Persey tuned her out. She didn’t have time to think. Which scared her more than whatever danger lurked in this room. As she reached up toward the pair of goggles perched on her forehead, she fought back the panic that was gurgling in her stomach, the voice that sounded very much like her father’s roaring in her ears that an idiot like her couldn’t lead a kindergartener out of the playground let alone shepherd a group of people to safety. The now-familiar refrain of You shouldn’t be here…echoed in her mind. This was all wrong. She didn’t belong here. She shouldn’t be doing this.
“You can do this,” Kevin prompted. He was the kind of guy it was difficult to say no to, and she could see why, despite his lack of “breeding” and his total lack of seriousness, Mackenzie had been attracted to him. There was something infectious about his smile, his belief in her. And while every atom in her body was screaming at Persey to hand the goggles back, she slowly, deliberately, pulled them down over her eyes.
Persey had seen night-vision footage on television—she had a penchant for ghost hunter shows that sent a group of hardened true believers into a supposedly haunted location and let them film orbs and mist and pixelated shadow figures for a reality TV audience ready to take it all as hard evidence of the paranormal—but the green-hued footage on her screen had not prepared her brain for the weirdness of actually looking through one of those lenses.
The moment she pulled the goggles over her eyes, the entire corridor sprang to life. She could see every detail of Kevin, from the longish sandy-brown hair swept across his forehead to the faded emblem on his T-shirt. Even his facial features were easily discernible; his wide grin was normal and humanlike, but his eyes, disturbingly, shone like glowing white coals in his head.
Wes was behind him, scowling. His gaze was shifty, moving rapidly between Persey, Kevin, and the ceiling above them like he was searching for something. Mackenzie had wrapped her arms tightly around her body with her shoulders hunched forward in a full-body clench. She looked like she was scared to touch anything. Riot had shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and plastered a smile on his face, focused on Persey. She wasn’t sure who he was trying to instill confidence in: her or himself. But Neela’s encouraging smile was authentic. Persey couldn’t even see her mouth—Neela’s hands were clasped together in front of her face—but her eyes smiled. Neela trusted her. Persey had to pull them all through this.
The sharp metal spikes gleamed an eerie Matrix green as they tore through the wood, splintering it into a million pieces, some of which remained impaled on the spikes, the rest shattering before the onset, jagged shards of plywood precariously held together by plaster and stucco that tumbled into a mound before the encroaching wall swept it up, pushing it forward. She was glad no one else could see the iron maiden as clearly as she could. It was positively terrifying.
“Lead the way,” Kevin said calmly.
“Right.” She had to go first. Into the unknown. Persey lowered her chin, turned toward the doorway, and strode through with as much confidence as she could muster.
PERSEY WASN’T SURE WHAT SHE EXPECTED TO FIND ONCE SHE walked through that door—an Indiana Jones–style booby trap ready to drop on her head? Labyrinth-ine maze complete with a spandex-clad David Bowie? Clarice Starling stalking her with a drawn handgun? All of those might have been legitimate possibilities, but none of them even compared to what she saw.
Nothing.
Well, not totally nothing. In the distance, Persey could see another wall—low and long, just like the one behind her, and she could just make out a single door in its face, the metallic doorknob glowing in night vision. But between her and that door, it looked as if someone had dug out an Olympic-size swimming pool.
She edged closer to the pit and realized that her swimming-pool analogy was somewhat apt—the pit was maybe ten feet deep, uniform as far as she could see in either direction, but this certainly wasn’t a pool you wanted to dive into. The bottom was lined with the same pointy, lethal spikes that were coming at them from behind.
This room truly was an iron maiden.
“What do you see?” Mackenzie said, impatience fluttering in her voice. “Why are we just standing here? That thing is still