"You're fine," he promised, clasping my shoulder to stop my rambling. "Just tell me what you know?"
I nodded, but before I could start, Rymar hurried over. "Problem?" he asked.
But that brought Kanik. "What's wrong?"
And I hung my head. "I knowacode."
"'A' is not the same as 'the,'" Rymar said, immediately seeing the issue.
I nodded. "Yeah, but the Moles like to keep things the same. I don't know if they can even change the codes, or if that's just the way they are. What I do know is the code for the quarantine doors didn't change from when I was a girl until I turned twenty."
"Okay?" Kanik asked, looking between all of us like he was lost.
"What if they only have one code?" I asked. "What if I've known the code this whole time and didn't realize it?"
"Wait, wait, wait, wait?" Kanik begged. "Ayla, you know a code, and you've known it for a while, but it's for a different door. How many other doors are locked in there?"
"I don't know of any," I admitted. "But as a girl, I didn't get the chance to see places that would be restricted."
"Such as?" Zasen asked.
"The weapons room, or the reloading area. Meat preparation was another where we weren't allowed. Most of the men's places, like their meeting hall, were all locked as well, but they were all up a hallway we weren't allowed in."
"So too far to see if there was a code on those doors," Rymar realized, hooking his arm around my shoulders to get me walking again - making Zasen and Kanik follow. "So, if your code does work, Ayla, then what?"
"We could get in!" I hissed.
"And?" Zasen pressed, moving to walk on my other side.
Kanik shifted to Rymar's free shoulder. "Right now, it's night down there. That means the lights are off, right? Ayla, do they have guards at night?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "I do know that some places have dim lights, like outside the facilities."
"Which facilities?" Zasen asked.
"The communal bathrooms," I explained. "When the hunters returned, the lights always stayed on in the infirmary and the halls around it, so they can be controlled, but I don't know how."
"Fuck," Rymar grumbled.
"I want to know about the dim lights," Kanik pressed. "Ayla, could we use that to get in far enough to free the women? The ones in quarantine? Could you take us there?"
"Yes."
And the three men shared a look. It was proud and hopeful at the same time. I knew what they were thinking, but there was one big problem with all of this.
"It might not work!"
"But that's still better than the chances we had ten minutes ago," Rymar said. "Ayla, what is the worst that happens? Nothing?"
"Or they catch us when we're unloading the meat and shoot all of us," I said.
Which made Kanik snort out a laugh. "I mean, she's not wrong."
"No, but I want to know everything about what's inside there," Zasen said. "Ayla, if youcanopen that door, and we're not ready for what will pour out? Then we shouldn't open the door. But if this could work?" His lips curled in the kind of look that would've scared me when I'd first arrived.
The kind that looked excited for death. The sort I'd seen on so many men when they took out their anger on a woman. It was the same look Reynold Saunders had worn when he'd agreed to marry me. The one on his face right before I'd shoved a fork into his arm.
The kind that lacked any fear.
