Julian must notice it at the same time I do, because he mutters, “Shit. Shit.”
“All right, let’s think about this,” I whisper back, trying to sound calm. But my mind has turned to snow: the same idea coming down like a blizzard, freezing my blood. I’m screwed. I’ll be trapped here, and when I’m found, I’ll have a bruised and bound guard to atone for. They won’t be so careless anymore either. No more flap doors for me.
“What do we do?” Julian asks.
“We?” I shoot him a look over my shoulder. The crown of his head is encircled with dried blood, and I look away so I don’t start feeling sorry for him. “We’re in this together now?”
“We have to be,” he says. “We’ll need to help each other if we’re going to escape.” He puts his hands on my shoulders and moves me gently but firmly out of the way. The touch surprises me. He must really mean what he said about setting our differences aside for now. And if he can do it, so can I.
“You won’t be able to pick it,” I say. “We need a code.”
Julian runs his fingers over the keypad. Then he takes a step back and squints up at the door, runs his hands along the doorjamb as though testing its sturdiness. “We have a keypad like this on the gate at home,” he says. He’s still running his fingers along the doorjamb, tracing cracks in the plaster. “I can never remember the code. Dad’s changed it too many times—too many workers in and out. So we had to develop a system, a series of clues. A code within a code—little signs embedded in and around the gate so whenever the code is changed, I’ll know it.”
Suddenly it clicks: the point of his story, and the way out.
“The clock,” I say, and I point to the clock hanging above the door. It’s frozen: The small hand hovers slightly above the nine, and the big hand is stuck on the three. “Nine and three.” But even as I say it, I’m uncertain. “But that’s only two numbers. Most keypads take four numbers, right?”
Julian punches in 9393, then tries the door. Nothing. 3939 doesn’t work, either. Neither does 3399 or 9933, and we’re running out of time.
“Shit.” Julian pounds the keypad once with his fist in frustration.
“Okay, okay.” I take a deep breath. I was never good at codes and puzzles; math was always one of my worst subjects. “Let’s think about this.”
At that second, the voices down the hall resurge. A door opens a few inches.
Albino is saying, “I’m still not convinced. I say if they don’t pay, we don’t play…”
My throat seizes with sudden terror. Albino is coming into the hall. He’ll see us at any second.
“Shit,” Julian breathes again, a bare exhale. He’s jogging a little on his feet, back and forth, as though he’s cold, but I know he must be as scared as I am. Then, suddenly, he freezes.
“Nine fifteen,” he says, as the door opens another couple of inches, and the voices spill into the hall.
“What?” I grip the knife tightly, whipping my head back and forth between Julian and the door: opening, opening.
“Not nine-three. Nine fifteen. Zero-nine-one-five.” He has already bent over the keypad again, punching the numbers in hard. There’s a quiet buzz, and a click. Julian leans into the door and it opens, as the voices grow clearer and edged with sharpness, and we slip into the next room just as the door behind us swings open, and the Scavengers take their first steps into the hall.
We’re in yet another room, this one large, high-ceilinged, and well lit. The walls are lined with shelves, and the shelves are crammed so tightly with things that in places the wood has begun to sag and warp under the weight of it all: packages of food, and large jugs of water, and blankets; but also knives, and silverware, and nests of tangled jewelry; leather shoes and jackets; handguns and wooden police batons and cans of pepper spray. Then there are things that have no purpose whatsoever: scattered radio bits lying across the floor, an old wooden wardrobe, leather-topped stools, and a trunk filled with broken plastic toys. At the opposite end of the room is another concrete door, this one painted cherry red.
“Come on.” Julian grabs my elbow roughly, pulling me toward it.
“No.” I wrench away from him. We don’t know where we are; we have no idea how long it will be before we escape.
“There’s food here. Weapons. We need to stock up.”
Julian opens his mouth to respond when from the hallway comes the stuttered cadence of shouting, and the pounding of feet. The guard must have given the alarm somehow.
“We’ve got to hide.” Julian pulls me toward the wardrobe. Inside it smells like mouse droppings and mold.
I swing the wardrobe doors closed behind me. The space inside is so small, Julian and I practically have to sit on top of each other. I ease my backpack onto my lap. My back is pressed up against his chest, and I can feel its rise and fall. Despite everything, I’m glad he’s with me. I’m not sure I would have made it even this far on my own.
The keypad gives another buzz; the door of the stockroom bursts open, slamming against the wall. I flinch involuntarily, and Julian’s hands find my shoulders. He squeezes once, a quick pulse of reassurance.
“Goddammit!” That’s Albino; the raspy voice, the anger running through his words, like a live wire. “How the hell did this happen? How did they—”
“They can’t have gone very far. They don’t have the code.”
“Well, then, where the hell are they? Two goddamn kids, for shit’s sake.”