“You keep her safe for me,” Nico says. “If anything, and I meananything,feels more wrong than usual, you get out of there. Understood?”
The way he saysfor mesquashes that uneasy voice in my head. Zoey eyes me. I feel stripped bare, but I don’t care one bit.
I didn’t ruin everything.
“Understood,” Benji says.
“And Benj?” Nico says. “Youcando this. You’re ready.”
“I won’t let you down,” Benji says.
Benji climbs into the back, suiting up and packing his own bag before passing me a pair of goggles and the salt water. I know I won’t be able to hear Nico through my earpiece, but at least he can hear me, and even that connection is enough to stabilize my heart.
Bob stays sitting on my seat as Benji helps me into my wheelchair, and we leave the van behind.
Griffin and DJ left the door open, and when we cross the threshold, the temperature drops. It might be the middle of winter, but it’s preternaturally cold in here.
This is the same door that Nico and I got stuck at, and the one Benji and Griffin entered with their body cams. I grip the wheelchair armrest so hard my knuckles ache. I can almost feel the cold metal of the door under my palms, can hear our ragged breathing echoing off the walls as the Game Master’s footsteps came up the stairs…
My eyes snag on the doorway to the bathroom, cloaked in shadow. Nico covered in blood. Nico collapsing. Me not knowing if he was even alive.
I force myself to look away before the panic can take root and drag me under.
It’s so dark in here that I can barely see. The street lamps I’d been so grateful to see during our escape attempt now cast everything in a sickly yellow green through my goggles, creating shadows that seem to move when they shouldn’t.
“Eden, can I tell you something?” Benji whispers, and I nod. “There’s a reason I haven’t done a lot of field work. I… I have schizophrenia. It’s how Donny found me. He thought I was seeing entities and was misdiagnosed, but when I got here, the episodes didn’t stop; they just became about other things. I’m on anti-psychotic medication but still get panic attacks, mostly during periods of high stress, which are more likely to occur when I’m in the field. I know I said I’m ready, but I’m really scared.” He pauses, breath stuttering like he’s struggling to pull in enough air after speaking.
I twist in my chair to look at him, and can see the sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead. DJ once mentioned Benji was the youngest on the team. His intelligence always made him seem super capable and as comfortable as the others, but I’ve never seen him look so young.
“Griffin and Nico know you can do this,” I say. “I think you can, too.”
“I know,” Benji says. “I just needed you to know that I’m scared.”
I give him a reassuring smile. “Then let’s do it scared.”
I turn back so I’m facing forward, eyeing a camera with the blinking red light attached in the corner. Nico wasn’t wrong when he guessed there were cameras all over this place.
I close my eyes, trying to quiet the panic screaming through my nervous system. It’s true, I haven’t had any real practice. I don’t know how to control it, or even what Icando, but I can recognize the sound of ectoplasm when I hear it.
Benji’s breathing is loud. The wheelchair squeaks as he pushes me deeper into the building, each rotation of the wheels echoing off the high ceiling.
“Do you hear anything?” Benji whispers.
“Not yet,” I reply. “Keep going.”
The wheels catch on something, and the chair jolts to a stop before Benji pushes me over it. My bandaged hand throbs with each bump and jostle, but I compartmentalize the pain and focus all my attention outward, reaching for that sense I don’t quite understand.
A couple of minutes have gone by when I hear it. The scratching sound.
“Stop,” I say.
Benji freezes mid-push. I tilt my head to follow the sound. My ears have gotten better at picking it up, like tuning a radio until the static clears and you can hear the song underneath.
I open my eyes and point down a narrow hallway. It’s dark, out of reach from the dim moonlight filtering in through the windows.
This hallway is as dilapidated as the rest of the place. Water drops hit the tiled floor in rapid succession, the patters too loud in the quiet.
Drip.
