If they move us now, everything resets. The size of this room. The distance from the cot to the door. The timing of the guards. The vent. The sounds of the corridor. The small details I’ve beengathering, the ones that don’t look like much by themselves but start to matter when there’s nothing else to work with.
Lila watches me lower the bottle. “You think they’re getting ready to relocate us.”
I don’t answer right away.
Outside, an engine revs once and then idles again. The noise works its way through the warehouse frame and stays there, a low mechanical pulse beneath everything else.
“Yes,” I tell her finally. “I think they’re preparing vehicles.”
Her expression changes. It isn’t panic, but something close enough that her posture stiffens before she notices it. “Because of the escape attempt?”
“Because of Arkady. Because of whatever Ivan is doing now. Because this place isn’t secure anymore.”
Lila looks toward the door, then toward the vent near the ceiling, then back to me. I can almost see the calculation moving behind her eyes.
“If you’re right,” she murmurs, “we don’t have much time.”
She braces one hand against the cot and pushes herself upright, moving carefully enough that even she can’t pretend the pain isn’t there now. Her mouth tightens when she stands, but she stays on her feet and crosses the room in slow, uneven steps until she reaches the table.
“We try before they move us,” she decides.
I study her briefly. “You can barely walk.”
“I can walk enough,” she insists.
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Lila grips the edge of the table with both hands and leans into it, the effort of standing clearly costing her more than she wants me to see. “Then we work with what we have.”
There’s frustration in her voice with guilt and shame underneath it from the knowledge that she helped set all of this in motion, no matter how manipulated she was along the way.
I set the bottle down and wrap my arms around myself. “The vent is too small for you with that injury.”
She follows my glance upward. The metal grate still hangs slightly loose at one corner, crooked enough to make the possibility difficult to ignore and small enough to make it immediately useless.
“Then the door,” she replies.
“With what?”
Her eyes move around the room. Table. Cot frame. Plastic bottle. Nothing here is worth much against armed men.
“We hit the next guard who comes through,” she decides, gripping the edge of the table more firmly.
“Ifhe comes through alone,” I add.
I draw in a slow breath and let it out just as carefully. The room feels colder now, though that may only be my body anticipating what comes next, bracing for the moment.
Outside the door, a burst of footsteps runs past so quickly that the sound overlaps itself. Something heavy is dropped in the corridor with a hard metallic crack. A voice swears. Another answers, lower and tighter.
Lila hears it too. “That doesn’t sound like a normal guard rotation.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I agree.
She studies my face with more focus than before. “You think this could be Ivan?”
I meet her eyes. “I think something’s happening.”
“That’s not the same answer,” she murmurs.
