visors are dead black. Red lights thrum steadily along their jawlines,
bright-dull-bright-dull
, like
gills opening and closing. They're all carrying large cases.

We need to get out of here. In two seconds they'll realize Hayden is the only one on the floor.

Two seconds are up.

Run!

But I'm rooted. So are the others. I watch Miss Sei scan the area. Her gaze rests on Hayden. And now the riot cop/motorcyclists are surrounding him and one of them is opening a case, drawing out some sort of black tubing, a wire-thin stretcher, what look like medical instruments in vacuum packaging. Miss Sei kneels next to Hayden. Lifts his head and strokes a thumb over his brow, almost tenderly.

With her other hand she reaches into the open case. For a second I think she's going to help Hayden. Get him onto the stretcher, take him someplace safe—

She's holding a nozzle. Long. Barbed. A silver needle extends from its tip like a stinger. Her mouth twitches into a smile. And now she drives the nozzle into the base of Hayden's skull.

His eyes snap open. He starts choking, gurgling. His back arches. He raises his arms like he wants to shove Miss Sei away, but Miss Sei pulls a trigger on the nozzle
and Hayden drops, flat on the floor like a ton of concrete. The helmeted figures descend. Medical tape snaps around Hayden's wrists. Another injection, this time from a syringe. The nozzle, attached to the tube, stays in place. They're lifting him, black gloves digging into his neck, his arms.

No. No, this is not happening. . . .

I clamp my hand to my mouth. Slowly, I turn to Lilly, Will, and Jules. I want them to tell me this is a joke, that Miss Sei didn't just stab Hayden with a gas nozzle,
that she didn't just murder him
. They stare back at me.

I look through the mirrors again. Hayden's on the stretcher. His chest isn't moving. His eyes are wide, glazed. Miss Sei is standing, wiping her hands on a white cloth.

They killed him. They killed Hayden and if we were still on the floor, if we'd taken a few more minutes to wake up, they would have killed us. They're still going to kill us.

Miss Sei hands the cloth to one of the riot cops. “Find the others,” she says, and her voice is chillingly loud. “They'll be slow on their feet.”

I haven't cried in years, but I feel like I might now.
There's a pressure building behind my eyes, burning.
We need to go,
I mouth silently, but I'm still staring through the double mirror.
We need to go!

The helmeted figures turn to scan the mirrors. One faces us. It can't see us through the mirrors, can it? But it's right there, blank visor pointed directly at me, and what if we're visible in a reflection, what if that thing turns a quarter of an inch and sees us huddled here—

I move back from the glass. The others do, too. It takes a step closer. Tilts its head. “Go,” I say, and it hears, and we're running, our feet like gunshots against the floor. The mirrors seem to fan out on all sides, multiplying us a million times. A black shape cuts across our reflections.

“Run!”
I shout. “Into the corridor!” I don't know where it goes, but we can't get lost in this maze. I slip around one of the glass panels and sprint forward. The corridor shears away in front of me, disappearing into a point. I glance over my shoulder, get a brief impression of the group, Miss Sei in front, marching toward us. They're not running. It's like they already know they have us, like we don't have a chance. There seem to be hundreds of them, mirrored over and over again, an army of doppelgangers.

Miss Sei raises a hand, shouts something, a vicious spike of a syllable.

I face forward again—

A helmet figure is right in front of me. I swing under its arm as it tries to grab me. Will hits it a second later, body slamming it against the wall. I hear glass splinter.

“Where do we go?”
Lilly screams.

I have no idea. They're moving faster now, passing Miss Sei. I hear their boots pounding the floor.

We're nearing the end of the corridor. Up ahead is a massive door, like a bank vault. A huge circle of dull blue metal. It's slightly ajar.

“Come on!” I yell. “Get through the door and close it!”

Another glance over the shoulder: Will has disentangled himself from the helmet thing, is stumbling into a run. Farther back, the other helmet things are searing down the corridor, their arms chopping the air. Their speed is incredible, inhuman. Miss Sei is holding a gun now. It's pointing directly at me.

I reach the door and slip through the gap.

“Get in!” I scream.
“Come on!”

I hear a shot, the ping of a bullet glancing off metal.

Jules and Lilly dart through, start heaving against the door. Will reaches me and we grab the edge, our fingers straining. The hinges are oiled, slick as silk, but the door weighs a ton. We throw ourselves against it.

“Don't!” Miss Sei shouts, and now her voice is different. Scared.

Out in the corridor, one of the helmet figures pulls ahead of the rest. It's freakishly close, speeding toward us. I see its visor through the narrowing crack, a curved pane of night, the slice of red light throbbing along its jaw. Black fingers curl toward me, ready to grip my face, crush my skull.

Miss Sei screams,
“Don't!”
one last time, shrill and desperate.

The door slams into place, and I jam the bar home.