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“No. No, I’m not. What I’m doing here, what we’re doing here, is all because of those kids. You think a toy or a book will keep away the devils that torment them at night? They won’t. Now either you’re here to help me save every last one of them, save them from the hell they have either already suffered at the hands of the people working there or eventually will, or you’re just another delusional fool in my way.”
I avert my eyes from his since the disappointment in them makes me want to curl into a ball and cry.
He’s right.
Toys, books, and better food are nothing but Band-Aids for them.
They need real safety.
I lean down and grab the bag I dropped and push Gray aside with my shoulder.
“Where are you going?” he yells behind me.
“To do what I came for.”
Once I’m back inside, I hand off the bags to one of the bigger kids who is waiting for me in the hall and place Maeve’s car keys in her open purse, which she absentmindedly left on the entryway table.
Knowing that most of the kids, and probably now a few guards, are in the living room, I walk in the direction of the closed office. I pull the bobby pin out of my hair and get to work. Gray wisely remains silent in my ear, knowing he’s not one of my favorite people right now. Once I hear the lock click open, I slide inside the room, turning on the light switch so I can see my surroundings better. That’s when I realize that there aren’t any windows in the room to speak of. It immediately strikes me as odd since the room is large enough to warrant one. With my hand pressed up against the wall, I walk slowly around the room, inspecting every inch of it, and then I feel it—the place where a window once belonged.
It was sealed brick by brick, ensuring no one could look inside nor get inside through it. It also means that there is only one way to escape. If someone went to all this trouble to get rid of a window, maybe they also went to the trouble of building some sort of hiding place. Just as I think it, I feel a rough edge on the wall where most of it had been smooth. My hands follow the miniscule indent, and as my fingers glide through it, I immediately know what else was bricked off from the room—a fireplace.
“Tricky, tricky, tricky,” I mutter under my breath as I go to my haunches, letting my fingers find their way across the fabricated wall.
I slam my hand over my mouth to keep my excited squeal in when I finally find a narrow sliver just big enough for my nails to open the wall.
“Bingo,” I cheer when the fake brick opens up to reveal a steel box, much like those safe deposit boxes you would find in a bank.
I bet that it’s not jewelry or family heirlooms that I’ll find inside. Whatever is carefully placed inside it is way more valuable than that. No one would have gone through all this trouble if it wasn’t.
I go to retrieve the bobby pin again to use my magic and see if I can pick the lock when Gray stops me.
“Don’t bother. Just get out of there. Now.”
“But then whoever we’re looking for might see that it’s been stolen and ditch town before we ever put our hands on them,” I hiss.
“That’s just a risk we’ll have to take. Now leave.”
I hesitate, looking at the box and then at the fake wall, thinking it would be better just to take what’s inside and leave the box in its hiding place.
“I mean it, Zoey. Now. If you’re not outside in the next ten seconds, I’m coming in there to drag you out, and then all this shit would be for nothing.”
He means it.
His voice is too on edge for him to just be bluffing. This box represents all the danger I’ve been in since I set foot in the place, and now that I’m holding it in my hands, it’s too much for Gray to bear.
“I’m going. I’m going,” I mutter, putting the fake brick back into its place, praying that whoever owns this box doesn’t have a nasty habit of retrieving it often from its hiding spot.
With the steel box under my arm, I rush to the door, turning off the light and carefully shutting the door behind me. My heart thumps with every step I take down the hall and then down the stairs to the main floor. I stall when I reach the banister and wait until I’m sure no one is paying any mind to the main entrance, too preoccupied with the gifts Maeve brought everyone in the living room. Once I’m sure the coast is clear, I dive out of there, rushing down the outside steps and through the iron gate where Gray has the van’s side door swung open, waiting for me.
“Get in,” Hale shouts, stretching his hand to me.
I give him my free hand for him to pull me in. The minute I am safe inside the van, Hale slams the door shut and Gray drives off like a bat out of hell.
“What are you doing?” I yell, grabbing onto anything I can find to keep my balance.
“Getting you as far away from that place as possible. We got what we came for,” Gray shouts back.
“You don’t know that. We haven’t even opened it to find out what’s inside this damn thing. It could be stale air for all we know.”
