“Some warning next time, Jodie.”
“Sorry. Thought you were going to move into the shower, you were in there for so damn long.”
“What are you doing here?” Reyna asked as she yanked jeans and a T-shirt out of her closet.
“I hate this place. I mean, I don’t hate it as much as Visage, but I still hate it. How can you stand to stay cooped up like this? I can’t keep breathing recycled oxygen. I need to be free.”
“We are free.”
Jodie snorted. “Then try to walk out the front door and see if they stop you.”
They would. Reyna knew they would. Sydney had made it clear that she was too valuable to leave. Her and Jodie’s blood unlocked the answers to questions everyone had long been asking. No one was going to let them out to do whatever they wanted. On some level, she understood it, but she’d been a prisoner once before and she didn’t relish being one here a second time.
“Maybe we can try to get out of here?” Jodie suggested.
Reyna stepped out of the closet. “There’s no way out of here other than the heavily guarded way we entered.”
Jodie sighed. “There has to be another way in and out. We’ve never seen Sydney walking around this building, but we know she’s here. How does she get around? How is she so secretive? Plus, aren’t there other sleeper agents? They wouldn’t want to be seen if they’re playing spy, right? No one is supposed to know who they are. Which means we can find another way out.”
Reyna sighed. “I know how they’re getting around.”
Reyna stepped back into the closet and jiggled the all-but-invisible doorknob.
“Is that a secret door? Tell me it’s a secret door.”
“Beckham used it.” She’d been trying not to think of him or the fact that he hadn’t been back. “It’s locked from the outside, though. I don’t know what security is on the door.”
“Fuck yes.” Jodie jumped up and rushed over to where Reyna was standing. Jodie slid a bobby pin out of her lush black curls and began digging around in the lock. Reyna knew how to pick a lock in theory, but she had only ever tried it on the shitty ones back in the warehouses. She couldn’t imagine Elle would be stupid enough to have locks that could be easily picked.
Click.
The door swung outward soundlessly. Reyna stared at it in both shock and awe. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Hell yeah. My best friend taught me before…” Jodie trailed off, then held her hand out to Reyna. “Now, are you ready to go?”
Reyna knew she shouldn’t go. It was reckless and potentially dangerous. She should stay where she was and wait for someone to give her an assignment she could stomach. But God, she didn’t want to live that life. She didn’t want to stay on a leash and sit down when she was told and bark on command. She’d only seen the sun for a few scant minutes. She needed more.
“All right. I’m in, but only for a minute, Jodie. I don’t want to get caught and be in trouble. I just want to see the sun for a bit.”
“Excellent. Whatever you say,” Jodie cheered as she rushed out the door.
Reyna took a tentative step forward, glancing over her shoulder. She kept expecting someone to burst into the room and tell them not to leave, but no one came.
She took one step out of the bedroom closet and then another. No alarms blared. Nothing happened at all. She just walked into a neatly maintained corridor.
“Let me look at the door,” Jodie said. She messed with the doorknob a few times. After another minute, she had the door rigged so the lock never fully clicked into place. “Easy peasy.” She opened and closed the door to show Reyna. “This is going to be fun. I swear.”
Reyna tried to relax as she and Jodie walked down the innocuous corridor. There were other doors along the way. Jodie tried a few of the knobs, but they were all locked like Reyna’s. She had thought maybe the secret passageways would conceal an underground airplane, or at least secret rooms that only top-level Elle members could access, but all she got were more blank hallways and a stairwell. They went up five floors before the stairs abruptly ended.
Jodie pushed through the doorway first into a tightly sealed vestibule. The doors were steel with heavy plated armor and a series of security measures to keep anyone from coming in…or out.
Reyna sighed. “Guess this is the end of the road.”
“We didn’t even get outside,” Jodie grumbled. “Maybe we can get through the security.”
“It’ll probably alert someone that we’re here.”
“Probably,” Jodie grumbled. “Fuck, we were so close.”
