I stopped and stared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me this before? I’ve been looking for a doorway, or something blocked off!”
The Kid’s small face took on a familiar pinched look. “Why ain’t you aks me before now? This ain’t my fault!”
“No, no, you’re right,” I said, shaking my head. “Come on, let’s try in here.” We were in the mess hall, and at the back of it was a storage room that had other doors opening off it. Shrugging my shoulders, I chose one randomly and unlocked it.
Nothing could have prepared me for what waited behind that door.
It was my sister, who jerked up her head in alarm when we opened the door. She was panting, her eyes wild, and she was holding a large can of sliced peaches in heavy syrup.
At her feet lay a cafeteria worker, knocked out, with a can-shaped lump on the back of his head.
Next to Cassie, Nate was clinging to a door frame, looking like he was about to be sick. Everything clicked into place.
“You left me to go get Nate,” I said.
Cassie nodded a bit sheepishly. “I couldn’t leave him.”
“Uh-huh. Who’s Ridiculous now?” I said.
87
I’D HAD HOPES FOR THIS hallway, maybe just because it was a hallway I hadn’t known existed. After the Kid and I stepped over the unconscious cafeteria worker, I urgently began unlocking doors, using the keys on Strepp’s key ring. It took us way too long to figure out which keys opened which doors. And all we found was storeroom after storeroom, most of them full of crates marked FOOD stacked haphazardly on top of each other. Some crates were coated with a thick layer of dust, like they were left over from another time. It wouldn’t surprise me if that was the stuff we’d been eating.
Door after door, we struck out. As we reached the end of the hallway, an alarm sounded: the execution was over. It was time for the prisoners to be locked up again.
“People will be here any second,” Cassie said, her voice tight.
“One more door,” I said, trying another of Strepp’s keys. Would it have killed her to label one of them “master”? We felt the vibrations of feet moving before we heard them, and a moment later heard the dim, indistinct voices of guards as they let the other cafeteria workers back into the mess hall.
“They gonna open that door, see that schmuck lyin’ there,” the Kid said nervously.
“Yeah,” I said, jamming in a key, trying to turn it, not succeeding.
The voices grew louder. I was aware of Nate’s labored breathing; glanced back to see that his face was tinged with green and clammy sweat had broken out on his forehead.
I pushed another key in. It didn’t turn. I had two keys left. Maybe Strepp didn’t have a master key after all? She was the deputy warden. Or maybe this room was never used. Maybe this was the end—for all of us.
The voices were right outside this hallway. Even from down here, we heard the scrape of a key being fitted into its lock. My hands shaking, I quickly tried the second-to-last key, turning it hard—too hard.
Snap!
I stared in horror at the broken head of the key in my hand. “Cassie!”
Her horror mirrored mine as she saw what had happened.
The door at the end of the hallway opened. There was no light down here, but it would only take about ten seconds for them to see us in the shadows.
“Check those storerooms!” someone ordered.
“They gonna off us,” the Kid breathed almost silently.
In desperation, Cassie reached out and savagely turned the doorknob, her arm muscles flexing with the effort.
And… it turned! The door swung inward, leading into another lightless room. I grabbed the Kid and practically threw him in, then helped Cassie drag Nate and his clunky cast through the doorway. Of course
the sound alerted the guards that they had company, and one of them shouted.
Boots pounded down the hallway as we slammed the door.