The next room was empty. A line of offices overlooked the great, cavernous space. Carla plucked a flashlight from her pocket.
“We have to leave the way we came,” she explained. “I can’t turn on the main lights on, either. Don’t want anyone to see us.”
The bile rising in Jack’s throat told him they were already too obvious, but he choked it down and followed her. “You’re sure no one’s here?”
“Yeah,” she said, but Jack caught the waver in her voice.
“What if you just asked Enzo?”
“If he knows I know, then he’s,” her voice lowered into an imitation of a man’s, “‘gonna have to do something with me.’ I can’t risk it.”
“Have you tried talking to him?”
“No way.” Carla shook her head. “Trust me. He’s not on our side.”
“You think he doesn’t want out of the time loop?”
“I think he’s trying to exploit it.”
“Great.”
They neared the grimy windows. Pale moonlight streamedthrough. In the distance, Jack spotted the sugar cube and shuddered. “What is that?” he asked, pointing between buildings.
Carla followed his gaze and frowned. “It’s a building, Jack.”
“Yeah, I know that, but it like—it bleeds every day.”
“Itbleeds?”
“Yeah,” said Jack, feeling more insane by the second. Maybe he’d been mistaken this whole time. Maybe Carla would think he was an idiot. “Well, the door does, anyway. Every day at two o’clock.”
“You found a bleeding building and didn’t tell me about it?”
“I just—it sounds kind of crazy.” He wrung his hands, fiddled with the cuff of his sleeve.
“Listen, Jack. If the building bleeds every day, you probably don’t want to know why, OK?”
His jaw tensed. “What if someone’s dying?”
“It’s a door. It can’t bleed.”
“Yeah, but?—”
“Listen,” said Carla through gritted teeth. “Don’t go near it. You don’t wanna know. That’s Fat Frank’s storage shed, OK? If he catches you out there, you’ll learn more than you want to know. Now come on. We’ve got more important things to do.”
Sick to his stomach, Jack followed.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t check it out?”
“Let’s see what we find here, first.”
The line of empty offices flickered to life when Carla flipped a switch.
Jack startled. “I thought you said?—”
“It’s fine. We just can’t use the main overhead light.”
Deeply uncertain, he trailed after her. They examined the offices one by one, glancing around for anything suspicious or out of place.
