On the other hand…
Darkness cuts both ways. Don’t they know I can make this work for me, too?
I move again.
Slow at first, testing the space with my boots, keeping my weight low. My foot scuffs against something light and hollow. A crushed cup skitters away, the sound swallowed almost immediately.
I pause, listening hard.
Nothing. No footsteps. No breathing. No scrape of fabric. The kind of quiet that feels curated, shaped to make you doubt your own movements. Good for hiding.
Bad for everything else.
I edge forward and brush something with my shoulder. Fabric whispers. I go still, pulse spiking, then ease my fingers out to feel it. A curtain of some sort. Thick. Synthetic. The kind used to hide seasonal displays orblock off temporary events. I slide along it, slow, mapping the edge until my hand bumps into a rounded counter—cracked laminate, sticky residue.
A kiosk. Food court overflow, maybe. Or some snake-oil beauty promotion that never got cleaned up.
I hide behind it, breathing through my nose, counting again. One. Two. Three.
I picture the barefoot girl from earlier. The way her shoulders sagged when the restraints clicked shut. The wordRuntsslides through my head again, ugly and heavy.
If I’m the last one?—
The idea fizzles before it can finish. Too many unknowns. Too much quiet. This doesn’t feel like a victory lap.
A sound snaps me out of it.
Soft.
Close.
Breathing.
I turn?—
And nearly collide with someone else, illuminated only by a sliver of light coming through the dark.
A girl gasps, hand flying to her mouth, the only thing I can see in the dark. She seems small, shorter than I am, and smells of perspiration mixed with drugstore shampoo. Another runner. Younger than me, I’m pretty sure. We’re close enough I know her hair hangs loose when it brushes my arm. She’s drowning in panic, sharp and sour.
“Shh,” I hiss, instinct overriding everything else.
She shakes frantically, then leans in, whispering, “Did you—did you hear them say it was over?”
“No,” I whisper back. “Did you?”
Her breath catches, calculating. I can sense her hope, bright and ugly and selfish. “If the lights are out, maybe—maybe we’re supposed to come out now. Maybe the winner?—”
“No one told us that,” I say. “Stay quiet.”
From the sounds of her breath, she’s whipping her head around trying to hear something. Anything.
I don’t like it.
She shifts closer, too close, and whispers, “I think I heard someone back there. If they come this way?—”
She raises her voice, just a fraction. Enough.
“Hey!” she calls, thin and desperate. “Over here?—”
