Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,57
key, the kind that comes with cheap, assemble-it-yourself furniture, a thin piece of metal that bends ninety degrees at the end and has a flat, stop-sign-shaped tip that slots into special screws.
It’s sort of like that, except completely straight and with weird notches and slots cut into the hexagon-cylindrical end. And the whole thing someone put on a screwdriver handle.
I jam the hex-end into one of the round holes at the bottom side of the crash bar. I rotate it, pushing, and feel a sort of sliding-click, and the whole thing pushes in slightly.
I start twisting it, how’s it go? Oh yeah.
Lefty-loosey.
Lefty-loosey.
Lefty-loosey.
I can feel the tension releasing. Something is changing at least.
“Hurry,” Annie whispers, her eyes on the curtains behind us.
I can’t help it, I turn and look.
The curtains are billowing slightly. Swaying, as if being pushed by shoulders or feet.
“I’ve got your back,” Imani says, lifting her disc-ended microphone stand base, cocking it on her shoulder as she faces the curtains behind us. “You just keep going, June.”
I turn back and twist some more. The hex-key-on-a-stick stops moving.
I pull it out and shift to the opposite end.
Rosa pushes the bar. It’s definitely moving more, but not enough to disengage the lock.
She steps back and I jab the key in the hole and twist until it shifts and indents into place.
Twist, twist, twist.
Annie mutters, “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
Her whisper chants me faster.
My hand hurts, my knees hurt, and my shoulders are wrenched so tight I feel like they’re up by my ears, but then the hex key clicks and stops twisting.
I pop the key out of the hole and stand up.
Rosa pushes.
For just an instant, it doesn’t move, then it shifts. There’s a double clunk of the locks at the top and bottom of the door opening, and a fresh blast of cold air whistles in through the crack.
“Good job, kid!” Mia whispers, tiptoeing closer in her high heels.
Linus steps up, and pushes the door open a tiny bit more. He leans forward, and puts his eye to the crack.
“Looks clear,” he says.
“Go!” Annie whispers, and she gives his shoulders a shove.
Not . . . not exactly a friendly move, there, but I guess she’s scared.
She doesn’t say sorry, not even reflexively, but he’s opened the door and stepped forward, glancing around behind it.
“It’s clear,” he says, and Annie runs.
Imani follows her, then Rosa and Mia. This hall isn’t fixed up like the one on the lobby side of the ballroom. Where that one had fancy, if industrial, carpets and light fixtures, and framed art pieces on the walls, this hall is a tile-and-white-wall expanse. A working, seemingly windowless corridor behind the front-of-the-house formality.
My heart falls that it’s empty.
I’m glad there are no zombies, but I was really hoping to find Siggy and Blair there.
The hall is bookended on either side, each long expanse of tile leading to similar exit doors.
I dart through the door Linus is holding open and immediately hit my knees again.
Again, not as smooth as I would have liked, but at least this time it didn’t hurt.
Much.
“What are you doing? Come on!” Annie hisses at me.
Linus has braced the open door with his shoulder and foot, holding it steady for me as I jam the key back into the hole.
Righty-tighty.
I twist and twist.
“Good,” Imani whispers, encouraging me. “God, you’re so smart, June.”
Whatever.
But I can’t help both the instinct to contradict her, and the charge of pride that rushes through me at her praise.
“Go, June!” Rosa urges.
Righty-tighty, righty-tighty, righty-tighty.
“Have you guys lost your minds? Let’s go!” Annie takes five steps back toward us.